Spring in my step - The quilt

Having handed my mother’s birthday quilt over to her on Sunday, I can finally show pictures of the quilt and not only bits and pieces. Here it is.

My mother had wished for a quilt to hang over their bed, so it measures approx 70*150cm (28”*60”).

40 different fabrics – 30 solids and 10 patterned, and miles of variegated orange threads.

I was a really windy day, so I was running back and forth trying to secure all the corners to the fence and keeping the edges straight.

The quilt would only hang flat when the wind was pinning it against the fence, but it’s was quite cool watching it twist and turn.

Now the next question is if my parents will be happy with it, but if not, I won’t mind getting it back..

Half way to nowhere

Sometimes I wonder

whether some of my stumbling attempts at mixed media art

would be frame worthy.

It’s particularly this piece

that has me wondering

as I love every little bright bit

or maybe I should make a collage from these pictures; that could be frame worthy.

As for me, I’ll soon be on my way back home from celebrating mother’s birthday and handing over the Spring in my step quilt. See you when I get there!

Reboot Where I left it off

Some of you might remember that I did some see-where-it-leads-exercises last year to reboot my creativity. You know, a mix it up, try something new, get out of a rut, get the mojo flowing kind of thing. The last time I blogged about the Reboot project was June 6, 2012 (you'll find it here, and the first post here), and in search for a project to embellish to keep my fingers busy, I thought I would pick up where I left it off. My initial plan of just adding layers and stitching until it’s overworked is still on.

Basically, this is a piece of a recycled black table cloth and a few 2 ½ squares of old fabric with layers of different kinds of fiber and stuff added. The last things I added was a frame of two rounds of black cotton yarn couched around the raw edges

and a touch of bling that I won at a guild meeting years and years ago which had been waiting for an idea on how to get used

so I decided to couch them too, making a frame inside the first. There was not much thread on each spool, so I just overlapped them slightly when I ran out of a colour.

This is what I like about it so far:
the overall colour scheme,

the mix of bright and softer colours,

the untidiness of the shapes,

the different tints and shades from the coloured tulle,

the 3D effect of the shapes,

the bling factor from threads and aluminium foil,

and the foggy-ness from the fiber.

I’m thinking some beading would look good. If you have any suggestions about what else I could do, I would love to hear them!

Have a wonderful weekend!

ATCs Embellishments Tiny forests

This is the fourth and last set of ATCs (see earlier posts here). These are very simple; tiny paper trees (ordered on Etsy when daughter started scrapbooking) stitched onto the backgrounds. Do you have any idea how addictive scrapbooking shopping is? Just as bad as fabric shopping I’d say.

I love the simplicity of the solid trees against the scrappy layer upon layer backgrounds.

Hitting right in the middle of the tiny trees was the most challenging part, and I’m happy to say there were no trees wasted in the process.

I was ¼” short of squeezing 30 backgrounds out of the foundation, so there’s only 5 little forests. Same trees, different cards.

The back sides were designed in Excel including amongst other things the name & number of the cards and my logo (orange of course, shocking huh), and printed onto cardstock and cut to size using the really old and otherwise useless rotary cutter.

I added regular glue stick glue onto the felt background so that the cardstock would stay in place while stitching the backsides to the cards

which was done with zigzag stitches and the same red variegated thread as the quilting. I was in awe that the stitches would fit around the corners every time.

Who knew that this many threads to be tied off could look so good?

The finished stack of ATCs all done and ready to ship.

It’s been a while since I did these, but I do remember having lots of fun. Although surprisingly time consuming, I actually wouldn’t mind making more..

ATCs Embellishment - Little Houses

Here is the third set of ATCs made for an ATC swap back in 2012. The first set is posted here, and the second set posted yesterday. The ATCs I received in the swap are posted here, here and here.

Little houses cut from lace-y paper ribbon stitched onto the background using black thread, adding a horizontal-ish line to suggest the ground. Window satin stitched using the same thread

adding a little flower brad from the sadly unused&unloved scrapbooking stash

creating a tiny little property

adding a little moon using gold Tsukineko ink and a crescent sequin as a stamp

and on others as a mask.

 

and done. Looks like it's on fire, doesn't it.

I tested quite a few different supplies on a little scrap from the backgrounds. Both the brad and the gold ink had their test run here.

Same-ish scenery, different cards.

ATC Embellisment - Lovebirds

Going through some folders on my PC last night, I realized I had only posted one set of finished ATCs so here is the second set - lovebirds.

A few scraps of organza, tulle and angel weave

free hand drawing tiny lovebirds with the darning foot. Birds being inspired by the Superbirds from my book, Gledesspredere

cutting them out, very carefully

making tiny little nests from ink dyed cotton fibres from this post

and stitching them onto readymade ATCs from this post. You can see how small the bird is against the background which measures 2 ½”*3 ½”

Same-ish birds, different cards.

Have you ever

Have you ever thought about what a brilliant design tool you have in such a simple thing as Hama beads?

The ironed side looks like little squares fused together.

Imagine each bead being a fabric square and there you go.

Small pieces of art to be.

 

Cheap design possibilities in every colour.

What a treat.