How to make a fabric ornament

 These folded fabric ornaments are really quite easy and your friends will think you slaved for hours to make them. ( shhhh .... we won’t tell anyone)

 Take two fabrics that go together, place them right sides together and after drawing a circle using a bowl or plate ( this one is 7 or 8 inches) cut out the circle.

With right sides together sew around the edge of the circle leaving a couple inches for turning

 Turn inside out, press and topstitch along the edge being careful to fold in the opening so the topstitching goes over it.

 Fold the circle in half and find the center.

 With needle and thread sew the middle of the circle right at the top by just going in and out with your needle 3 or 4 time.

 Bring the center of the other side in and tack that down the same way. Then the opposite side from that - do the same. 

 Sew a few stitches on the side to end the thread work and cut the thread off.

 You end up with this. Now you just fold down those corners trying to make them look the same.

It helps to look at the back and try to get all 4 corners with the same amount of  overlap.

 Now sew on a bauble of some kind in the middle and a hanging string.

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

natures shades of gray

sorry about the strange format here but for some

reason the right side and top of what I write 

is not showing up so I have to get it all on one side

and lower. 

(If anyone knows how to fix this issue -

 please let me know) this just started .
I am using blogge- anyway, on to 

Natures Shades of Gray

 Welcome to the art to fabric blog hop where we pick an artist

 and use them as inspiration for a quilt.

This time the theme is my favorite color which

 at the moment is grey. 

The artist I chose is one of my all time favorites -

 Andy Goldsworthy. He goes out in nature and makes art from it.

 He uses stones, sticks. leaves among other things and does

 truly incredible art with them.

check out some of his work here - you will be amazed.

 This is one of his pieces 

- he built a slate "canvas" and inserted rocks in a cairns formation 

(which if you know me at all you know I have a thing for them)

this is my fabric art version

and this is how I made it

after sketching out the plan

 the rocks were drawn in with pencil on white fabric

 then with black thread, I quilted

 and quilted

 and quilted some more. -

 it took a long time but micro quilting the background 

slate really made the rocks pop out. Worth the effort for sure.

Everything was shaded with ink-tense watercolor pencils

 and then trimmed and the edges were done with a facing.

 hand couching in some "moss"

 a pop of yellow (a bee button)

Last but not least, a background with some grey tones chosen 

and cut to the size of a blank art canvas. Then the wall is stitched

 by hand to the background and then that is stapled to the canvas.

I really love how this came out and want to thank Aida

for creating this challenge and blog hop and you for visiting. 

Check out the other quilt artists that are posting today and all week.

Monday, November 5th, 2018

• Heather: /http://www.heatherquilts.blogspot.com/
• Tami: /https://thriftshopcommando.blogspot.com/
• Moira: https://quiltedsnail.blogspot.com/
• Marian: http://www.seamstobesew.com 

Tuesday, November 6th, 2018

• Susan: /https://desertskyquilts.wordpress.com/
• Terry: http://www.terryaskeartquilts.com/
• Lee Anna: http://lapaylor.blogspot.com/ 

Wednesday, November 7th, 2018

• Janeen: http://quiltartdesigns.blogspot.com/
• Carol: http://www.quiltedfabricart.com
• Andrée: http://quiltinglearningcombo.blogspot.com

Thursday, November 8th, 2018

• Bea: http://www.beaquilter.com/
• Irene: http://Irene.grimes.wordpress.com
• Wendy: http://www.piecefulthoughts.com/
• Judith: http://www.frimart.ch/

Friday, November 9th, 2018

• Melva: https://melvalovesscraps.blogspot.com/
• Barb: http://www.bejeweledquilts.blogspot.com
• Anita:/http://quiltlovefordomesticfelicity.blogspot.com/
• Alida: http://tweloquilting.blogspot.com/http://tweloquilting.blogspot.com/

Sticks and stones

This is my first try at modern quilting. I like the straight lines I see in a lot of modern quilts and watched a Craftsy class that showed how. It’s really quite freeing and fun.  Something about slicing thru fabric with no ruler at random feels really good. I added the rock stacks because , well I like them.

This will be a curtain covering the window in my front door that is old and has no insulation. 

I ran out of batting and used flannel which was a mistake because it s heavily quilted and you can’t really see all that work but live and learn. And I got in some good practice.