Design Wall Monday 8-27-12

This was a fun week. Man oh man, but I've enjoyed having my sewing studio back! This week I finished this little lighthouse piece that I talked about in last week's post - I've named it The Way Home. It's about 16" by 26" and the techniques used were raw edge applique, embroidery, quilting.

Then I did this little piece - it's about 9" square. The idea is from a photo I saw on the internet and unfortunately I don't know to whom to give the photo credit. I'm calling it Country Church. Techniques used were raw edge applique, crayon dying, embroidery, quilting.

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Design Wall Monday 8/20/12

Last week's projects are finished - The Fishing Cottage and The Rose. Both were a pleasure to finish. I really enjoyed the crayon technique in The Fishing Cottage and plan to do another project soon using that technique. In fact, the next project is a country church in a night setting and I'm planning to use applique, crayon, and embroidery embellishments in addition to quilting and thread painting - it's a small piece so that's a lot of techniques crammed into a small space.

The completion of these projects obviously means the A/C in the studio was repaired. Whew! I sure missed my sewing machine. In addition to finishing these two projects I also did the August blocks for the Craftsy.com block of the month project and made two ereader pouches. I'm really trying to catch up on lost time. I believe for the Craftsy.com block of the month project there will be blocks for September and October for a total of 20 blocks, and then we'll put the quilt top together. I've used only red, white, and black fabrics in mine. It's pretty wild looking!

Another project I started Sunday and will finish Monday night is this whimsical lighthouse which I've titled The Way Home. The lighthouse design in the book Fanciful Stitches Colorful Quilts by Laura Wasilowski was the jumping off point for this project. I really enjoyed her book - it's a quick read and she has a different way of approaching the applique technique. All that's left to do is the quilting and binding.

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Design Wall Monday 8-13-12

Work has been crazy-busy. The the air conditioner in the sewing studio quit working. All of that has affected the amount of time I have had for sewing, especially the broken A/C because in the late afternoon the temperature in that room pushes 100. Pooh!

Anyway, enough whining - the A/C will be repaired this week. In the meantime I've tried to work on projects that didn't require sewing (yet). This is a crayon dyed piece - I took the original photo of a little fishing cottage in my coastal home town. It's a precious little place I simply adore. Using Picasa I had the photo translated to a line art drawing. Believe it or not, I simplified that line art drawing even more to come up with this version. Using a crayon technique I learned from mamacjt's blog, I have colored the piece and have ironed it to permanently dye the fabric. What's left to do is ... a lot! I have to stitch over all the black lines with black thread. I intend to embellish it with embroidery - flowers, crab pots, and other details. Then it will be quilted.

Another project I've been able to work on outside of the sewing studio is this yellow rose wall hanging. The pattern is a Ruth Blanchet Creation distributed by Arbee Designs Ltd. - it's actually a quilt, but I simply do not need another bed size quilt nor is there anyone I need to make a bed size quilt for, so I elected to do just the center motif from the pattern of the rose.

My A/C should be repaired this week, then I'll start catching up on some projects that have been put on hold, like these two pieces, a couple of other art quilt patterns I drew up in my down time, two e-reader pouches, etc. Later this week Lori, Ruth, and I are going to play with sun paints.

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