Off the edge quilting - purple

Here is my off the edge quilting piece for this months so scrappy 2015 challenge.

It started out with the off white 6" square piece of decorator fabric laid on plain white.

Using a pencil and then dark thread, the motifs are drawn out onto the white and expanded.

Background is free motion quilted white on white in a meander design.

Lastly the motifs are colored in using watercolor pencils and fabric paint. Some beads are added to the dragonfly. I think I may add even more. Dragonflies should have lots of bling - don't cha think?

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Lutradur

My friend Glen in Louisianna sent me this video about Lutradur and since. Don't know anything about using it, found the video excellent help. I've heard a lot of people talk about using and loving lutradur so since I have a big stash of it I thought I would dive in. For some reason the video doubled so I apologize for the double - they are both the same and for some reason bloggy won't let me get rid of one so I'm just leaving them both. You should watch one though, very informative and inspirational if you ever have thoughts of trying lutradur.

 

I traced a bird in pencil then went over the pencil with black free motion quilting.

After watching the video and as I went on I learned that I should have painted the background first.

Played with some inktense pencils - they worked pretty well

 

This little guy needed a place to sit so looking at this photo I took last week for guidance I drew in a birch branch or log. First drawing in pencil. I used white paint to color in the log and the chest of the bird. Then used a black sharpie for the log accents.

Paint works really well on this stuff. Since I didn't paint the background first I had to use markers to do the background next to the bird since I thought the paint might run into the bird parts. The paint markers worked but since there is rubbing involved some of the fibers came undone alittle. Not to bad, sort of like shedding but I quickly moved back to the paints for the background.

Last but not least I used a lighter and carefully burned the edges. Gives it a rustic look.

It was then put on black felt and quilted. It feels like it needs more thickness or cushioning as the quilting didn't give much texture. But now what to do with it? Do I stretch it on a canvas! Face it! Bind it? Glue it on a board? Frame it?

I'm linking up with Nina's off the wall snd am hoping to get feedback from those that have used lutradur. Would you suggest using batting under the felt? My felt maybe to thin to get good texture - it ended up being flat and boring. Any tips or tricks?

I see a lot of possibilities here :-)

How have you used lutradur ?

 

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WIP 4/17

I've been making a lot of mini quilts with cairnes from the pattern I put together

(For sale on Craftsy here in case anyone is interested) and I've found that once the rocks are fused into one piece I can audition different backgrounds and what a difference a background makes!

Both of the above are the same cairn just different backgrounds!

I'm also experimenting with something new. I work in a hotel and they take the stuff off the bottom of the new beds box springs off. It's clean and like new! They were going to throw it out but I felt it and it looks a lot like the lutradur that a lot of artists use. So I put 2 pieces together to see how it stitches just by itself. Traced a bird and stitched with dark thread - seemed to work nicely. I then colored with inktense pencils and wet with hair gel.

Hard to tell from this pic but I out up to a window and you can see thru the non painted parts - cool!

I have much more to try with this stuff and will keep you posted.

I also started a new off the edge quilt. Here is the outline done. Need to do an all over quilting in white and then color in. I will trrrrrrrrryyyyyy to leave it fainter on the colors this time.

Spring has finally sprung here in Vermont so we are enjoying being able to go out without bundling up.

 

Happy tails!

Linking up at Nina's off the wall Friday

 

 

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Vermont landscape

 

Last week I asked for help in fixing this landscape. The sky is great but the bottom area is boring.

So with the help of some excellent suggestions, I ended up with this.

Gotta put cows in a Vermont landscape, right?

The shack was already fused and sewn so I couldn't put any foliage in the back of it but I do think adding these sparks of interest and lightening up the windows helps.

 

I'm calling it done and moving on at any rate.

 

I participated in a spring mug rug swap and received this wonderful piece of mug rug art from Diane. This is the back! See how she hand stitched my name, her name, her twitter handle (we are twitter buds) and the date. There are also hand stitched details all around it.

I love hexies but never took the time to learn or do them and so I do so love this mug rug.

Here it is in action on my desk at work :-)

 

The other thing I finished this week is a small rock cairn piece mounted on canvas.

You know I love my cairnes

:-)

I'm linking up to Nina's off the wall blog - check out all the art quilt bloggers there every Friday

 

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WIP

 

I've been working on this one off and on for months. One of those that sit on the design wall that need something and you hope it comes to you. I added the building and those big yarn chunks at the bottom hoping to look like bushes or trees. It still lacks something though. I guess it needs a good focal point which I had hoped the house would do but it's kind boring.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to WOW! This baby up a bit?

 

My Vermont landscape from last week is in the binding stage - love those clover clips!

 

And I'm working on making a pattern for a simple easy fusible rock cairns that can be done in any colorway as long as you stick to the values suggested. As you can see my template doesn't exactly match the placement guide for some reason so now I have to redo the templates. For me this would be good enough as I would just cut out a extra chunk and fill it in but if I put out a pattern I want it to line up with perfection. So back to the drawing board with this one :-/

It's supposed to be 60 degrees here today! Time to break out the shorts and put away the coats?

Well maybe for one day - snow in the forecast for Saturday :-S

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