Update - Landscape Art Quilt Challenge

It's been 7 months since I launched my Monthly Landscape Art Quilt Challenge. This is where I challenged myself to complete one landscape art quilt per month. A little ambitious? Maybe....

"How's it going?" I can hear you ask. Well, here are the results to date.



June 17, 2015: Monthly Landscape Art Quilt Challenge Announcement
July 3, 2015: June Landscape - the Lone Tree

June's The Lone Tree (8" x 11")

July 29, 2015: Fireworks for July's Landscape Art Quilt

July's Fireworks for July (14" x 8")

September 14, 2015: Yellow Kayak Landscape Quilt

August's Yellow Kayak (11½" x 12½")

November 30, 2015: Fall Tree Project

September, October and November's Fall Tree (19.5" x 25.5")

January 13, 2016

December's Mountainscape Project

Thread Paining and Beads

I started December's Mountainscape Landscape Art Quilt on November 11 (Remembrance Day in Canada) when I attended a workshop with quilter Hilary Rice. Here's the post about the workshop.

Once the pinning was done, I left it until my Christmas holidays to complete. I didn't know how to thread paint and quilt it because the colours didn't bring anything to mind. It's more of a desert landscape but with a river. I ended up finding a few pictures of mountains and rivers on the internet and thread painting it as best as I could. Two of the hills are covered with trees while a third one has rocks or sand. The big brown hill had a pale area that I thread painted around. It could be a glacier or, in a desert area, a hill without vegetation.

I added metallic thread in the river. This was done by sewing from the back of the piece, with the metallic thread in the bobbin.

Metallic thread and beading in the river

Once I had finished, I found the piece a little dull, so I added bling to bring it to life. The river and one of the hills has beads while I added some birds in the sky.









What I learned:

Tape at the edges so that I could stop quilting

• I seem to need a specific idea for my landscape before I start, and choosing the fabrics is an important part of this. I found this project very difficult because I didn't know what it was supposed to represent and I hadn't chosen the fabrics.
• I know that the landscapes don't have to represent real things and that I can make things up. It was only when I allowed forced myself to do this that I was able to keep going on this piece.
• I did put one of my former recommendations in practice - I marked off the edges of the piece with tape so that I didn't quilt or sew much past it. It really helped.
• Sewing on the metallic thread through the bobbin went well, but I should have checked my tension!

Mountainscape Landscape Quilt (17"x 11")

This is my 100th post on this blog. How cool is that - time sure goes by quickly!
Here are my linky parties: Let's Bee Social, Fabric Tuesday, Freemotion by the River, Off the Wall Friday, Free Motion Mavericks, Needle and Thread Thursday, and Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

9-Patch Pizzazz Wall Hanging

9-Patch Pizzazz by Judy Sisneros 

There is a blue-green that has been very popular in the last couple of years. As I shopped, I've been very attracted to fabrics of this colour and have accumulated a lovely collection.

I've put them aside to make something. When I looked at them, I realised that they all blended beautifully, but there was no contrast. What to make that would require blending fabrics and only a little contrast? A 9-Patch Pizzazz wall hanging of course!

I had seen a beautiful wall hanging at a local church quilt show and was told that the pattern was from the book, 9-Patch Pizzazz. Good thing it was easy to remember because I was able to find the book and buy it.

FMQ around the dragonflies

The quilts from the book are easy to make and adjust for size. It was the perfect pattern for my beautiful fabrics.

Part of the charm of this pattern is the way that fabrics blend into each other. It also made taking photos difficult! There's just enough contrast in some of the 9 patch to give it a focal point.

I also loved using big pieces for a change. It didn't take long to put the quilt together.

FMQ swirls and following the lines of the flowers

Determining the free motion quilting (FMQ) was a real pleasure.

• I used swirls for the swirly fabric;
• Quilted around the dragonflies; 
• Added continuous leaves in the focal 9 patch; and
• Used the lines of the flowers in one fabric to create a star-burst effect.

It's finally stopped raining, so today was the perfect day for that outdoor picture of quilts I love so much. After all that rain, everything is green....and the mosquitoes were out with a vengeance. I spent as little time as I could out there. Mowing the lawn will take care of that on the weekend!

9-Patch Pizzazz with my neighbor's lovely clematis

What I learned:

• It's nice to make something that you can put together fairly quickly. Projects don't always have to be complicated to be lovely.
• I really love the blended effect in some of the 9 patch. It gives the piece an impressionist feel.
• The contrasting 9 patch give the piece contrast, movement and a focal point.
• The large dragonfly fabric is my favourite - even if it's technically a bug!
• Choosing the different FMQ motifs for the various blocks was a lot of fun. I love letting the fabrics inspire the design.
• I'm looking forward to making many more 9-Patch Pizzazz quilts!

It's a link-up frenzy!!!! I've linked up to Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Fabric Tuesday, Needle and Thread Thursday, Link-A-Finish Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday and Free Motion Mavericks. Check out all the wonderful blogs.

June Landscape - the Lone Tree

This is the first landscape in my Monthly Landscape Art Quilt Challenge. 

Forgotten Dreams by Thirteen Strings

I was intrigued by the album cover of Forgotten Dreams, by Thirteen Strings. It's of trees, possibly white pines, perched on rocks. The image is very haunting, as is the album. A few of the pieces were composed by Marjan Mozetich. I love his music and the pieces on this album are wonderful.

Possible fabrics for landscape

Without wanting to reproduce the image, I looked around for images of rocks and trees on Google. From those images, I decided to put a landscape together of a tree, rocks, water and sky.

I wanted to use scraps from a huge bag that a friend gave me. Thanks Judy! Here's the pile of possible scraps for the project.

The sky?

If you've read any of my posts, you'll know that I'm not very good at planning quilting projects. This one was no exception. I just started sewing some strips of fabric on a piece of stabilizer. I sewed them as if I was doing a quilt-as-you-go. Don't ask me why, it's just what I did....and I don't think I will do it again!

I wanted to do something different. Right from the beginning I didn't like it, but I kept it cause you never know until it's put together if it'll work (spoiler alert: it didn't!)

Trying out fabrics

This is what I love about these small experimental projects - you try it and eventually, if you don't like it, you fix it! After sewing on the sky, I got smarter and started cutting and just placing and layering the fabrics without sewing them.

The added the water and the rocks. I must say that I'm not bad with rocks. Rocks are in my blood - I'm from a mining town in Northern Ontario.

Have you spotted the problem that will haunt me as I put this together? Hint: the water & the sky - there's almost no contrast. Add the tree to that and it becomes a dark mass.

First attempt

Possibilities

After I free motion quilted the piece, I wasn't sure what I thought, so I taped the landscape to the back of my bedroom door and went to bed. When I got up, I decided that I didn't really like it. So I kept some of the water, cut around the tree and started trying different things.

Frankly I didn't like this either which meant that it was time to try something different. I went into my real stash and found some lovely hand-dyed fabric that would make the sky pop. Sure it has pinks and purples in it, but that was the colour of the sky last night! I added more fabric and then covered it with three colours of tulle. That softened the sky somewhat. I sewed the tulle on top of the sky and around the tree. I then very carefully cut the tulle from on top of the tree.

I think that once it's quilted, the sky will look lovely.

Lone Tree ready for FMQ

What I've learned:

• Everything really can be undone, covered up or removed. Thank goodness!
• Contrast is necessary. I should be writing that down on the blackboard 100 times :-)
• Since I had used tulle for the Southwest landscape, I knew that it would soften the sky and allow me to use more fabrics.
• I was taking this project too seriously - so I added the birds for a touch of whimsy.
• I have to learn to not stress over this challenge. It's about learning and trying new things and not about meeting a self-imposed deadline that doesn't matter.

As an aside, last week we adopted a wonderful 7 year old puggle (pug and beagle) named Chevy. To celebrate her coming, I re-covered Bandit's bed. Here is our sweety. She is very photogenic and so intense!

Thanks for stopping by.
I have linked this post with Pet Project Show, Free Motion Mavericks, Quilt Story and Fabric Frenzy Friday. Check out everyone's posts!