Altering Fabric

Today I worked on the 3rd piecce of fabric from the online fabric exchange I'm participating in. I used a leaf stencil and shiva in an pearlized gold, and seta color fabric paint in pearl olive and an orange for the circles. I used the end of a cardboard roll to make the circles.

Next comes a heat press with the iron and a trip to the post office to get it in the mail Monday.

A Little Play Makes A Fun Day

Today was a great day for guilty pleasures. I spent the day watching and listening to a tv series and making fiber layered art.

I love the feel of all the yarns and other fibers I get to play with when creating layers. I'm always amazed at the depth of color and textures created after the background is quilted heavily and the movement from the stitches. It gives me the feeling that my art is taking a new direction with each new piece.

The next step will be putting on bindings and embellishing. I might even be a bad girl and play again tomorrow.

A Pile Of Dog Ears

What do you do when you are bored or have a huge project looking at you but you can't bring yourself to start it? You snip dog ears. Sometimes it's those little nothing projects that save me from running around stark raving crazy.

I'm an experienced procrastinator. Today's project is a monster queen quilting job waiting patiently pinned on the machine. The machine isn't turned on yet cause I know when I turn it on I have to start working.

I had received some paper pieced half square triangles in an exxchange. Today felt like a great time for snipping while watching a favorite show on tv. Yes, I'm a bad girl.

Falling Leaves Workshop

Here is your opportunity to learn
a creative way of quilting on your longarm with teacher Norma J Riehm, award
winning art quilter and national teacher.

This art quilt will help you get
ready for all the beautiful colors we see during the spring thru fall seasons.
Students will make a fiber layered art quilt with silk leaves, yarns, Angelina,
beads, crystals and other fun fibers. They will learn techniques for layering,
hand beading, mctavishing, and making a perfect binding. This all day hands on
class will give students new techniques for using the Gammill Longarm Machine.
You will have a finished art quilt when you leave this class.

There will be a trunk show of
Norma's layered art quilts to let you see the possibilities of using this
technique. This is a very fun class that inspires fresh ideas using the
longarm.

What you need to bring: Reading
glasses if you need them for hand work, a notebook and pencil, and a camera if
you wish to take pictures. There is a kit fee for this class of $25. The kit
will contain everything you need to make the wallhanging, including
embellishments and it is due the day of the class.

Confident Beginner skill level, 6 hour
class
$100 per Person plus Kit
Fee
Saturday, March 3, 2012
10:00-4:00
Bring your own
lunch.
Call Country Loft
Quilt & Design for Reservations 651-464-6260!

Great Day With A Friend

I had a great morning at my friend Sonya's house. She taught me how to make a melon basket. It was very refreshing being able to do something new with a lovely finished project in a day. Sonya is a patient teacher and a very experienced professional basket maker. She does sell some of her baskets on her etsy site.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/sonyaanderson1

The basket I made is resting on a scarf I made for my daughter from Christmas present yarn she gave me. I think this basket will make a great little knitting basket for me.

Quilted Compass

Here is the quilted Mariner's Compass that hung around as a 2+ year old ufo. This is one time that I'm glad a ufo was stumping me. It had a chance to age letting me think about what design approach to take. In this case I kept thinking about fall and fall colors when I looked at it, because of the mustard colors in the star. I was never happy with the piecing on this star and that's why it was not included in the show quilt it was made for "Party to the Stars". Maybe it was destined to greatness being alone.

Mariner's Compass UFO in progress.

I know it's been quite a while since I last posted. Christmas is a super busy time for me personally and professionally. Customers need their pieces and family starts arriving. So here I am starting my January vacation only doing a few customer pieces and working on a traveling exhibit that will be in Rhode Island at the MQX show this spring. No pictures will be posted of the finished items, so you need to go to the show to see them, until after they finish traveling.

In between piecing I put the wayward unfinished Compass on the longarm. You can see some of my ingredients in the first picture. The second picture shows the loose layering. I should be able to quilt it sometime today and post a picture again. It will be embellished also.

I hope you find time this winter to do something for yourself. Take time to enjoy the cooler weather.