A Cottage Begins to Emerge

I have made it to the construction stage of my Irish Cottage quilt.

I wrote about the piece first on February 20. Before my last trip, I had a small sketch made from the photo. Now I have a full scale diagram on mylar and began by first adding a sky - I found the perfect fabric out in Spokane for that.

In the past day, I have begun to add in some of the landscaping and a bit of the cottage.

Hard to imagine the cottage just yet, but I suspect it will grow quickly in the next few days. I can't resist once I start. My next task is the roof!

More Blog Resources on the Web

 Here are a few more resources that I have noticed in the past few weeks that may be of interest:

Entering Shows - Elizabeth Barton had a great blog post on May 3 with thoughts on entering shows. She discusses both the value of shows and deciding which to enter.

Displaying a small project - J Bryant Campbell had a great post on April 26 on mounting a small fiber piece. It would work well for small art quilts. Her photos really help explain the process which she has used many times.

Three Techniques for Binding - Susan Knapp had a blog recently on finishing an art quilt with a non-mitered facing. She provided pdfs for the instructions as well as a mitered facing and a pillow case style.

Another building block

As I gradually learn about the embroidery software and attachments for my new machine, I am trying to find applications in my art pieces. It is easier for me to absorb new information if I have a purpose. I have been especially interested in quilting with my embroidery hoop. After all, why not?

In the past few days I have been playing with designing a quilt pattern for an art quilt and then actually doing it. I chose the star anise project I wrote about in my last post. I designed a six pointed bud and have actually created an arrangement of them that I expect to use to quilt the surface of my piece.

As  a test, I tried quilting a few of the buds to see how they will turn out. I wouldn't be able to use them as currently designed in other than an art quilt as the back of the quilt is messy. But, I like the way they stitch out. I am looking forward to working on the whole piece next week - when I have my next lesson.

Here is how they have turned out.

From Frustration to Satisfaction

Well, I have really been sewing up a storm this holiday season. One project that I worked on was re-creating the leaf drawing that I was so frustrated with earlier in the month.

While in Hawaii, I found some additional fabric at one of my favorite stores, Sew Special in Maui, to try in my background. Both the sky and the 'hilly' section are the new fabrics.  In my new version, I decided to not outline the leaves but simply use Mistyfuse to bond them to a background. That worked very successfully. I then did some decorative stitching on the leaves, using my batting and fabric for the back of the piece as support. You can see that I am going for a much lighter, breezier effect this time, which I think works quite well.

My next phase was the quilting. I decided to treat my quilting lines as wind currents. The grain in the hilly fabric actually accentuates this effect. Before quilting, I actually sketched the direction of the wind through the leaves on a piece of tracing paper set on top of the fabric.

I quilted some of lines through the tracing paper  and then filled in more of the quilting. But, I didn't like my lighter quilting thread against the darker trees.

So, I decided to play with the Inktense Pencils that I just got in the mail. These watersoluble ink pencils blur when water is added and fix permanently to the fabric. What I found actually worked quite well for this purpose was to wet the pencil tip and dampen the fabric. I could then easily color in the quilt thread where it crossed the trees. I am quite satisfied with the effect.

 The result of all this pleases quite a bit. A few more touches and I shall be done with this piece.

Learning from Frustration

I feel like I can't sew anymore. 

 Have you ever been there? Well, that is what I thought as I looked at how my Leaf piece was progressing. It was an experimental piece - I was trying some new materials and methods - but, really, I thought it could would be somewhat respectable.

Wrong. Frustration, frustration, frustration.

I have been blogging about this project for a few weeks.

I used a photo of mine to create a sketch.


 That worked well.







Next I gathered fabrics and created the background.

The background is pieced - I did that successfully, I admit. Unfortunately, from a color perspective, I knew the yellow was going to create problems when I added individual leaves, but I thought I could get around that.

Technically, my next step was to shape the trees a bit more and then fuse them to the background. I was using Mistyfuse for this and when I did fuse them (after this photo) it worked well. I also stitched lightly around the edges of the trees with no problem.

Then I began to play with the leaves. I cut them out, with Mistyfuse on the back of each leaf and laid them out on the background.

You can see in this photo that I was appreciating and experimenting with how to address the issue of the less-than-ideal color of the background as I played with arranging my leaves. Note that the applique of the 'slenderized' trees to the background really looks okay.

So, my next step was to applique the leaves to the background. I should mention that I had fused some Pellon to the back of the entire pieced background. I have done this applique process many times before successfully. Not this time!

Yuk!!!! This is what it looked like after I have done the upper portion of leaves.







Here are three major problems as I see it:

1. The worst is that the background did not provide satisfactory stability. I had thought I was using a fairly heavy weight Pellon that I have used before. Now I am thinking it was a lighter weight then what I have used in the past and I was out of my heavier Pellon.
2. Also annoying is that you can see towards the bottom of the photo that the Pellon I had fused to the back began to give way and I wound up with a pucker in the background that wasn't there before! I suspect the problem here is because I really steamed the piece trying to smooth out the thickly appliqued leaves and this destroyed the pellon bonding.
3. When I steamed the whole mess, the seam line of the background piecing shows through on the leaves.

I guess if you are going to make a mess of something, why not do a stellar job of it!

I welcome feedback on what went wrong. Granted that this would not have been the greatest of art works if it had been successfully sewn but it would have been nice if I could have created a technically proficient piece. 

What am I learning from this? Hmmm.

• I am wondering,  if the results would have been any better if I had not fused the leaves on to the piece. This was the first time I  fused pieces and then did outlined them. Perhaps the lack of give in the upper fabric played a role? I am wondering if fusing with Mistyfuse works well if you are going to quilt over the entire piece - not heavily decorative stitch/outline relatively small fused pieces.
• Would this have worked better if I had a stiffer support behind the fabric? I am sure at this point that this answer is yes. I am going to put some tear-away stablizer behnd another part of the piece and see what happens. 
• Then, there are the design issues... I really should have stopped to find a better fabric for the background.  I chose the gold background for the wrong reason. It would have worked in another piece, but not with these leaves. Then I was too caught up in catching the gold of the individual leaves to switch them to a different color. 
• Also, at the design level, I probably never would have been satisfied with my outlining of the leaves on this piece, even without the lack of stability. It is too heavy for this composition. This is a basic design flaw that goes back again to better color selection in the first place.

What am I going to do now? First, go on vacation in a few days! How convenient is that! Then totally drop working on this for a bit and play with some other projects. Finally go back and experiment on the remnants for better methods.

Thanks for listening everyone! Supportive suggestions are most welcome.

Discoveries in Books

I have had two books come across my desk recently that I am enjoying.

Art + Quilt - Design Principles and Creativity Exercises by Lyric Kinard

I found Lyric's book while browsing in Borders. It was published in 2009 and is offered on Amazon.com. It presents a series of exercises in design that I am going to enjoy playing with. Each exercise in the book is accompanied by several examples.

Lyric's writing is extremely upbeat. She spends several pages in the beginning of the book encouraging everyone to find the artist in themselves. There are some great quotes in the section too.

One of the things that I find I am really enjoying about the book is are the insets in each section called "Gathering Inspiration." These passages have some wonderful suggestions for going beyond the exercises in the book. I also liked that there is a section with suggestions on how to offer critique at the end. And in the final pages Lyric critiques some of her samples used earlier in the book, pointing out that she has never made a piece she thought was perfect. All of this opens the reader's eyes to critically viewing works, both their own and others.

I bought this book just before my trip to New York and read it on the plane down to New York. Probably the best illustration of the value of this book is that, even without having done any of the exercises, I realized that I was viewing so much of what I saw while walking around New York with a deeper appreciation of design elements.

Rule-Breaking Quilts by Kathryn Schmidt

I learned about Rule Breaking Quilts on a blog and it sounded like a fun book to push my limits a bit on free form design. Kathryn wants people to avoid the "Quilt Police" and explore what happens when you let go of the rules of traditional quilting. She asks you to invest six fat quarters in designing an art quilt and takes off from there.

Because she makes it so simple to try her approach, I am looking forward to purchasing six fat quarters in colors I love and playing with her technique and lack of rules. I suspect it will be another step in following through on my Pat Pauly workshop of a few weeks ago.

Quick Binding Tip for Aligning Colors

I had a foot square piece with a straight horizon line where I wanted the binding to match the quilt colors.

To accomplish this, I tried a variation on a mitered binding technique that had been taught a few years ago at our local guild meeting.

• First, I measured the length of the sky and the sea and added about 8 inches to each measurement. 
• I then cut 2 inch strips of the sky and sea fabric to those lengths and sewed them together with a simple straight seam. 
• I folded the strip in half lengthwise and ironed it so I had one long continuous strip that was one inch wide. 

I then placed the strip on the left side of the  piece, aligning the colors of the strip along the horizon line.

Aligning strip with horizon line

Sky half sewn

 I then began sewing the binding to the quilt top with a 1/4 inch seam, starting at the horizon where I had matched the binding and continuing around the sky to a few inches before the horizon line on the right side of the quilt.

  

sea half se

I then stopped, and returned to the left side and stitched in the sea color part of the binding to within a few inches of the horizon line on the right side. (It is ideal to have at least about 8 inches left unfinished on that right side - with a 12 inch quilt, I was pushing it a little!)

To finish off the binding, I laid the two ends of the binding strip over each other and trimmed them so that there was one inch of each end extending on each side of the horizon line (a two inch overlap).

I  opened the ends of the binding and pinned the right sides together. (You need to fold your quilt top a bit to be able to do this.)

I then seamed these two ends together,  exactly one inch from the end. (Your quilt top needs to be folded to be able to do this.)

I then trimmed that one inch seam to 1/4" and flattened out my quilt top. The binding lies flat against the quilt top with the seam between the two fabrics aligned with the horizon line.

All that remains is to complete sewing the 1/4" seam around the quilt and then fold over the binding to hem the back.

If you have any questions, please ask!

Adding a Sleeve to a Quilt

So, the quilt is done and you would like to have it hang - either on your wall or perhaps in a show. Since I rejoined the world of quilting five or six years ago, I have discovered that hanging a quilt is an art in itself, particularly in the realm of art quilts. For this post though, let's keep it simple.  If you are thinking of entering your latest work in a quilt show, there is a good likelihood that one of the requirements will be a placing a sleeve on its back.

One of the best and simplest descriptions that I have found for how to construct and add a sleeve to the back of a quilt is in Gloria Hansen's blog. Rather than recreating the wheel here, please check out her post. I have used the technique she demonstrates (the photos are invaluable!) many times for quilts both big and small and am totally pleased with the results.

What I particularly like about this sleeve is that an allowance is made for the thickness of the hanging rod. This means the top of the quilt is more likely to hang flat, rather than be slightly bowed by the hanging rod. You can see that extra allowance in the sideways photo of a completed sleeve below. The sleeve is also nicely finished - why not have the back look as neat as the front!