Scrapbox City Update

Not trying to bore you with partially finished projects, but I have something I’m going to try with this one. I’ve been following Melody Johnson’s blog Fibermania and she’s been working a lot with a quilt as you go finishing technique. It looks good; not like an afterthought. Integrated into the design. She credits Marianne at The Quilting Edge and her great tutorials. All I know is that I want to finish this project with this method.

Advantages: quilting smaller sections at a time. Easier with a domestic machine. You can also add sections to change the size of the piece or the look of the piece at any time, even after you think it might be done!

So–my sections are assembled and ready to be quilted. I made a rookie mistake in the beginning and started squaring things up as I put rows together. Duh! I need extra fabric all around for the quilting and then trim and square up AFTER the quilting is done.

I want to show you the origin of this project. You might think you need to have everything all figured out and planned and drawn to scale and a real pattern before you start. NOT SO! Here’s my plan—

And I don’t usually start with this much! I just had a bunch of scraps, some white fabric (and I never use white), and the idea to make wonky nine patch blocks in different sizes. The rest is all just arrange as desired and fill in the gaps! Fun, challenging, nothing is precise and you can’t make a mistake. My kind of quilting!

Not sure when I’ll actually get back to it. My next several days are tied up with the quilt guild workshop weekend. Maybe Monday. I’ll let you know how the quilt as you go assembly process works…probably with pictures and hopefully NOT with cursing and gnashing of teeth!!!

Yes, spring indeed!

Are you tired of looking at everyone’s fabulous spring flowers? Well, then, just skip on ahead because I couldn’t help myself today! Sunny, warm, glorious spring! Finally! Maybe just a few more exclamation points to show how happy I am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trees in bloom…

Love these little white beauties

A pile of freshly cut tree

Bleeding heart–so graceful

And my own baby redbud!!!

Always color…

My color decisions today involve beads. I’ve been slowly working on this piece, little bits at a time when I have a bit of time! It’s only about 16 x 20, but I’ve not been working on it very steadily.

I have my big rectangular dark beads on. I have my dark curvy lines. And then I have the pinky/orange/floral parts that I originally fell in love with. They’ve been totally ignored and now it’s decision time.

The flowers are subtle, but there, if you know what I mean.

These are the most clearly seen, quite pink, with just a touch of the orange on the right side.

These are almost completely pink with no orange nearby.

More very pink, no orange.

And a big swath of orange with no flowers.

I want to emphasize the flowers, pull in the orange flavor, but not overwhelm the subtlety of the flowers.

I started with the very lightest flower and used a gray/white bead.

Haven’t gotten too far, but I pulled these beads. I think I can achieve what I want with these…just don’t know how heavily I will cover the flowers with beads. I think a light touch is called for.

May not get this done for a while since it’s the “work-on-when-I-have-tiny-bits-of-time-piece” but I’ll post a picture of the completed beading. Then I have plans to add some hand stitching before the whole thing is done. Yep, little bits of time, but eventually it will get done!

I’m going to link this to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday. I love to check out what everyone else is doing–you might, too!

Love this project!

Went to open studio at USArtquest this week and learned a new process to use with mica. Several of us made mica beads and rather than use them in a necklace, Sue decided to showcase them on a textile piece. I got to do the quilting and finishing and I just love the look of this project.

Don’t know if this is supposed to be super secret, but you can have a good sneak peek at another project full of fun!

Here are a couple details and here’s MY secret–it doesn’t matter what you do to these tiles, they all come out absolutely gorgeous!!!

I love wonky blocks!

My scrap project is now officially going to take forever and a day. And I don’t care! To make it match the picture in my head, I just cannot bring myself to square everything up and have it all neat and even. What that means in terms of construction is that there is no stacking and cutting of layers, no chain piecing, no shortcuts. But it’s all so much more unique when you customize every part of your work that it is just plain worth it!

Have you added wonkiness into your quilt life? I made a lot of crazy nine patch blocks and now I’m going to add some inserts into some of them. Just in case you haven’t tried inserts, here’s how I do it.

I’m using fairly wide strips for my inserts, because I don’t want to drive myself totally bonkers!

This block already had one insert and I’m going to add the striped one, also. The strip is one inch wide, so the finished insert is 1/2″ wide.

Simply slice your block where you want your insert to be.

I try to avoid seam intersections, but if you hit one, it’s not a very big deal. Sewing the left side first is what I usually do, lining up the edges, just as if it were a regular block. When you add the second side, you have choices.

Line up the edges again, as shown by the fat arrow, and sew. Don’t fret about lining up the other insert that’s already there or the block pieces. This is wonky and doesn’t need to match. Your second choice, shown by the skinny arrow, is to put the left edge of your presser foot closer to that first sewn seam. That makes your insert skinnier and by following the first seam line, your insert is straight, too. Or you can start with a skinnier insert piece…I don’t do that very often, but if you want to see great, skinny insert work, check out Kathy Loomis’ work at artwithaneedle.com She is awesome!

So, back to my fat inserts…I press the seams towards the insert.

That fills up the insert with fabric and you don’t end up with a big sinkhole in your block. See–nice and full and fluffy and the orange strip even accidentally matched!

Notice that I have not squared up the edges of the block. I save that part until I am actually joining my blocks. That way I can put off the final size decision a bit longer. Procrastination works well for me when I’m doing wonky stuff!

So this is what I’ll be doing for the forseeable future. I’ll try not to bore you with updates about doing the same thing over and over–I’ll save the next post about this piece until it’s done. I just want to encourage you to find something you can cut into without a heart attack and do something wonky, too. Quilting is supposed to be fun and this is lots of fun for me!

I’m happy to have something to share on Nina-Marie’s blog this week. Check out all the cool blog link-ups.

Almost missed it!

One of my favorite area charities is Circle of Art for Food Gatherers in Ann Arbor. Artists get to contribute small art pieces, 9 x 11 or smaller for auction. The event is so much fun that you almost forget it’s a charity auction.

And I almost missed it!

The email with the call for artists went to my spam folder for some reason and I was lucky enough to see it in time to make a couple of small pieces. Whew! I’d have been so disappointed if I missed out.

You’ve seen this piece before, but it’s mounted on a green background now and I’m quite happy with it, and hope someone else will be, too!

Frivolity 8 x 10

This second piece grew out of my exercises with my Wacky Quilters group using the black and white fabrics. Not what I had in mind when I started, but these things take on a life of their own, you know!

We Sail Tonight 9 x 11

Hope you take a moment to click on the link and find out all about Circle of Art. It’s fun and for a good cause!

I disappoint myself…

I worked very hard in the studio today to finish up the article I’m reworking. Process photos, of course, which are a royal pain, but absolutely necessary. When I sat down to finish my editing and add my photos, I could only find half the pictures. The ones from the beginning, which I took last week, have totally vanished. I searched in every nook and cranny and under every rock in my computer, to no avail. I think I deleted them from my camera before I downloaded them. I felt so stupid.

But I can place the blame on this delightful distraction.

When grandson AJ saw my tripod, he just had to be AJ Cameraman for the day. He hauled it around the house all day, “filming” things just like he has seen TV cameramen filming when he was at hockey games. He had a great time and I smiled for the camera for hours!

However, I believe that when I was deleting his pictures, I deleted mine, thinking they were already on the computer. Sigh!

Luckily, in this case I have enough fabric to duplicate my efforts–and my photos.

Some days the hamster wheel just spins around and you hop on and off as the moments pass by!

Wacky Quilters Today

Yes, I know, the group is really the Knot Even Quilters, but I still think of our beginnings when we were a tiny group doing wacky work! Not many people in the area were interested in art quilts, so we were really the oddballs. I’m not saying that we aren’t still oddballs, but there is a lot more interest in art quilting now.

We have been trying to inform ourselves of design principles and apply them to our work. Today we did a black and white exercise, to use just those colors, mostly lines, some shapes and curves and make designs. No color distractions.

I didn’t take pictures of everyone’s finished projects…just a couple, but I love the exercise!

So I took my black and white as far as I could…at least as far as I had fabric cut for! I happened to have 8 fat eighths of white, and I decided to just make them all up with black.

As I was making them, I decided that it was an 8 Day Week, either a series of little pieces or a set of ‘blocks’ for a larger piece. I’m fantasizing about what else I might want to do with them. Like screen print a design or pattern over the top of each one, in a single color or a different color for each one. Or add an identical ‘something’ to each one, maybe a fancy bead or a colored shape or perhaps the same type of stitching…for a simple little design exercise, this has given me a wealth of ideas.

It was a happy wacky quilters day!

OMG! There’s been a fabric explosion!

I just barely touched it…it was an accident…really!! I was only reaching for a little piece of binding that was hanging over the edge. And then the next basket kind of slid off the shelf from the weight of all the fabric overflowing it…the basket in the middle stayed safely on the shelf but fabric seemed to jump out of it trying to join the rest on the floor.

Oh, my…how did all that fabric fit into those little baskets?

I think I can see a need to sort scraps and use some of them up.

And I’d better not go down there and find that they have multiplied in the dark! That would be really scary!

Paint in a Bag…can’t get enough!

As promised, here are the results from my paint in a bag experiments. I am totally hooked on this simple little technique now. Immediate gratification is part of it—there is none of the chemical process of mixing as when using dyes. Much less control of the results, still have to wait for the fabric to dry, but it’s just fun!

Smaller piece in the bag first, not too damp, bright results! Larger piece, quite damp, lots of squishing and moving around and I added a little blue, but there was no added paint in the original colors. Just used what was left from the first piece.

The pieces on the left are kind of interesting, and I got the resulting horizon-like lines just from rolling the fabrics in plastic while they dried. The fabric was quite wet and paint looks like it migrated to the lowest level while drying. I will try to do this on purpose next time!

The paler fabric on the right was left in a scrunched up pile to dry and again the paint migrated to the lowest level and left some cool texture lines.

This next piece of fabric was not done in a bag. It began as a damp piece of fabric.

Then I folded it loosely in pleats and ran it through the paints on my palette to clean it off!

After running the folds through the paint on the palette, I spread the fabric out over the palette and kind of squished it around to pick up whatever paint was left. Great way to use every bit of paint and clean up, too!

Then I used some of my already ‘bagged’ fabric and stamped on them. Remember the bright fabric from the other day that I wanted to stamp with a fern? Well, I found a stencil and used it to achieve the effect I wanted.

This will probably end up as a thread sketched and beaded pocket on a tote bag!

I love this next little stencil and just wanted to use it–on anything. I like the result, but don’t have a plan in mind, yet.

Last little stamping…

And then……….I was too tired to do any more!!!! But it was tired with a smile!