Friday, June 28, 2013

A Little of This and a Little of That



Pellon has my fabric jewelry posted over on their blog.   The tutorial is there as well.  I think the bracelets would be alot of fun to make with kids this summer.
Jewelryblogfeat

Jo-Ann's Fabric store picked up my earrings on their facebook page and in one afternoon it got 480 likes and 120 shares!

jewelry5blog

I received a beautiful gift in the mail today from a fellow quilter on the other side of the country in British Columbia.   She saw me eye this bag up while I was out there at our national conference, and must have grabbed it and dropped it in the mail.



Is that not the funkiest material ever.  And the bag even has a zipper to boot, and fully lined.  I just adore it!  Thanks so much J!   

Do any of you have leftover buttons?  You have to go here and see what one artist has created with buttons.

For my fellow Canadians, Happy Canada Day!  For my fellow friends, have a super weekend!





Tuesday, June 25, 2013

A Surprise For Me!

 It's like the world is balancing itself today just for me.  
I got my quilt out the door and in the mail in record time.   I can't show it to you though... one of THOSE awesome deals=)     And there was a surprise waiting for me on my counter.

This old box just sat there.  
My husband told me that a girl I know dropped it off for me thinking I could use it.  
Guess what was in it?
Vintage lace!  

It gets better....   
VINTAGE RIC RAC!!   Okay, who is screaming now?  I am, I am.  Wait, it actually gets better.


Two toned and sparkly ric rac!   I almost wrote this post in all capital letters, it is just that exciting!   They don't even make this stuff anymore.   

I was so happy, I started free motion quilting circles.   As you know I love circles, and dots, and ric rac.  Life is good!






Wednesday, June 19, 2013

A Little News


I have a little bit of fun news.   I write tutorials for Pellon Inc. who have the most wonderful products.   My very favourite is their bamboo batting.   I LOVE it.   It is all I use in my quilts.   My quilts are mostly wall hangings, okay, all wall hangings.  Who has time to make those enormous bed quilts?  I know, many of you are amazing quilters and do take the time and your talent to turn out beautiful big quilts.  I admire you for that.

The bamboo batting is just wonderful, not too lofty, which I like for my quilts and easy for the needle to puncture through by machine or hand.

They have released a few new products and I received them in the mail yesterday.   I was sent them for a certain reason.

This is Pellon's new Fuse-N-Shape.


Let's take a closer look at the teacup in the top right hand corner.


Hmm...it is 3D, that might look familiar.  Let's see what it says on the back of the product.


Let's just zoom in a little....

Love that bottom line=)

I also made the coasters on the top right corner of  Pellon's new EZ-Steam as well.

EZSteam2-EZ25S
That is really exciting mail to get=)   Now back to a tight deadline.  Have some fun stuff to show you shortly.


Monday, June 17, 2013

A Cute Block And Panic Setting In...

Let's start with the good stuff first, shall we?

I was invited to make a block for a friend of mine who is getting a quilt.   The block idea given to me was my provincial flower which is a trillium.  With copyright laws, I couldn't find a photo to show you.  It is a white flower with a yellow centre and green leaves.  


I decided I wanted mine to be a little 3D=)  Stop laughing, you didn't think I would make it flat did you?

Starting with 2 layers of fabric and batting behind it, I free motioned the shape of it and then filled it in with lots of thread.  

Here is a close up.   Yes, I decided I didn't like the yellow and put pink in the centre instead.  I outlined the flower in yellow thread.    

I then cut away really close to the thread and made three green leaves.   I chose a yellow background for the flower and machine stitched the flower on with more yellow outlining thread.  The leaves were hand appliqued on.  Yes, hand applique.   I know, very mature of me.   I haven't even told you the best part yet.   The whole thing was done using my fancy thread!   I am on fire with this stuff.


Do you like it?   Please don't say no, cause I haven't even told you about the panic and you saying you don't like it may send me over the quilters' edge.   Is there even such a thing?  I may find out.

Anyway, this is the panic, I have 4 deadlines and my kids are done school in 8 days.   It is very difficult to concentrate when they are home.   Very. Difficult.   

I am slightly stressed I won't get it done before they are off.   I don't think the teachers would appreciate me asking to send them back for an extra week while I finish my quilts.   Got any tips for cramming alot of quilting/meeting deadlines in a short time?   Yes, coffee and chocolate are already at the top of my list.   


Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Modern Mini Quilt Challenge

I am joining in!

I really tried to download the button but I can't figure it out.  The challenge is at Ellison Lane Quilts.  There are loads of prizes and it is just a pile of fun.   Just go look for the sheer pleasure of looking at all the modern mini quilts.

I have entered mine.  This was the one that went in The Quilted Fish's booth at market this past May.


I used the new line 'Madhuri' that Amanda of The Quilted Fish designed for Riley Blake Fabrics.  Love it!
 Here is the back, because I love my straight line stitching on it.
Now head over and take a look or better yet, enter a quilt in the fun challenge.




I Am Featured Here

Pellon Inc. sent out a quick email asking for Father's Day gifts.   Initially ties popped into my head.  I think ties must be the standard gift idea for dad.   I took that idea a little further and came up with this:

bowtiemugrug-feat
Pellon liked the idea so much that they kicked off their Father's Day series with it!

I used The Quilted Fish's new line 'Madhuri' by Riley Blake Fabrics.   The bottom one, I just had to add some extra dots on it.

You can find my instructions on Pellon's blog and website.


Friday, June 7, 2013

Another 3D Flower Quilt

I had a few starts with this one.  I couldn't figure out which side I wanted to show up for the front.   The large petals and the small petals were all from the same fabric line, by Riley Blake Fabrics, but they were really different in colour and pattern.  
These are the small petals, I originally thought this side would be showing.

This was the start of my large petals.   

And you can see this is where I ended up, clearly I had no idea when I started=)

This will be a new pattern for my 3D Flower workshops.  
My favourite is taking side shots of my 3D quilts so you have an idea of just how much they protrude off the quilt!





Here is a little sneak peek of what I just started working on.  


Tuesday, June 4, 2013

My First Art Quilt with Fancy Thread

It may not be big, but I am sure proud of it.  This is the first quilt I have ever done with fancy thread.   I always use the plain old thread you are supposed to only use for piecing.   Well not this time.  I did what I was told and did a little practice piece and then off to the races.  Below is my little scrap in which I did some practicing.  

I had no idea at all how easy it is to use.   Imagine the possibilities!   I may, just may even get into Houston next year!   

I used a shiny pink thread for the fabric door and a METALLIC thread for the door outline beside it.   The background is a shiny purple thread.  The theme for this is 'Passages' from the 'Quilting Arts' magazine.

Here is a closeup of my vintage lace, crushed bottle caps, beads and buttons.  Yes it is sideways.   No idea how that happened.



This is the finished piece.  The bottle caps and boring grey buttons are to resemble a walk way, my style=)
The write up I sent in with this quilt was:
This piece is showing doors as passages.   While one door may be visible and bright, there is always another door to choose from...such as life, and the paths always lead to both, you just have to sometimes look harder to find the other one.   

I am so very happy I have figured out how to use those great threads!


 


Sunday, June 2, 2013

The 'Big Girl' Thread


I call this my 'growing up' post.   One of the main reasons I quilt is to create original art quilts that I can enter into juried shows.   Not so much to build character by receiving those multitudes of rejection letters, but for the thrill of the phantom acceptance letters.

What you may not know is that I have a deep seeded fear.   Not of rejection, but of thread.   Yep, any thread that is slippery, fancy, metallic, shiny, satin or anything other than plain and simple thread.  
See this picture:

I have 2 of these.   They are all fancy threads.   I have had them for over 5 years.  I have never used them.   Until a few days ago.   Then all 'thread' broke loose, so to speak=)

While I was away at our national conference, I of course wandered into the Merchant Mall.  I walked into 'Cindy's Threadworks' and told her to load me up on fancy threads, and tell me what to do.   

Cindy, is a total doll!  She did in fact fill my basket and gave me very specific directions.

As luck would have it, the Janome dealer was directly across the aisle from her.  So I marched off and asked if I had to adjust tension to use fancy threads.   I should add here that I have NEVER adjusted tension on my machine.  EVER!   I have a Janome Horizon, in case you were wondering.   
Liz from Janome told me I did not have to do that, but if I had this gizmo, (a spool stand) I could use it and I would never have any problems.   I admitted that in fact I did have said gizmo, still in it's box when I brought the machine home 2 years ago.   I pulled it out and hooked it all up, which really meant putting in 2 little screws=)


I changed my bobbin and put in the thread Cindy told me to, along with the needle she said, took out my scrap fabric,took a breath and went for it.  ( I used Superior Magnifico thread, 90/14 topstitch needle, and 'The Bottom Line' by Libby Lehman thread, 60 wt in the bobbin.

Guess what?  It totally worked!   I was doing it, I was using fancy schmancy thread and it was actually working!   This was very big in my little world.

I am working on a little challenge, so decided to use my new shiny thread.   Look how great it turned out.

Do you know what I used next?  Metallic thread!   I know, only the bravest of brave quilters use that.   And it worked!   I will post more pics of my little challenge piece in all it's fancy thread glory tomorrow!