Yesterday, I got back to work on the red bench art quilt. I layered the back and the batting, then positioned the sky, distant hills and water, and pre-quilted them. I may need to add more quilting later after I’ve quilted around them, but I found this easier than quilting them after all the foreground elements have been added.
I’ve fused the foliage at the top of the quilt (and sure enough the sky looks like it will need some additional quilting), and I’ve auditioned a number of fabrics for the rest of the foliage. You will recall that I pre-assembled the red bench a couple of weeks ago. I’m satisfied with all these fabrics – the only thing I plan to add are some long grasses under the bench.
I’ve finished the VMQG logo colors group quilt. I quilted vertical lines with aqua thread, and horizontal lines with orange thread, to give it a plaid look. The binding is pieced from leftover pieces of several of the logo colors. I used my favorite label technique – creating the label in Excel then printing it on an inkjet fabric sheet and fusing it to the quilt back.
I’m intrigued with Jacquie’s technique and definitely want to try this. I don’t win the block lottery at the guild meeting, I’ll have to make some more for myself.
By the way, Jacquie has a new course oo Craftsy – Improvisational Piecing, Modern Design. (I love watching Craftsy videos while hand-sewing hanging sleeves onto my quilts.)
I’m working on the red bench quilt and plan to have some progress to show later today.
As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday. Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.
I’m really happy with the dimensional appearance of the head and body. I outlined the spines and small armor plates with zigzag stitching – using slightly lighter thread colors to give it a bit of a glowing look. For quilting, I echo-stitched around the spines, and then quilted a few straight lines parallel with the edges. I’ll be taking it with me to the CQA quilt show in Penticton next week to hand it over to the coordinator of the project.
Now I’m about to start quilting the VMQG logo colors group quilt. I’m going to quilt vertical lines with aqua thread, and horizontal lines with orange thread, to give it a plaid look. Then, I’ll carry on with the red bench art quilt which has to be finished by the end of May.
As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday. Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.
I forgot to say in my Wednesday post that I will be attending the Canadian Quilters’ Association (CQA) annual quilt show. This year it will be in Penticton BC from May 16 to 18. I’m driving up with my friend Janet. I’m looking forward to meeting up with lots of people I haven’t seen for a while, including some online friends I’m looking forward to meeting in person.
The art quilt with the red bench is coming along. I decided the green fabric I used for the bushes was too dark – fortunately I have some that’s not so dark, and more mottled. I’ve used it on the right side, and I think it’s much better.
I’ve read many times that you should consider using both sides of your fabric. I seldom do that, but in this piece I thought a couple of the fabrics looked too dark, and when I turned them over, the back side was perfect! Can you guess which fabrics I used this way?
Yesterday I started – and almost finished – the red bench. I haven’t attached the seat yet, as I may need to move it up or down slightly, depending on what’s behind it in the background. I used paper-backed fusible web, but with the outer edges I folded the seam allowance to the back rather than cutting a raw edge. It should give the bench some added dimension. I’m really happy with how it turned out.
As usual, I have several projects on the go – even though I try hard not to do that!
The VMQG logo colors group quilt has been side-lined until I get more fabric for the back. I have to get it finished by the end of May.
I’m still working on my fossil quilt. I’ve zigzag-stitched around all the spines. It was a bit tedious to stitch all 33 spines – but I just kept reminding myself that the spines are what I find so attractive about this fossil! Even though I used stabilizer, it did draw in the center part a bit, and the body and head are looking a bit puffy. But I’m going to put extra batting behind the body and head, so that should fix it.
I’m really excited about a new exhibit by Fibre Art Network members.
‘Abstracted’ will explore the development of a subject from a realistic image to one that illustrates the essence of that subject in an abstract, or in a non representative way. Pairs of artists will illustrate their subject – one in a representative fibre art piece and one in a abstract / non-representative fibre art piece.
Each pair of artists will select their own theme. The unifying element is that each piece must be 18″ x 45″. I will be working with my fibre artist sister, Anne de Verteuil. I’ll be doing the representative art quilt, and Anne will do the abstract piece. Our starting image is a photo I took several years ago at the Point-No-Point Resort on Vancouver Island. Here’s the photo, next to my first stab at auditioning fabrics. I think the bushes are too dark a green – I have another fabric I’m going to try before I get to the exciting part – the red bench.
As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday. Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.
Orthrozanclus reburrus is now fused to the background fabric. I’m going to outline all the pieces with zigzag stitching. I’ll do each spine with a lighter color thread on one side and a darker color on the other side to give a more dimensional appearance. I think I’ll do all the zigzag stitching with a stabilizer before I layer the quilt. After I add the batting and back, I’ll quilt the background area, and do some thread-painting to highlight the body and head.
I belong to a regional SAQA group called SAQA Western Canada. About 30 of our members are participating in a project to create quilts featuring fossils from the Burgess Shale. Each piece will be 2 feet by 2 feet. There are close to 2,000 Burgess Shale fossils, so we each picked a different one for our piece. The exhibit will travel and is intended to be viewed by children aged 5 to 12 years, so we are encouraged to make our pieces colorful and fun.
I picked Orthrozanclus reburrus – a tiny grazing animal covered with beautifully-shaped curved spines. Soon after I signed up for this project, I found a blue fabric that’s covered with dinosaur fossils, that I’m using for the background. I’ve fused the head and body, and am working on the spines – there are 33 of them! I’ll outline the pieces with zigzag stitching.
As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday. Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.
The Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild is coordinating an effort to show support for Boston. “To Boston With Love” is a collaborative effort of makers to bring peace and love from far and wide. What’s being planned is a public exhibition of flags strung into banners that will be displayed in Boston – hopefully by early June 2013. If you’d like to participate, the details are here and you can see others’ flags in this Flickr group.
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to try Rose Hughes’ Fast-Piece Applique technique again, but this time with the freezer paper on the back (rather than the front) of the fabrics. I first used this technique for hearts on neutral linen, and I decided to use similar fabrics and designs for my Boston flags.
Here are my finished flags, from the front and the back.
Putting the freezer paper on the back of the fabrics has 2 major advantages:
It’s much easier to see how all the fabrics will work together before sewing the pieces together.
The trimming of the seam allowance on the front does not require lifting up the freezer paper.
The disadvantage is that your subject will be reversed, but that didn’t matter with these hearts.
I tried piecing the hearts two different ways. With the green and pink hearts, I placed the hearts on top of the background fabrics when piecing them. With the yellow and orange hearts, I positioned the background fabric on top of the hearts. Here you can see the blocks from the back after they are sewn, and you can see the background seam allowances on green/pink block, and the heart seam allowances on the yellow/orange block.
From the front, it doesn’t seem to matter which seam allowances are trimmed, especially once the seam edges are covered with zigzag stitching. Here they are before the zigzag stitching.
I decided to zigzag through both layers of the flags – to give some interest to the backs – and it meant I didn’t need to use stabilizer.
Last June, the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild challenged members to make blocks with our guild colors. I volunteered to piece the blocks into a guild quilt.
There are 11 blocks made by VMQG members in a variety of designs, using both solid and printed fabrics. We also have 30 small solid squares with white embroidery designs, many of which were embroidered last June by visitors to the VMQG booth at the Vancouver Maker Faire.
After putting the blocks up on my design wall in a variety of configurations, I decide to place the larger blocks in the center and use the embroidered blocks as a border. Here you can see the center blocks and two sides of the border pieced. [Update: added a photo of the front completely pieced.]
I’ll finish piecing the border, then I have to make the back and quilt it. We’ll be displaying this quilt at the VMQG booth at this year’s Vancouver Mini Maker Faire, which will be on June 1-2, 2013 at the PNE Forum. Here are photos of our booth from last year, showing the fabric squares ready for embroidery, and some of our visitors participating in this fun activity.
As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday. Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.
My art quilt portrait of Courtenay is finished, except for the binding. If you’d like to see the beginning steps of this project, check this post and this one.
I constructed the dog in units – head, paws, neck/collar, body – then fused them all together. Then I decided on the background. I really like the slanted lines of the deck she’s lying on, and I liked the teal-green color of the pillow behind her in the original photo, so I used that color for the deck. Even more important than the color, was to find the right values. The background is more subdued gray-blue. Here is Courtenay’s portrait with all the fabrics fused.
The way I quilt my dog portraits is to do all the thread sketching on the dog before I layer the quilt batting and backing. This has three advantages:
I’m free motion quilting through fewer layers – which is good because I usually have several layers of fabric and fusible web to sew through.
I don’t have to be concerned about any messy thread ends on the back of my work – so I can use my machine’s thread cutter button, and don’t have to bury the thread ends.
It also gives a dimensional quality to the dog’s head – when I quilt the background after layering the batting and backing, the area surrounding the dog is flattened and the dog’s face and body are slightly raised.
I draw my thread sketching lines first to make sure they will give the correct impression of dog fur. I used Picasa’s pencil sketch feature to get a good look at the direction of Courtenay’s fur. I printed the pencil sketch image and drew my thread sketching lines in marker pen. I referred to the drawing while stitching.
Then I layered the quilt with batting and backing and stitched the background. I had lots of fun stitching the wood grain on the deck boards (which showed up nicely in the Picasa pencil sketch image). The final step is to outline key areas of the dog’s head and body to add even more dimension. Because of the many layers, I stitch these lines with my walking foot. The blue lines on the photo below show my stitching plan, and the back of the quilt shows the stitching lines.
And here’s the finished quilt. It’s approximately 15 x 15 inches. [Updated 2013.04.17 – added photo of quilt with binding.]
layered the back and the batting, then positioned the sky, distant hills and water, and pre-quilted them. I may need to add more quilting later after I’ve quilted around them, but I found this easier than quilting them after all the foreground elements have been added.
I’ve fused the foliage at the top of the quilt (and sure enough the sky looks like it will need some additional quilting), and I’ve auditioned a number of fabrics for the rest of the foliage. You will recall that I pre-assembled the red bench a couple of weeks ago. I’m satisfied with all these fabrics – the only thing I plan to add are some long grasses under the bench.
