DesignWall Monday 11-19-12

Please visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times today to see what other creative crafty folks are up to.

Last week I mentioned a soft quilt block book that I'm making. The idea came from an episode of Martha's Sewing Room. My book is about 16" square. I sewed together, then turned, two large pieces of fabric that would yield the size I wanted. I cut a piece of foam core board about 15.25" square and inserted that in the cover, then stitched the center seam, then inserted the 2nd piece of foam core board, and top-stitched the open edge. I also cut 8 pieces of batting that, when folded book style would be about 15-15.25" square. However I got backed into a bit of a corner because once I laid the batting "pages" inside the cover I realized I would not be able to use my machine to sew a center seam - so I hand-stitched this. The applique cover was the very first step. The inspiration came from botannical text drawings. I bought a lovely rose print fabric from Cotton Fields Quilt Shop and fussy cut the roses, fused them to the background and machine appliqued them. Then I statin stitched that to a 2nd background, then satin stitched that to the cover. It took longer to fussy cut the roses than it did to make the entire project! Right now the book is holding all of the pieces for the craftsy.com block of the month quilt that I'm working on.

The other project I'm working on these days is a "challenge" from the Rocky Mount Quilt Guild. We were given 36 charm squares and one "ringer" piece of fabric. The challenge is to make a quilt piece no larger than 30 x 30 using the fabrics provided; we can also add one additional fabric that has to be either white or muslin. Many of my charm squares were duplicates so I had about 26 different fabrics to play with. I immediately started looking for "outs" in the directions! The directions did NOT say I could not dye, color, or paint the fabric. And they did NOT say I had to use ALL of the fabric provided, just some of each fabric. So, I'm making a whimsical holiday house; the "ringer" fabric is being used as a "stained-glass" window in the attic. It's not yet named. I'm to the point now where I need to machine quilt it. One of the guild members recently showed an art piece where instead of using a conventional binding method she simply did a satin stitch outline around the perimeter of her piece and then trimmed the piece close to the satin stitching and that finished her edge. I know it would never do for a show piece but it was a unique and interesting binding technique that I plan to copy for this house. Once you see the final cut out of this house you'll understand why. Once it's machine quilted and the edge is finished, I plan to do quite a bit of beading. Beads can be used for "lights", "snow", and "icicles". Maybe I'll have the piece finished to show for next week's Design Wall Monday. I've already added some embroidery accents. I will probably use a marker to draw in shingles. I'm contemplating also using a marker to lightly draw in "boards" on the house. But then I remember that my friend Lori accuses me of getting too involved in details so I'll mull that one over.

I've enjoyed creating this house and my imagination is swirling with other houses and cottages and buildings that would be fun to make without the constraints of a challenge.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Safe travels to all who hit the roadways or airways or waterways.

Design Wall Monday 11-12-12

Happy Veteran's Day! Thank you to all who have served our wonderful country.

Please visit www.patchworktimes.com today for Design Wall Monday.

Here are the finished Craftsy.com block of the month blocks - 20 of them. And the sashing strips. I may change out the red sashings and use black fabric instead but I didn't have enough black fabric and was trying to make do with what I had on hand. And while I like this, even though it is quite wild looking, I'm thinking black sashings and borders would make the individual blocks "float" or pop out a bit more. Maybe lend a bit more balance to the quilt. I've named this quilt BAM! After looking at it more, I will definitely audition black sashings before doing any sewing.

On one of the televised sewing shows recently, a guest showed a "book" she made to store quilt blocks that are works-in-progress. What a cool idea! Foam core board is cut and inserted in the back and front covers, and batting makes up the "pages". So, I've started my rendition. On the front cover I'm going to add a floral applique - after looking at it in this photo I thnk I'll curve the corners of the applique to soften it a bit. Maybe next Monday I'll be able to show the finished "book".

This is my sewing buddy. He's a lot of company and makes sure to let me know when I've been sewing too long (in other words, he's tired of being ignored!). Sometimes he even helps by rearranging blocks on the design floor. He's been my buddy for 2.5 years and during that time I don't think there has been a day go by that he hasn't made me laugh out loud.

The Pumpkin Patch - This piece is about 10 x 15, and is crayon dyed. I'm happy with the way it turned out.

For the next Design Wall Monday I hope to have the BAM! quilt top and the quilt block storage book finished. So, till next week ....

Design Wall Monday 11-5-12

Well, I just can't believe it's already November. And between now and the end of the year there is something going on every single weekend so my crafting time will be limited. Please take a few moments to visit www.patchworktimes.com for Design Wall Monday.

I haven't had much time for sewing but have managed to work a bit on two crayon dying projects. I'm at the point on both of these pieces where they need to be quilted but I don't have any clear thread, which is what I want to use. The last time I posted on Design Wall Monday I featured the whimsical flower piece that I call The Ladybug Garden. Several folks asked me for crayon dying directions. I'll go into some detail on that now.

I learned of this technique from the blog www.mamacjt.blogspot.com. Please take a few moments and go to her blog. It's delightful. Her work is so original, whimsical, and fun. Somewhere in her blog she describes her crayon technique in detail. I've played with it as she describes and have adapted it to the way I like to do it. It's very similar to her technique, with the main difference being that I make the quilt sandwich and do the quilting after the outline stitching is done.

Okay - here is the way I do the crayon dying. First, draw your design either on paper to tweak and then transfer to fabric later, or directly onto fabric if you're a confident artist. I have minimal drawing talent so I do simple drawings like The Ladybug Garden (above), or I get designs from stamps I own (the pumpkins) or photos (the fishing cottage) I've taken and have translated into line art using Picasa photo software (free download from Google). Anyway, once the drawing is the way you like it and the size you want, put it on your lightbox and trace it onto fabric. My lightbox is the dining room window. After the design is traced onto the fabric, outline it with a marker - I use a thin black Sharpie. I also mark the detail lines. Iron something like freezer paper or a good stabilizer onto the back of the fabric. Then color! Don't be afraid to blend colors. Don't be afraid to really bear down to get a lot of color on the fabric. On The Ladybug Garden I ironed a pretty heavy-duty stabilizer on the back and left it in place for the outline stitching that comes later. For The Fishing Cottage piece and the pumpkin piece I just used freezer paper. I did make a fun discovery when I did the pumpkin piece above ... textured tone-on-tone fabric adds a delightful design element to the piece. In the pumpkin piece there is a vine design in the fabric that beautifully compliments the pumpkins (I think). A happy accident.

Once you're satisfied with the coloring it's time to iron off the excess wax. There really won't be a ton of wax on the fabric but you will need to protect your iron and ironing surface. I went to our local newspaper and bought an "end roll" of unprinted newsprint- they sell end rolls for $2/inch and for $10 I bought an end roll that is more paper than I'll probably ever use in my lifetime! You can also use old muslin scraps, paper grocery bags, etc. Just iron the piece until no more wax comes off onto the paper.

So, after you've had fun coloring with crayons and the wax has been melted away you're ready for the next step which is outline stitching. Mamacjt does her outline stitching in black, and so have I for the most part, however you can most certainly play around with using other thread colors for the outlining - I used some other colors in The Fishing Cottage piece and am totally delighted with the result. Mamacjt also makes her quilt sandwich prior to adding the outline stitching, so it shows on the back. That doesn't really appeal to me so I do the outline stiching with either interfacing/stabilizer or batting on the back of the piece but not the quilt backing, not yet at least.

I'm very new to machine quilting and the step of adding the outline stitching is an excellent exercise for becoming more familiar and comfortable with free-motion stitching. Don't look too closely at my pieces because you will see that I didn't stay "on the lines" very well. But after the pieces I've done recently I can tell I'm getting better at it!

After the outline stitching I do whatever embellishing I want to add to the design like beading or embroidery - as long as it's not embellishments that would interfere with free-motion quilting. In that case, I will add those type of embellishments after the quilting step is completed. However, if you're hand-quilting this is a moot point. Both The Ladybug Garden and the pumpkin pieces have been embellished and that's where I've stopped at the moment.

After the outline stitching (and maybe some embellishing) is completed, it's ready for quilting. This is where I add the backing fabric and quilt the piece however appeals to me. I typically quilt the background around the design which makes the design pop a bit (I think). Then bind it, add a label, you're done!

I think it's a fun technique and I've totally fallen in love with it. At the ArtRageous Quilters meeting Saturday one of the members demonstrated the crayon technique from the book "Creative Quilts from your Crayon Box" by Terry Linn Kygar. It's a delightful book and her pieces are simply beautiful. Terrie describes her technique as "melt-n-blend meets fusible applique". I'll be attempting some of the exercises from her book soon.

I hope you'll give this technique a try.

Design Wall Monday 10-22-12

Unbelievable that October is winding down. It's scary how fast the rest of 2012 is zipping by.

Mamacjt's blog features her various art quilts and activities. One of her techniques that she uses on a frequent basis is crayon dying. I've done a few projects using this technique and love it. It's very easy to do. In a nutshell you transfer a design to fabric using pencil, then outline with a sharpie marker, then color it with crayons, then melt the wax away using your iron and leaving behind beautiful color. At this point mamacjt uses black thread to outline stitch the design as well as the details. I've used other color threads to add detailing and it is a very nice effect. Finally the piece is quilted and embellished using embroidery, buttons, beads ... whatever you like. I'm to the point with this piece where it's time to melt the wax and set the color into the fabric. I definitely see beads and embroidery on this piece, and maybe even buttons if I find some I like. As far as quilting goes, I think I will stiple quilt all the white space to make the design areas pop out a bit. I'm calling this piece The Ladybug Garden. (for some reason I'm having trouble creating the link to mamacjt's blog but it is www.mamacjt.blogspot.com)

And while I was working on this piece I started noodling around an idea for a small Halloween/autumn piece featuring pumpkins ...

Jump over to Patchwork Times today for Design Wall Monday to see what other quilters and crafters and artists are working on.

Design Wall Monday 10-8-12

This year I've participated in the Craftsy.com block of the month project. The two blocks for October complete the 20 blocks required for this project. It's been fun but ... I'm not crazy about the color scheme. I knew it was to be a scrappy quilt but it probably would have worked better with a few more colors instead of just white/black/red. It has a very "chopped up" look to it to me. In November the task is to add borders/sashings and in December it is to be finished. I'm putting it down until after the first of the year, though. In fact, I'm putting down most of my crafting and sewing projects until the start of 2013 because I have so much going on around the burrow and work. I've looked and looked at this photo and am thinking that I'll use one of the red fabrics as the sashings and border to try to bring it all together. I'll also really need to mess around with the block placement to make sure it doesn't get too heavy on one side with a single color.

Please take a few moments to visit Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times. It is a never-ending source of quilting inspiration to me.

Design Wall Monday 9-17-12

Today my son turns 21. My goodness ... where has the time gone? I'm very proud of the man he's become.

Okay - on to sewing. I'm continuing to work on the Christmas wall hanging that I posted about last week. My progress this week has been to finish the bead-loom woven central focal piece - well, I say "finished" but I still have 80 ... count 'em 80 ... thread ends to weave in - then it will be finished. I have the quilt sandwich made and will quilt it and bind it this week. This pattern is actually a cross stitch pattern from Mill Hill Designs that converted quite nicely to a bead loom chart.

The very last step will be to applique the cross-stitched and bead woven "decorations" onto the wall hanging. Thank you to my sister for naming this piece for me ... Deck The Halls.

Thursday night Ruth and Lori came over to my burrow for Needle Nite. We had a blast playing with polymer clay and making buttons. I think it was Lori who casually tossed out the idea of swapping some Christmas fabrics between the 3 of us for a table topper called Crooked On Purpose. Then Saturday we had an impromptu Needle Nite and agreed to move forward with the Crooked On Purpose plan so everyone brought 3 rectangles of 5 different Christmas fabrics. I finished my table topper top tonight! Love it! This week I'll quilt and bind it.

Am continuing to work on the Craftsy.com blocks of the month. 18 are finished so far for January through September. October will be paper piecing then we'll have a 20 block quilt to assemble.

Next I'm hoping to begin working on sweatshirts converted to jackets. These seem to be good candidates for the handmade polymer clay buttons.

Visit Design Wall Monday to check out what everyone else is working on.

Design Wall Monday 9-10-12

Christmas!  This project actually started out innocently enough. I bought a few cross-stitch/bead ornaments kits by Mill Hill Designs from Weaver's Web yarn shop in New Bern. They were fun to do. So then I decided it would be a good idea to think of a way to display them together since individually they might get "lost" on the tree, and considering how much time goes in to stitching and beading each one, I want them to be noticeable.

Then I saw this lovely tone-on-tone Christmas fabric at Cotton Fields Quilt Shop .... well, one thing led to another ... and I decided to make a small Christmas wall hanging onto which these ornaments will be appliqued.

The center ornament, though, is not finished because rather than cross-stitching it, I'm going to use the pattern as a bead loom design (see photo of my new handy-dandy bead loom!) and it will be the focal point of this piece. I'm not married to this exact placement of the ornaments ... still mulling it over but so far I'm okay with it. A lot of time has gone in to this small wall hanging! And a lot of beads.

Other than assembling the September blocks for the Craftsy.com's block of the month club, I haven't done any other sewing.

For Needle Nite this week Ruth, Lori and I are going to venture into the world of polymer clay and try our hand at making some unique buttons. At the ArtRageous Quilters meeting last weekend one of the members brought for show-n-tell some buttons she had made from polymer clay and I fell in love with them! By the way, our meeting was so interesting and inspiring. Christine Zoeller, a professor of textile art at East Carolina University, demonstrated to us some techniques for working with tulle, silk organza, and other transparents fabrics. Fascinating!

Patchwork Times is hosting Design Wall Monday today. Check it out!