Lake Sacandaga quilt finish / building a barn

Finished the Lake quilt and someone wanted me to make a quilt of lake Sacandaga in the Adirondacks. When I googled it to see some images, I see it is just like the lake I am making! She loves it and is buying it so that worked out nicely. She also wants a barn quilt and so I went looking for public domain barn images.

 

This really appeals to me, so I printed in black and white, enlarged 200%, traced the outlines with a sharpie and used that as a pattern.

 

I didn't have any barn red fabric big enough but did have some Christmas fabric that had gold dots but the back is plain Christmas red. Aha! I can work with this! Mixed up some acrylic paint with water and slapped it on with a big ol' paintbrush after wetting and twisting the fabric. Most of the paint just absorbed and I had to do this a couple of times adjusting and adding more paint but finally came up with this. Still red but not so in your face Christmas red. It is a red barn after all.

 

So then referring to my master sharpie drawn pattern, I used my trusty chalk pencil (Fons and porter make a good one that is just like a pen) and drew out the wood plank lines on the barn wall. Thought it would be easier to quilt this before adding the windows. But did have to make where the windows and door go.

 

Sorta looks like the side of a barn.

 

Adding the fusible parts leaving the windowpane and door hinges for later.

 

 

Now I'm quilting the stone wall. Started with a dark grey but it didn't show up. You can see the difference between that and the black. Much better.

This "barn raising" is fun since I'm making things up as I go along.

Thanks for stopping by

Rest in Peace Pete Seeger

You had a hell of a ride ;-)

 

 

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Sochi squirrel

 

 

ALVIN!!!

I finished and posted this cute squirrel on a snowboard pattern and tutorial for sale on craftsy.

Go here if you're interested in a PDF download - $5.00

I know you want to make one :-)

It also includes an owl - has detailed tutorial with 20 plus photos so a beginner can easily do this. You will need to free motion quilt so would have to know how to do that but also good for a beginner FMQ.

 

With that done - on to my Lake George landscape

This past fall I stopped at Sheppard park in lake George village and took this photo.

Rough sketch on paper

 

After tracing onto freezer paper reversed and folding under top edges and layering background. I decided to use the method I did with the Sochi squirrel and quilt the background first.

 

I wasn't paying attention - bummer, grab the ripper

 

Now adding the dock and fusible boat tying poles.

 

I know I want a girl and her dog, but not sure if I want to stop there or add trees or something in the foreground like rocks or bushes or ?

What would you do next?

 

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Cloying

I still follow Artquiltmaker (Jaye) 's Creative Prompt Project every week although lately I haven't done many or drawn much. This week she gave a work I had never heard before - cloying. It means sort of sugary sickeningly sweet usually in reference to literature. I guess I would use the work sappy.

But anyway, this is the quick little drawing I made prompted by the word cloying and I kinda like it. Check out the wood wall - FMQ design???

Theo's quilt

I'm finally happy with Theo's quilt that I posted about last week. I'll show you how I got from eh to ooooh!

Not thrilled about how the colors play together but it's pieced so no going back.

 

So I added big hearts and his name using a buttery soft suede and quilted the heck out it and washed it so it got all crinkly, soft and snugly. But the suede got all puffy.

 

So back for more quilting - I love my sweet 16, it makes quilting a joy :-)

 

Hurrah! Now I like it and will be proud to give it to Theo's mom. It's 36" x 48" bigger than a baby quilt so I'll tell her to put it away till he gets bigger.

 

 

With all this non art quilting, I needed my art fix so I went looking on the web and came across the work of Marie Bergsted

Look at all those buttons! Pretty cool, huh?

Would you ever try something like this?

 

 

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Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I had a great idea for a squirrel snowboarding down an ice covered tree branch. Made a nice winter mountain landscape background.

But lost my head when it came to the squirrel.

 

I think it's the variegated thread I used. It looked light brown but came out dark and just looks wierd.

And I am not picking it out, it's fusible and fusible doesn't pick. Done. Move on.

It is now a placemat.

So today I worked on putting together a disapearing nine patch baby quilt - more like the disappointing nine patch. The mother is a fire / rescue person so I found this flannel having to do with fire department stuff. Then pulled the colors from it, red, orange, green etc.

I do not like this either - it's to jumbled, busy, I don't know.

Crap!

I will save it.

Any suggestions?

My one saving grace from this week is

Alvin!!!!!

Him I like :-)

 

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When to call it done?

Spring is my dog Summer's sister. She was just adopted my a woman that lives not far from me and of course I wanted to try a quilt of this beautiful girl. I'm not thrilled about how it came out but I am learning that when it comes to painting on fabric, it's really hard to tell when to quit.

I'm using the Lorna Jenkins method as in previous posts. Basic lines traced with sharpie.

 

After quilting the background went straight to the paint this time. This is where I probablly should have stopped, just finished the eyes.

But no! I wanted to try that beautiful longish hair on her ears area. So I drew in some hair and painted in that area with a golden color. Of course it looked wierd just on the ears so I added the gold here and there.

I decided to call her done at this point and added the textile medium over everything. To me the gold made the rest of her look pink. I don't know if I can paint over the textile medium or not to add more to cover the pink, but then I might screw up the shading which is pretty good at this point. I don't know, maybe I'm to critical - after all it's fabric art, not photography.

What do you think?

Done ........ Or keep going

:-)

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