Prudence

Prudence is the second hand stitched raw chicken sample. 

Her colouring and background is totally different than Trudy’s and the previous samples, which is one of the points of making multiple samples (besides being hooked on hand stitching) – showing how different colours make a different result.

She has a more of an old mother hen vibe about her than of a chick I’d say, but she’s fun enough to wear those Mickey Mouse ears.

She too has been secured with plenty of stitching, and her surroundings likewise.

 

 

I have yet another chick in the making. She started out as a demo sample in class, and now I have to finish her. You cannot lay a half hatched chick to rest, can you?

Trudy the trendy

Trudy is one of the new Rå kylling (raw chicken) samples. She is not quite finished yet as I have not decided how I would like to finish her, so for now even the edges are raw.

Trudy was hatched as I needed a hand stitching sample for the Rå kylling class last week. There are quite a few travelling quilters at the annual Vestlandstreff, and I wanted to give my students the option of not bringing their sewing machines for the 4 hour class on Sunday morning.

I grabbed a few scraps on my way to a guild meeting, and although one of my friends kindly offered me the dustbin as I was heading for the ironing board, Trudy came to life during our evening together. How was she to know that those scraps were the very core of my new project.)

I don’t do too much hand stitching, but I found that working on a table while stitching was much easier on the arms and neck, and I enjoyed it very much indeed, so I kept stitching

and stitching

and stitching.

Just simple stitches using different threads. Enhancing this; tying those together.

I liked the initial basting stitches so much that I even added huge white stitches on top of all the other stitching lines.And when Trudy was done, I made a second project so I could keep on stitching.

How about you; hand stitching – friend or foe?

Rå kylling in Florø

The second class which I taught at Vestlandstreffet in Florø, was Rå kylling. Rå kylling is a fun and relaxing collage class, working with scissors and free form cut shapes. Some students find the free form cutting a bit difficult and unfamiliar at first, but usually it gets easier very quickly.

The materials are all off-cuts from the Fargerike shapes. We started out with all of this,

and soon had some fun chickens in the making.

 

This is a class where sewing machines are optional, so we did our stitching by hand. I demonstrated some simple stitches which I had used on my samples. If you are a newbie to hand stitching, you may be surprised what you can do with simple techniques. It’s all about adding texture and colour and see where the next stitches will take you.

You can only get so far during a 4 hour class, so the students will finish their projects at home by hand or by machine. A combination of the two works very well, although I myself have a tendency to get hooked on the hand stitching.

 

I love how different the projects turn out! Thank you for spending the morning creating raw chickens with me, ladies!

There was still just as much scraps left at the end of the day. We had to clear it away before starting stiching to keep us (read me) from being distracted. You can do anything with this pile really, right now I'm thinking Christmas cards - as soon as I have finished some other projects..

Florø is a beautiful small town at the west coast of Norway, and even though the hotel wasn't right by the fjord, my room still came with a view.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

"Rå kylling"

Rå kylling means raw (or bad ass) chicken and this quilt is the sister of “Chicks rule”. The plan was to make two prizes for my giveaway, but due to a little ironing mishap, this little chick has to stay at home.

I thought I could share a few progress pictures from making my chick quilts, some of which aren’t quite finished yet. For my backgrounds I have used solid fabrics onto which I have fused leftover “holes” from cutting circles with the AccuQuilt Go. They add a bit of colour and texture – and besides that I was happy to use some of the scraps.

The chickens are raw edged; some with selvages, others with ripped edges. The patterned chests are made with fabric confetti – little snips of fabric with fusible on the back. Mine were leftovers from cutting the colour wheel panties. If you are new around here, I can assure you these are totally non-private, non-creepy delicates; you can see them here. If you’re going to do this at home, I highly recommend using a parchment paper or something similar when you fuse them in place. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never get all those little snips the right way.

For the striped vegetation and suns, I made fabric from my other bag of Fargerike leftovers, narrow strips from cutting rectangles.

I simply cut a piece of fusible the same width as the length of my strips, and fused them in place with a little overlap. Happy colours!

The shapes are free form cut with scissors.

The feet and beaks are rectangles cut diagonally-ish in half. The tulle is what I call silver bridal tulle. It is very fine and barely noticeable unless it catches the light from an angle. I don’t use basting spray, just a few pins here and there to keep the layers together while free motion quilting.

Some of you who have taken my Quilta Figurer free motion quilting class may recognize the snakes pattern. It takes a while, but I like the effect and the almost meditative motions.

I did try to quilt feathers as well, yellow stitches on white. Hated it!

It was during the process of ripping those offending quilting stitches out that the destiny of my little chick took a little detour. There was no way to fix the melted tulle, so I just left it there. Not to worry, she hangs proudly at our house, not even a little bit self conscious about her little imperfections. We’re kind of kindred spirits that way the two of us.

I also thought I would share the backing fabric of the two unfinished chick quilts. I bought this curtain fabric years ago to share with friends from afar, and a couple of panels have been just sitting here. The total crash between the traditional Norwegian motifs and funky chicks amuses me. What can I say, I get easily amused.

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