Quilting & Learning - What a Combo!: scaps

Showing posts with label scaps. Show all posts

Saturday, July 07, 2018

Throwback Thursday

I've always liked doing improvisational piecing. Although I don't necessarily do it often, I find it very relaxing to just sew bits of fabric together, and the wonkier the better!

Scrappy Improv Binder Cover

This project, a binder cover, was made in 2012-2013. The only reason I know this is because of the scraps. Many of these fabrics were originally used to make a Seattle Street quilt for my niece. You can see the quilt below.

Scrappy improv binder cover - front

The binder holds my sewing machine information - a stitch chart that I started but never finished, my manual as well as bit of stitching samples. These bits are usually of satin stitching since that pretty much the only stitch that I take the time to make a sample of.

Scrappy improv binder cover - back

Here's the original Seattle Street quilt that I made for my niece during a guild workshop. I think that my niece has more of my quilts than anyone else. That's mostly because I made a couple of quilts for the family, thinking that they would go in their family room, but she quickly took ownership of them!

Seattle Street quilt

What I learned

I can't honestly tell you what I learned while making any of these projects - it's been too long. I do like my binder cover, especially since it was made to be wonky on purpose. Of course if I was trying not to make it wonky, the results would be the same 😊

Related Links

Although I never included the binder covers in a blog post, I did include the Seattle Street quilt in the post below. As you can see if you follow the link, I was very shy and didn't know what to say back then. Oh, how that's changed!

Getting Ready for a Quilt Show, April 24, 2012

Linking Parties
I will be linking this post to Throwback Thursday at mmm! Quilts, as well as many others. Join the fun and see what's happening around the quilting world. Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Oh Scrap!, Design Wall Monday, Moving it Forward, Linky Tuesday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday,

Monday, March 26, 2018

Scrappy Triangle Baby Quilt Finish

It's done! Another UFO busted 😊 My Scrappy Triangle quilt is all quilted and bound. You may have been following my quilting journey in the last few weeks.

Scrappy Triangle Baby Quilt

I made these scrappy triangles and placed them with some solid blocks. I knew that I would have to make some setting triangles to make this quilt into a rectangle but I just took the easy way around it by making extra triangles and blocking them off. What can I say, I didn't want to do the math, I had lots of fabric and I didn't have a pattern handy that would have figured it out for me :-) I'm just really happy that it worked out.

Taking the lazy way and skipping the math

Once I squared off and sandwiched the quilt, I decided to quilt the scrappy blocks first since I had no idea what I wanted to do for the solid triangles. I used all kinds of free motion quilting designs on the scrappy triangles and had a ball.

On evening, I took out all of my Angela Walter's books and courses, and drew various designs on paper. I wanted something simple, relatively easy to FMQ but also something that would have a few variations.

Dot-to-dot quilting in the corners with some loops

Starbursts on the solid triangles with some simple filling

Once I had finally decided what to quilt, it didn't take very long. I even added Jacob's name in one of the corners.

Jacob's name in the corner

Here is the finished quilt. Indoor pictures near the window had to do since it's really not nice enough outside for a photo shoot. The weather is warming up but the snow is melting and it's starting to get muddy.

Scrappy Triangles Quilt is finished and is
making its way to Vancouver for baby Jacob.

Here's the label. I love using foundation paper piecing blocks and putting a border around them for the label. I even got to use a tiny piece of Vancouver hockey fabric that didn't make it into the binding :-)

Foundation paper pieced block for the label

What I learned

I managed to run out of thread, twice! It was the blue thread in the solid blocks - and I didn't even use it in the bobbin! OK, the first spool of thread wasn't full, but that's a lot of thread! It's not so obvious when I use my bigger spools.
My daughter asked me how much thread there was in the spool. I figured out that I used about one kilometer of blue thread, one kilometer of bobbin thread and at least one or two more for the scrappy triangles! Wow!
I really enjoyed planning out the quilting of the solid triangles. Angela Walters has some great ideas in her Shape by Shape books (which I now own). Between these and her Dot-to-Dot course on Craftsy, I had tons of ideas that fit my criteria.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Islas Canarias finished

It's done! This is my travel art quilt of the Canary Islands.

Islas Canarias Art Quilt

I started this project on a cruise to the Canary Islands and other destinations in Spain.

I didn't expect it, but the Islas Canarias stole my heart. 😊 As I mentioned in my last post, the islands are now on my bucket list of places to visit (for at least a few weeks!)

I've had a great time finishing this baby. All of the embroidery represent places on three of the Islas Canarias: Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Lanzarote. As you'll see, each island is very different.

Gran Canaria

Playa de las Canteras, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

We walked around Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, from the port to the Playa de las Canteras. This is a 3 kilometer beach with a lovely promenade, hotels, stores and cafés. We stopped in a restaurant for café con leche while a quick storm passed through and ended up staying for an amazing homemade pizza.

This is an embroidery of the promenade and the slightly stormy Atlantic Ocean. I also included a palm tree, although the water behind it is calmer.

I added some poinsettias since they were found growing in many parks. I don't think I've ever seen them grow in a garden, especially in January!

Palm tree and calm water

Poinsettia flowers on Las Palmas de Gran Caneria

Parque Nacionale del Teide

Tenerife

Our second stop on the islands was Tenerife. There is so much to see and do, but on this trip, I decided to focus on the natural aspects of the islands. Our tour was to the Parque Nacionale del Teide.

On the way to the park, we drove through the Corona Forestal, a protected forest of Canarian Pines that are endemic to Tenerife. The trees can survive forest fires and volcano eruptions through their fireproof bark. After such a fire, the tree trunk will continue to grow after a few years.

You can read about the red bugloss plant in my previous post (see Related Links).

Canarian pine on Tenerife

Red bugloss plant in winter

Lanzarote

Lanzarote has a radical landscape because of the volcano eruptions that lasted six years from 1730 to 1736, and then a smaller one in 1824. It's really amazing to see the destructive force of a volcano, as well as the perseverance of the inhabitants of the island. They have adapted and have succeeded in working in this new environment.

El Diablo de Timanfaya

As part of the tour of the Parque Nacionale de Timanfaya, the guide takes you around three stations that highlight the geothermal energy of the dormant volcano. The fire in the quilt depicts one of the stations where straw burns brightly from the underground heat.

The image next to the fire is based on the metal sculpture known as El Diablo de Timanfaya. This scupture was designed by the great Lanzarote artist César Manrique.

César Manrique had a huge influence on his home island. The white buildings that are traditional to the island, are also a part of the government's policies to preserve the original look of the island. On my next visit, I will spend much more time seeing Manrique's creations.

The last two images below illustrate the wine industy of Lanzarote and the lichen covered lava rocks.

Before the devastating volcano eruptions, Lanzarote had a lot of agriculture, including wine production. After the eruptions, it was discovered that the soil underneath the volcano ash was still good for agriculture and that the volcano ash acted as insulation to keep water in the soil.

Because of the wind conditions on the island, they started sheltering their vines in man-made depressions that are partially protected by rocks. In our tour, we visited La Geria winery that makes lovely sweet wine.

I chose to depict lichen on the lava rock because it is the first thing that grows after a volcano eruption. The lava rock that I used comes from a necklace that I purchased. I created lichen to cover it by placing a couple of pieces of wool fibre between 2 small pieces of Sulky Solvy water soluble stabilizer, and then FMQ it with various colours of silk thread.

Wine growing in Lanzarote and lichen covered lava rock

To finish it off, I decided to write the name of the islands (in Spanish) at the top of the quilt. As much as I like the black fabric with yellow polka dots, it needed a little something to liven it up. The letters are cut from fabrics that I had brought on the trip and were then raw-edge appliquéd. I used some of the green olivine gemstones (peridot) found on Lanzarote to add the dot to the "i".

I moved the sun to the top left corner of the piece and then added a little needle felting underneath to separate it from the letters and add a little whimsy. While I was at it, I felted some of the same wool fibers inside the embroidery of the fire.

Top half of the Islas Canarias art quilt

What I learned

Bottom half of the quilt

I had an awesome time making this art quilt. It was fun to decide what to put on it to depict the islands and then to figure out how to do it. I used my notes, some of our pictures, the internet, as well as the many postcards that I bought for inspiration.
It's the first time that I used the Solvy Sulky water soluble stabilizer. I've been wanting to make something like this for ages. It was super easy and fast to make. I'll be using this technique again!
All of the fabrics, except for the backing and the binding, came with me on the trip. I did have to dig into my scrap bags for more polka dot fabric for the binding.
Since I had a finished edge on the top and bottom of the quilt, I decided to create a separate backing and batting piece that is attached to the quilt top through the quilting. I've done this before on my Woven Landscape (see Related Links).

I measured the back of the quilt top, then cut the batting to roughly that size and a backing that was a couple of inches larger on all sides.
I then wrapped the backing around the batting edges and sewed around it. I did have to cut and re-stitch one of the sides to adjust the backing/batting piece.
When the backing was the right size and didn't show from the front of the quilt, I pinned the backing to the front and FMQ around the blocks, appliqué and embroidery. Finally, I FMQ over the binding to ensure that everything would stay together.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Playing and Trying New Techniques

Appliquéd English Paper Pieced flag

I've enjoyed making Canada 150 quilts, but following other people's patterns and doing traditional quilting for any length of time is difficult for me. I need time to create and play with fabrics without a pattern or clear idea of where I'm going. So I decided to create a Canada 150 art quilt with some of the techniques I learned during Hillary Rice's surface design workshop.

As you may have read in my post, several weeks ago I took a two-day surface design and embellishment course with Hillary Rice. It was great to learn new techniques from this wonderful lady, but I felt unsettled. We sampled many techniques and were supposed to create an art quilt using these, but even as I started two pieces I couldn't get into it. In retrospect, I think I needed a theme or a vision for the art quilts, especially abstract ones.

This piece started with English Paper Piecing. Using a diamond template that I bought at the Festival of Quilts show and freezer paper, I made some diamond pieces with Canada 150 fabric.

Do you recall that I've said, many times, that I'm accuracy challenged? Well the diamonds were not accurate but I did manage to put these nine pieces together as a symbol of a Canadian flag.

Details of the sheer overlay and encasement, and thread painting

For the background, I used some beautiful blue eco-printed fabric with maple leaves that I bought at Fibre Fling 6. I added a strip of text fabric in the middle and then started playing. Here are the steps and the different techniques I used from the workshop. After appliquéing the English paper pieced flag, I used sheer overlay for the centre maple leaf. I placed the pink tulle over the leaf and free motion stitched around the leaf in a bright red Rainbows thread by Superior Threads. I left an opening because I was hoping to find something to place within it. This is called encasement - and I finally found a little cutting tool that made snow flakes - how perfect!

At the top left, the fabric suggested Northern Lights. I used shiny Madeira Polyneon and Gütermann machine embroidery thread to do free motion embroidery. I really like the effect but as I look at the image here, I'm going to make the northern lights bigger.

Suggesting regions of Canada with appliqué

Under the flag, you can see the couching of knobby gold yarn. I followed the design on the fabric to outline some mountains. I attached the couching by hand and then, between the two couched lines I added some sparking sheer overlay. To give the impression of snow, I embroidered three of the mountain peeks.

At the bottom centre, again following the outline of the fabric, I added several layers of organza and embroidered around them. I know that I should have waited to add the fish, but I was too impatient. Besides, I just free motion quilted around them!

Once this was completed, I had no idea how to add elements that would suggest various parts of Canada. I went into my landscaping stash and found some fabrics that I thought might work.

I used the crafted appliqué method and ironed the fabric onto the background. I then free motioned appliquéd the fabric and added thread painting.

Canada 150 art quilt incorporating some of the techniques learned

I don't think that there's much left to finish this piece. I need to work on the northern lights and then probably free motion quilt designs in the background that will bring all of the appliquéd pieces together. I'm not sure if I'll be able to add more techniques I learned to this piece. There are still 11 techniques to go! Maybe this will encourage me to keep working on my class pieces!

What I learned

I didn't realise how many techniques we had covered until I started going over my notes and looking at my samples. Although I knew some of the techniques, there were many that I've wanted to try out but didn't really have the courage to do so by myself.
I would love to add encaustic to this piece - it's using melted crayons to add colour. It was my all time favourite technique of the workshop, followed closely by metal appliqué. More about these when I finally use them :-)

Related Links