How I wish upon a starfish

Made with this easy pattern for immediate download here or here

The pattern as printed was enlarged 150% to finish at 11" by 14"

You can check out last weeks post to see the basic beach scene made which is the pattern and then you can embellish as much or as little as your heart desires. With this one I fused on a mermaid cut from a novelty fabric in my stash.

Added a starfish bead for gazing

 

A fabric " rock" and yarn fibers for grass

 

Some real shells from a beach vacation.

 

Sewn on using shank buttons and glue

 

And the grasses with embroidery floss I don't really like that much but they are staying.

Life is to short to spend time trying to get perfection.

Thank you for taking the time to look - have a great week!

 

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Easy beach vacation mini quilt

I wrote a pattern for this beach mini geared toward the beginner. It's on sale for download on Etsy here or Craftsy here. These little art quilts are simple and each one can be so different that I'm on my 4th one and still enjoying it. Every time I go to the beach I'm always picking up something - a shell, some driftwood and this is a way to use them.

 

Here I used jute twine to hang on the stick. Sort of looks like fishing rope but now that I've said that, why didn't I use rope? There's always next time ;-)

 

This is a night one - check out those cool beads! Those squished up things on the left is supposed to be sea grass but I squished them to much maybe? I also should have used a more solid grass like color.

Live and learn. I show how to make the sea grass in my pattern as well.

 

And an easy way to attach shells. (Thanks to an idea I saw on Cathy Perlmutter's blog) her blog is called Gefilte quilts and it is a favorite. She has an amazing sense of humor and has had me rolling a few times :-)

 

 

This one is WIP. Quilting is done and I couched on some yarn and crocheted it so some strands hang down like flowers or vines. I'm really liking this. Reminds me of my vacation in Maine last spring. There was a stone wall like that at my hotel next to the beach, so there I am all beautiful with flowing dress with the wind in my hair and a glow on my cheek. Of course in reality it was April and cold so it was more like sweatpants, jacket hat and gloves but this is my quilt, my fantasy. She was originally a fairy and I know this sounds like I am the evil wicked witch of fairyland, but I cut off her wings and now she is a mere mortal.

Any way go check out the pattern - it's only 6 bucks!

 

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Beach sand

 

I took this photo while walking on the beach at ausable point on lake Champlain a few weeks ago.

Love the colors and feel so had to try to make a quilt.

 

I sketched it out on the shiny side of freezer paper. Using a sketch and wash pencil. This kind of pencil can be used to draw on just about anything and sketching on the shiny side saved me a step of doing it on paper then tracing to the freezer paper.

 

 

Used the freezer paper as my pattern for applique pieces, clipping corners and folding under. That one piece was bigger than my fabric so had to piece it in two parts. I'm hoping it will blend in enough not to notice.

 

The pinkish piece above is #1 which is the water and I tried to break it up with some light blue tule. Not sure if I like it or not but worth a shot.

Since I wanted to add paint I wanted to sew together all the pieces before adding batting and back so sewed a straight line on the turned under edges. This was not the way to go. I should have used a buttonhole stitch or some sort of zig zag. If I were to do this again I would probablly try to piece it since the curves are not severe. It would look so much better. Note to self ;-)

 

Bouncing on some white paint with an old paint brush helps a lot. I like it. Also brushed on some sandy looking paint.

 

That's as far as I've gotten as of this morning so will hopefully show you the finish next week.

BTW - the road home row along starts this week. A whole bunch of bloggers are designing a quilt row each having something to do with where they live. There are people from all over the US and the world so should be interesting. There are also giveaways so check it out. It started this week and goes all month. I am participating and my day is Sept 29th.

 

 

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Keep it simple

I admire graphic artists.

They get a message across in the simplest most effective way. It's hard to do simple. It's human nature to keep wanting to add more and then more and when do you stop? It's the stopping I have trouble with.

I was wasting spending time researching graphic design on the Internet and came across this perfect example of how just a few lines and some color can be effective. You know this is a bike and it doesn't clog up your mind with lots of details. Which is why these type of designs are used for ads. You know it's a bike so if you are interested in anything related to bikes, you will stop to read the ad and having that unclogged mind will absorb the words on the ad and maybe go do what ever it is the ad is trying to get you to do.

Maybe that's the appeal of modern quilts. They are graphic and simple. Hmmmm.

Maybe I should revisit the whole modern quilting thing.

More mindless serious internet searching?

I'm leaving today for our the Hathaway annual gathering known as hagfest in beautiful ausable point NY.

We camp so can bring the dogs and it's right on the shore of lake Champlain.

 

I'm bring these little beach scenes to bind and add lots of embellishments because we all know I just can't keep it simple :-)

Have a great week end!

 

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Beach photos

Not much quilting done this week as I just got back from a glorious vacation in Old Orchard beach Maine.

The season doesn't start for a few months so the place is deserted - 7 miles of sandy beach all to my self!

 

It was alittle cold but worth wearing a jacket to see this

 

And this

 

I was out at sunrise every morning to see this

 

My dogs loved it too

 

We walked and walked and walked some more

 

I did bring stuff to create some fabric art though. Here's my "hotel studio"

More on that next week

 

I need to rest right now

 

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Just another day at the beach

 

Finished my second beach scene. Each time I see something I soil change if it wasn't fused and sewn down solid and since it is, it's staying put :-)

The sailboats are to dark for my liking. I think I used a purple but should have lighter. The rest I love. Especially the sky. Letting the fabric do the hard work again ;-)

 

These thin grasses frayed while quilting but I just went over them with a lot of thread. Again I learned that this might be better with a darker thread. Next time doing that. Being to lazy to change my thread for the fence posts, I see I will need to color over it with a dark marker. And that's ok, it will work.

 

 

I hope you all are having a Happy Christmas if you celebrate and if you don't - Happy Friday! I hope you have day off and do something special. For those of you that are on Twitter or Instagram some of us who quilt and tweet will be sewing and sharing tomorrow on Boxing Day with #BDSI

Join us - sort of like a virtual quilting bee.

 

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