Showing posts with label landscape. Show all posts

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Updates and FM Mavericks

Hi and welcome! 😊 I'm so glad that you're here. It's snowing In Ottawa, but it's not the heavy wet snow, so that's a relief! I have some updates and progress to share with you today.

Christmas Panel - a flimsy

Christmas Panel, ready to be sandwiched!

I really, really hope that my DIL will love it as much as I do! It was so much fun to make. Yesterday I checked the backing fabric and yes, I have enough. I cut it up to fit on the back. It'll be tight but fine. Now to take out the batting and take everything to the dining room to pin it together.

Christmas Mat

I finished stitching the first Christmas mat - and had a photo shoot with my mother's Christmas teddy bear. I used green perle cotton and a red linen yarn that is thicker than perle cotton but still fits in the eye of my needle!

Christmas mat stitched with cotton and linen yarns

More poses!

Desert Landscape

Finally, I have also finished and given the Desert Landscape to hubby. It's now in his home office.

Finished Desert Landscape

In case you're wondering, here are a couple of photos of how I finished the piece in the hoop. I didn't mention the details of finishing Sunset Over Water but I remembered that I hadn't cut the excess fabric well around the hoop, so I made sure to measure before cutting it. That did help in the finishing.

Cutting the excess fabric evenly

After that, I added fabric glue (Aleene's Tacky Glue) on the top of the inner wooden hoop and pressed the fabric down. The next step was to add a piece of felt or flannel inside the finished hoop. I also wrote an inscription but managed to glue it upside down! 😂

Bunching up the fabric before covering it up

What I learned

Measuring the excess fabric around the hoop, before cutting it, made a difference to the finishing of the piece.
Next time though, I should check that the backing inscription is positioned correctly!
There are many different ways of finishing a hoop. So far, I think that this is my favourite - fast and easy!
I'm really looking forward to FMQ the Christmas Panel. I'm not sure what I'll do, but it will be simple! I do enjoy stitching around elements of a panel or fabric, so that's probably what I'll do for the inside.
This mat was stitched with running stitches going in the same direction. I'm having fun switching that around for the second mat!😄

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 561 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts finished up this beauty, Crimson Christmas. She did learn that matchstick quilting takes a long time and can result in a stiff quilt. It's still a gorgeous quilt and will make a lovely wall hanging!

Crimson Christmas made by Kat

Melva, from Melva Loves Scraps, finished Memory Keeper III.

Melva's Memory Keeper III

Deb, A Scrappy Quilter finished her first Hip Hop Hopscotch quilt. She FMQ each whirly gig block with a stylized swirl surrounded by flower petals. What a sweet quilt!

Hip Hop Hopscotch quilt by Deb

Deb FMQ a stylized flower over each whirly gig

Sandra Walker of mmm quilts finished a UFO last week. Kindred Spirit was a quilt along hosted in 2017. You'll want to read more about it in Sandra's post!

Sandra's Kindred Spirit, a gorgeous UFO finish!

Details of the FMQ on Kindred Spirit by Sandra

It's now your turn!😍

Friday, November 14, 2025

Desert Landscape in progress

Hi and welcome 😊 I hope that you've had a good week. I'm sorry that I'm a day late - I hope you'll link up below! This week I didn't have as much time to stitch as I thought, but I did have a wonderful week thanks to my brother and his family. There will be more about that in a future post. This week I almost have a finish!

A desert landscape

I have been doing more landscape art with coiling. I'm on my third piece and it's still fun. 😀 That's unusual for this gal who gets bored so easily. I think because it's relatively simple, quick and so full of possibilities. I even have my next one planned!

This piece is based on a picture I took in 2016 in one of the National Parks we visited around Nevada. Maybe because hubby and I are from the forests and lakes of the Cambrian Shield, we find deserts fascinating.

Desert Landscape - almost finished

The original photo of a desert landscape

I remember taking this photo because the fine sand at the forefront was actually unusual in the parks we visited. It's amazing how different the landscapes are, even if they are all considered deserts.

This piece is tiny - it's in a 4" embroidery hoop. That was part of the challenge that I gave myself. I wanted to see how different it would be to work on a much smaller scale. After making the drawing of the photo within a circle, I didn't colour it but did mark instructions about the colours that I wanted in each area.

Drawing of the image with colour instructions

Marking the areas directly on the background fabric

Getting lots of stitching done. Sorry about the dark photo.

Here's a final photo of Desert Landscape in progress.

All that's left is the bright blue of the sky

What I learned

Working in a smaller hoop was fun! I used narrower strips of fabric - about 1". As long as all of the strips are roughly the same width, the coils look uniform. Of course, if you want something to stand out, you can used wider fabric which makes a wider coil!
I also used shorter coils, especially for the mountains and the sky around them.
Different coloured coils were used underneath the mountains to ensure a strong contrast between the desert, the trees and the mountains.
I also used two different batik fabrics for the mountains to get different colours in the mountains.
I used a FriXion pen to mark the pattern on the background fabric. You can see on the earlier progress picture that I just cross out the lines that I don't want to use. In theory I could use any pen but I don't want to get into that habit...and then use the wrong pen by mistake!
My next hoop will be 5 or 6 inches. I want to add embroidery on top of some of the coils. We'll see how that goes!😊

Related links

Sunset over water, November 06, 2025
Pink Turtlehead Flowers Finished, October 22, 2025
Julia Wright, website, Instagram, Artist interview in TextileArtist.org

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. You may want to check some out, after you've linked up below! Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Sew & Tell, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Slow Sunday Stitching, Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday,

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 557 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 made a gorgeous quilt, Sulaxi, for the Timeless Traditions Blog Hop.

Sulaxi by Preeti

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts made a lovely Tossed Leaves and Pumpkin runner with 2 placemat panels. She quilted this with a diagonal around the small squares while she FMQ around the pumpkins and leaves.

Tossed Leaves and Pumpkin runner

Kat used a serpentine stitch grid for this string baby quilt that was made from donations from the quilting community. It will also be donated to a good organisation.

Baby quilt made by a community for a good cause.

Deb the Scrappy Quilter made this very lovely water coloured quilt. After struggling, she was able to FMQ a water ripple design on it.

Deb's lovely quilt FMQ with a water ripple design

Gwyned Trefethen finished her thread painting demo, A Dance Among the Flowers. She stippled the background and will be wrapping it around an 8" x 8" canvas.

A Dance Among the Flowers by Gwyned

Brenda of Songbird Designs made Sedona Starburst for the Timeless Traditions blog hop. What a beauty! You'll want to visit her post to see more of her FMQ! Here's the quilt and a peak at the FMQ and ruler work.

Sedona Starburst made by Brenda

Brenda FMQ Sedona Starburst

More FMQ by Brenda on Sedona Starburst

Frédérique of Patchwork & Quilts presented BB quilts that will be donated. These were made by her friend Maribé. Here is one that was quilted with hearts!

BB quilts quilted with a heart design by Maribé

It's now your turn😍

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Project Quilting 15.2 - Sky Colour, Challenge 2

Hi and welcome to my second challenge of Project Quilting (PQ), Season 15. The theme this week is sky colour - "take inspiration from the colours of the sky, but exclude or use less than 10% of the usual blue" (cerulean). Thanks Trish for this great prompt and Kim for hosting!

A landscape and sky for my agenda cover

For the last few years, one of the first projects that I've made in January is a new agenda cover. They've had many interesting, colourful fabrics that are usually hand-dyed. This year I combined my agenda cover with the PQ Sky Colour challenge.

Front of the agenda cover - landscape with the setting sun

Agenda cover - back

This is the second agenda cover that I've made this week. My niece was in town from Copenhagen and I made her one. I'll be posting about that one on Free Motion Mavericks next week.

I started by creating my landscape over a piece of thin cotton/polyester fabric as a base. I went to my scrap box of batiks and picked out anything that might look good. It didn't take me long to figure out what I wanted and then pin everything down.

Thread used to FMQ the landscape

I let the landscape sit overnight and in the morning, I made minor changes to some of the areas, especially the setting sun. I put a batting under the piece and started free motion quilting (FMQ). Nothing fancy, just following the landscape to give it texture and to stabilize it. I didn't use any fusible webbing and I did get a couple of minor puckers, but nothing serious 😊

A closer look at the finished FMQ piece

Time to trim the landscape and make an agenda cover

Once it was all FMQ and the pictures above were taken, I started putting the agenda cover together. Because I had just made one for my niece, I didn't even look at the instructions and just went for it. I'm thrilled to say that I only made one minor mistake which was easily fixed.

I used a fun and colourful batik to make the side panels, and a dark blue ocean fabric to make the backing. I also remembered to affix my small fabric name tag to the front.

The side panels of the agenda cover

Here is what the landscape looks like. The purple at the top looks more like navy blue, but it really is dark purple.

Agenda cover made with a landscape and
wonderful sky colours

What I learned

I did add a thin strip of cerulean blue (I love that word and I'm working on learning to spell it!) at the beginning of the sky. I wanted a clear separation between the sky from the landscape. I'm quite sure that this is less than 10%.
I love colourful skies and I'm quite happy with my sunset.
It was fun to work with batik fabrics - it had been a while.
The FMQ went well and when the fabric moved and created an open space I just added more fabric on top! That's why I love art quilts - they are so flexible!
I also didn't like one of the areas of the sky that I had FMQ - so I did the same thing and added a strip of fabric to cover it up 😊
I made this agenda cover slightly larger than it should have been. This worked out perfectly since it's quite thick. This avoided the problem that I had making my niece's agenda cover.
As usual, I managed to forget about Project Quilting until Wednesday, when I read Sandra's post that she added to my linking party. Who needs a week when a couple of days will do? I now have a reminder on my phone for the Sunday that the next PQ challenge starts...and not just when it's due.
Are you wondering why I actually have an agenda? So am I...but I do love to write notes about the smaller projects that I'm working on, instead of in a sketchbook that I may or may not find....yes, I admit it - I have a huge information management problem. 😁

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Le petit oiseau de toutes les couleurs

Welcome! Challenge 11.6 of Project Quilting is due in less than an hour and I am frantically writing up my post. The challenge was "Vibrant & Vivacious". It took me 5 days to think about it and 1 full day to make the quilt. It's one of my favourites to date. I hope you like it.

Le petit oiseau de toutes les couleurs

If you're wondering what's up with the French title, it's because this small bird of all colours is based on a song by Gilbert Bécaud (1927 - 2001), a song writer extraordinaire from France. His song, "Le petit oiseau de toutes les couleurs" is one of my favourites. 😊

Le petit oiseau de toutes les couleurs

The song starts with the singer coming out of his home in the morning and the bird is jumping around on the sidewalk waiting for him. It's nice out and the singer decides to follow him. At one point he loses the bird but then hears the bird whistling - he's waiting for him. Finally the singer watches the bird fly off over the sea. He says "I can't fly and I can't swim, I'm a prisoner here. Don't hold it against me. Bon voyage and come back soon"

Drawing the bird and

starting to fill in the colours

The idea

I had no idea what to make but remembered that I had seen a lot of art quilts with birds in them lately so that brought to mind "Le petit oiseau de toutes les couleurs", and that was that!

I went through my quilting art magazines and saw an image that would do. Since I just drew it from the magazine, mine is quite different - as my son said, more of a pigeon shape but hey, everyone recognized it as a bird, which is what matters!

I ended up drawing the image on a sheet of Ricky Tim's Stable Stuff. It was perfect since the fabric scraps didn't move when placed on it. I glued the pieces down, and when I was done, I simply cut around the bird and then started making the background.

The bird of all colours

Background

I have a large cookie tin of strips and scraps of solid fabric, mostly Kona. I listened to the song again and decided to have the bird on the sidewalk with the sea in the background. I found almost all of the strips that I needed in the tin, and only went into my stash for the blue fabric for the sky.

FMQ background, mostly with Kimono silk thread.

After piecing the strips, I started free motion quilting (FMQ). I used a heavier thread for the sidewalk and then everything else is quilted with Kimono silk thread. I wanted a shadow of the landscape so as not to distract from the bird.

You can see the FMQ better if you click on the image to make it bigger. The first green layer is grass and vegetation, the next layer of browns is the beach, then it's three blue fabric for the sea and the final two blues are the sky. I even used trapunto for the two clouds.

What I learned

I had so much fun cutting up little bits of scrap fabric for the bird. I know that I'm going to be doing more of these and I want to figure out how to make it less messy. I can't stand all those little bits of fabric everywhere - paper is so much easier to cut up, but not as exciting!
I finished the quilt by facing it. I couldn't find my favourite tutorial so I ended up just looking at another faced art quilt that I had made and figuring it out. It was a lot more work - I need to find that tutorial...of course it's somewhere in my favourites.
Project Quilting is coming to an end for another year 😞 This is my second year participating. Last year I only "discovered" it on the last challenge and had so much fun that I put the event down on my quilting calendar for 2020. I participated in 5 of the 6 challenges. I've really enjoyed myself and look forward to next year.
I want to thank Kim Lapacek of Persimon Dreans for the wonderful work that she's done this year. I'm wearing my new Project Quilting t-shirt - it's awesome!

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Clover at dusk art quilt

Oh look - a squirrel! This month I worked on another squirrel project, a small art quilt this time.

Clover at dusk art quilt

Clover at dusk

A few weeks ago, as is our routine, Chevy was taking me for a walk in the early dusk. It was a lovely evening. On our way back to the house I was enchanted by a patch of clover backed by vines of dark leaves cascading from the fence and the blinking lights of a couple of fire flies. I took a few minutes to admire it and then home we went.

By the time I got home, I was thinking that I had to capture the moment in a small art quilt. I sketched a rough image and the next day went back to check out some of the details. And that's how the Clover at dusk art quilt became a squirrel (i.e. an unplanned project - Drop Everything And Make it!) to be posted in the Dreami! linking party.

After choosing two hand-dyed fabrics from my stash, I cut up some leaf fabric and glued the leaves onto the piece. After stitching them down with FMQ, I drew in the fence and FMQ it.

The beginning of Clover at dusk art quilt

The next step was the embroidery of the clover and grass. I used the lazy daisy stitch for the clover leaves. The embroidery took a couple of enjoyable evenings as I listened to audio books.

I then added the batting and FMQ around the clover and in the grass, as well as around the leaves and the outline of the fence.

I attached a backing fabric using the pillow case method, turned it over, closed the opening and wrote out the label directly on the fabric. I was admiring my work when it dawned on me that I hadn't added the clover flowers! Oops :-)

Simple label written on the back fabric

I knew that I wanted to use fuzzy wool to make the clover flowers. I played around with the wool and embroidery floss and came up with these.

Clover added to the Clover at dusk piece!

Here is a close up of the clover.

Close up of the clover flowers.

Finally came the time to add the fire flies - a couple of shimmering off-white beads did the trick.

Clover at dusk with fire-flies

What I learned

There were many lessons learned in this wonderful mini project. Because it was unplanned and small, it was much less intimidating than most projects - just an idea and the challenge of making it in cloth!
After sketching out the original idea, I'm glad that I was able to go back the next evening to check out some of the details. If I had waited longer, I would have been out of luck since the scene is no longer there - the owner mowed his lawn :-)
Behind the hand-dyed fabric, I used an interfacing that I found in my stash. I'm not sure what kind it is, but I'm going to look into it because I really like it.
The internet is really a great aid. I just found some generic pictures of metal fences and the clover flower to help me with the details.
I wanted to add a little colour to the grass and found a variegated embroidery floss with some of the greens of the grass that also a little beige and purple. It worked in really well.
I make it sound easy in the description of my process, but I was tired and it took me three tries to get the backing on correctly...I kept sewing the fabric right-side up!
The backing has a few stitches for the clover flowers and the fire-flies. It's not a big deal, but hopefully next time I'll finish the embroidery before adding the backing 😊

Linking Parties

I will be linking this post to mmm! quilts' Dreami! linking party as well as others. Check them out! Linky Tuesday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Wandering Camera, Off the Wall Friday, Finished or Not Friday, TGIFF, Free Motion Mavericks, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Friday Fofo Fun, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Design Wall Monday, Move it Forward Monday,

Great News! Clover at dusk was featured in Sandra's August Dreami! at mmm! Quilts. I also linked up with Sarah Goer's Show Me Something...Mini.

Project Details

Clover at dusk

7½" x 8½"

Materials: hand-dyed fabric, commercial fabric, glue stick, beads

Techniques: hand embroidery, free motion quilting, beading

Sunday, February 04, 2018

Starry Bright Sky - Block 1

The deadline is today. I feel like the baseball player who just slides onto first base, just before the first base-person catches the ball! I'm not sure where that came from except that I was hustling it when doing my zigzag stitch!

Block 1 - Appliqué of Starry Bright Sky QAL

Block 1 - Starry Bright Sky

I realised yesterday that I still hadn't started my first block. I really considered not playing along this year, but Alida does such a great job, and I really liked and learned from last year's quilt along, so it wasn't a very difficult decision to make.

I hadn't even thought about fabric. Thank goodness it didn't take long to take out all of my dark blue Kona solids and my printed yellow fabrics. They are now in a project bag, waiting for the next block. 😊

Alida's instructions mentioned using fusible web interfacing. I'm not sure if it's the same thing but I used some Heat & Bond adhesive. I'm not sure if there is a difference, but it worked fine. I tend to skip those part of the instructions but decided to use the adhesive since I didn't want the star to move around while doing all that zigzag.

I have now completed my To-Do Tuesday goal! Now for my OMG (One Month Goal)...

"Not playing the supporting role!" Quilt

I have now finished free motion quilting (FMQ) in-the-ditch most of the seams in the quilt - as many as I'm going to anyway.

I'm looking forward to playing some more. I want to stitch each block, but not too densely since this is my cuddle quilt - perfect with a good book (or my Kobo).

All the seams have been stitched - now the fun begins!

Landscape Quilt

This is the funky landscape Jo liked

One of my daughter's friend graduated from nursing school last year and is now a Registered Nurse, living in her first apartment. She's a real sweetheart and always has nice things to say about my quilts. So my daughter showed her a few of my quilts and she decided on a funky landscape quilt. It's going to be fairly wide but I'll keep it simple and play with the embellishments.

It's always easier for me to have a picture to use when creating these, even if I don't always follow them, so here are the pictures that I chose. My plan is to use the first picture below as the background and to add the driftwood logs (without me) in the foreground.

The Rockies

Driftwood logs for the foreground

My husband and I took these pictures in British Columbia a few years ago. I've always wanted to make them into a quilt, so here's my chance.

My goal for To-Do Tuesday this week is to start on this quilt by auditioning fabrics. If it's going to be a funky landscape, I'm thinking that some colourful batiks could be cool.

What I learned

Since I don't use adhesive web very often, I forgot that you have to place the pattern on the wrong side of the fabric. I figured that out when I came to iron the applique piece to the background. Oops! Of course by then I had cut out and fused all of the pieces....so I had to start over. It did go faster the second time around. 😊
I'm happy to report that I played with the zigzag setting and adjusted the width of the zigzag as I came to the points in the pattern. I only did that for the orange flame pieces, but I'm glad that I remembered. It really did a much better job.
I went back to work on Thursday and was very zen. I wish I could say the same for Friday. It felt as if I had never left :-( I did like the idea of being in for only two days for my first days back. It was great to have a weekend after that Friday! I'm sure that I will get into the swing of things soon.