Showing posts with label Helen Wells. Show all posts

Thursday, June 18, 2026

A Finished Flimsy, FMQ, slow stitching and I Quilted This!

Hello and welcome 😊 Another week has whizzed by. We're back to more seasonal weather and lots of rain. Yesterday the rain drops were so big that my patio umbrella was vibrating 😮 Let's get to the good stuff!

A Finished Baby Quilt Flimsy

The first baby quilt (of three) is now a finished top. It's actually one row less than the pattern but it's a baby quilt and didn't need to be that long. It measures 43" x 47". I just want baby to be wrapped up in it when it's cold and they're going out in the car or to play on the quilt on the floor.

As I mentioned, this is the first of three baby quilts. Three of JJ's friends had babies this winter. JJ helped me plan the quilt and chose the novelty fabrics based on her friends' hobbies. This one has fabric featuring Star Wars, pickleball, smoothies, and cute animals, including dinosaurs. I have three more blocks that I'll be adding to the back (hockey, trucks and mittens) and JJ will design and prepare the label.

A baby quilt flimsy from the Square Dance pattern

FMQ Two More Houses

I had fun FMQ two more Rainbow Neighbourhood houses.

Yellow house now FMQ

The brown house at night is also FMQ

My process is to take out some thread and then do all of the FMQ that I can with that colour. I started with white, since I was piecing the baby quilt before this. I did all of the insides of the blocks on the side walls. I then went on to yellow and then brown since I could use the same bobbin thread for both. So far it's worked very well.

I haven't quilted the yards or the actual rooves since they're another colour. The quilt has 8 houses and a park. I've FMQ 3 of the houses, so 5 more left! I'm also looking forward to playing in the park!

Slow Stitching

While watching video tutorials and catching up in the TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club, I've continued stitching my grandmother's placemat. I wanted to stitch something different in the pink sections and happened to watch Mirjam Gielen as she demonstrated how to do an organic honeycomb stitch. It's not a great stitch to quilt with since it's difficult to keep the tension even but after ironing the placemat, it wasn't too bad - at least not worth un-stitching😁

Honeycomb stitch on the placemat - a little wabbly but fine

I'll be using the honeycomb stich for only these two sections

This afternoon it was cool enough to stitch outside. It's my favourite retirement activity. There seems to be new baby grackles and squirrels around. They really don't like each other but they mostly behave 😃 Today I took out my floral watercolour concertina book and stitched away while watching the live nature show.

I started using "W" shapes - they stitch easily

Adding a lot more stitches to the pages

The concertina book - many more hours of stitching left 😍

What I learned

After finishing the last two rows of the baby quilt, I wasn't in the mood to make another two rows (the squares and then the triangles). I looked at the quilt and decided that it was big enough. It is for a baby, and would be fine for a toddler.
I do have three more novelty blocks to add, so I'll make a fun pieced backing since the quilt is wider than 42" (of course).
I do want to quilt the baby quilt but the Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt is a priority. However, if I can FMQ a couple of houses per week, in a month, I could have most of it finished. I was thinking that this gave me tons of time but July is just two weeks away, 😳 so I'll be focusing on the Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt.
I'm happy to report that I've only had issues with my white thread when FMQ. I have no idea what that's all about but the tension at the back just wasn't quite right. However with the other coloured thread, everything was fine. I was using a piecing thread, so next time I'll use something a little better for the FMQ.
The slow stitching on my grandmother's placemat wasn't as great as I hoped but it's still fine. I'll finish the last of the yellow perle cotton and then do something else for the other pink blocks.
I had a lot of fun stitching on paper on the concertina book. The first page is the easiest, after that it gets a little clumsy but it's all good.
I want to explore what other very simple stitches I can use on the paper. I have done some French knots. The vases on the collages are card stock, so I'll be able to try something different on those.

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.

Gretchen from Gretchen's Little Corner, has finished quilting her two final compassion quilts for the year. Awareness & Butterfly Beauty are both lovely quilts. Gretchen did some straight line quilting in both and added a piano key border and diagonal quilting in the border corners of Butterfly Beauty. You'll want to check them out!

Awareness, made and quilted by Gretchen

Butterfly Beauty, Gretchen's own design

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts finished quilting her Peaches quilt for the Quilts 4 Kids Program. It's quilted in a straight lines pattern in a zig zag style.

Kat's quilted Peaches quilt

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts participated in a blog hop to showcase a new collection of fabrics, Sunflower Spice. They are gorgeous! Preeti created a wonderful queen sized quilt, Phagun, which she quilted on her domestic machine. You won't want to miss reading more about it and seeing more eye candy! Also, you'll want to check out her very cool pouches made with a recycled Nepal napkin.

Preeti's Phagun quilt

Diann of Little Penguin Quilts participated in Sandra's Lyra QAL and made a runner/wall hanging. It is really lovely. Here are both views.

Diann's version of Lyra as a runner

Diann's version of a wall hanging

It's now your turn 😍

Wednesday, January 07, 2026

Playing with watercolour and stitch

Bonjour and welcome 😊. I've taken some me-time to play with watercolours and stitching. It's been so much fun! I love watercolours, the way that they mix with each other to make something different. I have no interest in becoming a proficient painter, rather I want to make cool marks and blobs that I can stitch into (spoken like a true fibre artist😁)

Creating Bold Botanicals

I've been following Helen Wells, a very cool British artist, who exudes energy! She does wonderful work in her sketch books and loves to share and teach. Last winter I bought her virtual Creating Bold Botanicals course and I finally took a day this week to do it. It was wonderful!

My first Bold Botanicals sketch book

The sketchbook is a work in progress. I painted watercolour botanical shapes on 5 pages of sketching paper and then used lightly coloured card stock to paint various designs that end up being vases and such. I cut out funky vase shapes from the card stock pages and collaged them onto the botanical pages. I'm afraid I got carried away and didn't take any progress photos.

The front page of my accordion sketch book

The back page of my accordion sketch book

I couldn't wait to put the accordion book together. The book is rather wonky, just like its botanicals and vases! 😃Then I started stitching into the book. As you can imagine, that's my favourite part. Here are some details of the stitching. I mostly used the running stitch in various colours and thickness of thread. It'll be fun to experiment with various colours - some of the thread blends in but we also need colours that pop.

Stitching on paper - what fun!

Running stitch and chain stitch

Part of the accordion book

January's One Monthly Goal (OMG)

I've been playing a lot...mostly as a procrastination technique. I really want to get the Cowboy panel quilt finished. If I work hard, it can be finished by the end of January!!!

January's OMG

What I learned

As I stitch, I can examine what happens with the watercolour paints. The way that they blend and play with each other is so fun. I also used a bamboo stick to spread around the paint, like a pencil.
Helen suggested that we use thick sketching paper (instead of watercolour paper) - so that it's not intimidating or feels too precious. That was a great idea but I'm looking forward to using water colour paper because it's so much easier to stitch into.
I should have stitched some of the pages before turning them into an accordion book. Once attached to each other, they are awkward to stitch into. That's why I've worked more on the front and back pages.😊
I used a half inch fold to stick the pages together - I should have used one inch. It would have made for a sturdier book.
For Christmas, JJ got me another of Helen Wells' course - Nature and Nurture. I'm looking forward to sketching natural objects and then use watercolour paints.
A couple of years ago in the TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club, we had a workshop with Sam Owen where we used water colours and then stitched onto them. I've wanted to explore this further - so this will be my chance.

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party. I'll be featuring the projects from last week's party that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. Thank you everyone who linked up.

Feel free to grab the button.

Last week Donnalee made more Christmas placemats for her and her husband. Apparently many more will be needed by next year!