This fortnight we had a workshop with Richard McVetis in the Stitch Club 2020 by TextileArtist.org. The project was to make a hand-stitched abstract collage. 

Hand-stitched Mile of Gold

Here is my  finished piece. As you can see, it meets all of the criteria except for the abstract part. 😊

My interpretation of Toburn Mine
on the Mile of Gold

Here's how it started. I found this picture in my computer. This is what's left of the Toburn Mine in Kirkland Lake, Northern Ontario. It was once at one end of the Mile of Gold. Government Road runs through the town and the mine was at the eastern end while a few others were at the western end of the road.

Toburn Mine on the Mile of Gold

We had to simplify the photo and then make a collage of it. From this sketch, I created a copy on tracing paper. I then cut up the sketch in 8 pieces, cut squares of fusible web to fit each piece and attached these to the fabric that I wanted to use. 

Sketch

Copy of the sketch on tracing paper

I hand-dyed all of the fabric used in this piece. The background, rooves and ore cars are cotton while the pinks are linen. After assembling the puzzle, I started stitching. I wasn't going to add much stitching but it was going so well that I kept on going.

Stitching details

I outlined the rooves, the dark pink pieces and the cables with a stem stich while the rest was embroidered using a running stich.

Finished - for now

First piece of Glimpses of Childhood Places?

You might wonder why I picked this image to interpret, other than its simplicity. Five years ago I took a writing course, Memories into Story: Life Writing I,  through the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies. It was a good course, although not one that I would have chosen myself (it's a long story). It took me way too long to realise that writing memoirs is as much about the facts and memories as it is pure fiction. You get an idea of some of the things that happened, do some research by talking to those who were around and then you recreate it, which is the fiction part. 

My final project was called Glimpses of Childhood Places. As a memoir, it wasn't great, but as a stepping stone to creating a whole visual textile series about the places in Kirkland Lake that shaped me, it was a real treasure. When I first wrote it, I envisioned a whole multi-media presentation with the written stories and the art. Five years later, most of my ideas and pictures are in a project box waiting to be explored. I think that this might be the first piece.

What I learned

• I don't have many pictures of buildings in my photos, at least not the ones that I take for making art. I didn't think about looking in our travel pictures - there would have been a lot more there!
• I don't usually work with a fusible web but it did make the fabric more stable to stitch on. 
• I put the fusible web on the right side of the low roof but it turned out fine.
• It feels weird to leave the piece unfinished but I think that it would be best since I have no idea what the other pieces will look like....when they are eventually made. This way, if I want to, I could add more background or even foreground, although I sort of like the minimalist grey.

Related links

• Richard McVetis, Instagram
• Richard McVetis Meticulous Slow Stitch on TextileArtist.org
• Kirkland Lake and the Mile of Gold - this is a real cool mining heritage tour of the town
• Charlotte Gray wrote a book recently about Sir Harry Oakes: Murdered Midas: The Millionaire, His Gold Mine and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise. You can read an article about it here.

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many fun linking parties. Let's see what's happening out there! Patchwork & Quilts, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2020, Put Your Foot Down,  Colour & Inspiration Tuesday To-Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Peacock Party

Happy 400th post and Free Motion Mavericks

This last month had many special events - the 300^th linking party of Free Motion Mavericks, my first presentation about blogging and learning, and my 400^th post at Quilting & Learning: What a Combo! I hope you don't mind if I use this Free Motion Mavericks post to reflect on my blogging journey.😊

Blogging and online learning presentation

Last month, I made a 15 minute presentation for the Out of the Box Textile Artists group. The theme was doing things online related to our textile fibre art. One presenter has been trying to exhibit and sell her work online to replace the exhibits that she was supposed to be in. She had mixed results. The other presenter has been making and selling on Etsy for a while. It was interesting to hear about her experience.

I was the last presenter and I had a slideshow about blogging and online learning. I really enjoyed the process of writing the presentation since it was a great time to reflect and see what I've done, and how my blog and my art has evolved over time.

I thought that I would share some of the things that struck me as I reflected on these last eight years. Here are some of the relevant slides. You should be able to click on the slides to see them larger.

Those last few reasons for blogging evolved over time

I then went on to explain what various blogging terms mean since many of the pieces that I've exhibited with this group have come from these types of events, and many participants are not familiar with them. I mentioned:

Quilt-Alongs help me create beautiful UFOs!

• linking parties, 
• quilt-alongs, 
• finish-alongs and 
• blog hops 

This is what I realised learned:

• Although I enjoy quilt-alongs, they have resulted in more UFOs than finished pieces.

• 

  Grandmother's Choice block

  My success rate is not very good with the various finish-alongs, except for the One Monthly Goal (OMG). I'm sure that it's because we only choose one goal - and it doesn't have to be a finished quilt, just a completed step in the project.
• My favourites are the blog hops, in all of their permutations. I try not to participate in too many of them. They usually have fairly broad themes so that I can make something that catches my fancy. I also love to see what other bloggers have made - there is usually so much diversity.
• The biggest drawback to blog hops is everyone's great comments. I love to read them but I've yet to answer even a small percentage of them.

Becoming more involved

My blog took on a bigger presence on the web when I hosted two blogging events in 2017.

Celebrating - Fêtons 150

What I realised was that Celebrating - Fêtons 150 was the perfect event to host because it allowed me to do all kinds of fun research on the Internet and then post great patterns and events that were happening around Canada's 150th. I did make a few projects but it wasn't as intensive as the Learning Quilt-Along.   

I couldn't talk about being involved without mentioning Free Motion Mavericks! I'm glad that I am co-hosting with Muv because it brings me back to my first love, FMQ! It also ensures that I blog at least every fortnight - because sometimes it's hard to do more than that.

As I reviewed my blog, for the first time I had a look at my original visitation numbers for that first year. In that first post I wrote that I didn't know if anyone would be reading this. Well, it turns out that in 2012, I wrote 8 posts and had 18 views and one comment. Thank goodness for friends and family.😊

In 2013, I got tired of posting on Facebook (I'm not a fan), so I added a "Follow by email" from Google's feedburner to my blog.  I almost never check the numbers but when I did last month, I was intrigued by the results. The subscribers took a serious upward turn in 2017, the summer and fall that I hosted the two blogging events. It seems that even if very few quilters were participating in the Learning Quilt-Along, many were watching from the side lines. 

Stats from my "Follow by email" link

Learning Online

The second part of my presentation was about learning online. I've been learning online since I first started quilting - from reading fellow bloggers' posts and tutorials, to the odd YouTube presentation. I started buying Craftsy courses at that time and I own a ridiculous amount of them! 

This year, however, saw a huge growth in online learning opportunities. I love online courses since they are usually relatively inexpensive and I don't have to leave my studio (did I ever mention that I'm a home body?) Of course these are also responsible for a number of UFOs but as I start using some of the skills and ideas that I've developed in earlier workshops, I think that it's all worth it.  

Gratitude Journal
made last week

Well, my learning journey is far from finished as you may have seen in my last post! In a year and 11 months, I hope to go back to hosting at least one blog hop a year. I'm still learning so much from my fellow bloggers. Quilters are a very generous group and I'm very grateful to be part of this little corner of the virtual world. 

Thank you so much for your presence in my life. I am grateful to all of you for sharing my journey.

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many fun linking parties. Follow along if you like and spread the joy! Design Wall Monday, Monday Making, Midweek Makers, Patchwork & Appliqué, Peacock Party, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, TGIFF, Put Your Foot Down, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, 

Free Motion Mavericks

Wow! What a great turn out last time. Thank you soooo much! I was hoping to start on the Pinwheels and Stars quilt but as I mentioned, it's not something that I can or want to fudge right before the post 😊. For everyone who left an encouraging comment, THANK YOU! As I was re-reading your blog links, leaving comments (finally) and thinking about the "out of this world" quilt centre (thanks Alycia), I prepared a clear plastic piece to draw on, over the quilt top and am getting a plan for starting. So thank you everyone!

There were such amazing and different quilts linked up last time and as always, impossible to choose what to highlight, so I'm going very close to home to show you Sandra's The Final Season quilt about the plight of trees, in Canada and everywhere.

The Final Season by Sandra at mmm quilts

It's now your turn - and I'm going to publish early to get the full enjoyment of my 400^th post!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Translucent meanderings

I can't say enough about how much I've enjoyed playing with fabrics with TextileArtist.org's Stitch Challenge 2020. As you saw from my last post, I have even used free motion quilting (FMQ) in some of these projects. 

Using sheers on my abstract template

This is the first piece that I did based on Sabine Kaner's workshop. She showed us how to make an abstract template by crumpling a piece of paper and then drawing along the ridges of the lines. You can read more about it in my last post which is in Related links below. For this first piece, I used a regular sheet of printing paper, which resulted in lots of lines!

My first impression was of a map of a country or a continent, but I kept it abstract as I put things together. Sabine Kaner's art is abstract but she doesn't use sheer fabrics. It's almost all recycled fabrics with lots of heavier textiles like wool, with lots of texture. I love the look of her work but I had just finished Vinny Stapley's workshop where she works mostly with sheers. I just didn't want to stop working with sheers, so I interpreted Sabine's workshop in translucent fabrics. It made for a very different project.

Working again with sheer fabrics

Here is my crumpled paper pattern placed over the light box. There were some really small sections that would have been impossible for me to applique with different fabrics, so I placed sheer fabrics over a couple of areas, but embroidered them to reflect the small sections within them.

Abstract paper template

This is what the piece looks like when it isn't in front of a window. The colours are much more vibrant.

Translucent Meanderings

As I looked closely, there is something really cool that happens to the stitching when the piece is in front of a window as opposed to against the wall. You can see both here.

Stitches seen against the wall

Stitches seen through the light

As I was writing this post, I had the piece in front of me, leaning on the window. I observed those cool stitches at the very top of the piece and was wondering how I got that effect. They look almost like a chain stitch - but upon closer inspection, I saw that they were a blanket stitch - that I could see both the front and back of!!!! How cool is that?😊

You can also see this kind of effect in the pink piece on the top right of the piece. Against the wall, they are just ordinary seed stitches, but against the window, they are meandering all over the place. Even the running stitches appear as one solid line against the light.

Sheer remnants - what lovely colours :-)

The sheer fabrics that make up the piece are from all over the place. The backing is from a sheer pair of curtains that I purchased at Ikea (I have great plans for them!). I used some very fine silk from a scarf that I picked up in China, a black lace camisole that was my mother's, on fabric that I attempted to sew into a skirt for my daughter and another from a rather useless see-through bathing suit cover! Last month I dyed some silk organza and a little bit made it into this piece. The flower at the top of the piece is from a piece of commercial lace. I also used all kinds of thread and embroidery floss in the piece, including some couched yarn.   

As you may imagine, I am now on the lookout for all kinds of sheer fabrics and I plan on dyeing more silk organza. I believe that these last two projects with sheer fabrics are the beginning of some great fun and adventure!😊

What I learned

• I find that hand-stitching sheer fabrics is a lot easier than machine-stitching them.
• It looks like I'm going to be collecting more than just quilting cottons! There are so many kinds of sheer fabrics - from old curtains to some lovely sheers and tulles of all colours. 
• I also love dyeing silk organza. The colours are so rich. So far I have some amazing fuchsia, violet and dark purple. It's going to be a lot of fun playing with the different dyes!

Related links

• Sabine Kaner
• Another Sabine Kaner related project: FMQ using an abstract template on Free Motion Mavericks, October 28, 2020
• Another sheer fabric project: Playing with sheer fabrics, October 19, 2020 
• Vinny Stapley

Linking parties

I will be linking up to some great linking parties: Patchwork & Quilting, Off the Wall Friday, Beauties Pageant, Peacock Party, Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, To-Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Free Motion Mavericks at Muv's place!

Project details

    Translucent Meanderings

    10¼ " x 10¼ " 

    Materials: sheer fabrics (silk, silk organza, tulle etc.),
    embroidery floss, sewing thread and yarn

    Techniques: applique, embroidery, couching

Swamp visit & slow stitching

Can you believe that August is almost over? Now that the weather is cooler, I feel like I'm finally coming out of my cocoon (aka my home's AC) and I even have a little more energy. As much as I love the cool fall weather, I have to remind myself to enjoy it because I keep thinking of the winter that's on it's way. I know....enjoy the moment! 😊 

Progress on Marks & Stitches

As my post title suggests, I went on a road trip and while hubby was driving, I was able to stitch to my 💖's content! I spent most of my time working on Marks and Stitches, the piece that I started at the end of July for Gregory T. Wilkins' workshop (see Related links for the other 2 posts).

Marks and Stitches - more progress

Taking advantage of the lovely setting

I did get more stitching done after our visit to the park but that's for another time.

A hike and a visit to the swamp

On our way to North Bay, Ontario we stopped in for a couple of hours at one of my favourite parks, Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park. (I actually have a few favourites since we have amazing parks in Ontario!)

We went on a walk to a lovely swamp - the trail was closed but we were allowed to go at our own risk. Considering the times, it's not surprising that they didn't spend a lot of time fixing the trail, but except for a slightly tilted boardwalk and some over grown areas, the trail was fine.

Here are my favourite pictures.

Dancing on the water - Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park

Driftwood and reflections - Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park

Waterlily - Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park

My daughter, husband and I had a great weekend. I got to visit with a great friend, eat home-made corn dogs, walk in the water of Lake Nipissing (I forgot my swim stuff) and visit family. It was so good to be out of the house. I'm very grateful that my son stayed with Chevy while we were gone.😊 

What I learned

• I love embroidering in the car. It really makes the miles (or km) fly by!
• A few days ago I undid some of my stitching on Marks and Stitches. I don't usually do that but I didn't really like a couple of spots. I'll share this with you in a future post.
• I'm now trying to figure out how to finish Marks and Stitches. I don't think that I want to quilt it, so I bought a frame that will probably look good. I'll just have to get a bigger mat for it. 
• About the swamp....I love swamps. When I was growing up we had a cottage that was next to a swamp. I've always been drawn to all of the activity going on in swamps.

Related links

• Marks and Stitches related posts
• OMG and slow stitching projects update, August 03, 2020
• Mark-making & Dyeing perle cotton, July 27, 2020
• Gregory T. Wilkins and @gregorytoddwilkins
• Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to some fun linky parties. Remember to go see Muv and link up to Free Motion Mavericks! You don't have to be doing FMQ to link up! 

Let's go see what's going on in the quilting and stitching world!  Put Your Foot Down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Friday Foto Finish, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Slow Sunday Stitching, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, What I Made Monday, Midweek Makers, 

FMQ a mini on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks, Week 294. I interrupt my regular programming (I've always wanted to say that!) to bring you a free motion quilted (FMQ) finish! 😊

"Ça va bien aller" is finished!

My August One Monthly Goal (OMG) stitched mini is finished! I couldn't wait to show it off - I'm really happy with it, and most importantly, so is my daughter (it's for her).

"Ça va bien aller" mini is finished!

You may remember that at the beginning of August, I wrote a post about the start of this mini. It was created as part of TextileArtist.org's workshop with Haf Weighton, a textile artist from Wales. The assignment was to stitch up a medal or other embroidered piece using words and appliqué. You can read more about the expression, "Ça va bien aller" in my last post and in an article on CBC News in Related links below.

After deciding on where to place the appliqué pieces, I embroidered parts of it.

Embroidering the appliqué

For a change, I had actually planned this piece out, leaving about a two inch border around the appliqué so that I could turn the background fabric over and make a facing. You can see in the picture above that I used a Frixion pen to mark the borders. I then added the batting and the backing fabric and basted it down.

The next step was to do some FMQ within the appliquéd part since there was no way that I could do this by hand and get it finished by the end of August.

FMQ the appliqué

You can see the back here after I've FMQ the appliqué. It was then time to stitch the back facing and then FMQ the rest of the piece.

The facing is ready to be stitched

The back when the FMQ is finished

What I learned

• I am really happy that I took the time to plan out how I was going to finish this mini. It made everything so much easier. I REALLY hope that I remember to do that again. 😊
• I really like the embroidery with the FMQ. It's great to be able to use different techniques and they really play well together!
• One lesson that I didn't learn from my last post was to start on the FMQ of the star more than a day before the post is due. That didn't happen and I ended up finishing this piece instead. I have a couple of days off next week and I plan on working on the stars. Wouldn't it be awesome to have it done ahead of time? I almost can't imagine :-)

Related links

• OMG and slow stitching projects update, August 3, 2020
• Haf Weighton
• Meet one of the people behind Quebec's 'Ça va bien aller' posters, CBC News, April 11, 2020

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the August One Monthly Goal link. I also hope that if you're visiting that you will link up also. You don't have to be doing FMQ to join the fun! Long Arm Learning, Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, To-Do Tuesday, TGIFF, Show Me Something Free Motion Link up, Slow Sunday Stitching, Off The Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Beauties Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, What I Made Monday, 

I'm calling this a squirrel - it might be a while in the making but it did spring up...and includes 2 squirrels! I'm linking up with Sandra at DrEAMi! This is also my Favorite Finish Monthly Linkup with Meadow Mist Designs.

I also linked this post up to Sarah Goer's Show Me Something That's a Gift.

Update: This mini quilt was also exhibited at the Stittsville Library in December 2020. You can see Connie's posts of the show in her blog, Connie's Textile Art.

Free Motion Mavericks

Thank you to everyone who linked up last time! It's always a pleasure to see what you are working on!

Last time Gretchen of Gretchen's Little Corner posted her finished quilt. What a lovely quilt - and FMQ with spirals. She did a really great job! If you haven't read her post, you really want to see this (after you link up of course!)

Gretchen's beautiful quilt with FMQ spirals

Before we get to the link up, Muv and I have an announcement to make 😁. You may have noticed that we are getting very close to Free Motion Maverick's 300th post!  On the 300th post, which will occur on October 1st if my calculations are correct, Muv and I will both be hosting special link ups. Stay tuned for more details in a couple of weeks!

Now it's your turn! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Mark-making & Dyeing perle cotton

July is almost finished! For a while it looked like it would never end....and now it's almost done! The heat and humidity has left me estivating - not going out if I can help it, so of course, that means working with fabrics, with a little paint and dye on the side to spice things up! 😊

Mark-making with Colour Vie

Almost three years ago, Out of the Box Fibre Artists Group had Gunnel Hag as their speaker. She has developed a pigment system, Colour Vie that is great to paint and screen printing. I tried it out when my artist friend, Lyne, came to visit (see Related links below). I had liked playing with them but haven't touched them since, Paint makes me nervous....

As you may know, I've been following TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club 2020 and this week's presenter was Gregory T. Wilkins. Our assignment was to make marks with paint and then add stitches to it. In two different sessions, I took out my Colour Vie pigments and made marks using all kinds of things like forks, a silk flower, stamps and stencils. I made 8 blocks on one piece of cotton fabric that was divided using green painter's tape. Between sessions, I ironed on a few pieces of freezer paper to cover some of the things I liked and I also added painter's tape to keep some spots blank.

I'm going to use Panel 4 for my workshop piece.

Here are the finished panels with the tape removed. I liked panel 4 the best for doing my project but there are various parts of each panel that I like - so one day I just might cut them up and put them back together - cause that's what quilters do! 

Eight panels with marks

I have started stitching on Panel 4. 

Running stitch and French knots
using #12 perle cotton

Running stitch and satin stitches
The centre is #8 perle cotton

The red/raspberry perle cotton that I used is the thread that I dyed a few days ago.😊

Lots of possibilities for embroidering some of the marks!

Dyeing perle cotton

My artist friend, Elaine Quehl, has taught courses in fabric and thread dyeing. To be honest, I couldn't understand why anyone would want to dye thread....well it turns out that she mostly dyed perle cotton. Since she had some extra from her class, I bought some white #8 and #12 perle cotton and did a little bit of experimenting. Thanks Elaine for your support - I should have taken your class😊

I also tend to get nervous about fabric dyeing - so to keep it low stress, I try to work in small batches. I made 2 skeins each of white #8 and #12 perle cotton. I very carefully placed them in the soda ash and water solution. Thread can very easily tangle, so they need to be handled with lots of care!

I placed the skeins in a wash basin and covered three of them with the dark raspberry dye. I then added water to the dye and used that for the last skein of thread. 

Skeins soaking to stop the dye  
from bleeding

Drying in the hallway -
it was too cold in the basement!

Helping me keep the thread from tangling
while I transfer it to spools

Several spools of  #8 and #12 perle cotton

Since I was in the basement dyeing perle cotton, I thought that I might as well dye a little bit of fabric. I dyed some cheese cloth and a strip of linen using the left-over raspberry dye. I also cut up a piece from my mother's use-to-be-white cotton sheet to see if I could do anything with it. The sheet is in great shape, just not white anymore. For this experiment, I dyed a piece of sheet using some left-over dye from a snow dyeing class that Pat, another artist taught. The dye combined many left-over colours and was a few months old, but I figured that I had nothing to loose. I folded one end of the fabric and tied it off, while I scrunched up the other end of the fabric and also tied it.

Here are the results. You saw the cheesecloth drying in the image above.

The scrunched up and tied end of the fabric

The other end of the fabric - folded and tied 

A piece of now light pink linen

What I learned

• I love the gray coloured fabric. What a wonderful surprise! I should dye more fabric before the dye changes. 
• The light pink linen was only left in the dye bath for about 10 hours, while the thread was in there for over a day, so that might account for the difference. However, the cheesecloth was only in the dye bath for 10 hours also. I think that the perle cotton and the cheesecloth may have absorbed the dye well because it's only a strand and not woven tightly. If you know the answer, please let me know!
• The first skein of perle cotton that I placed on a spool went well, for about half. Then I got impatient and it got tangled. The good news is that since I don't want to machine stitch with it, different lengths of thread on a spool is not a bad thing, as long as they are each long enough to embroider with 😊.
• I love the dyed perle cotton. It is quite a bit of work but mostly tedious, like making the skeins and then transferring to spools. I have two colours of perle cotton - a raspberry and a pink. You can see these in the images of the embroidered paint-marked fabric.
• I also had a great time mark-making on the fabric. I was going to stop at 6 panels but then experimented with some fun texture techniques on the last two panels. As I mentioned, all of the pieces have some lovely parts that will get used some day!

Related links

• Gunnel Hag and Colour Vie, a pigment system
• March finishes and April beginnings, April 01, 2018
• Gregory T. Wilkins and @gregorytoddwilkins Have a look at his work - it's pretty cool!

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linky parties, including Free Motion Mavericks - where you don't have to be doing FMQ to link up! Muv will be hosting on Thursday, so don't miss it! Monday Making, Off the Wall Friday, Design Wall Monday, What I Made Monday, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, TGIFF, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Off The Wall Friday, Slow Sunday Stitching,