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Friday, March 31, 2017

There's a snow Goose in my bathroom!

He looks mad.

I showed you last week how I changed the eye and added yarn around the eye. In hindsight I should have left it alone like the inspiration photo. That's what makes him look mad. Lesson learned - now we know if you want a bird to look mad at you, add eyelids! Oh well, don't mess with Mother Nature - birds don't have eyelids :-)

I have been enthralled with making these improve hashtag blocks this past week. Check out Gefilte quilts blog post on how to make them here. She has a few different ways to do them. Mine are the first method.

The above one is a hot pad

And here a potholder.

So fun and quick to make!

Try one

 

Friday, March 24, 2017

Changing nature

 


The real snow goose's eye

 

A quilted fabric eye ......... but it needs something

So some yarn was added first to the eyelid (I know birds don't have eyelids but in my fabric world they do)

Then to the bottom of the eye and I like it better.

Today I'll do the binding since it is snowing/ sleeting with blustery cold winds and I'm not going anywhere.

I can show you the finish next week

Today's game plan

;-)

 

Friday, March 10, 2017

thequiltshow.com

Guess what March 17th is? International quilting week end and free show week end on thequiltshow.com!

Series 100-1700 will be open to everyone for 3 days. All you have to do is register and sign in!

There are lots of good ones - here are a couple I have on my list as must see.

 

Show 1804 - Quilting Outside the Blocks

Featuring: Jenny Bowker / Anna Bates

Posts On: February 14, 2016




Jenny Bowker creates incredible pieced landscapes, with exotic images from the Middle East and Malaysia, where she lived with her diplomat husband. She connected with the traditional tentmakers of Cairo (who have been crafting their elaborate appliqué fabric pieces since 2000 BC), and depicts them as the gentle people she came to know. Jenny shares her quilting style, which often extends the quilt’s interior design out into the borders. She saves the most complicated quilting for the outside edges, where it is easier to manipulate them. She also walks us through the process of dissecting a tiling design (whether simple or complex), and creating a vellum pattern for it. She demonstrates this technique with a challenging design featuring two overlapping vases. She also discusses why all quilters should enter their work into quilt shows.

 

Show 1802 - Fearless Quilting and Fabulous Results

Featuring: Kathy McNeil / Ann Harwell

Posts On: January 17, 201


Kathy McNeil is a fearless quilter (would you cut up your wedding dress?), and as a longtime critical care nurse, she is very aware of the health benefits of quilting. She uses a variety of techniques to create the effects she desires. Need a color that you don’t have? Kathy shows how to heat set crayons to create any fabric color you need. She achieves different looks depending on whether she sets them while wet or dry. She then shows how to build a landscape or pictorial quilt by creating collage units. This allows her to move around the elements before finalizing the design. Her choice and use of fabrics will change the way you look at them. Her unique style extends to elements of her home as well. Next, Ann Harwell creates precision cut and pieced masterworks, inspired by nature and images from the Hubble telescope. She shares her technique for piecing with pins directly in the seam.






Show 1609 - Transforming Quilts from Real Life

Featuring: Lea McComas

Posts On: April 27, 201


Fiber Artist, Teacher and Author Lea McComas shows how she transforms her love of travel, faces and historical images into works of art. Her photo images are transformed via cropping, manipulating value and color, and even using gray scale. From designing, constructing, and on through intricate stitch work, Lea changes plain fabrics into realistic and vivid images. She also shares some of the antique textiles she picked up in her travels. Plus, bonus! Alex offers a clever method for facing a quilt while adding a built-in sleeve. This is a great technique for smaller quilts, when a common binding is too much.

 

 

Friday, March 3, 2017

Rescue patchwork

I just started watching a you tube video series called whirls and swirls. She has done a video a day for 100 days last year and is just starting another 100. Worth checking out here

Not much art quilting done because I've spent the past week patching holes and tears on an old well loved king sized dutchmans puzzle quilt.

There was a gapping hole right in the middle so I seam ripped out a block from a corner and appliquéd that in the middle where it shows and patched the hole, then put that in the corner slot.

I thought that was it but then upon looking I started seeing a lot of this. Old fabric shreds after years of use unless the quilt is kept in a climate controlled vault somewhere but what good does that do? I believe a quilt should be used.

So not one to do a job half - assed, I ended up free motion quilting the geese in the offending blocks like this.

 

It took me awhile but was enjoyable " tv watching time" work.

 

Our crazy spring continues - on Sunday it was 70 degrees and tonight it's going to be 10 below zero!

Next week I am participating in a blog hop where you pick an artist and make a quilt inspired by that artist. Can be any art form including writers. I am doing Laurel Burch who you probablly know as a textile designer.

I'm sure you have owned at least one of her designs at some point.

 

Her style is uniquely her own.

Love!