400th Post

Oh my.  I just realized this is my 400th post.  It seems like I just started blogging.  Guess it’s been lots longer than I thought.  Here’s to lots more posts in the future!!!

I am having a stone cold great time in Tucson.  Our friends just left after a wonderful two week visit with us, and we are so grateful they make the long plane ride to spend some time with us.  See you again soon, Mike and Sue.

Cross stitch is still capturing my attention.  This is the progress I’ve made on my The Finery of Nature:

 

I have also ordered 2 Heaven and Earth designs, which I can not wait to start.  And no, I’m not a multiple project cross stitcher.  One at a time, plus quilting is all I want to juggle.  And let me tell you, this is hard.  Stormy – a really cute owl – has invaded my dreams.  Luckily, I don’t have the recommended fabric with me, or I’m afraid my resolve would be sorely tested.

I got my machine embroidered quilt back from the long arm quilter I tried – Rebecca Hall-Martinez.  She did a wonderful job on my quilt, and her fee was reasonable.  That woman has more talent in her baby finger, than I do in my entire body.  See what I mean:

 

 

The weather has been great.  We’ve had some ups and downs, but anything above 60 and I’m happy as can be.  Even when it’s been a bit cooler, it’s been lots of sunshine, and that’s what I crave.  Bring on the sunshine!!!

Tomorrow I’m going to a birthday party during the day and a cabaret in the evening, Sunday the Tucson Quilt Show at the Convention Center.  My husband is great.  He’s driving 4 quilters, dropping us off at the door, and then picking us up when we’re finished.  It’s lots of fun attending a quilt show with friends.

Next week is jam packed – like every week – 3 quilt meetings, 1 embroidery meeting, the daily walking, grocery shopping, eating out, and last but not least, going to the parks.  The parks here are great.  They have paths I can walk on, plants I’m learning about, and I spotted a cotton tail rabbit on my last walk.

The Jeep needs a little repair, so no wheels for a couple of days.  I’m still going to attempt to fit in a visit to a Tucson needlework store – the West.  I’d like to see if they have the fabric I need for Stormy.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  I’ll be putting myself on the path of temptation.  Ought to be interesting to see what develops.  Stay tuned for the outcome.

Hugs…

Patch

I am having such a fun time with my Pfaff Creative Sensation.  It’s an older Pfaff model, but I love this machine, and am constantly amazed at its abilities.

You might have remembered my husband asked me to patch his jeans for him.  He picked out a design, did not want me to change the colors, and I was off and sewing.

The water soluble stabilizer hasn’t been soaked off around the edges yet, but this was a pretty quick sew out.  Then I realized I wanted it to be a patch, and after I did the embroidery, I added the zig zag border from Creative Shapes.  There are quite a few shapes to select from, and all you do is select one, select applique, click on satin stitch, and click the arrow to okay it.  Voila!!! A zigzag edge was sewn out easy as can be.

This was all done with the sewing machine only – no digitizing program – and did it ever do a nice job.  My very first patch has been made.  This machine can do so much, and even after owning it for 6 or 7 years, I haven’t touched the surface of everything it can do.

You might remember I made a decision to stop making art quilts for exhibition and slow down to create what I want to create.  I’ve been enjoying making quite a few quilts for donation, using my “good” fabric all year long, and learning more about my sewing machine.

This has worked well for me. My happiness level has significantly risen, I’m much easier to live with, and I got rid of all the sewing under pressure I was doing.  2019 has been a good year.

2020 will soon be here, and I have 2 donation quilts in progress for Tucson sewing, and a hand sewing project that I picked up again from 2003.  Yes, I’m still focusing on completing all my UFOs also, and did finish 4 of them in 2019.  I don’t have that many left, which gives me such a feeling of satisfaction.

I hope you’re all feeling very good about your creative endeavors too.  Working at your own pace, is a gift I gave to myself in 2019, and it’s better than anything I could have purchased.

Hugs…

 

Dirty Paint Pour And Embroidery Designs

Last Thursday was my Ogden Art Group meeting, and we had a lot of fun learning about dirty paint pouring.

There are oodles of You Tube videos on the subject, and Karen kindly put together all the supplies, and had kits ready for us to try this out.  This is how mine looks:

I didn’t put enough paint on it, so moved some paint around with my finger on the right side to make sure the entire canvas was covered.  Along with white, only 3 colors were used, and it was fun to see how they blended, moved, and created cells.  I love the area with the cells.

I haven’t decided how I will use this.  It would be neat as the focal point of an art quilt, or I could keep it the size it is and add some beads.  Decisions, decisions, decisions.

I would like to try this again on ceramic tiles.  I could stand some coasters, and do have left over tiles from the Mod Podge project.  Something tells me the uneven surface will create very different images.  I might purchase some flat white glazed tiles to see just how different the two surfaces will react to the paint.

16 embroidered blocks were also made in the last couple of weeks, and I have 10-12 more to make.  This is the first time I’ve done applique blocks like this, and while it uses a lot of stabilizer, it is fun trying this applique technique.  As soon as I get the top pieced, I’ll take a photo and share the pieced top with all of you, but here is a sample of one of the designs:

The yellow fabric is some of my hand dyed fabric.  I’ve decided I’m going to use a piece of my hand dyed fabric in every quilt I make from now on.  There is no time like the present to use what I’ve dyed over the years, and it’s making me very happy to finally cut into some of my “precious” fabric.

Just for hoots, I used cactus fabric for the leaves, and the minute my husband saw it, he said, “You made a cactus rose!”  Now I had no intention of it being a cactus rose, but now that’s the only way I can see it too.

It is very satisfying making my fabric selections from my entire collection now.  The border is a William Morris print I was “saving” for something “special”.  Special is the present.  Nobody is guaranteed endless days to create.  It makes no sense to deprive myself of using the “good” fabric.

There are 12 flower designs in this quilt, and a cornerstone design.  It can be purchased from here.  Missi Skeldale has a facebook group, and that’s how I discovered this design.

Upstate New York is having the kind of weather I love.  Great, warm, sunny days, and nice, cool nights with low humidity.  This is my kind of weather, and I’m enjoying it.  I hope all of you are enjoying your September too.

Hugs…

 

 

 

Scare Crow

I have no clue what came over me, but I just had to make this machine embroidered scarecrow.  It was included in the Festive Dangler package of designs from Anita Good Design.

It was so adorable.  This would appeal to a 5 year old, and I am far removed from that age, have no grandchildren, so have no reason for making it except it was so darn adorable.   Guess I’m into adorable this year.  😉

I haven’t attached the buttons yet, but couldn’t wait to share this with all of you.  Adorable, true?

There were a couple of errors in the design.  Only one sew around for the face before you trimmed it, and some reversal of what sewed out when comparing the instructions to the actual sewing for the hands and cuffs.

I used duck canvas for the face and was very happy with the texture it added.  Also used some fabric from Beth (the scarf), and the arms were made from fabric I purchased in the 1970’s for the grand price of $2.56 a yard – that included the sales tax.

Homespun plaid was used for the torso.  There was a stitch intensive plaid design for the torso, and I decided this design was going through thread like crazy, so skipped that part of the design.

I emptied 2 spools of thread totally.  Had a back up spool for one of the colors, and a close match for the second.  Had to wind 7 – yes 7 – bobbins for this project.  That was totally good in my book as I purchased a thread that did not work for machine quilting at all, but was fine for piecing, and worked well for the bobbin thread in machine embroidery.  It was purchased specifically for machine quilting, so I was disappointed about that not working out well, but happy to discover it worked with the other techniques.

My goal is to use up the entire 1,200 yard spool before Christmas.  I have never had a spool of sewing thread that had a tied join in the middle of the spool.  I was not amused.  And guess what?  I purchased 2 of the darn spools.

I do like trying new threads, but have to remember to purchase one spool at a time of a “new to me thread” in the future.  I mentioned to someone I’ve never met a spool of thread I haven’t wanted to try.  She thought I was joking.  Folks, I wasn’t.  I firmly believe in trying them all.  I don’t want to miss out on gaining experience with different fiber contents, weights, and/or textures.   There is something new to learn all the time.

And last but least,  I’m happy to share with everyone that my Delilah quilt won a Second Place ribbon at the Monroe County New York State Fair last week.  I am over the moon happy about that.

Hugs…

Camper Zipper Bag

I can not believe how excited I was to try making my first applique bag in my embroidery hoop.  I actually got up at 5 am to make it, and everybody who knows me, knows that is frequently my go to bed time, not my get up and start the day time.

This is why:

Is that not the cutest little camper purse you’ve ever seen?  Wait till I show it off in our RV resort this winter.  And I’m going to tell each and every person they can make their own.  LOL

Seriously, I thoroughly enjoyed using my embroidery machine to make this, but I lost track of the number of mistakes I made  in the process.  Practically all of them were my fault.  Only one was in the tutorial, and that was simply mixing up the order of what was to be embroidered next – using the same color.  The problem was, I wanted to make the second embroidered object in a different color, and that is what got embroidered first.  Wouldn’t have made a lick of difference to anybody who was making it according to the directions.

I also used extra stabilizer under the embroidery, and lined the front.  Basically, I attached the lining and the front of the bag at the same time – one on top of the hoop, one underneath the hoop, then folded the lining out of the way while I did all the embroidery.  I taped the lining to the back of the hoop as it had a tendency to fall down into the embroidery area.   Can you tell that was one of my mistakes?  After all the embroidery was done, I folded the lining back to cover all the thread tails.

I used a heavier weight fabric for the backing, and didn’t line that.  I’m thinking it would have been a good idea to stabilize it with some Pellon sf101.  It’s 100% cotton, and would probably have extended the life of this little bag.   You definitely learn the tips and tricks of making these little bags, by actually making them, and using them. Go figure.  😉

This was a free design from Anita Goodesign, and I am very happy I downloaded it before it moved to being a paid design.  It was generous of her to offer it, and now I’m looking at what to purchase.  I have my eye on the Festive Danglers.

While my embroidery unit was attached to my sewing machine, I decided to sew out the free Dream catcher design from Kreative Kiwi.  I love her designs.

I used some of my hand dyed fabric and YLI’s metallic thread.  Now racking my brain trying to think of a name for her.  I don’t usually use metallics, and have never seen metallic feathers, but did not want to sew this out in a solid, dark colored thread.  I still might, as it just seems wrong to have such a sparkly dream catcher image in existence, but it is what it is.

My motivation was I wanted to name her something like Shining Star, or Shining Moon, or something in the ethereal or gossamer realm.  Suggestions welcomed. She will be included in a fabric book I’m starting, and she needs a name.

Don’t expect to see that book anytime soon.  It’ll be my first fabric book, and I want to include all sorts of different techniques in it.  I will post pictures as the individual pages are created, but they’ll appear sporadically, and not at all when we’re wintering in Tucson.

Hope you’re all enjoying your creativity, and taking some time to be kind to yourself, and others.

Hugs…

 

Santa is Pieced

I’ve been busy working on projects, and can happily share the completed quilt top that has been a work in progress for a couple of years – yes a couple of years:

All that embroidery is by hand – the large Santas and the small cornerstone designs, then it was arranged differently from the original pattern.  I saw this setting at a quilt show and loved it, so made it happen for my quilt too.   Now for the quilting by check book.  😉

I also finished up a huck towel.  I’m a member of a few art groups, and this one tries new ideas every month.  All I can say is, huck embroidery is not my thing.  This is a one and done:

Now, what next?  I have so many new patterns I want to make, and so many unfinished projects that could be tackled.  Wonder which will win?

Hugs…

Sashiko

The Ogden Farmers Library art group formed about 7 years ago, and we had a fun day Thursday exploring Sashiko.  This is something I’d never done, and it was so easy.  Couldn’t believe I haven’t tried this before.

This is what I made, some towels:

Instead of making another small fabric square of a technique, and adding it to the pile of previously tried new techniques, I decided to make something useful – towels.  Also in an effort to start using what I’ve already purchased, I located an entire bolt of Osnaburg fabric.

Now Osnaburg fabric is not exactly a soft cotton fabric, but it is 100% cotton with a nice open weave.  Well, it had an open weave before I machine washed it and machine dried it, but heck, that’s how I wash my towels, and I was determined to make these useful towels.  I thought it would be a good idea to prewash the fabric before I embroidered it.  It was still easy to hand embroider.

And the embroidery thread?  Well, I have hundreds, yes hundreds of cones of machine knitting yarn in my home.  That’s what happens when you were a machine knitter at one time.  You know how quilters amass a good portion of fabric for their future use?  Well most machine knitters I know, pretty much well purchased coned yarn, like quilters purchase fabric. I’m both, so you can just imagine what my textile resources are.

I pulled out this variegated, 100% cotton, 8/2 weight coned yarn to use for the embroidery thread.  It worked like a charm.  I offered to share it with the other ladies present, but had no takers.

See the size of that cone?  I could make towels every week, till the day I died, and I wouldn’t make a dent in it.  It’s a good 2 pounds of yarn, but you know what?  It felt great to use some of it, and who knows?  I might start using some of my coned yarn on my knitting machine again.  I do still own one.

Hugs…