Natures hiding place

I'm linking up to Amys creative sides blogger festival with this post.

 

Walking thru the woods this fall inspired me to make this art quilt.

I loved making it so much I decided to make it into a pattern to sell on craftsy.

I've been working on this thing for a month and it's still not done. I keep making new versions so the pattern keeps getting put on the back burner. You see it's far more fun to make a quilt than a boring old pattern :-)

 

I take tons of photos on my walks and this is the one that inspired me on this quilt.

 

 

 

 

This one has leaves made of cut up yarn and is small. - the size of a 8.5 x11 paper.

See, I am at least thinking of a pattern.

 

This one is a little bigger - for those midnight cat patrols

 

And finally, today I blew up the original 8.5 x11 pattern 200% and am doing a winter scene.

What is addicting about this is finding little creatures for the hiding place - I have a raccoon or a fox for this winter one.

Stay tuned for the finish :-)

Quilt Happy!

 

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Halloween creativity

At the hotel where I work we are provided with a free pumpkin to carve for those who wish to do it and there is a little Halloween party with a carving contest. Yesterday I brought in a glue gun, a basket of various findings from the woods (acorns, mushrooms ect) some yarn and a couple of garden ornaments.

Nobody wanted to do a pumpkin.

You know how it is, "oh, I don't know how" "I'm not crafty" I'm not creative" "no time"

Blah, blah, blah

I just started carving my idea, and slowly a couple of people watched, then I started directing them to - hey, do this, or try that. At first they were intimidated but after putting on some things, trying this and trying that - they got into it! So I walked away and left them to it.

 

When I came back they had made this :-)

 

After an hour or two in the break room, someone had added this.

Look inside!

I couldn't be more thrilled to see people do something creative in spite of themselves.

Happy Halloween!

 

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Pause for patchwork

I'm taking a break from the art quilting and doing some patchwork. Sometimes a girl just needs to sew, SEW,SEW!

so I went to visit my mom in the Adirondacks (how gorgeous)

Best time of the year in Lake George - all the tourists have gone home.

 

I brought a bunch of Lauren's gifted Christmas fabric and we put the pedal to the metal and made 7 donation pillowcases.

 

Then I found a quick and easy table runner pattern and commenced to cut out for that.

 

You basically take a 9 1/2"" focus fabric square then build out log cabin style with 2" strips with cornerstones at the intersections.

 

I'm quilting it right now..

If you want to make one, the directions are here. The one I made has a gingerbread theme wouldn't it look nice to put on a table laden with Christmas cookies.?

 

Ann Standish

The Champlain Valley Quilters Guild Show honored the work of Ann Standish who's work is absolutely wonderful and totally my cup of tea. She lives in Vermont, does landscapes, works from photos  -

my goal is to someday do quilts as good as hers. I'm working on it :-)

 The show had the photo she based the quilt on next to the quilt which was great.

of course, my favorite was the dog :-)

cvqgvt show - the bee quilt

From the Champlain Valley quilters guild show

First I apologize for not getting the name of the artist of this wonderful quilt. I usually take a photo of the tag that goes with the quilt. I was so blown away with the quilt, I forgot.

So I see this couple oohing and aahing over this quilt and when I get closer I say - oh cool! Look at the quilting - bees on a honeycomb. The couple says you should see the front - the front! You mean this is the back!

 

Hexie lovers - eat your heart out!

 

This is one awesome quilt

 

Learn to fly

Been doing some experimenting

Remember last week I was trying to figure out what to do with this stuff?

Dragonfly wings!

 

Or a moon!

I've found that it takes a fusible well, just need to touch lightly with the iron before it melts.

It does not take paint but does quilt nicely.

 

Also from last week was the mauling and shredding of my raw edges using fusible.

This one is with the 805

This one with the heat and bond

Seems the heat and bond has less shredding, since it has more glue - that would make sense.

I also tried using a thin craft felt that was given to me that is Christmas green that I will never use as felt but thought I would try it as a batting on the little learn to fly piece. I'm thinking postcards - they say to use a heavy interfacing and I used a double layer of the craft felt instead. It seemed to work pretty well. Learn to fly is going to be a mug rug but will try a postcard next. I have a lifetime supply of this thin Christmas felt and this may be just the way to use it the best.

Just have the binding to do on this one and have a larger version on the sweet 16.

I can't decide what to call this pattern - hole in a tree is boring - hide-y hole? Tree house?

Any suggestions?

I am stumped - ha! Ha! (Bad pun, I know)

I am linking up with off the wall Fridays - see button on the side.

 

Hole in a tree - mystery fabric

 

Mouse in a tree is done, just to sew the binding down. I lightened the background tree with a fabric crayon as they seemed to dark and chopped up some yarn fibers and quilted them down to look like leaves.

Since I'm eventually making this into a digital pattern for sale, it's small - 8.5 x 11

The next one will be enlarged to see how that works.

 

Here's another in the works - how can I go wrong with those to die for fabrics!

 

Speaking of fabric, the lovely Lauren gave me more fabric last week and there are some weird shiny polyester plasticky stuff that is interesting.

I need to experiment on it to see how it takes quilting, paint ect. I doubt paint will absorb at all.

What would you do with something like this? It's sort of mirror - like.

Hmmmmmmmmmm

And last but not least I finished quilting this ski scene with a purple sky

This pattern is already made and for sale on craftsy already. I have a request by someone for it.

 

When I quilt raw edge appliqué on the sweet sixteen, the needle is shattering the edge of the fabric.

Some possible fixes?

See if they have a thinner needle but then I don't want to change needles every time I switch from raw to non.

I use pellon 805 because it has less glue giving a better feel but maybe more fusible glue would hold it .

Any thoughts or suggestions ?

Thank you for your help!

Quilt On!

 

I do love to draw or sketch - I consider it yoga for the brain.

Artquiltmakers creative prompt was stow this week and here is my desk doodle

pardon the shadow where my hand and body was taking the photo - I thought the sky was a bit much

so grabbed my highlighter pens and it toned up the sky and down the swirlys.

I am really seriously considering doing the Life Book 2014

It isn't quilting or fabric but I think I would learn alot and have fun with it and the community of arty people I really think I would enjoy. It's $110 bucks but every week you get something - be it a video lesson or prompt or something. I do enjoy artquiltmaker's creative prompt - she does an awesome job of tirelessly researching the words and it is entirely free but not many people participate. I think it's because most of her followers are quilters and their creative juices flow elsewhere. 

I would love to hear from anyone who has done the life book or is thinking of doing it - 

the more the merrier!

A tree

I've been taking a lot of walks lately ( it's fall foliage peak here in Vermont and perfect weather)

I take a lot of pictures, anything that catches my eye and have been liking trees with those open holes.

 

Using the photo for inspiration, I started laying out fabrics

 

Adding some background trees

 

And quilting

I may try putting some leaves on the ground or even doing a series of these - different seasons, different creatures in the hole - so many possibilities.

What would you do next?

I just have to share some photos from last week, it's so pretty here right now.

 

This tree is in my backyard

 

My favorite dog walking spot

 

I love it when the leaves crunch under my feet. I'm enjoying it as much as I can because I know that soon it will be snow and ice crunching under my feet.

Where do you get your inspiration?