FMQ practice and landscape WIP

 

Practice on a mug rug - I think I like the back better than the front. Quilting got lost in the brown print.

 

Landscape ready to quilt

 

Loosely based on this pic of camels hump ( the mountain in the distance)

I haven't got anything finished

 

Because I've been playing in this!

We finally got some snow - all at once.

It is simply magical.

One more day before we go back to the 40's and it all melts so I'm off with the dogs for a romp.

 

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Goodnight psychedelic moon

While I do like how this landscape came out, I had a heck of a time trying to get the color of the moon right.

Lower left is what I started out with but decided it was to light. Adding some violet brought me to lower right. In retrospect I should have left it at that but no! More is more so added some more reddish purple and some white to blend to get to middle right. Didn't like that so how about some yellow for a glow? Then ended up adding some more of all the colors and blended them together and called it done.

I like how the variegated green thread looks for grass and plants.

I wish I lived in a place where I could sit naked and gaze at a psychedelic moon :-)

 

 

 

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Late Afternoon Sun Lake Champlain

There is a blog hop this week at tweety loves quilting called Art with Fabric and since that is what I do, of course I wanted in. She asks we pick a favorite "traditional artist" 

(by "traditional" I mean anything that a non-quilter will label as art, like paintings, drawings, sculptures, architecture from all countries and all time periods) and make an art quilt inspired by that artist.

My all time favorite landscape artist is Lawren Harris of the Canadian group of Seven - his use of light and shadow is a beautiful thing to behold. He also does landscapes of woods and lakes which are both near and dear to my heart. 

This is the inspiration photo called Afternoon Sun, North Shore Lake Superior.

It was pained in 1924.

And this is mine called Late Afternoon Sun, Lake Champlain South End.

In the master's piece I am drawn to the way he has the light coming in from left and illuminating

the rocks and other elements.

 I had a hell of a time trying to get the light right. I used fabric paint and you can see above, first it was to light, then I added more, then more, then some purple, then more white. With paint I like to go gradual because you really can't erase it.

My first instinct was to have the light continue over the mountains on the left side like a wash but luckily didn't get to far before I realized it didn't look right. Then looking at Lawren's (yes, we are on a first name basis now) painting, his light on the islands and land masses is on the right. Sort of a reflection of sorts. I used to much paint and inktense pencil's on the land masses on the right because it started to get all bubbly but I was able to iron it out. Thread painting trees on them also helped.

I do love how these dead trees came out. What a difference just a little bit of shading with my beloved Inktense pencils makes!

check out the other art quilters today that are participating in the blog hop

Friday, May 13th, 2016

• Jennifer (http://www.inquiringquilter.com)
• Nina-Marie (http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/)
• Joan (http://www.moosestashquilting.blogspot.com/)

Growth

Words to live by

This little art quilt is only 8"X11" so the words are written in with a marker but I would like to try a bigger one and try to FMQ in the words. That would be cool.

 

Even with the marker I made a mistake by first putting a line at the top of the T , then putting a line in the middle also. Since the writing was the last thing I do, I either have to live with it or chuck the whole thing. I decided to first out white paint and then shade that as much as I could with Inktense pencil.

I still see it and now so do you since I pointed it out but it's ok. I wouldn't sell this because of it but will look fine in my office at work.

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Late September update

 

The weather around here has been so nice, I haven't gotten a lot of quilting done but here it is

So last weeks post I was trying to decide if I should add something on the left side of this mountain landscape. Ended up putting on rock of a different fabric and it works so that is finished.

And I'm starting another for a local woman who contacted me thru etsy. She wants a quilt of her friends new house. I decided to quilt the background first because there will be two porches and little fiddly bits on the house so the background is better quilted without having to skip over stuff.

 

This is where the house will be.

 

And look what the mailman brought me today!

My favorite Isacord thread - the big ones - yippee!

I spent my day off yesterday hiking in a beautiful wilderness area with a friend and 5 dogs.

So much fun! My favorite thing to do and it was sunny and 70 - perfection.

 

Here is the lovely Summer

Hope you all had a good week and can get out to enjoy the cooler temps :-)

 

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Flying over mountains last week

 

I haven't paper pieced in years and now I remember why. I wanted to participate in a swap type thing on Facebook so decided to give it a try.

This is my first attempt - see the propellers are to small and I had to add some chunks to fill in on the right. Then when I measured it was 1/2" to small :-/ but I did it again using huge chunks of fabric and cutting it down as I went and it came out ok. Not my forte but I'm glad I conquered the challenge.

 

Now on to the fun stuff! Back to my roots with a mountain landscape.

Should I put rocks on the left! Does it look unbalanced to you?

I started this last week and am finished except that last adding rocks part, if you think I need it.

Enjoyed making that one so much I started another. These are easy to do and enables me to play with my stash which is my favorite thing to do:-)

We are having a stretch of ridiculously gorgous sunny, low 80's, low humidity weather right now so I'm off for a hike and a swim -

Have a great week and get outside!

 

 

 

 

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Stream / lake Champlain

All UFO's needed to be finished this week so I valued bring as many items to the fair to sell.

 

More paint was added to the stream and then quilted with white thread in the white parts of the water. It's about 11" square so I mounted on a painted 12" canvas.

Doesn't the sound of water soothe your soul? It does mine.

 

This has been in the drawer for over a year. It's very small and only had the lake but I added a cairn and once mounted on black canvas it really pops and shows off the beautiful colors. And added one of my favorite quotes by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Speaking of lake Champlain I am leaving today for a camping / family reunion on the lake at Ausable Point. My favorite place to go on the lake over on the New York side near Plattsburg and the weather is supposed to be sunny, high 70's low 80's. Can't get much better than that !

Have a wonderful week :-)

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Poseidons Sky

 

This FMQ design makes a great sky. It's basically Leah days posiendens eye design with some McTavishing thrown in. The swirls look better with the middle a closed circle, which is what you're supposed to do with posiedens eye (as in the swirl top left). As you can see my quilting on this one is far from perfect but it still works. This is very forgiving - who's to say which way the wind is blowing or how?

 

Try it on your next sky :-)

 

Linking up with Nina today

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Whales tails finish

Whales tails - 29"x20"

This quilt was started a month ago - go here to read how I started and why.

The fields came out nice with all the quilting for texture.

That's a little dog gazing up at the whales tails. The "tails" are in a field that is popular with dog walkers.

I am excited to be going to glens falls NY tommorrow for a quilt show and a visit with my mom, so stay tuned for pics of quilts from the show :-)

And as usual I'm linking up with Nina today ;-)

 

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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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