Showing posts with label Fibre Fling. Show all posts

Thursday, April 23, 2026

Views Both Far and Near and I Quilted This!

Hello and welcome 😎 I'm thrilled to share Views Both Far and Near with you. I learned so much and I'm so happy that it's finished. The last few days have been very intense - I'm glad that I don't do this for a living!

Views Both Far and Near

Last week the piece was getting close to finish. It's mostly a blur but by Sunday evening I knew that I would have the embroidery finished on Monday and that I would spend most of Tuesday framing it. I also watched the course that Take Two provides all of its student on photographing our art with a cell phone. That left the photography session for this morning.

Views Both Far and Near

In the last two weeks you've seen a lot of process photos. Here are a few closeups of the finished piece. In the area where the nut was (I never did find it!) I added various semi-precious stones such as amethyst, since stones are also a part of nature. I also added some fun critters such as the bird next to the clover. I stitched many tiny flowers in the areas that I had covered in stem stitch. Very loose couching was used above the orange proddy flower. It covered the area quickly and looks like fields of plants.

Details of the stitching

A rabbit lurking behind a row of plants

The top of the piece with shells and a turtle hanging out by the water

In the image below, you can see how the canvas was covered on the sides. It was quite the learning experience!😧

Side view of the piece.

I mentioned in my last post that Take Two also offers a course on how to take photos of our art with our cell phones. It was a great course and I learned so much. I even discovered that my phone has all kinds of editing settings that I had been looking for! It turns out that the default was on auto - so when I explored further, I found out how to adjust colour, brightness, etc.

After the section on lighting, I knew that the best photos could be taken in my dining room in the morning. The wall next to the window has wonderful lighting but is painted a taupe colour, so I stuck a white cardboard to the wall and used the existing nail to hang the piece. The cardboard doesn't have to be centered since I'm going to get closer and crop the image anyway.

A white cardboard sheet is placed on the wall
to get the best lighting

The other thing I learned was that it's best to use your feet to get closer to the art that you're photographing than to use the zoom function on your phone. It's too bad that I can't do that with the wildlife in my backyard! 😀

What I learned

I learned many things while making this piece. Most of these you can read in my previous posts.
I did learn a lot while trying to attach the art piece to the framed canvas.
In theory my method should have worked but when I attached the piece to see if it would work, I hadn't stitched the sides much. I learned that when you add all of that stitching, the art contracts and becomes smaller.
I did what I could, but it's certainly not to a professional standard. Since I'm keeping this piece, that doesn't matter as much.
Next time I'll try to face the piece and then attach it to the canvas, if a canvas is necessary.
I'll add more photography tips as I keep learning. 😊

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it!

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts is participating in the Make 6 quilts in 6 weeks Challenge with Villa Rosa Designs. Her first quilt, Cabin Fever is very cute. Kat quilted it in a cross hatch.

Cabin Fever made by Kat - the first of six!

Margo Young of MY Quilts and Crafts finished and gifted two baby quilts. They are so cute!

Baby quilt by Margo

Another baby quilt by Margo

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts finished another lovely quilt, Polite Society, for a magazine about using precuts. Check out her post for more of her precut friendly patterns.

Polite Society by Preeti

Gwyned Trefethen is getting ready to FMQ her secret mission. Here is a sampler of the FMQ designs that will be on her quilt.

Gwyneth's FMQ practice sandwich

FMQ loops with open hearts by Gwyned

Terry from On Going Projects finished quilting her 2021-22 temperature quilt. It really looks great! You'll want to check out her post to read all about it.

Clam shells quilted in the borders of
Terry's 2021-22 temperature quilt

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Scrappy Runner Finish and Fibre Fling 2025

Hello and welcome 😊 Thanks for dropping by. This week I was able to finish my scrappy runner and prepare my pieces for Out of the Box (OOTB) Fibre Artists' show, Fibre Fling 2025. Things are very slowly getting back to normal and I am very grateful!

Scrappy Runner Finish

It's finished and I'm so happy with it.

My Scrappy Runner and the two cuties

If you recall, I made this runner, and the cuties, to place at the back of my car, to help me find my car when in a parking lot! It worked!!!

The cuties were posing on the trunk of the car

They are now installed in their new home.

This is what I see from outside. A great way to find my car😍

Here is a close-up of the runner. Some of the free motion quilting (FMQ) can be seen but some of it was very hard to see, as I was stitching it! The plan was to do an all-over pattern but after the first 5 strips, where I couldn't see what I was stitching, I decided that variety was a good thing!

FMQ - on the 4th and 5th strip, I couldn't see what I was stitching!

More FMQ designs and the Velcro that keeps the cuties attached

The other end of the runner

Here is the FMQ from the back. I used scraps from the runner to bind the quilt. That's always fun!

Runner seen from the back

So much FMQ texture

The Scrappy Runner is also my Table Scrap Challenge for April. I thought that the colour was teal, which my runner has quite a bit of. Being scrappy, it also has red in the orphan blocks, which is the actual colour of the month. 😁 So I'm good for both colours but not the theme, which is rain. However, the cuties are bound to see rain since they're in the car!

Rain on the car!

Fibre Fling 2025

Here are the two pieces that will be at Fibre Fling this weekend. I spent the evening preparing the pieces to be hung. I'm afraid that I don't always finish my pieces for exhibition (with hanging sleeve, label, etc.) as soon as I'm done.

You may remember my Project Quilting 16-1, Mythical Creatures. I made it in the allotted week, based on a TextileArtist.org workshop with Woo Jin Joo, on Korean mythology. You can check out the post in Related links below.

The Rabbit's Adventure - based on a Korean folktale.

My second piece, called Scrap Happy, also comes from a TextileArtist.org workshop of July 2022. It was with Natalya Khorover and involved working with scraps. I didn't finish the piece as she suggested because I loved the scraps and embellishment as they were. I attached it on a canvas. I looked for this piece in my blog but it looks like it never got posted. So here it is, Scrap Happy. I have donated it for a raffle. Visitors to the show can buy tickets and put them in the boxes of the art that they would like to win. The funds go to the Food Bank, so it's a worthy cause.

Scrap Happy

Fibre Fling 2025 - Friday and Saturday

What I learned

As always, I love playing with scraps. The runner was a fun, whimsical project that helped me get through these tough few weeks. Looking at the cuties in the back of the car makes me smile. This is exactly why I make quilts and art!
It'll be nice to see The Rabbit's Adventure on display at the show. It's my best piece so far this year.
I'm actually going to miss seeing Scrap Happy in my studio. I hope that it goes to someone who will also like it's whimsy and colour.

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 528 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts had two quilt patterns published! Two great quilts from one lovely fabric line.

Preeti's Brighton quilt was published in Make Modern Magazine

Preeti's Let's Dance was published in Quilter's World

Donnalee used one of her rulers to quilt gentle curves on her Wonky Hearts panel quilt. To see more details on how she quilted it, check out her post.

Wonky Hearts quilted by Donnalee

Quilting Gail was on a retreat and used her new book, Picture Patchwork, to make three quilts. The first one is a great little train. Check out her post to read more about the book and see her other projects. Gail quilted the train using Silly Moon Rulers: Rocket and Beanie.

Quilting Gail's latest quilt - Train from a great new book

It's now your turn!

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Fun Scrappy Runner and Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome 😊. I'm so glad that you're here! Things are looking up health-wise in our household, the sun is shining and flowers are peaking out 🌞. Spring is here - Yay!!!

Fun Scrappy Runner

I've taken some time to put together my latest scrappy runner for my two stuffed doggies with rabbit ears. 🐰They are so cute. Here is the runner with the two cuties.

Scrappy runner before FMQ - with cuties

Lovely shot with the sun in the window!

This is what the runner looks like. You can see that it's made up of two very scrappy pieced blocks, with scrappy strips on each side and between them.

I'm looking forward to FMQ it. Hopefully this weekend! 😊

Scrappy runner

Small Embroidery Piece

At some point in the last few years I drew/painted on fabric. I believe that it might have been with water colours. I found the piece a while back and attached it to a hand-dyed stretchy background fabric. It is a bit of a challenge - I tacked the top fabric to the background loosely but I've had to unstitch most of it to avoid puckering. It's not going to sit perfectly but hey, that's life 😁. I'm sure that I'll be able to do something to either hide the puckers or accentuate them.

Playing with embroidery

What I learned

I'm having a great time adding strips to the scrappy runner - possibly too many of them! I'll FMQ what I have and can then make it shorter if I have to.
I'm really looking forward to having these cuties keep me company in the car. 😍
I used the same blue sheet for the backing since it worked so well for the small blue scrappy quilt.
I'm considering doing an all-over pattern for the runner, just for something different.
We are nearing the end of the month, so I'll have to FMQ Floral Fusion soon.
I don't have any plans for my small embroidery piece. I do hope that my background fabric will fit over a canvas. That would be the easiest way to finish it.
I'm getting my pieces ready for Fibre Fling 2025. I only have the Rabbit's Adventure piece on display. I am donating a piece for the raffle, "Scrap Happy", that I think I may have missed and not shared yet. I'll do that next week!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 527 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks so much for linking up while I've been almost absent. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts has released a new pattern - Austin. You may remember it since it was published a while back in Make Modern Magazine. Preeti showed us an EQ photo of the quilt in pretty Spring colours. You may want to go and have a look!

A close up of Preeti's Austin, quilted with a wavy stitch

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts has FMQ two more lovely Bear Hugs. They are so cute! Both were quilted using fancy rulers! Here's the front of both quilts. You may want to go to her post to see the quilting from the back!

Kat's Bear Hugs #11, quilted with radiating lines

Kat's Bear Hugs #12. You'll want to check out the back of
the small quilt to better see the quilting,

We have a surprise finish by Anne-Marie at Stories from the Sewing Room. Anne-Marie quilted a small quilt that came as a kit. It has two layers of batting and is absolutely scrumptious 😍. As you may know, this is my favourite type of FMQ.

FMQ in progress - Anne-Marie

Finished FMQ quilt by Anne-Marie

Brenda of Song Bird Designs participated in the Island Batik Drunkards Path Challenge with her quilt, Maze. What a lovely quilt! The quilting is exquisite.

Maze, designed by Brenda, is Chloe approved!

I'm so excited that Kate, from Life in Pieces, has taken out her walking foot to quilt one of her pieces. This Sad Kitty trivet was made by her daughter, Grad Girl. Kate started by quilting a sandwich, following Jacquie Gering's instructions in her book "Walk", which Kate and I highly recommend!