I don't know why I didn't post this lovely set of placemats I made for a friend who has just refinished his kitchen and dining room with lots of nice, new furniture and cabinets. He's a tiki collector, so these tiki placemats with "pimento" accents are hopefully a nice addition to his dining room!
There's a reason I haven't posted my new Technique of the Week yet, so please bear with me, it will be up soon!
One of the most searched terms that gets folks to my website are "zombie quilt". It seems like forever ago that I started sketching cute, adorable, brain-eating zombies for my quilt designs. I ended up making screens for fabric printing of these 5 designs, because, these were weekly quilts for October 2009 (and that month had 5 weeks in it).
I screened the zombies in black and then went back in with fabric paints and painted them. I really enjoyed making the designs, and I think the sickly green bindings (which are fused on) really sets them off. As these are screen prints, I can screen more and make these as commissions if you would like one. They are 5 x 8 inches, message me for pricing.
This is a catch up post that will fill in some of the blanks with not only what the heck I am doing in between these weekly quilts, but also as a catch up for the end of last year when I was not posting as much. I had lots to say, just no time to say it!
These lovelies are my "keys and keyhole" weekly quilts from September 2009. I bought some neat keys and keyholes from the Tim Holtz collection in a scrapbooking store.
I'm always looking for bits and bobs to attach and embellish my quilts with. In addition, one of the quilters in my quilt guild brought in bags of old lace she no longer wanted. It was full of handmade doilies, trims, and other goodies, and I was the happy recipient of some of the bags. I used some of the lace trim to embellish what would be an industrial piece and I think it sets them off nicely.
My quilt, Road to Home, was accepted to the AQS Knoxville show in July! I'm very excited about this, it's my first AQS show! DH and I are planning to try to go for one day of the show, but it's mighty long drive to see it.
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Something really cool is happening right this moment that I can't tell you about yet, but I'm super excited about it. More will come about this later, for sure.
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Yup, that's a dove in that hanging basket outside, and I have named her Ethel.
DH doesn't like the old-timey names I give the animals outside, like George and Gracie, our mated duck pair that waddle by the windows every morning.
Here is Ethel's nest... so cute!
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Ever notice that polka dot fabric never seems to be "just right"? I've been on a recent polka dot search, and either the dots are too big, too small, one color, multi colors in colors you don't want, or (the worst) the dots are spaced too far apart.
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As you may know I'm president of the local quilt guild, and those of us on the board are making signature blocks to exchange to commemorate the year. It's a fun thing I did while president of the Baltimore Heritage Guild and I think we'll enjoy making a little quilt out of our cute blocks.
Project hours: 2 hours
Design and materials: 1 hours
Execution: 1 hours
I learned about this awesome technique many moons ago on Jane Dunnewold's website. She has a great tutorial here about the art of Notan, or light and dark design principles usually demostrated with papercutting. This isn't about Scherenschnitte, German scissor cutting, though they can be similar. The voids you leave in the paper, flipped outwards are an extension of the design in this technique. Be sure to check out Jane's website for more info than I could possibly explain here.
Papercutting is a great design source for quilting, and I was stumped at first to come up with a design that I wanted to actually cut from fabric. This is one instance where my "Year of the Cephalopod" comes in handy, it's an easy design resource. I was able to make this octopus design quickly, and I was happy with the results. Most Notan is done in black and white for easy contrast, but to take the technique one step further I decided to use grey and pink.
Sorry it's not quilted yet, it's been a hectic week!
I realized I had never posted this lil quilt, made for a guy that works for/with me in the comic book biz. He was in a very serious car accident and sometimes when that happens, you feel like you have to put your sad/worried/upset energy into something productive. Like the Katrina quilts, or the 9-11 tragedy quilts, people just sometimes have to express how they feel or want to do something to help.
This lap quilt was quickly pieced over the holidays and then quilted in January for delivery when I went back to Baltimore in February. I was snowed into my hotel for 3 of the office day of a week long visit, and on the last day of the trip got to hand it to him in person. It was a good feeling to do something comforting for someone. Luckily my guy is doing great!
I sure hope he likes Spider-Man... I never really asked, but since we work for the comic book world I thought it was appropriate. I never got to take this quilt to guild to show them that I do work on quilts larger than 8 inches square!
I haven't dropped off the planet... yet.
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I was putting in my garden the last 2 weeks, which is right outside my office window and an important thing for me this year. It's all done now and I'm super pleased. It makes sitting in the room I work in all day much nicer. It's got a number of important flowers to me: Lilac, from my childhood; Azaleas, from living in Baltimore; Yellow Roses, my favorite; Peonies, my all time favorite flowers and also from my childhood; and Lavender, just for the smell. Next year I will put in the rudibeckia (black eyed susan) from seeds we got in Alaska.
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I got a cute hanging basket with a fuschia plant in it, and a dove has taken to making a nest in it. I hope I can get a good photo soon. Not sure if they will abandon the nest, but we don't plan to touch it except to water the plant.
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I have 4 bushes to dig up, and to cut around 3 trees in my yard before the "yardwork" is complete for the year. Ugh.
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My friend Rita Board Dowd passed away a year ago yesterday. Rita was such a fun person to be around. I don't remember her ever being angry or sad, just always happy. She had such a broad range of interests, and was a spectacular teacher. She always had some dating adventure she was on with this guy or that guy, which my husband teased he about to no end. We were in a book club together (her book was Ishmael) , went on a couple of road trips together (F&^%-ing OHIO!), and when DH was in Chicago and I was left behind selling our house, she invited me to go out a couple of times, which meant a lot. I'm sure she would be so proud of her son and family. R.I.P. Rita!
Project hours: 2 hours
Design and materials: 1 hours
Execution: 1 hours
MistyFuse is a paperless fusible web that comes in white, black, and ultraviolet. Iris, the wonderful woman at MistyFuse, had some that wasn't black enough, but was perfect for what I want it for, so I bought a whole bolt.
The pear is layers of MistyFuse to create the "drawing" of the fruit. No tulle is used. How I did this was to draw out a design onto paper, including marking where I wanted the shading of the layers to lay. I laid a small piece of MistyFuse down over the drawing, and holding the MistyFuse with one hand, I snipped away the excess with the other. I did this for each layer, and fused it down with my Goddess pressing sheet as I cut them. It was really neat to see the design take shape. More complicated designs would take longer, but I can see using this for shading still lifes, people, and much more. I especially like how it looks hand drawn.
Project hours: 5 hours
Design and materials: 3 hours
Execution: 2 hours
Some projects are better than others, and the same goes for techniques. I had this iron-on interfacing that you fuse your specially chosen watercolor charm squares down onto, and then you just "fold and sew" along the lines to make this easy to do watercolor effect. The hardest part was picking out the fabrics, and I had a box of old Keepsake Quilting swatches that I used for this purpose. The squares were one and a half inches to start, but because of how I spaced them on the interfacing I got more or less mileage, depending.
The down side was that this interfacing is so bulky at the seams when you are finished, that I really didn't want to go further and quilt it. I know this is a "needlebreaker". It's so thick at the seams in the intersections I don't know how I will avoid them. I ironed on my tentacles to act as my silhouetted "gate", as I knew I didn't want to do a traditional gate. This wasn't hard to do, but having done it, I don't think I will want to revisit it.
I don't know why I didn't post this lovely set of placemats I made for a friend who has just refinished his kitchen and dining room with lots of nice, new furniture and cabinets. He's a tiki collector, so these tiki placemats with "pimento" accents are hopefully a nice addition to his dining room!
