Tuesday, July 30, 2013

My 3D Flower Tutorial

I think this is one of the best emails I have received in a very long time.    A while back Susan G. wrote and asked me for permission to use my 3D flower tutorial on a quilt she was entering into a show.     Today she writes:

I was absolutely thrilled to receive a ribbon on my first exhibited quilt.  There were 2 NQA certified judges and 1 AQS certified judge at the August, Maine Quilts show so I am very pleased. Thank you so much for your inspiration. 
I have 3 friends who are now playing with your flowers.  They are just soo much fun.  I also watched dozens of people take pictures of the 3D flowers on my quilt.  That really got a lot of attention.

Here are the flowers she made.

And here is her quilt with her wonderful ribbon.  Congrats Susan!



For those that may have missed it, here is the tutorial again.

A 3-D Flower Embellishment Tutorial


The method I am going to show is one of several ways I incorporate craft foam into my quilts using my original 3D technique. I call this my “Raw Edge” method. This wall hanging is based on using these flowers, and once you master this simple yet effective technique, you can create as much as your imagination allows.
Supplies
  • 2-3 large sheets of craft foam, matching or contrasting with your fabric (Craft foam is found in craft stores like Michael’s or Hobby Lobby, often in the children’s section).
  • 6 fat quarters of coordinating fabric to make flowers and vase (or 12 coordinating scraps each that are at least 5″ x 5″ for the flowers and 1 scrap that is 7 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ for the vase)
  • 1 fat quarter for background fabric
  • 1 fat quarter for backing
  • Fusible web such as Wonder Under (the paper back is easier to work with for this method)
  • Rickrack for stems
  • Batting 18″ x 20″
  • Paper and pencil
  • Tennis ball or some small round object
  • Buttons, vintage earrings, yarn and/or rickrack for embellishing (optional)
  • Flower Template (optional) click to download
  • Vase Template (optional) click to download
Flower templates
You can make your own flower templates following the directions below or use the template patterns provided.
Draw or trace a circle approximately 4″ in diameter. Draw a wavy line coming about 1/4″ in and out of the circle. This will be your first flower template.
3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog
Create a few other templates or just use this one. Even a plain circle makes a great flower once it goes through the process. Here are the flower templates used for this wall hanging.
3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog
Create the flowers
For each flower: Cut a 5″ x 5″ square from each of 2 coordinating fabrics, cut a 5″ x 5″ square out of craft foam, and cut two 5″ x 5″ squares from fusible web. Apply the web to the wrong side of each fabric square.
Make a sandwich with one fabric square wrong side up, the craft foam square, and then the other fabric square right side up. The fusible side of both pieces of fabric should be touching the craft foam. Iron both sides for 10 seconds with no steam.
3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog
Decide which side is going to be the front and back of your flower. Turn your 5″ square sandwich so that the back is facing up and trace your template with a pencil.
Set your machine for a small tight zigzag stitch (machine appliqué) and stitch right on the traced line. Once done, either free motion quilt or straight stitch in the middle of the flower to secure the fabric. Cut out the flower 1/8” outside the zigzag stitching.
3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog
Place your flower on the ironing board front side up and, with no steam, iron over the flower for 10-15 seconds. Remove iron and press flower over tennis ball spreading your fingers around creating little pockets or “petals” in your flower.
3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog
Hold until the flower cools, or about 40 seconds. (If you want to redo it, just repress with the iron and try again).
3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog

3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog
You can leave the flower as is with the raw edge showing, or couch some funky yarn or rickrack around the outside to really make it pop. Leave the center plain or add a piece of vintage jewelry or a button you’ve covered with fabric.
Tips
  • Try creating a block using a 9-patch and cut a flower from that
  • Create flowers of different shapes
  • Use more or less stitching in the center and see how it creates different textures for the flower
  • Shape the flower over varying objects such as a golf ball, a spool of thread, or the bottom of a glass for a unique 3D look
  • Use threads that match or threads that contrast when quilting the flowers
To Make the Wall Hanging
Cut the background fabric to 16” x 18.” You can decide to cut the bottom of the background on an angle and add another piece of fabric as I did. Create a vase using the template provided—or draw your own—out of the scraps of your fabric and adhere fusible web to the back of the vase. Pin the vase on to the background fabric. Place your flowers and rickrack stems on the background fabric, tucking the stems just into the top of the vase until you find a pleasing arrangement. Mark each flower with a small pin and remove. Stitch the rickrack stems down.
3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog
Place the vase over the stems and fuse it to the background.
Cut the backing fabric 18″ x 20.” Layer the quilt top, batting, and backing. Quilt, then trim the batting and backing even with the quilt top and bind.
Attach flowers onto your wall hanging with hand stitching.
3D flower embellishment on C&T Publishing Blog


Sunday, July 28, 2013

Book Review

I love to read, I just never make the time to get a book to do so, but when I do, I adore poring through a good book.  

So when  Penguin Books dropped a book on my laptop asking for a book review, I was only too  glad to oblige.

‘Streak of Lightning’ is a short quilt mystery by Clare O’Donohue.   Ms. O’Donohue is fast becoming my favourite quilt author.   ‘Streak of Lightning’ is out August 2013 for $2.99 as an ebook.

The crazy thing about this book was that I actually couldn’t put it down.   I stayed up till 1 am to finish it.   Literally every page was exciting.   The author managed to not only introduce the characters but make me comfortable with them all the while she led me through a murder mystery.  

To say I was surprised that she could do this in just 60 pages would be an understatement.   Yet she did just that.   To top it off, she related it to quilting throughout the book.   My favourite line was this one; ‘In an art form that is moving toward the modern, with so many quilts having clean lines, solid fabrics, and an almost architectural feel, the scrappy four patch was the kind of quilt that looked, well, like a quilt: something Grandma made.’

Not only can Clare O’Donohue write a great mystery, she is on top of her game in the quilting world, and in a subtle manner tells us what she thinks of modern quilting.   Love it!  May not agree with it, but totally adore the way she phrased it!
She has a novel coming out in October called ‘Double Wedding Ring’ and I am really looking forward to giving that one a good read as well!


9781101615850_p0_v2_s260x420

If you are looking for a fast paced and exciting e-book, try out 'Streak of Lightning' this summer!
You won't be disappointed.


Wednesday, July 24, 2013

My Circle Fetish

As you may know I have a thing for circles.   Kind of like an addiction, if I see circles, I want them.  

Take a look at the quilt I am working on.  I did the flowers free motion and then the majority of the background was done in free motion circles using all different colours.  


Notice all the circles.

While I was taking this photo, I thought it might be fun to show you just how many circles I have collected.
These are some fun serviettes I can't bring myself to use.

My favourite coffee cup.

My back up coffee cup.   

One stack of circle fabric.

My back up set of circle fabric.

This is a small file folder... and look at the name on it!

My coffee coaster.

My tissues.

What do you think?  Totally crazy?   Or just a quiltin' gal who loves circles?



Thursday, July 18, 2013

Designing and Quilting


With the kids home I am finding it a bit more challenging to get into my sewing room to quilt.   I want to spend as much time with them as they are only young once and they won't always want to hang with mom=)

I am trying to do quilting that does not require alot of concentration, because even if I get into my sewing room, interruptions happen every 23 seconds.

The designing end of things has been good.   My sketch pad comes with me everywhere and I can do that while the kids are playing and breaking up fights or getting snacks every 3 minutes are no problem.

From one of my sketches, I came up with this.
It just had to be a circle didn't it?   Sliced and diced and put back together with my hand dyed fabric.   I am doing some experimenting and this gave me some unexpected but workable results.

I also got a quilt pinned and under the machine.   This one took me forever to decide on a design for the middle.   I mean like 4 months to figure it out.   Finally I came up with one I liked and gave it a try.


There are about 20 triangular sections in the centre of this quilt.  I am doing the same flower in each section, but different sizes that match the size of the section.   The background is either stippling or small circles.   I am changing the thread colours for each section as well.   I have about half of it done.   
The circles drawn in the background were done on the whole cloth centre before any quilting or ric rac was added.  I took different sized circles and placed them on randomly and traced around them with magic marker. 

  Different sized and coloured ricrac was stitched down in lines across it. 

 I still have a ways to go, but my plan is to get it quilted and bound by end of summer.   I just got booked for 2 trunk shows in September and would like to bring it with me.  

Linking up to Nina's Off The Wall Friday.


Monday, July 15, 2013

Try and Try Again


I have a fun new ruler to play with!  Amanda of The Quilted Fish has created this great new ruler to make diamonds.  And make diamonds it does.  Look at this amazing pattern  she has for sale, using her fancy diamond ruler.


This is what the ruler looks like.


Amanda's Design Team is busy working on tutorials to show you just how easy and fun it is to use this ruler.   I did some experimenting today.   Of course, I couldn't just leave the diamonds alone, had to try and make it into a rectangle.   This was one of my attempts.  Notice the very crooked lines on top and bottom!  


I made a lot of this, in several attempts to create a rectangle=)  


 Finally success, a perfect rectangle.   Oh, it is going to look amazing when done!  I have to tweak it a bit more before turning it into a fun tutorial.   I believe we are set to debut them in August, so stay tuned.

Okay, this last part is not bragging, even though it is totally going to come across like it is.    You guys are my quilting buddies, so I feel you would share in my excitement=)   I got this in the mail last week.


My very own business cards. I only ordered a few because honestly what am I going to do with them?   I figured it might be slightly lame if I photo transferred them onto fabric and made a full length coat out of them.  Wouldn't that be funny if I did and then entered it into the Wearable Category in our National Juried Show?   That would be hysterical.   To me anyway=)  

 I hope I can make the Association proud.  I have a couple of goals while I am on the Board of Directors.  One is stupid huge..like ginormously crazy big.   I will certainly work hard and try my best at it.  Time will tell.  




Monday, July 8, 2013

Repairing a Quilt from a Fire

Fire and Quilt.  Two words that should never be put together.   Never.  

A close friend of mine recently lost her house and everything in it.   The family, with 3 adorable children all got out and everyone is fine.   She was not a quilter, but they lost about 20 quilts.   While running out, the husband managed to snatch their wedding quilt which was hanging on the wall, and saved it.   So to speak.

The quilt and I have a little history together.   It came into my home back in 2007.  It needed hanging sleeves and was sent to me.   I put them on using an old sheet that had special meaning to both of us, I didn't tell her that though,  I just quietly hand stitched the sleeves on and returned it.   I am very thankful now that I took big stitches so that it ripped easily off the wall.

The night of the fire, it rained.   The quilt was sitting for a time in the yard while their house burned down.   It smelled of smoke and one colour ran alot.   Of course it was that darn red that ran.  

The quilt came back to me to see if I could 'fix' it.

 I aired it out for almost a month.  And during that time, I looked at it every.single.day.   I had no idea how to get that red out.   The back was white and pink streaks now ran through it.  I decided that I would leave the back alone.   One, because I knew it was going back on a wall when they got a new house, and two, it was a reminder, part of history, their history.

I called the maker of the quilt, and I called an expert in quilting.   The options were:
1.  Throw it in the wash with hot water and synthrapol.
2.  Take a bleach pen to the spots that ran.
3.   My idea.

I just could not throw this quilt in a washing machine.   As easy as that would have been, I think I probably would have had an ulcer in the 40 minutes it took for the wash to finish.  And all I could think about was what if it made it worse?  How could I ever return it to them?

The bleach pen idea was dismissed as well.  For starters, it was not going to bring the colour back, just make it white.   And it deteriorates the fabric.  

All that left was my idea.   It involved applique.   I detest applique.  Let me clarify, I love fusible  applique, but this quilt was pieced and machine and hand quilted, and there is even trapunto in it!  The quilter is pretty extraordinary.   And I knew there was an excellent chance she may see it again someday.  Imagine if there was fused applique on it!

I took a few pictures of the quilt.  I did not take one of the whole quilt as I did not get permission.  It is a scrappy log cabin pattern with white in the centre with flowers, leaves and stems appliqued on the white part.





Here is what I decided to do. I took my ruler and measured the rectangle, or section I was going to applique over.   I added a 1/4" to all sides, and then cut out the piece from a  similar piece of fabric.   I folded the sides in and ironed them, and with very tiny stitches appliqued it over the bad section.   Slowly.

We had some lighting issues.  Today was very dark.   But above is the 'before' shot.  Below is the after shot...come on... you are surprised it turned out so well aren't you?  I sure was=)


Here is another after shot... you can see the two spots where I pieced due to the fact that they were going to run into the original applique.

Did you know that dragon flies are a symbol of renewal?   And it is also known that dragon flies are a creature of the water and those whose habitat is in or around water, dragon flies bring luck, prosperity and peace.   Do you know why I am telling you this?

  You already know I like to leave a mark on all my quilts, just a symbol of some sort=)  Did you also know that I live on the largest fresh water island in the world?  My friend lives here too.   I would think that qualifies for a habitat around water don't you?   

There were quite a few of the darker sections that needed replacing. Here is my little secret  (my friend doesn't read my blog so I know it is safe with you).  On the darker fabric I had to replace, I used the same fabric each time.   Ready for the identifier, it has dragon flies on it.


The places I had to do this, I was thrilled with.   When I did the white, you can find the sections if you are looking because it is white and there are still one or two places that show a light pink.  But when I covered up the red spots here, it was gone, and you couldn't even find where I did it... except by the dragon flies.  Now don't tell!



Lastly, the sleeve was done in sections.   Two of the five sections were still on there.  Even though they wouldn't match the new sleeves I was adding, I just didn't feel it right to remove them.  So they stayed and three new sleeve sections were added.   

While this isn't my quilt, I feel that we have a bit of history together.   I look forward to walking into their new house someday and see it hanging.   That will bring a big smile to my face.  I hope the dragon flies do their job too!




Thursday, July 4, 2013

Circles and Trying out this Modern Quilt Movement


Here is an update on my circle quilt.  I am really excited to turn this into a workshop.


I have had a number of comments on my 'circles' of free motion quilting.   All I can say is relax and practice.  


I am planning on using these for the binding.  


I am sure most of you have heard about the 'modern quilt movement' shaking the quilt world.   In Canada, the Canadian Quilters' Association has created a new Modern Quilt Category in their National Juried Show.   

I am thinking of entering a quilt in it, if I can come up with a design.  I was playing around today making a modern quilt block.   I came up with this, and was thinking I could make a little tutorial out of it for you, what do you think?