LOG CABIN COWS

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015!

A lovely holiday season with such good memories:

• our daughter married in Seattle...our new son-in-law to love...
• having Christmas with our son from San Diego and the almost-newlyweds...
• celebration times with family!

Market Bags made from my otherwise discarded rice bags

 

Concluding 2014...

These bags are too lovely to throw!

I participated in a Holiday Art Faire in another artist's home at the beginning of December and I made some money (so I can resupply!). I found customers and other artists at the Faire most interested in: 3-dimensional houses, market bags, holiday-themed coasters, wall decor, homemade ornaments, a prize-winning red and white tablerunner, and machine-embroidered hand towels.

After the Faire, I've continued English paper-piecing hexagons and other shapes (an easy activity to travel with and I find hand-sewing calming).

One of my current goals in the next few months is to bring some quilts to completion. I added another border to my heart quilt and would like to quilt it on a longarm machine if I can find one to use. I have at least 3 other quilts of various sizes to complete.

Log Cabin Cows

My neighbor, knowing that I like to quilt, offered me some of her fabric scraps a few years ago. Some are probably about 30 years old because they are obviously children's prints from years gone by. The motifs of a few of the fabrics inspired me to combine them. I fussy cut the farm animals, in this case, cows, featured in the center of the log cabin block (surrounding fabrics: red with tiny white dots, black with white "cow" spots), each one being a little wonky at 1.75"x 1.75" (more or less):

Log Cabin block with fussy-cut wonky cow centers measuring about 10" finished

When I put all the blocks together, I have fun combinations like these:

I've run out of the feature fabric in the center, so I had to "cheat" or improvise on 2 blocks by using a plain blue square of fabric in the center so I would have an even twelve 10" blocks. I think they're cute and I love the many patterns log cabin blocks can make. These are not quilt-quality fabrics, but they'll have to do. I'm a bit worried about the red fabric running in the wash someday. I might presoak the blocks in vinegar to set the colors.

Happy creating!

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Three Dimensional Art Quilts

I enjoy looking at quilt magazines. I purchase older issues (from the year 2000 and above, because they're cheaper!) when I can find them. I especially enjoy the Quilting Arts Magazine.

In the December 2013/January 2014 issue, I found "fabric houses with an art-quilt flare" by Jacqueline deRuyter that I knew I'd enjoy making sometime in the future. For the last two weeks, I've been making progress:

I like the little random thread ends "flying" at the peak of the roofs.

Whimsical and perfect for winter

                  

These are constructed with layers of fabric scraps that I've been saving, including ones that measure barely an 1/8"! They are placed on a panel of firm stabilizer (I used Peltex 71X by Pellon) and quitled well with an Aurofil cotton thread. I used Rit dye for the first 2 darker houses per her suggestion. I suppose this causes the melange of fabrics to share an overall color theme. I decided to skip the dying process on the next 2 houses, and changed the dimensions slightly on another to make it shorter and a bit wider. Once they were decorated with more bits of fabric scraps, beads, buttons and ribbons, I sewed their sides together and stuffed them with polyester, sewing the closing flap at the bottom with hand embroidery. As you can imagine, these can be further embellished in more or other ways: paints, stencils, inks, stamps, threads, yarn, etc.

Each measures about 2.5-3" wide, about 8-10" tall,.

They're fun! I hope to keep adding to this village and make them one feature at the Holiday Art Faire in December (see my previous post on November 14).

I'm also quilting and binding more table runners and trying to decide what to do with some blocks that haven't been assigned to anything yet. I may also complete a handbag or two before Dec. 5.

HAPPY CREATING!

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AN UPDATE FROM HOLIDAY ART FAIRE

I only had time to complete these 4 housese shown before the Faire. I am thrilled that all 4 sold! I look forward to making more cuz I JUST LIKE THEM :) All 5 of my market bags sold, as well as some of my homespun tree ornaments. Holiday themed coasters were winners. A woman purchased my County Fair 1st place winning table runner and told me it would immediately replace the Christmas runner on her table at home. Several other items sold as well. I am glad some of my creations found new homes. 

Portland Street Fair

I have been busy for the past few weeks preparing for a street fair in a major northwest city where I'll be selling some of my wares. I almost have my banner done:

I used fabric that I hand dyed in July for the background and dug out the red fabric from my stash. I'm getting excited!!

Here's one of the projects I'm still working on. I am auditioning fabrics for the binding:


A sampling of other items I've completed for the show:

A tablerunner

A tea cozy

Placemats

Stuffed carrots

An autumn tablerunner

...and much more!

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HALLOWEEN ALREADY??

TOO EARLY FOR HALLOWEEN??

I don’t think so, especially with a street fair coming up on September 6!! I’ve got oodles of items to make or complete. So far I’ve completed:

• 3 table runners
• 1 potholder
• 10 stuffed items for home décor
• 1 wall hanging (home décor)
• 1 apron
• 1 tea cozy
• 4 crocheted washcloths
• 2 gift bags
• 1 large lined & quilted shopping/marketbag
• 30 Fabric Gift-tags

I am currently working on a reversible Halloween table runner. I have a little more machine quilting to do with orange Floriani polyester thread. Then I'll make the binding. 

I have so many more items for that street fair in my head and covering my cutting mats!! When my husband walks into my "studio," he must wonder how I can stand the "mess," LOL :-)  Happy creating!

English Paper Piecing

Wait! Thanks to Audrey at Glory Be Quilter for the reminder that I did make my first English Paper-Pieced (EPP) block this past week:

Perhaps you know this already, but I'm partial to cute chickens, which are also featured in this fabric. The outer edges of this block are still unfinished because I haven't committed them to anything yet. 

Speaking of chickens...

I bought 3 new hens in April (pullets actually, which means they're at the pimply teenager stage). I'm proud to say that one of them is now laying cute little eggs everyday!! She's so proud :-)  I'll post photos of the bunch of 5 that I have now in the future for your enjoyment.

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A lucky find at local Quilt Show!

A friend asked me to volunteer for the set up of a local quilt show. I have to admit that I didn't really want to, but I showed up. Shame on me, cuz I made some good contacts in the quilting and art world! I look forward to developing these contacts and relationships in the future.

Local groups set up booths on the actual day of the event, including my Eugene Modern Quilt Guild. I stopped by the booth and found a baggie full of cut half-square triangles in 1930s types of fabrics for 25 cents!!! I snatched those up and have sewn them together, making them one of my most recent "works-in-progress":

A pile of lovelies!

Close up shot of the actual fabrics

I can't wait to play around with them some more to find out what they'll become! I know that there will probably be stars involved, and I believe it needs some red added to it, don't you think?

1st Place at the Local County Fair!

Unbelievable! I've never entered anything in the county fair in my life. I had a few items sitting around and thought, What the heck! Here's the winner in the "Quilted Tableware" Category:

   

Bright Reds & Whites

Friendship Star centers

Reversible back

Another New Project

I'm starting to make some cute aprons, and this is just the beginning:

I love the birdcage fabric. This will have 4 scalloped pockets when complete. (Pattern by Vanilla House Designs, "Pocket Aprons" #P115)

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Hand Dyeing, New Tablerunner, & Quilt Show

Hand Dyeing

I've wanted to dabble in hand dyeing for a long time. It looked like fun! So I took a class with Lynn Koolish last Friday at the Sisters, Oregon Quilt Show. I brought 6 yards of prepared-for-dyeing (PFD, as opposed to pdf!), which I also prewashed and dried. I cut this yardage into 1 yard or smaller quantities so that I ended up with at least 8 separate pieces to "play" with. At least 13 women in the class participated, sharing materials and having a great time. We experimented and learned from one another. Here's a sampling of what I created:

Blue: folded and placed in 2 cup plastic container with dye. This is probably my favorite because of the patterning and variation of color.

Grapes: I painted the grape motif with a corks that another woman had glued together in the shape of a bunch of grapes. I used a sponge brush to paint the leaves, and sprayed the background lightly with yellow.

Chartreuse Lattice: I sprayed the background lightly with yellow, squirted lines of orange (which bled), dotted purple with a squirt bottle, and drew the lattice with a sponge brush. 

Spaceships??: I used a natural sponge to "blop" with purple. I took my bottle cap to stamp the pink circles with my gloved hands, which resulted in "bunny ears". I added some blue with the natural sponge, then drew squares with a sponge brush in green.

Aqua Spirals: Aqua paint on natural sponge, painted with purple spirals.

American Flag??: I didn't mean to imitate the flag, but there you go! If I had turned it upside down, it would look different, right? This was the best technique, I think, though I do like what happened with the folded fabric. Created with a fabric-wrapped PVC pipe ("rag-roller") for the green. Red squirt-lines of paint in left corner were scraped with a plastic thing-y used for texturing walls or cakes. Used natural sponge to make light blots of red on the green.

Wild: Green rag-roller, red scraped with plastic texture tool as well as rectangle sponge blops, squirt bottle blue spirals & stars. Surely there's a use for it...somewhere....

Mop-Up Rag: Suggested by the instructor. I used it to clean up spills, dye that bled through to the plastic tablecloth below my projects, and to blot up areas of too much dye on other projects (note the spirals & stars).

Aqua: fabric was scrunched tightly into another plastic container of dye. The color is lovely, reminding me of a blue sky with some clouds (look closely). The patterning isn't quite as dramatic as the folded piece above.

*Just for fun, vote on which one of the above you like/prefer, if you were shopping for a hand-dye. These are amateur attempts. Use the title under the one(s) you like.

Have you done any hand-dyeing? Have you enjoyed the process? Share some of your creations!

My Creation: New Tablerunner

It's been a busy summer, including some stitching. I started this tablerunner at least 6 months ago. I really like the "hot" colors:

Close up view

The total view

Now I need to find the backing and binding fabric.

Quilt Show: Sisters, Oregon

I apologize to all the artists whose names I regretfully didn't take time to write down (or photograph) to give them rightful credit in the photos. Over 1500 quilts, of all sizes and types, were displayed outdoors & indoors throughout this small Old West town. These are a sampling of some of the ones that took my fancy. Enjoy their talents and inspiration!

View of quilts hanging on the side of Stitchin' Post Fabric Store.



          

     


     

   

     




    

     

     


          

     

If you know the names of the patterns of any of these quilts, please share them with me. I'll post more details later!

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