Wednesday, April 28, 2010

New Flowers



Check out my new flowers. They are the start of my next quilt. I love them because I got to use my fancy new rotary blade! These ones are going to turn into 3D flowers, of course. Back to the sketch pad to figure out what to do next.... so many ideas.

Check Out My Gallery

I am still learning quite a bit about blogging. While doing some research for my website, I found that I can add pages to my blog.

Check out my gallery, you can click on it right below my title.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Welcome New Followers

Hi and welcome to Gay, Deb, Needlewings, Linda and Dale Ann!

It is so nice of you to jump on board.

I have to say thank you to Gay who just led a fantastic online webinar program tonight. It taught me how to make my own website. So give me a bit of time to figure things out a little more and I will be soon posting a link to my new website!

Wet/Dry Bag



It is a friend's birthday on Thursday and I didn't know what to get her. I decided to make a wet/dry bag for her. She has a young child so she can use it for wet diapers or clothes or even swim gear.

I hope she likes it.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Painting


This week for my course we had to paint something. I used a transfer method that Lyric Kinard had posted on her blog with Citra Solv and put this design onto fabric.

Then I painted it. I am loving the outcome. The red ran a bit, but that won't be a problem as I will probably fuse it to something and cut right at the edge so the red won't show.

The course ends in 2 weeks and there is a fabric dyeing course starting up next week. I am contemplating taking it. I do already dye my own fabric, but it would probably be helpful to take a course from an expert.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

If At First You Don't Succeed......






This was my first and last attempt at quilting with suede. It has no stretch. And I knew that. But still I had to try. You can see by the pictures above that there were bumps and lumps. I even tried different quilting, and then I just sketched for fun.

I should have realized when my design process was taking so long that it was time to stop. Sadly, I didn't listen to my muse. But this is definitely one of those times when things didn't work out.

Usually I would be quite upset that I had spent all that time putting together a design, a top, and the time to quilt it. This was the perfect ending to my week. I had taken my youngest to the hospital for two emergency visits, and we were sent on both times to the super hospital 2 hours away. Both times were in the middle of the night. Now we are awaiting a surgery date, and we have been put on a fast track schedule.

So having this quilt not turn out... really in the scheme of things, is just a hiccup.

And on a positive note, I did some more painting. The green fabric is one that I hand dyed then stamped on. I am really happy with it, and already have plans for it. Rest assured, it is cotton!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Another Sample




I am loving this painting on fabric! Here is a picture of what you can do with a bit of freezer paper and dye paints.

And I just had to show you the fabulous fabric my friend from BC sent me! I can't wait to figure out how to use it.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Lesson 3



This was the beginning of the fun with my painting fabric course. I did stamping, and stencilling yesterday. I have posted two of my pieces here. The yellow one is done with freezer paper. I have actually painted over it again, but don't have a picture of that yet. My day fell apart as I had to rush over to to the big city hospital with my youngest child to see a specialist at midnight. Thankfully, all turned out okay and we just move on...sure keeps things in perspective though.

I will post more from this lesson later.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Lesson 2


As I have mentioned before I am taking a quilting course online at Quilt University. I did my second lesson over the weekend. It was very indepth regarding mixing the dye paints to make all the colours such as yellow- orange, orange, red-orange etc. Needless to say, there really is a difference to all these colours and it was quite an experience being able to create them myself.

The first two lessons were the hardest. Now we get to use these techniques to play, which is the reason I signed up for the course. Lesson 3 consists of stamping, monoprinting, and stencilling. I look forward to doing those over the next week.

I have included a picture of my marbling sample, and we put it in a gallery so the instructor can make comments on our work. This is what the instructor said about my piece:

Your marbled piece is superb, Jackie! May I keep a copy for the class gallery? It will always have your name on it so you get the credit for a job well done.

The class gallery she is referring to, is the gallery that goes with the course outline when people are searching the Quilt University website.

That made my day!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

2nd place



We had our monthly guild meeting tonite, and I was pleasantly surprised to see my quilt won second place. I was only behind first place by one point, I shared second with an even more talented quilter than myself, and third was only one point behind second. So we all certainly were close.

I also did a talk on quilt design and had lots of interest.

And I finally showed my 'button' quilt that took me 9 months to make. It is always makes me feel good when the quilt can spark some emotion in the viewer, and this quilt certainly did.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Lutrador Testing




I am a tester for a big publishing company. They publish quilt books, craft books etc. I take new products that they want to release and have to create something fun with them.

The latest one is Lutrador, but not the stuff you can get on the market now. This is a newly designed lighter type. Lutrador has been around forever, but only just discovered for its fun crafty ability. It is used in shipping. It is a strong lightweight see through type fabric. The fun thing about it is that it can be painted on, printed on, stamped on, burned, sewn, and is still completely strong.

I had 2 days to come up with something to mail back to show what a great product it was. The reason the turnaround was so short, is they mail the sample from the States and by the time I get it, the deadline is just around the corner when you take into account mailing it back.

I couldn't think up a single unique thing to do. The only fabric paints I had were blue and green, so I painted the whole thing those colours to try and inspire me, and it worked. I thought about 3D flowers. I know, everything has to have some element of 3D when it comes to me and art quilting. Anyway, I tried it and it worked beautifully. But a blue and green flower? No, not so pretty.

Luckily I was heading to the nearest city which was 2 hours away the next day. There I bought some cheap paint and repainted the cloth again. I was a bit nervous using non fabric paint, but I didn't have a choice. I was running out of time.

Here is the final product, and I am quite pleased with it. Hopefully they will be too.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

IHAN GIVEAWAY MONTH

If you haven't checked out this blog, I Have A Notion, then you better do so soon. They have a month of totally fabulous giveaways to celebrate the one year anniversary of her store.

If you sew or quilt or craft, this blog is for you.

Check out all the fantastic items in the store.

All giveaways from March 15 - April 15 2010 are open until 10:00 PM CMT

Friday, April 9, 2010

Quilt University




I am taking a course at Quilt University.

It is called 'Thick and Thin', and teaches me all about using dye and a thickener and turning dye into fabric paint. I have been dyeing fabric for a few years now, and wanted to try painting on fabric. I just couldn't see myself buying a whole other set of paints and accessories. Then I came upon this gem of a class, where I can use my own dyes, which I am already very comfortable with, know the chemicals needed, how they work and so on. And adding this magical thickener, turns them into paint.

The best part, is unlike fabric paint that sits on the surface of the fabric, this method, soaks into the fabric as the base is a dye. The colours are as vibrant and beautiful as my dyed fabric and I am loving this course.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

In My Garden





I have had quite a bit of interest 3D quilting. This is one that I didn't bring to my last trunk show, and I have also included some of the process pictures. You will see my leaves, my twirlies and my petals.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Beneath the Moon




I finished my little quilt today. I just did a zigzag for the binding. It is not travelling anywhere. I did it because I had finished a large very exhausting quilt that took 9 months from start to finish and just wanted to play a little.

I had tried to dive into another project but mentally wasn't ready to start.

This quilt allowed me to try my hand at painting, stamping, resist work and thread manipulation. All of which were new to me.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Blue Quilt




I don't have a name for this quilt yet, as is often the case when I make my quilts. Names come part way through, or sometimes at the end, never at the beginning.

I have done two thirds of the quilting on the fabric that I painted last week. I am enjoying the quilting more and more. I used to only like making the quilt tops and dread the quilting of it. Now both are enjoyable experiences. I have learned that I don't like quilting really big quilts. They are so difficult to get under my machine and manipulate, that I end up feeling frustrated the whole time.

This one is small, and very fun. I am using some heavier variegated threads, something I haven't done before either.