Cross Roads--

Placing the strips

Our book club read, "The Time Traveler's Wife," by Audrey Niffeneger. The story is about a librarian who posses a gene that allows him to travel uncontrollably back and forth through time. I was inspired to create the feeling of slowly coming together or slowly disappearing. I had a piece of printed fabric that contained red, black and gray circles. I fused a stabilizer to the back of the print. I cut out strips, but didn't use a rotary cutter in light and dark. 

Grey circles and red diamonds

Once I had a selection of strips, I have myself an hour to arrange the pieces. I gave myself a limit because I knew I'd agonize for days about the placement and I didn't have days to spend on the project. In about fifty minutes, I was finished. I turned the light out in the studio. The next day, I surveyed my layout. I changed two strips. 

Detail of applique and background quilting

Back

Label

After I had fused the strips into place, I auditioned gray circles and red accents. I decided the red accents added the most. I kept those and added more. I removed the gray circles.

Next, I machine appliqued the edges. I used invisible monofilament thread. 

Finished front

The reason the piece is small is because a friend gave me a piece of 80/20 legacy batting to try. This was about the size of sample batting. I was happy to have a test. I decided that the batting was not my favorite. I stippled quilted in most of the background, I found that the background was flatter than I had anticipated.

I do like the view of the quilting from the back of the project. The texture of what quilting can add to a project is one of the reasons that I enjoy the quilting part of the process so much.

I used YLI 100 wt silk thread in the needle to quilt the background. I used Aufifil 60 wt cotton thread in the bobbin. It went together fairly quickly. I made a flange as part of the binding. It was fun to make. I made it in 2011!

 

Whorl--Eighth Finish 3rd Quarter FAL 2019

Close up of fabrics and free motion quilting/appliqué

Inspiration for this quilt came from a book! In 2016, our Thread Tales book club read, "The Sister Brothers" by Patrick Dewitt. There was a passage in the book where the brothers are using a product to collect gold from the river at night. The author left me with the impression that I could see the gold particles collecting against a dark background. Later in the story, one of the brothers offered a flower to a woman that he wanted to have a relationship. What I enjoyed about the book was that the story began and ended in Oregon City which is not far from where I live.

I had taken a class in 2015 from Larkin VanHorn where she taught a fusible applique technique. I loved her approach to using anything and everything in her work! For the class, I purchased a piece of a glittery knit formal wear fabric which I backed with a fusible interfacing. I had been in a long creative slump and thought perhaps using the color yellow would brighten my prospects. I pulled yellow batik fabrics from my stash to take to class. I created a background with some leftover wonky log cabin blocks I had made for another project. The log cabin blocks used brown, green, grey and black fabrics. I went to class ready to create.

Close up view of beads in the "gold" lines

Larkin's approach was to add a two sided fusible stabilizer to the fabrics. She would cut various shapes/chunks of these fabrics and adhere each to the batting. She was disappointed that I wasn't trying her background method when she saw my "prepared" background. I do try to follow the teacher's instructions. To that end, I made a second project in her class using her background method which you can read about here. Larkin also free hand cuts shapes to fuse to the background and she embellishes her work with beading. I would have loved to have taken a class from her on beading techniques!

Beaded lines

I cut a bunch of "petalish" shapes and started arranging them on the background. I tried to create a drift of color. . .like a sunrise or a sunset on water. What was interesting was that the shape evolved into a flower. I decided it was serendipity and continued to build on that shape. I have to admit, fusing the shapes was FUN! I loved the effect the formal knit fabric added to the project. Remember that I had used a fusible interfacing on that formal knit fabric? Well, it was fusible on only one side so it wasn't fused to the background. I was unsure how I would attach those fabrics to the background. Larkin often used tulle on top of her work to corral the bits. She would quilt on top of the bits and embellish with beads. The piece did seem to want tulle.

View of finished back

At the end of the class, although I liked my flower, I didn't know where it would go. I hung it up--along with the batting and backing that I had prepared in the closet. . .where it hung for more than four years! In July, I pulled it out of the closet and using silk thread, I stitched in the ditch in the log cabin background. I carefully stitched on every petal of the flower. As I stitched, I thought about embellishing the piece with beads. I had purchased a few types of beads for the class and I had a few beads from my husband's grandmother and my grandmother.

I thought about a segment on the TV show, Gold Rush, where the cleaning of the mats are shown. The gold bits end up in a sort of line and show so well against the green background.  I beaded that line using the tip of a petal as a point where the small stuff ends and the bigger chunks collect. I used some beads, a few bugle beads and a variety of seed beads to achieve the texture in those lines.

Close-up view of the label

After I had beaded about half of the gold lines, I took a walk. When I returned, I "saw" that the lines gave the piece a sense of  energy and movement. If I beaded all the way around the flower, I would lose that sense so I stopped!

At that moment, I started thinking that perhaps, I needed to add borders to the outer edge of the piece because maybe the design was too large for the background. I put the project on the design wall and stared at it for a day. The more I looked at it, the more I liked it as it was.

In the beginning, I planned to add a facing as the finish. Then I had a thought about a binding embellished with "dust" and perhaps some larger chunks falling off the edge of the piece. After seeing the spinning effect, I decided a plain black "traditional" binding would compliment the design the best.

When I pulled my black scraps to cut the binding, I found a brown/black print with gold lines. I decided the plain black binding would be too flat and when hung in a show, the piece would be lost against the dark drapes most shows use. I went with the printed binding.

I purposely ended the beading about half an inch from the edge of the work so that I would have a little wiggle room when I squared the piece. I also would have room to stitch the edge finish without running into the bead. I also though that I could extend the beads to the edge of the binding if I thought that would add to the interest of the piece. In the end, I liked how the "Whorl" floated.

View of finished front

When I asked Larkin if she had creative slumps and if she did, what did she do to keep making progress, she said to always play. She said to try a different technique or work in a different medium for a bit. She said to be gentle with your creative spirit and to always have fun. As I look back on the class and this finish, I realize that I have been following her sage advice!

"Stuck" times happen less often and are also don't last as long. I am having fun creating. It is such a wonderful feeling to finish another project that has been hanging in the studio. I used about a yard and a quarter for this project. I have now used 65 yards of fabric from stash this year. This was goal number eight on my 3rd quarter FAL list. It is my eighth finish for the quarter!

Red Bicycle (Gladys) post 2--First Finish for 4th Quarter Finish-A-Long 2018

White tulle

Red tulle

The first trip that I made to Joann Fabric store didn't net me one piece of tulle. I returned a couple weeks later and the selection was much better. I purchased a half-yard piece each of red, black and purple tulle and a black organza. I did take the top with me. I also looked at some Halloween fabrics that might have worked; but, the print was too big. For the next step, I placed the tulle on the top and took a photo of it. Trying to do this in a crowded aisle wasn't the ticket. Also, the store lighting was awful!

Purple tulle

Black organza

Black tulle

At home, I photographed my choices. The reason that I went to purchase tulle was because the white that came with the kit dulled the piece too much. While I liked the red tulle, it seemed to distort the background color to a pinkish tone which wasn't my favorite. The purple was a little too dark and the black organza was way too dark. The black with the few sparkles intensified the colors the best so that was the tulle that I chose. It was interesting to see how the tulle changed the feeling of the piece!

Borders attached; quilting started

The directions in the materials was to trim the top within a quarter of an inch and to layer the piece with the tulle on top. I had some scraps of red fabric that I pieced to make the back and I also saved some fabric for the sleeve. I also pieced the sleeve.

The next step was to add the borders by stitching through all of the layers. I wasn't keen to do this step because I was concerned about keeping the border from distorting using that method. I wasn't going to do it and then I thought I would try it. The border did stretch a bit; but, in the end, the results were good. Would I use this method again? Probably not.

The label for Gladys

I started quilting the red areas of the quilt using a silk thread. Then I moved to the basket using a brown silk thread. I used red in the bobbin which matched the backing fabric. I stitched along the outer edge of the pieces. Stitching through the tulle, the stabilizer and the layers wasn't difficult; but, the needle moving through all that sounded terrible! I used a fine gray polyester thread to quilt the street. I decreased the top tension to one and still the thread shredded. I had a bit of an issue with thread shredding using a neutral silk as I stitched the background. I decided what was making the thread shred was going through that heavy stabilizer. I used the same neutral thread to quilt spirals in the border and had no issues. It took me about three hours to quilt this project.

Finish #1 and goal #11

I trimmed the project and added a binding that was of the same fabric as the outer border. I machine stitched it to the project and then top stitched it in place. I used the number 71 foot for my Bernina to stitch it initially. This is a flat felled
foot. I like using it because I have better control of stitching straight. I pressed the binding; then used a little Elmer's glue and a hot iron to "baste" the edge in place. Then I used the #10 foot to top stitch it in place. I like the #10 because it has a blade that I can run next to the edge of the fabric and it helps me sew straighter.

Time to make this project was about 16 hours. Cost of the materials was $45. I might make another mosaic type quilt. I would try to use a lighter stabilizer or employe a different method of anchoring the pieces to the background. I'm still thinking about the tulle. It wasn't that difficult to work with; however, I'm not too excited about the end look of the project after using it.

This is finish #1 for the 4th Quarter Finish-A-Long and goal number 11 on my 4th Quarter Finish-A-Long list. I used 1/2 a yard of fabric from my stash bringing the total to 38 yards used from my stash. I have 12 yards to go to meet my goal of using 50 yards from my stash by the end of the year.

If you missed the first post about this project, you can read it here.

Red Bicycle (Gladys)--post 1

Supplies used to start the project

Cheryl Lynch was a presenter on "The Quilt Show" showing her projects made with her mini mosaics technique  and her curvalicious ruler. She made the process look like fun! In a rare move for me, I ordered a kit, the 3/8" cutting ruler and the curvalicious ruler.

About the time I ordered her kit and tools, our book club was reading "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" by Alan Bradley. The book is written for young readers and is a murder mystery. Eleven year old Flavia, the main character, finds a man taking his last breath in the family's cucumber patch. Her dad is arrested for the crime and Flavia sets out using her bicycle named Gladys to solve the murder. The author brings other sub plots into the story. You will have to read it to find out what happens.

Progress at the end of the first session

I decided the bicycle was the inspiration for a quilt. At first, I envisioned Dresden blocks as the wheels for the bicycle. I looked at various bicycle photos and drawings on line as I thought I could machine embroider a bicycle as part of my design. I also thought about appliquéing a bicycle. Then I saw Cheryl demonstrate her technique.  When I investigated her website, I saw she had a red bicycle pattern and also a pattern/kit of the bicycle for sale.  I decided it was serendipity so I ordered the kit and the ruler to try making a mini mosaic!

The kit contained the "grout" (fabric behind the pieces),  more than enough two inch squares for the design, the sticky stabilizer, the pattern, a piece of white tulle and a detailed instruction booklet. I cut a piece of foam core board and taped it together as she suggested. I cut the 3/8 inch squares by color as per the directions.  I used her ruler that she suggested. It worked like a charm. I'm glad that I purchased the ruler as cutting squares that small would have been a challenge! I put the little bits into muffin cups.

Ready to heat the fusible to all the pieces

I taped the pattern to the foam core board in the four corners. Then I removed the release paper from one side of the stabilizer and used the push pins to anchor it sticky side up on top of the pattern.

Then, it was time to play! At the end of a couple hours of play time, I had about one fourth of the design placed. I had planned to work on the project at a sew day at a friend's house; but, then I decided the foam core board would take up too much space. It was better for me to continue filling in the design. After about seven hours, I had finished the design. I had left the basket empty; but, then decided I could put the flowers in it after all. I free hand cut the petals and used glue to adhere the petals to the background. I also reworked the basket--removing the squares that had a little orange in them and replacing them with a brown square instead.

There was plenty of fabric in the kit for this project. I had squares left over. There are probably enough for a good start on a second bicycle! I laid the tulle over the top of the project and was disappointed at how dull the project became. I might try a different color tulle or I might leave it off all together. I plan to think about it for a few days!

It took me about eight hours to finish this part of the top. I have selected a small inner border fabric and a larger outer border fabric. I am pleased with my progress.

Rue--post 1 of 4

Hexagons waiting for a design

This hexagon project has been on my finish along list for at least a couple of years. As I've finished other goals on my list, I've been mulling over options for this project. The hexagons were made using different techniques that JoJo over at Through My Hands shared with me at least four years ago.

Reverse side of the hexagons

I machine pieced the large one using Gyleen Fitzgerald's butterfly technique. Fabrics on two of them were preprinted with the hexagon seam line and cutting line printed. The bright blue one I hand pieced; the striped one I machine stitched. On the green one, I fused interfacing to the fabric and then glued the seam allowance to the interfacing. On the darker blue one, I stitched around the hexagon using an interfacing on the wrong side. I slit the interfacing; then turned and pressed each part of the hexagon which made individual pillows. I hand pieced the orange one using the English paper piecing method.

Horizontal view with pieces of net "visible"

I included a photo of the back of the hexagons so can see what I'm trying to describe! Stitching all these hexagons was so much fun! In fact, I found these hexagons to be a little like trying to eat just one potato chip.  . . almost impossible! More on that thought in a future post though!

I decided that I wanted to put all of my samples into one wall hanging.

Our book club read "The Hunger Games" trilogy a couple years ago. In the "Mocking Jay" book, one of the characters, Rue, was captured in a net.

It was that section of the book where I found the inspiration of setting these hexagons in a net because the hexagons reminded me of the flowers that Catniss (one of the main characters in the story) Rue.

Green flower with red ribbon accent

I was stalled first because I couldn't find a background that I liked and because I wasn't sure how to create the illusion of a net.

The background that I eventually chose, I like. Now that I have Joen Wolfrom's color class behind me, I realize that this background is a bit brighter than the other one that I had auditioned. The other one was more grey so now I know why it wasn't working for me!

I purchased a half yard of an orange print fabric for the "net" strips. Then I couldn't decide how to apply the narrow strips to the fabric. I could slice the fabric and insert the strips. But, if I wanted the strips to cross, matching the cut edge would be tricky. Plus, cutting the background would make the background smaller. Since I was limited with the background fabric, smaller wouldn't be good. So I decided to machine appliqué the fabric strips. 

Interestingly, I didn't use the fabric that I had set aside for the "net." Again, the fabric I had selected was a little too gray! No wonder that I wasn't excited about cutting into it! Instead, I used some leftovers from my QAYG project. I used the orange as sashing in that project.

I stitched the orange strips together, pressed the strips in half, stitched 1/8 inch from the cut edge and then pressed the cut edge along the stitch line.

After I had auditioned the strips and selected where I wanted to place them, I used a little bit of Elmer's glue and temporarily, fused them in place.

Blue flower with yellow ribbon accent

Auditioning the strips took some time. At first, I created an overall grid; but decided that approach gave me more orange in the piece than I wanted. So I channeled a little of Miss K and removed some of strips and shortened other strips. I liked how this approach gave the piece a more modern feel which is a direction I want to explore. I glue basted the strips in place and then machine stitched them into place.

While I was auditioning the strips, the piece seemed to want to go horizontal instead of vertical so I turned the piece horizontal.

Auditioning ribbon

The next step was stitching the green and the blue hexagons together. I had considered letting some of the "petals" separate from the flower; but, decided putting the flower together was better for the overall design. Earlier, I had purchased some narrow blue, yellow and red ribbon to accent the petals in some way.

On the green flower, I used red ribbon to accent the seam joins. My plan was to tuck the raw edge of the outer edge of the ribbon under the flower during the appliqué process. I liked how the red zigzag looked around the center so I didn't cover that area with ribbon.

Vertical orientation

On the blue hexagon, I zig zagged the edges together, then covered the zig zag area with yellow ribbon. When I placed the hexagons on the background, I decided that I needed more lines on my background. I auditioned some narrow orange ribbon which I liked so I appliquéd those.

 Then, the piece seemed to tell me it wanted to be vertical. . .so I listened! As I hand appliquéd the hexagons to the background, the one with the red ribbon wanted the ribbon ends to stick out and be three dimensional so I left it that way. I had planned to quilt more grid lines in the background to create the sense of the net; but, I had an idea of hand stitching some hexagon shapes in the background. I had a heavy weight blue and red thread so I decided to draw a few of these on the top and see if the idea in my head could transfer to the top!

My first few attempts at drawing were awful.  Then, JoJo reminded me that I could cut a template using my accuquilt. I did it. Actually, I cut one of each size and started drawing! This attempt worked!

Hexagons drawn & ready for the next step

I drew a bunch of hexagon shapes of various sizes. Now, I'm thinking that hand stitching this many may take me a year. . . .well, not really, but, maybe hand stitching could take longer than I want to spend. I'm concerned about stabilizer and my stitch length.

Pieced back

I pieced the back and figured out what I want to use as the hanging sleeve which gave the piece time to "talk" to me about what I wanted to do with the drawn lines.

I listed some of my options:
Should I hand stitch the outlines in a contrasting thread?
Should I layer and pin baste and quilt the lines via machine?
Once it is a quilt sandwich, should I try bobbin work?
Should I use a contrasting thread or similar thread to quilt the hexagons?

Auditioning hand stitching using
embroidery thread

What should I do with the spaces that I haven't drawn a hexagon?
Seriously, how much more time do I want to spend on this project?

I decided that I would audition some embroidery thread and some hand stitching to see the result. I decided I liked the hand stitching look enough to keep going. I notice that as I pull the thread through the fabric, the fabric stretches a bit.

Had I planned, however, to hand stitch from the beginning of the project, I would have applied shape flex (a stabilizer) to the back of the fabric as that would have made the stitching easier to achieve.  I think I can continue stitching, carefully, and be able to fill the background with a variety of hand stitched hexagons.

I may not finish this project by the end of the quarter; but, since this project has been hanging about for too many years, I'm pleased that I am making progress!!!

HH Hall Building . . .FUSED!

Funny. . .well, actually, it wasn't funny. . .but, now that I'm this far it is funny. . .

Incorrectly placed windows and gutter

Guess, I'd better explain!

Working on the HH Hall Building project, the first piece of fabric that I cut wasn't quite right for the alignment of the windows and gutter. I didn't realize this until I tried to attach this piece to the rest of the building! Of course, this was it on the fabric so I couldn't recut!

I took it apart and started again. I thought it was spot on. The following day, I realized it was still wrong so I took it apart and started for the third time. Next, I removed the window from the other side of the building and repositioned it. THEN, it was correctly placed.

Building progress

It was still correctly placed the following morning when I checked too! While I was reworking that section, I wasn't laughing though!

By the end of that day, I had placed the landscaping, curb/street and tree fabrics. The fabric for those large trees was cut from the same piece of batik! I couldn't believe how the trees brought the piece to life!

Fused oversized section next to copy

The follow morning, I worked on the roof. Gosh, there were some tiny pieces in that section! In case you were wondering, the decision was made to remove the street light and community signage so you aren't seeing those parts in my piece!!

Also, my piece is at least two inches bigger than the copy. Making it bigger was one of the "rules." It is a wise rule so that there will be some wiggle room when the pieces are readied for the facing and sleeve!

I'm pleased with how closely my work resembles the photo copy. I'm also pleased that the fabric colors resemble the colors in the photo. I'll add the color photo for you to compare. (Another rule was to match the colors in the photo as closely as possible.)

Color photo

Most of all, I'm RELIEVED that my piece accurately matches the photo copy!

Next up is stitching all those pieces. I'm planning to use cotton thread that matches the fabric and I'll be using a tiny zig zag. Hm. . m. . m. . any guesses on how many hours this step will take??

Slow Going. . .HH Hall Building Project

Defining the design lines on the photo copy

For this project, I was given a photo copy of my piece of the project and a color photo. The rules were to:
--extend the design so that the raw piece would be two inches larger than the photo copy pattern. This "extra" would be wiggle room for quilting and for trimming the quilt for the facing later.
--use fabrics that replicated the colors in the photograph.
--finish the piece to the facing/sleeve stage and deliver it to the person stitching the facing by August 1. We are also to return the photo copy pattern.

I started with tracing the copy of the photograph. I used a fine tip sharpie and marked the highlights. This marking makes it easier to see the design lines when the transfer material is on top of the copy.

Painter's drop cloth trial

Second, I needed to mark my transfer material. I tried to use a cheap painter's drop cloth as my transfer material. My thought was that I would be able to easily see the design as I built the pieces. It didn't work because there were some tiny fold lines that I wasn't able to smooth out. These folds could have contributed to making the piece larger than it should have been so that was why I didn't use this material. It was a good try!

Design transferred to tissue paper

I have another project that is waiting for my attention that uses this same technique. For that one, I purchased a piece of plastic film that was expensive for something I would use one time.

This time, I didn't want to purchase plastic film.  I had a roll of tissue paper that came from the guild free table a long time ago. It was probably the last of what was used in a physician's office. I used a window and traced the tissue paper over the photo copy. I used an extra fine tip sharpie for this step!

Following the colors in the photograph

The unused portion of this tissue paper became the pattern material for transferring the shapes. Of course, at first, I thought I could skip this step and just draw directly on the stabilizer. I used Soft Fuse as the stabilizer. Guess what? That didn't work because now the fusible was on the wrong side of my fabric and all my pieces were going the wrong way.

Each time I added a section, I carefully checked the color with the color photo I was given as well as used the tracing paper to make sure I was placing the piece in the correct position.

Fusible is on the incorrect side of the fabric!

Yes, the transfer of the design took some time. Yes, sometimes I thought that I had copied the design on the wrong side and I was incorrect. These little pieces will be used when the grands come to create cards and "stuff."

Top floor

Slowly the design grew. This piece will finish to about 7 inches by 39 inches. It surprised me how much time it took to prep, trim and place each piece.

I thought it would be easiest to work from the top down--ah. . .not so much!

Brick portion of the building

Next I tried working on the bigger part--the bricks and the windows. That was okay.

I used the same fabric in all but the darkest window in the above photos. I used the markers to shade all the window fabrics so that the value was closer to what was in the photograph. The hard part was waiting overnight for the marker ink to dry!

Adding a 'curb' line

I found it easier to work from the bottom up! I used a marker to place the "curb" line.  I'll share my progress once I figure out the trees. It took me about a week to get to this point! Isn't that crazy?? It takes a lot of time to cut those little pieces and fidget them into the correct spot!