Week 2 of #AtoZchallenge2021Quilt (Art)

I've managed to stay organised and on time for week 2 of the #AtoZchallenge2021Quilt (Art). My next challenge is to do the same for week 3 😊 I want to say thank you to Frédérique for hosting this wonderful challenge.💝 If you didn't catch my posts on Instagram or through Frédérique's daily linking parties, here is the recap with bonus material.

D is for Dyeing fabric and thread

The first image is of all the perle cotton (#8 and #12) that I dyed in the last year. The very bright pink (there are technically 2 different shades but I can't really tell them apart), was dyed last July. You can access the posts in Related links below.  

The gray was done a month later while the other colours were dyed in two different batches in February of this year, but I haven't posted about those yet.

Perle Cotton dyed in the last year

The purple cotton was also dyed in February. There was no fancy tying, just rolling it up and tying where I could with hair ties. I just love the effect. Of course I have to idea what I'll be doing with it, but I'm sure that it will be perfect for a project one day!

Lovely purple dyed fabric

In the second batch of dying that I did in February, I dyed a white bamboo fitted sheet for my daughter. If this doesn't make for happy dreams, I don't know what will!

Bamboo fitted sheet for great dreams

E is for Embroidery Stitches

These are my three favourite meditation blocks on the Traveller’s Blanket (so far). There is a house, seascape, a rose block and lots of different embroidery stitches. The embroidery included blanket stitch, cording, cross stitch, French knots, back stitch, chain stitch, stem stitch, satin stitch and fly stitch. 

For the house block, I appliquéd the house onto some hand-dyed fabric. I had a lot of fun embroidering the block itself and then around it on the blanket. I forgot to add the Palestrina stitch on my list of stitches. It's the outside border stitch that looks like lace. It's time consuming but super easy to do. 

The house block - love the Palestrina stitch

This one is called the Shining rose block. Once upon a time I had stitched a rose on a napkin, but obviously never got around to making the whole set. At some point, I dyed the napkin and then cut it up to make this meditation block. I added shiny ribbon that I save up when I buy things and used metallic floss.

The Shining Rose block surrounded by chain stitch

I made this block after making the seashell container (see G for Grommet below). I used dyed cheese cloth over a piece of dyed cloth. I added the seashells and lots of stitching. The seashells come from a necklace that I purchased on a trip. That's how I get a lot of my lovely beads, stones and shells!

The seascape block with variations of the fly stitch

F is for Free Motion Quilting (FMQ)

The piece is Lone Tree 2: Tired or Overachiever?  It was part of the Colour Unboxed Exhibition with the Out Of The Box fibre artists group (OOTB). I learned a lot when making this piece, especially about the importance of value in design.

Lone Tree 2: Tired or Overachiever?
It features tons of free motion quilting

G is for Grommet

The piece is a Seashell Container made during a workshop with Debbie Lyddon through the TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club. It was the first time that I hand-stitched a grommet. 

Seashell Container with hand-stitched grommets

Inside the Seashell Container

Front of Seashell Container

H is for Hexies

This piece is Sweet Memories: Northern Lights It was the first time that I did English Paper Piecing (EPP) and it was love at first try! It's also about the night that I was speaking on the phone to my mother, who was about 600 km (350 miles) away. I was looking out the north facing window and saw the Northern Lights. I told my mother this and she went to her office window and we watched them together. It was indeed a sweet memory. 

Sweet Memories: Northern Lights
featuring English Paper Pieced hexies

I is for Improv Piecing

The piece is Exit Strategy 1. It’s all about trying out new techniques on a foundation of improv pieced batik fabric.

Exit Strategy - made on an improv pieced background

I learned many techniques while making Exit Strategy and it took me over a year to finish. If you want to read about it, see the link to the Exit Strategy page in Related links.

What I learned

• I have finally mastered the art of copying and pasting my information and adding one or two images in Instagram. You see, practice does help 😊 I've also gotten much better at linking my Instagram post to Frédérique's linking party. Yeah me!!!
• I haven't mastered the art of getting up early to post though. Let's face it, it doesn't really matter what time I post as long as it's within the day. One night I couldn't sleep and it was posted at 4 am. Hopefully that won't happen again!
• My secret to participating is being organised. It was easy to write the post for week 1 since it was only three days. This post took me much longer. However, since I included all of the blog posts in my working document, it did make it easier.
• I'm now going to start getting ready for week 3. Although I have my words figured out, it will start getting more difficult to find examples of work that I haven't previously used.

Related links

• Frédérique's Quilting Patchwork Appliqué
• Dyeing Thread
• Mark-making & Dyeing perle cotton, July 27, 2020
• OMG and slow stitching projects update, August 03, 202
• Traveller's Blanket and Meditation Stitching posts
• More learning with the Traveller's Blanket, May 19, 2020
• More slow stitching, meditation style, January 19, 2020
• More hand-stitching fun, June 08, 2020
• Palestrina stitch, the last demo on FIVE stitches for lettering in hand embroidery, Sarah Homfray, YouTube
• Colour Unboxed Exhibition, January 24, 2017
• More hand-stitching fun, June 08, 2020
• Five Years - 150 Posts, March 06, 2017
• Exit Strategy page

Linking parties

I will be linking up to Frédérique's Patchwork & Quilts as well as Free Motion Mavericks with Muv (I'll be hosting on Thursday). Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Off The Wall Friday, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, 

Week 1 of #AtoZchallenge2021Quilt (Art)

The #AtoZchallenge2021Quilt started April 1 and I posted my first three letters on Instagram. If you didn't catch them, here is a recap.

A is for Art appliqué 

The piece is A White History of Art and the image that I used to illustrate Art Appliqué is the close-up of the representation of The White Girl by Whistler.

It was created for Art with Fabric Blog Hop, Fall 2018. It is based on a BBC series called History of Art in Three Colours. This piece is an interpretation of the White episode and the picture below portrays  The White Girl by Whistler.

Representation of a Symphony in White, No. 1:
The White Girl by Whistler

Here is an image of the entire piece. If you're interested in reading more about it, see Related links below.

A White History of Art

B is for Batik

The piece is called Peek-a-boo Red. It's totally hand-stitched with embroidery and beading. Peeking out from behind the curtain, you can see the batik hexies.

It's one of four mini art quilts that I create for the Summer Fibrations Art Show by the Out of the Box (OOTB) Artists Group which was held at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte Ontario in June - July 2019.

Peek-a-boo Red with Batik Hexies peeking out from the curtain

C is for Couching and Cording

The piece is called BIG Mandala to Help Heal the World. It was created for the Project Quilting Quarantine 2020. I made my own cording and then couched it down between the different parts of the Mandala. 

Hand-made cording that is couched down

BIG Mandala to help heal the world - PQQ 2020

What I learned

• I am very impressed that I was really organised and ready to post all of these without too much effort. 
• I don't generally like to post on Instagram because I have to write all of the information, including # tags on my phone. It's a really pain. It's not perfected yet but I wrote all three posts in a Word document and copied the wording for all three in an email. I was then able to go back to the email, copy the text and post it in Instagram.
• I'm actually getting better on my phone, switching from one window to the other....that always made me nervous but I'm better at it now.
• Posting from Instagram to the #AtoZchallenge2021Quilt linking party with Frédérique at Quilting, Patchwork, Appliqué using my phone was more of a challenge. I don't think that the problem is with InLinkz (who were very helpful) but with Instagram. Even now I'm wouldn't know that it was linked if not for going on the computer to check. 
• It's definitely a learning process and I expect to be an expert by the end of April 😊 
• I'm really glad that it's a really long weekend so that I'll have time to prepare for next week, and maybe even more!

Related links

• A White History of Art - Art with Fabric Blog Hop, November 6, 2018 
• Slow stitching - embroidery and a red mini art quilt, January 28, 2019
• Summer Fibrations Art Show, June 23, 2019
• BIG Mandala to help heal the world - PQQ 2020, April 5, 2020
• Fun FMQ samples at Free Motion Mavericks, April 30, 2020
• Quilting & Learning - What a Combo's Instagram address: https://www.instagram.com/quiltinglearningcombo/ 
• Frédérique at Quilting, Patchwork, Appliqué's Link-ups
• A = Abat-jour
• B = Buttons
• C = Chaussettes

Linking parties

I will be linking up to lots of fun linking parties. Be sure to check them out if you get a chance! Patchwork & Quilts, Put Your Foot Down, Off the Wall Fridays, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, 

Orbiting planets and funky stars on Free Motion Mavericks

I had a really fun time last evening doing some free motion quilting (FMQ) for this post. I can't wait to show you what I've been up to 😊 

Adding planets and then funky stars

I started by doing some research using my trusty National Geographic "The New Universe, Here, Now, and Beyond". It was published in 2010 and you would think that the information would be up-to-date, but it turns out that a LOT has happened in astronomy in the last 12 years. However it was perfect for my purposes - pretty pictures, good descriptions and a map of our solar system. 

Here is my quilted universe to date. I'm really sorry that the pictures aren't more vivid but it was a dark cloudy day.

Our Universe....so far

An asteroid, Neptune, and a Swirling Star

Mercury, the Sun, a faint
Flaming Sun, Venus,
Uranus and a Swirling Star

A Flaming Star and a Swirling Sphere

I also took the time to look through the many FMQ e-books that I own. These were really great resources. When I found a star or something that could possibly be found in the Universe, I snipped a picture of it to put into my project folder so that everything is easily accessible. I also wrote the names of the design, the book it came from and the page number on a sheet so that I could easily find them again. See, working in information management for the last 9 years has paid off! 😊 

The list of the funky stars I used so far are in Related links below. At the end of the project I will make a montage of the designs I used to help anyone interested in finding these.

Here is the labelled image of the "real" planets. You can click on the picture to make it larger.

Finally here is a close-up of a Flaming Sun.

Close-up of Flaming Sun

One Monthly Goal (OMG)

I will be linking up this project to Elm Street Quilts' OMG for April. It's time that this baby gets finished!

What I learned

• Finding the FMQ designs of stars and other things that might be found in the Universe was really easy with the ebooks. This was definitely an advantage to ebooks. 
• I practiced drawing the designs for a couple of days. I managed to reproduce a few very well while others still need work - but that's what practice is all about! My Swirling Star was getting better the second time around.
• Most of the FMQ designs were for a series or an all-over design. I adapted these for this project. I really loved FMQ Sheila Sinclair Snyder's Flaming Star (she called them Spurs but that didn't go with my Universe!) 
•  It was a lot of fun using variegated thread for the funky stars. I wanted them to be different from the "real" planets on the quilt.
• So far, the plan is to keep adding stars, nebula etc. to the quilt and then to use some white Bottom Line thread to add smaller meandering stars between the larger planets and stars. It's possible that the FMQ of this quilt will be done by the end of April. I would like that - I think that it's time to get to my son's quilt!!!😯

Related links

• National Geographic "The New Universe, Here, Now, and Beyond", 2010
• Leah Day, Quilting Design Gallery
• Flaming Sun (Day 310)
• Swirling Sphere (Day 287)
• Lori Kennedy: Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3
• Swirling Stars
• Sheila Sinclair Snyder: Get Addicted to Free Motion Quilting
• Adapted the Spurs design for borders (I called it a Flaming Star in the image above)

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many linking parties this week. I hope that you will check them out. Remember to also link up your projects below! One Monthly Goal, Monday Making, Put Your Foot Down, Finished or Not Finished, Off the Wall Fridays, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Let's Make Baby Quilts, 

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks Week 325. Thank you for linking up last time. If you didn't get a chance to see Quilting Gail's t-shirt quilt, you really have to visit. I think that she had fun playing with different FMQ designs!  

Gail of Quilting Gail's FMQ of a t-shirt quilt

It's your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

#AtoZchallenge2021Quilt (Art)

It seems to be happening again....I've decided to join a challenge with Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué for the month of April. At least this one isn't about making a quilted item, but rather to blog or use Instagram to post pictures about them. If I get organized this should be manageable. I hope those are not my famous last words! 😊

#AtoZchallengeQuilt - Art style

I'm looking forward to it - all kinds of words about or related to art quilts. My plan is to use Instagram every day for my daily post and link up to Frédérique's daily linking party through Instagram, and then write up a weekly post on Sunday (since we aren't linking up for the challenge on Sundays).

How many art quilt words could you come up with based on just these two pieces? You can click on the images to get a better look.

Momigami Tree from a workshop with Cas Holmes

A White History of Art

Here is the challenge logo and description.

#AtoZchallenge2021Quilt with Frédérique 

I really hope that you will join this fun party. As well, you may want to follow Frédérique as she also participates in the regular #AtoZchallenge2021 with an upcycling, recycling and repurposing approach. See links below. 

I was really interested in joining Frédérique on the original #AtoZchallenge2021 and decided that if I could come up with at least one word related to art quilts for every letter, that I would join it. Yesterday I still had a few empty spots on my list but then my daughter helped me with the missing ones. So, I've decided to join the  #AtoZchallenge2021Quilt 😊 

What I learned

• I'm proud of myself for not just jumping into a challenge without having thought about it thoroughly. 
• I'll be spending some time this weekend getting my Instagram posts ready so that it won't take me long to do this every day. My only concern is when to post these - I guess that it will have to be as soon as I get up (ouch!) so it will really have to be a no-brainer 😊 
• As I was getting a couple of pictures to use as examples, I discovered that I forgot to write a post on my Momigami Tree. I guess I'll have to write that up soon!
• I'm sure that I will have learned many things during this challenge and I am looking forward to it.

Related links

• #AtoZchallenge2021Quilt Announcement with Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué 
• #AtoZchallenge2021 - with an upcycling, recycling and repurposing approach with Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué 
• A White History of Art, November 6, 2018
• Quilting and Learning: What a Combo! on Instagram 

Linking Parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linky parties - we need to spread the word about this great upcoming challenge. I hope that you'll join in the fun! Free Motion Mavericks (with Muv this week), Patchwork & Quilts, Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, 15 Minutes to Stitch in 2021, Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, Peacock Party, Design Wall Monday, Monday Making, Midweek Makers, 

Here Comes the Sun on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks, week 323. I really hope that you are all seeing signs that spring is on it's way (or fall if you are on the other side of the equator 😊). 

Here Comes the Sun

I haven't done much Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) lately - it's been mostly embroidering and beading on my biodiversity piece. It feels like it's taking forever. I guess that it's not called slow stitching for nothing!

For today's post, I did however remove the cover from my Jag (aka sewing machine) to create this quick addition to the Pinwheels & Stars baby quilt. 

Sun at the edge of our galaxy

I based the pattern on this image from NASA.

A view of our Sun

When I start filling in more than specific objects, I will probably add some yellow FMQ lines to show the Sun glowing as in this image.

Pinwheels & Stars so far...

What I learned

• 
  I tried to draw the Sun based on the image from NASA - it was a mess. Then I realised that it could be reduced to its simplest form - 2 intersecting long lines and then 2 shorter lines between them. 
• So instead of trying to draw the star, I drew the 4 lines on my practice fabric and then built up the stitching around them, ending up with a point at each end.
• My practice Sun is 2" wide by 2" long. The Sun on the quilt is 4" x 4".
• Once I knew what I was drawing, it went very quickly. I'm pretty impressed 😊

Related links

• Celebrating Mars' Perseverance Rover Landing on Free Motion Mavericks, February 25, 2021
• NASA - Sun

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many fun linking parties this week. Let's see what's going on out there. Let's Make Baby Quilts!, Put Your Foot Down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, 

Free Motion Mavericks

It's been a while since we've visited! I'm glad that I have this linking party that gets me to post and most of the time encourages me to do some FMQ. We had a great turn out last time. Thanks so much for taking the time to link up. I'm very behind on my comments but will get there this week. Sorry!

If you didn't see Karin's Doodlemania, go over to read what she learned. It sounds like she had a great time playing with her rulers. 

Karen from the Quilt Yarn: Doodlemania

Now it's your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Embroidery & Beads for Slow Sunday Stitching

 We have another great workshop that got me totally inspired at the TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club. Kate Tume's workshop is about exploring narrative potential with embellishment.

Embellishing with embroidery and beads

We were supposed to make some sampling but I got inspired and just had to jump right in 😊. The prompt was biodiversity. I guess I was in a creative mood because this is what I came up with as my collage background (it all started with the frogs!).

Biodiversity - collage ready to be put together

Once I had an idea of what I wanted, I used Heat n Bond Lite to affix the collage pieces to the background fabrics. 

I started adding beads and other embellishments from the bottom. I really wasn't sure if I needed to embroider and bead right on the fabric, or if I should do it through the batting. It turns out that embroidering through the batting brings up a lot of white fluff, so I am generally embroidering first and then beading through all of the layers.

Details of stacked beading and embroidery

More beading and embroidery

This is what I've done so far, but it's still early on Sunday and I have lots of hours left in my audiobook to keep me going. I'm really, really loving this!

Biodiversity in progress

What I learned

• I've been using all kinds of material for the embroidery and beading. I used metallic thread for the leaf of the lotus flower, beads that look like coral in the water. These came from a bracelet that I bought in my travels. There are shells from a necklace, regular beads, embroidery thread as well am my hand-dyed thread. It's just so much fun!
• I'm not sure about having added the batting already but when I was beading the shells and coral at the bottom, it just seemed so heavy that I wanted something stronger behind it. I also like the change in puffiness that comes from beading or embroidering with batting. 
• To minimize the fluff when embroidering, I pull back the batting as much as I can and embroider the fabric first. Once an area is more or less done, then I bead through the batting. 
• I'm going back to add French Knots at the bottom, but the fuzz is minimal since it's just one stitch at a time.
• I probably should have embroidered everything first, but that's just not how I work - I was too impatient to wait. Besides this feels better - more organic.

Related links

• Kate Tume
• Kate Tume: Activism and embellishment, article on TextileArtist.org

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many fun linking parties. If you are looking for Free Motion Mavericks, it will be with Muv on March 11, 2021.

Slow Sunday Stitching, Off The Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Put Your Foot Down, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? Design Wall Monday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Peacock Party, Free Motion Mavericks, Monday Making, DrEAMi with Sandra at mmm quilts

Celebrating Mars' Perseverance Rover Landing on Free Motion Mavericks

It's a good thing that our last post's mission to Mars was postponed because there was a wonderful event last week as the Perseverance Rover landed on Mars. It was a huge success and is now immortalised in the Pinwheels & Stars baby quilt.

A Safe Landing on Mars

I never thought that I would be interested, but it's amazing what NASA has done since I was last interested in space (which was Armstrong's landing on the Moon which I watched at my Uncle's cabin in the woods). In my last post at the end of January (see Related links below) I talked about the Artemis Mission and free motion quilted (FMQ) the Moon, the Space Launch System (SLS) Rocket and the Orion Space Craft.

Since the Perseverance Rover landed on Mars last week, that's my FMQ for this post.

Mars and the landing of the Perseverance Rover

Here is a detailed look at the capsule as it takes the Perseverance to Mars. I watched part of the live landing but if you want to see how it was done, your best bet is to fast forward through the "entry-descent-landing" simulation on NASA's website. The links are all in the Related links below.

A close-up of the capsule taking the
Perseverance Rover onto Mars

As you can imagine, the dimensions are all off on the quilt. It is, after all a baby quilt, not a science project! 😊

The Pinwheels & Stars baby quilt so far

What I learned

• Mars, the red planet (although more brown than red) is the closest planet to Earth. Although smaller than Earth and barren, it does have traces of having been eroded by water at some point.
• I'm finding it difficult to FMQ colourful planets on a white background. Since it's a baby quilt and I said that I would FMQ the centre as a wholecloth quilt, I don't want to add or appliqué fabric to it - but wouldn't it be great with some sheer overlay? So I've had to figure out how much FMQ to do to add colour. I may end up going back on some of the less quilted elements and add more colour to them.
• Since I've had the energy and the interest to research and FMQ the Perseverance on Mars, I guess that my rest period was effective.

Related links

Going to Space on Free Motion Mavericks, January 28, 2021

NASA Science Mars 2020 Mission Perseverance Rover

Simulation of the entry-descent-landing 

February 18, 2021 - Landing Status

Linking parties

I will be linking up to these fun linky parties. Join us and see what's going on in quilty blog land. Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Let's Make Baby Quilts, Peacock Party, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Off The Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Midweek Makers, 

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks, week 320. We've been having a good number of link ups. Thanks! It's really inspiring to see FMQ by other quilters. This week I want to draw your attention to Key Elements' Fire and Ice quilt. If you didn't catch it, it's worth taking a look (after you link up of course😊)

Details of Fire and Ice quilt by Key Elements

Now it's your turn!

*If you're looking for the latest Free Motion Mavericks, Muv will be hosting it next week. Thanks 😊

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter