Tea Towel Take 1: I'm making scraps

I never pictured this would be my answer to any question, but last week I said these words out loud to my quilting buddies at our monthly guild meeting. I was ironing my stack of fabrics piece by piece and started slashing them totally randomly and when my friends asked what I was making I truthfully answered “I’m making scraps”.

Having been under the weather for quite a while, I could not seem to wrestle up enough energy to start digging through all my scrap boxes in search for suitable scraps for my made fabric (using made fabric in the quilt is a part of the Tea towel challenge). Instead I decided to use fabrics from a closet in my sewing room where my oldest fabric got stashed away years ago. I have been working my way through the content for a while and thought I would keep at it until everything gets used up or tossed away.

That first session at my guild meeting was spent ironing, slashing and piecing two and two pieces together. My box was quite full and my scraps rather messy when I unpacked it the other day, but still looking good.

For my next session I dug out my bag with almost empty spools,

made room for a cutting mat next to my machine and started adding pieces and strings, that is after ironing all the crumpled pieces.

Can you tell I’m a newbie at making fabric by the content of my waste bin? I find myself obsessively straightening up all the edges all the time which is a total waste so I won’t be doing that anymore.

Anyway, here’s the start of a few pieces of made fabrics.

I’m using quite large scraps or I’ll be making fabric way into 2014. Working with bright colours has been wonderful, but I think I’ll be enjoying the process even more without all the cutting...

Full bloom

There’s not much blooming around here these days except for my hard-to-get-rid-of-throat-bug-thingie. I’ve been feeling under the weather since I got sick even though I finished my antibiotics a week ago - which is tiresome any day and even more tiresome when you need all your energy elsewhere. After spending 4 hours waiting at the ER yesterday, I’ve got a new type of antibiotics which hopefully will get rid of that stupid thing already so I can get back to life as I know it.

Anywho, besides spending a fun filled Wednesday evening with my quilting friends, grandson and I did a little mixed media collage/paintjob last weekend.

Plain coloured paper, lollipop sticks and leftover circles from the gift tag extravaganza.

We ran out of glue stick and our craft glue was old and thick so we had to use a paintbrush to get it out of the bottle leaving shiny glue everywhere. Lots of tearing, gluing and happy use of scissors later we had two pieces of collage.

The next day we dipped into our little stash of acrylic paint and this is how we left our collages.

My mind has been playing with how to transfer this into a mixed media quilt including the shadowing and all. Hm, we’ll see.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mr Bug

I bet you did not see this one coming.

I didn’t either until I started drawing with a paintbrush dipped in decoupage glue.

Mr Bug, my mixed media guy.

He snuck up on me when I wasn’t paying attention. All I needed was a little of this and a little of that and a little patience. The black velvet yarn is the 7th layer I think. I should do this more often, not worrying what I’ll do next, just enjoying the moment. That and letting things dry in between layers.

Quite a funky looking guy isn’t he, and so much fun to make.

Thanks for stopping by!

A week in review

So this has been quite a week; a little of this, a little of that, and lots and lots of those. About a week ago I wished for a few days of rest, so be careful about what you wish for ‘cause I’ve done nothing much but resting since Tuesday and it was not fun at all. Add together a strep throat, the flu, throwing up, skyhigh fever and actually crying at the doctor’s office and you get the picture. The saddest thing though is that I missed my daughter’s birthday on Tuesday and haven’t seen her since as I cannot afford to make her sick.

No matter how fidgety I get when not making stuff, I’m not quite ready to get back to quilting just yet. You don’t realize how hard quilting is physically until you try doing it under the influence of buggery bugs, do you. Anyways,  even though I have not been able to keep up my brilliant plan of creating every day, here’s the last week or so in review. No sick pictures, I promise.

A few steps forward with the mixed media painting. This is how it looked when the fog dried up

 

 

So, loving the textures, what can I do next, oh yes, more tulle.

Yesterday I added lots of new decoupage glue and some torn paper pieces, a little tulle and some words leftover from a quilt

which looked like this when dry.

My last stunt so far is adding a layer of red angel weave fiber this morning, and I’m excited to see how it dries.

I tried to create a hand stitching project too, free form cutting circles from crafting felt. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with them, but I have an idea for the next step.

Husband was 50 a week ago and celebrated with a birthday dinner out with the kids and in-laws. They all behaved very well indeed, and the food was great.

I said they behaved, not that they sat totally still.)

Grandson and I also made him a chocolate cake from my mom’s old recipe which she wrote down for me like 30 years ago. It is well used as you can see.

We did a test of how many Non Stop (like Smarties) we could fit onto one cake, and that was quite a few indeed. No pictures though, the cake disappeared quickly with the assistance of daughter, yours truly and the kids.

I have chosen a tea towel for a challenge over at 15 minutes play.

And I have labeled and shipped off my challenge pieces within the deadline. I made a couple of mistakes on the hand written label so I made a new one in Excel - which I forgot to take pictures off. Oh well, I'll just have do it when it returns. I'll post pictures as soon as the challenge is over.

Today I have been doing the guild’s accounts, paying the bills, and uploading a few pictures. Enough for today. Tomorrow the kids will be back here, and hopefully daughter as well. It will be busy and noisy and messy and I won’t get much done, but my goal is still to be creative every day for the next 4 weeks.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sea monsters

Our guild issued a challenge this fall. They hung lots of plastic bags from which we were to choose one and make something inspired by the bag. I immediately spotted a bag from a toy store which I thought would be fun.

I don’t know how many ideas I have had for my challenge piece, but I can truly say I got inspired, and more than once. However, actually choosing one of them was not that easy. My degree of procrastination seems to correlate with time available. Now, as I posted about on Tuesday, there was not much time left and I got to work.

This pillow

is clearly inspired by this bag

I used the bag as a pattern, simplifying the design a bit, and doing some under/over/under appliqué. It’s a great technique and I wish I had taken pictures, but I will do a tutorial later.

I restricted myself to using fabrics from my old stash, and the only piece that would fit for the back side had a few bleached lines at the folds from being stored for so long. Solution: couch cotton yarn over the lines and add more lines to make them part of a design.

Worked like a charm!

Now the sea monsters get to live with grandson when he goes back home.

And did I stick to my plan of doing something creative every day yesterday? Yes indeed. Not for long, but long enough. With both kids safely tucked into their beds, I grabbed some light sheers from the Kvist class spare part bag, a sheet of deli paper, a never used Golden Soft Gel medium, and the little water colour painting from last weekend and started making fog (inspiration here).

Note to self: gel medium and water colour paint – not a good match. The paint bled into the medium as I was working, making it muddy green here and there. Not a problem on this piece, but something to remember for future projects. Live and learn.

I'll be linking up with Finish it up Friday and Link a Finish Friday today.

Work on a Wednesday

Yesterday I used my creative time doing a little fixer upper on one of daughter’s old quilts. I had not used fusible to attach the appliqué pieces as they are quite big and I didn’t want that stiffness, so one of them had unravelled a little at the edge.

The quilt has been waiting around for a long time, but now it’s done and washed and dried and ready to get back into the love and comfort business. I kept putting it off as I was dreading manoeuvring the quilt under the needle, but it was fine, a bit awkward, but not that bad.

The quilt does come with a story, so I’ll take pictures outside before I drop it off when I visit my daughter today. I haven’t seen her since her surgery, so I am looking forward to see her.

I did also do a step by step invisible finishing on a sample to show my students. It’s not hand stitched to the back, just machine basted. I might leave it as it is for future classes unless I crave a little hand stitching one day.

In the afternoon I taught my first Kvist (Branches) class. It’s a 2-3 hours class and we use whatever time we have - which was two hours yesterday. Husband was going to help me set up the classroom 30 minutes before the class, but there had been some car trouble at the highway, so instead I spent 45 minutes in queue stressing about if I would even make it there on time. Well, I did, with 15 minutes to spare and students waiting outside in the freezing cold.

I brought my samples, kits in 3 colour ways and a rainbow of spare fabric pieces for the students to add to their designs. 

Providing kits is the No 1 key factor to teach these types of classes or we would spend most of our time discussing fabrics and what students did not bring. Anyways, colour is such a personal choice, so I like to provide some options in addition to the kits when possible.

I find these painting with fiber classes intriguing to. First the students find the idea and techniques simple and fun, then they start moving things around to achieve balance which is not that easy, and then they start quilting and everything comes together like magic. 

It is quite interesting to see how different the quilts are even though most of them come from the same kit.

Arent they just gorgeous!

Bead me up

Grandson and I stopped by the craft store yesterday after his annual check-up at the eye doctor. I was looking for some beads to add to a challenge piece which I have been working on on again and off again for several months without getting that oh-now-it’s-done feeling. Something just did not feel right. While showing it to my mom, she said it looked like an underwater scene, and I could see what she meant. This morning I realized how I could add to that look with some simple beading so off we went.

These are my first proper crystal beads; they are ever so sparkly and shiny. Love them!

Most of my old bead collection went into the Make a Boob stash, so I meticulously had to pick out appropriate beads, one bead at the time.

It took a while, but finally I had a nice spread.

The rest of my childfree time went into adding beads to the quilt, and to hand stitch the sleeve. Done! I’ll post pictures of the quilt when the challenge is finished.

Did I fill my quilting quota of the day? Yes indeed!