Another small finish



9.5 x 10.5 wide orientation

I have a bunch of small things that have been hanging around for a while. It is nice to work on them and be able to have something finished for my effort.

These photos show two different orientations 


9.5 x 10.5 tall orientation

I layered this up with batting yesterday and started quilting it. This morning I trimmed around the quilted circle and layered it with the black background and batting and backing and quilted the background and again over the main design lines in the circle, then satin stitched around the outside of the circle. I finished it up with binding and corner triangles. I like the extra dimension with the 2 layers of batting behind the circle which makes 2 levels of quilting inside the circle.

Back

I like to use the triangles in the corners for hanging so that it can be oriented with any side up. I  can use one of those easel type plastic sign holders or a piece of stiff poster board or cardboard to use it in a decorative easel or with a little flat balsa wood craft stick to hang on the wall with a thin little nail.

Accomplishment

I have things in my sewing room back in order and there is a lot less to make a mess with. I not only purged my sewing room(closet, drawers, boxes, bookcase, etc), I did the same to my hall closet, my linen closet and our coat closet and our storage locker. Every time we went out we took a bunch of stuff down to the trash room. Jack has been busy in his garage cleaning and getting rid of junk since he took my other metal shelf unit out there.

I did some machine quilting today on this little Zentangle inspired piece. It will be about 11 x 14 after I trim it down a little. I had layered it with batting and quilted the bird with black thread over most of the lines a few weeks ago. I wanted to add some vegetation and I was hesitant to draw anything and chance messing it up after all the work stitching it. This piece has a few problems due to the interfacing I fused to the yellow fabric, not the best idea I ever had. This is not going to be a master piece by any stretch of the imagination so I threw caution to the winds and drew 2 plants and quilted them. Them I layered the piece with the backing and went around the outline of the bird and the plants again with black thread to anchor the whole thing together and then I added some free motion grass. I am  quilting the background with a matching yellow thread with a kind of echo quilting. I quit for the day while I contemplate whether or not to take out some of the yellow stitching that is not so red hot; I think I might make it worse if I do. Whatever I do I should finish this tomorrow.

A small finish



6 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches

I finally finished this little piece. It  was all done except the binding. I really have to find a better way to do the binding on a piece this small. Joining the ends is just too fussy and time consuming. I ended up  sewing a straight seam where the ends meet; which for this turned out to be just exactly where the pattern comes together. I couldn't have done this in a million years if I planned it. I did it because I couldn't get it done the usual way. Later I found this tutorial for postcard binding on Annie's Musings. On today's post she showed a bunch of postcards and I love the bindings. I am also in love with her Christmas tree skirt. I am looking at Christmas fabric for that and plan to settle on something and purchase it this week.
Now it is back to work to get started on another finish.

Bloggers Quilt Festival

This is my entry in the Bloggers Quilt Festival  over at Amy's Creative Side. During last years quilt festival I came across a reference to Zentangle®  and I looked it up and started  playing. I had some ideas about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to use them in a quilt and changed my mind several times along the way. I did a lot of doodling on paper and I made several smaller pieces that were for practice. This was the first one that I decided was going to be the real deal and not for practice.  It is 24 by 24 inches square.

I traced the circles on fabric using a small bowl and some pot lids; the rest of the drawing was done free hand. I used a very smooth tight weave fabric and Pigma pens for most of the drawing and did some filling in of dark areas with Faber-Castell brush tip pens. It is appliqued to a black and white nine patch color wash type of background similar to one I had used before.  
The quilting was done first with just two layers, the top and batting. I quilted with black thread over almost all of the drawn lines that connected. It was slow going as I had to stop and rest my eyes and often I had to determine what I was going to do in some areas. I needed to do a little bit of hand work in areas that were too large to leave unquilted but had no connecting lines to quilt on.
When I finished all of the detail quilting I layered it up with the backing and  quilted around the circles and in the circles on some of the long lines to hold it more securely to the backing. I quilted the background with wavy lines using the seams as my guide.
If you are interested in seeing more of my Zentangle®  inspired pieces you can click  on Zentangle inspired quilts on the sidebar.

Almost ready to quilt etc

I am at a place in my quilting where I can't move on until I shop for some backing, which I intend to do today and take advantage of some sales. I haven't really had a chance to get out and look around, by myself that is. I wasn't driving for a couple of weeks and though Jack is patient I don't feel free to keep him waiting while I shop for something that  "I'll know what I want when I see it".

I have been entangled  in zentangle. While I have been cleaning and cooking and doing laundry, I have been taking short breaks and when I am resting I have been working on a doodle bird. I have been kicking this one around for a long time and finally, I am ready to draw it on fabric. I want it a little bit larger than my drawing and I want it on colored fabric. It will change a little bit in the transition to cloth as it always does. Will it change for the better or worse?

We'll  see!

Back to normal

I have been feeling "back to normal" for over a week and I am counting my blessings. We even got back to the Y for some exercise. I am doing with out my high test coffee and making do with Decaf and it is not so bad. It is much better than herbal tea; I like herbal tea but not for breakfast. The low sodium diet is tolerable and I am experimenting with spices.

I did get something done last week after I got my new printer I was able to work on one of the little zentangle inspired quilts I was making. I wanted to make a turtle and I needed to trace around an oval for the shell and I didn't have anything here I could use . I went to My EQ7 program and drew turtle block on the applique block worktable . I drew the ovals first and centered them and then realized I might just as well add the head and legs.There were many steps along the way where I was tweaking the size and shape and fitting the patches around the shell. The picture on the left shows what it looked like as I was working  on the drawing.

The picture below is the block after I set the block on the EQ quilt worktable and removed the outlines around the patches . When I was satisfied with the drawing and the colors this is the way I printed it on EQ Printable Fabric . 

 

This last picture is the final quilt with all the final details draw in with a black Pigma pen and all of the lines quilted. It is small, a bit less than the size of a sheet of printer paper. I had to trim it down because in the end I decided not to add something I had planned for the left side. I thought it needed to stand alone.

About 7 1/2  x 10 inches.

I meant to make some valentines but then I had some problems with vertigo and I never got around to them. I still had some ideas in my head that I wanted to play with and I wanted to do something with some color.

I got out my box of solid fabrics and ironed an 8 inch square onto some freezer paper and started to draw. I never really intended to do anything other than experiment with drawing on colored fabric and I just got carried away and doodled all around the edge and the inside. Hmm... I wonder what it would look like if I layered  it up and quilted it with red thread; just a few of the straighter lines to see how the red  thread looks. Well that didn't tell me much; lets see what a little more stitching looks like.  And here we have it. Now if I had planned ahead I would not have made all  those tiny hearts to stitch around the outside edge in fact, all of those little hearts were a real pain to stitch. But, you know, I like it. Was it fun to do? Actually, it was, kind of.  The red on pink leaves something to be desired, it needs some white and maybe a little sparkle. I should do something with those little unconnected dots and the unstitched hearts on some of the lines. When you work with black and white leaving tiny elements unstitched works better because the ink  is the same color as the thread.  I am not so red hot at french knots, I tried it and took them all out. Maybe a few beads would work although I know from experience that the term "not so red hot" doesn't even begin to apply to my skill at beading. Maybe I will just leave this as it is and move on to the next experiment. Not every experiment has to turn out to be something.

This week



6 .5 x 6.5

I spent my sewing time this week getting a few small Zentangle inspired pieces quilted and finished. 

 This little circle is the first thing I finished. I had previously quilted the lines in the circle and if you enlarge the photo you can see that sometimes I strayed from the drawn lines.

I finished the 2 hearts that were done using the same basic heart shape but one was filled in with fabric that had a  similarity to Zentangle designs and the other I drew the designs to fill in the heart with a pen right on the fabric.  I did a little better staying on the lines when I quilted this one.

11.5 x 11.5 and 12 x 12



25 x 25

This is the last one I finished. I did a little hand quilting on the circles in motifs that were not connected.

I am not sure why I have chosen to work so much with black at this stage of my life; it certainly makes things a lot more difficult. 

I think I am ready to work with some color.

This and That

I have been doing a little of this and a little of that for a few days. I can only work on stitching on white over black lines with black thread for so long before I have eye strain. I usually stop and do a little  cleaning up or go and start dinner or some thing that will give my eyes a rest. I also am inclined to do something like  reading or using the computer, neither of them give my eyes a rest.

I finally finished the machine stitching on the circles and there is a bit of hand stitching to do. There are a few areas that have  small dots or loops that I won't sew with the machine but they need more quilting. I am going to use 2 strands of white Trilobal Polyester to put one stitch  in these dots and loops. I am sure this will be visually demanding and I am going to think first about drawing these tiny things again if I plan to stitch them.

You can see here where I have stitched in the first few  little  dots and the first flower head; all the rest of the stitching is done. I  do not plan to stitch every line that I drew but some areas need to be quilted a little more to flatten them.  This is enlarged many times. Those little flower heads are barely 1/4 inch. I can go back  and fix the  places where I  didn't quite hit the line with my machine stitching by filling in with  fine (.01) Pigma pen.

Yesterday I moved my machine back  to the other side of the room and put things in order and then promptly made chaos out of order again. I  decided to work on a couple of houses and dragged out many boxes of  fabric, many of them filled with scraps and smallish pieces. I never remember just how long it takes me to do something improvisational. I agonize over every fabric choice and I dig through all the boxes to find something I had in my hand "just a minute ago". In the end I only  had one house finished and I didn't make it wonky as I intended because I got caught up in making it the right size.

I chose my inhabitants first and made my other choices based on that. As usual I am second guessing myself. My step in front of the doorway doesn't look  like a step, (my supposed to be) tropical sky looks like snow falling, I got it all together and realized I forgot the sun and now the piece I wanted to put there doesn't fit and I am not sure I like the colors. Ah well........ it  is really OK and there are more  houses to build. In a  few weeks  I will decide  I like it after all. Sometimes I need to put a little space between the sewing of one element and what I do with the final product of my labor; by then I have forgotten what I had in mind and am able to look with fresh eyes at what I made.

LOL, sometimes what I ended up with goes in the box of unused blocks.

Moving to the light

There is nothing like natural light when I need to really see what I am doing; so I moved my sewing machine in front of the window so I can  see the lines on the zentangle inspired applique I am working on. This is a setup that doesn't work all the time but short term it is OK. This time of year the sun does not shine directly in the window so I have nice bright light but not sun in my eyes. I wish that it was easy to move my sewing table to the window when I want more light but it involves shuffling too many things around to do it often. The sun has set and the light is gone for today so I will finish this tomorrow or Monday.

Most of the time I can get by with the lamps that are on either side of my machine but I am stitching on thin black lines on white fabric with black thread and I need to see exactly where I am going. 

This is the back of what I am working on. The top is  layered with the batting and as soon as I finish stitching over the drawing I will layer this part up with the backing and quilt the background free motion. I will also quilt some  of the long lines in the drawing. This way I don't have to worry about all the stuff on the back being perfect. It is not too bad but there are a few snarls and knots from all the stops and starts. I said this was not a practice piece but I am learning from it anyway.

A little progress

I made a little progress  today. I realized that it is almost time to bring out the Christmas dishes and quilts and I have a new Christmas quilt that was not quite finished . I needed to finish the big stitch quilting on these two blocks; that's all that was needed .

 This quilt has been sitting since August, all done, binding and all, waiting for this little bit of hand work. You can see the whole quilt here.

Yesterday I finished up my black and white  9 patch color wash background and fused the edges of the 3 circle doodle to the background. I still need to cut away the background from behind the doodle because all the seams, especially the intersections, create a problem with the stitching. I have to go out and get some Warm and Natural batting; that is the only batting I like for wall hangings.

This will be the largest doodle  that I have quilted and it will take some  time. I don't stitch on every line but most of them will be quilting lines. Up to now every one that I have done I have considered an experiment but I have experimented with several different ways of doing things and this one is not an experiment; it is the real deal.

Some nine patch colorwash, again

I spent a few days with  the cloth drawing of the 3 circles rolling around in my mind. I knew I wanted to do something different with it than just put a frame around it and quilt it. It is kind of a cockeyed photo because I didn't want to climb up on a ladder to take it down (and more  trouble yet, to put it back up straight); so I held my camera up over my head. It really is nice and square.

I made this  quilt  a few years ago. It is a nine patch color wash that was an experiment in luminosity that didn't show the luminosity the way I wanted but I liked it and added the applique and it hangs on the wall in my sewing  room. I made 9 patch blocks using the darkest and lightest 2 fabrics, then the next darkest and next lightest etc and  layed them out in a  diagonal pattern across the quilt. When I got to the bottom left corner the fabrics had very little  contrast and blended together.

I am going to make a similar background for the 3 circles. I dug around in my black and white fabrics and in my box of assorted mess leftover black and white strips and squares. This is what I sorted out to use. I will press them first, of course. I may shop for some white with black to make a smoother transition in the middle of the lights. I'll see how it looks when I get to the 3rd and 4th fabric combinations. Nine patch colorwash is much more forgiving than  using just squares.

Darks

Lights

I spent a lot of time yesterday working it out in Electric Quilt and making a chart to figure out how many strips of each fabric I need. I do this all the time; when I was teaching colorwash  and nine patch colorwash I had a chart for  everything. I am not sure whether anyone else ever thought they were useful but it saves me from starting something and not having enough to finish. Of course that still happens when I change my mind halfway through. That happens a lot because when I see it in real fabric I see other options. A chart also helps to show the finished size; colorwash quilts shrink dramaticly when you start  stitching the pieces together.

Playing with Circles

I see it is a long time since my last post. I have not been quilting (but I have been thinking about it.) I have been tangling in circles. These are 3 small ones on white fabric. The 2 larger ones are about 5 1/2 inches and the small one is about 4 inches. I have also done a lot of web surfing and a lot of practicing on paper and I have learned some new things. I do a lot of practicing on paper before I draw on the fabric with ink but even so my lines don't always go where I intend.

This is one that I drew  on canvas and it was more difficult to draw on than I expected. The roughness of the canvas took my lines in unexpected directions sometime. I experimented with different pens also and some of my lines are a good bit heavier than what I really wanted.   When you draw with permanent ink "it is what it is." I think I will just frame it with a cheap simple black frame and hang it in my sewing room. there will be no sewing on this one.

I worked on this one on the right all week.  Each of these circles is 8 1/2 inches. I would have to stop and rest my eyes every so often. It is better not to draw lines when you have eye strain and start to see double. I often had to stop and think about what I  wanted to do next before moving on to another section. 

I will be quilting it after I make the background for it. I will applique it (machine applique) and then quilt it.  

I did  some shopping around this week for pens and tools that might be helpful. I have a set of my husbands old drafting compasses but I found these precision instruments much more helpful, when using a pen. I like the glass Crockpot lid in particular because it is glass and I can see through it. If you look closely you can see the refection of my hands and arms as I am holding the camera above my precision instruments.

The pencils won

The pencils won out over the table runner in my decision of what to do next.
I didn't have enough Warm and Natural batting to do the table runner and the pencils were right there waiting for me to play with them.


Back of the front section

Fish  5 x 7

I used the watercolor pencils to color the background so it would look like water and then drew my fish with a Pigma pen. I layered the fish and the batting and quilted it. I put borders around it to frame the fish then layered it right sides together and turned it. The second picture shows what is inside never to be seen. I make my back in 2 pieces and leave an opening for turning because I find it easier to close that opening than trying to make it look right on the edge. On something this small I use a piece of fusible web to close the opening. 

Below is the inside and the front of the other little piece I made. It is not really a Zentangle but I wanted to experiment with the pencils and also quilting on the fine lines. I learned that if I am going over my quilting lines a second time rayon thread is likely to break so I switched to Trilobal polyester and there was no more breakage.

Flowers 5 x 6 1/2

Inside of flowers

  I learned also that if I am going around a tight curve I need to shorten my stitches by about half of what I usually use for a smoother line.

  

When I finished these I went out to Joann's and got the batting I need to finish the table runners.



Zentangle® play day

Yesterday was our second Zentangle® inspired play day. There was a small group this time but some interesting  sharing. I wanted to show a slide show of all the photos that I took but my photo program is not cooperating with me so I will only show you what was translated into fiber art.

Janet put her designs on fabric that she colored with watercolor pencils.The one on the top left is done on paper and the top right is fabric. They are all fun little pieces and show me that what  I do does not have to be a big serious piece of art. N(not that I  really make big serious pieces of art)Janet also made so very nice note cards using the same technique.



Sue experimented with a lot of different applications and she used different colors of watercolor pencils and pens for her doodles.



Little hexie bag with doodles on patches and around top

Doodles in squares on printed fabric

Enhanced printed motifs plus doodles

She also experimented with doodling on the squares on printed fabric with different motifs, and enhanced the lines of printed designs as well as adding doodles. She doodled also in the squares of leftover 9 patch and log cabin blocks .(not shown)

Below is a postcard she made by cutting out and fusing doodles to a background. She used printed fabrics and drew over them.

On the left is a collage she made by filling in the shapes on a white background with fused "doodle type" black and white fabric.

black and white collage

Postcard

. 

Stitches on the sewing  machine

Sue also used the fancy stitches on  her sewing  machine to fill in spaces of a collage.

Other  people worked on paprr drawing collages or hands. I would like to show them but blogger gets testy if I try to used too many pictures and won't let me put them where I want.

It was very interesting to see what everyone was doing and we decided  to meet again this fall to see how people have used this in their work.

I was really pleased and excited when Lori said she would be interested in quilting my bigger piece that I was  not so sure I wanted to tackle after having done some small practice pieces. I feel my skills are not up to what I had originally planned (or any of the other ideas I had). She took the whole pattern home with her, with my blessing to do with it whatever  she wants. She is a very accomplished, patient machine quilter and I am sure it will be wonderful. It is such a relief to me to be able to give it away and feel free to change directions.

On the other hand

Yesterday was another hot day that left me wilted. We went to the Y to walk and work out and it was nice and cool there but I still felt wiped out. The tree in front of our apt makes the AC work much more efficiently than the other apartment and I appreciate being able to feel comfortable but I hate to have it on all the time. It bothers my sinuses after a while.  I had printed my right hand sketch and was all ready to work on but just couldn't get up the enthusiasm to do it. After we had a short thunderstorm around dinner time it  cooled off and I perked up. I layered up and started quilting it and I finished it up today. I am going to hang them both on the wall above my desk.

Here it is, crooked fingers and bumpy knuckles and all. I did this one the same way as the left hand except  I put in a layer of Warm and White cotton batting along with the Timtex and I used very light gray instead of white for the echo quilting. It makes the echo quilting show up better. I also did  a lot more quilting on the long lines on the right hand. I went veeeerrrryyyy slow using my walking foot.

Here they are side by side. I won't hang them this way because I should have paid attention to the orientation of the right hand sketch before I printed it. There really is no yellow cast to the background, they are more like the one above. I printed the right hand on an EQ fabric sheet and it is not quite so bright white as the PFD fabric that I soaked in Bubblejet Set and ironed on to freezer paper. I think I am going to have to take notes so that I won't have to start out every time as though I have never done this before.

I guess I will work on the iris next. I can't start the bigger one until I get more Wonder Under. I went to Joann's the other day and they were out of Wonder Under on the bolt. It was there when I first looked but the line at the cutting table was so so long I decided to get the other things I came for and when I went back it was gone. Oh well..........................................

Zentangle Addiction

It was pointed out to me that the Zentangle® name is a registered trademark and I was concerned enough to remove it from all my posts, however, I visited the Zentangle® legal  page and found that it is OK to say my work has been inspired by the Zentangle® art form.
 The Zentangle® art form and method was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas and is copyrighted. Zentangle® is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

I think I have a Zentangle addiction. I have been doodling on every piece of paper that is on my desk. An idea pops into my head and I have to put it on paper. I have been trying for 2 days to put things away in my sewing room but I sort through some papers and find something I want to sketch or a sketch I want to improve.

Today I traced one doodle/sketch onto release  paper and then I ironed it very lightly onto a piece of fabric with fusible web on the back and and yesss!!! the design did  transfer to the back of the fused fabric. I cut it out and fused it to a square of light lime green fabric.

Here is the original sketch and the fused  piece. I think it looks like an iris. I am at that point where I am eager to begin to do some stitching on it and yet I am hesitant to start because I don't want to  mess it up.

I am also ready to to scan my sketch of my right hand and print it on fabric. I will then trace over the lines with a black Pigma pen and quilt it. I think I will  fix that  dark area on the thumb first. I like printing it on fabric and then tracing the lines. For one thing, if I really mess it up I can print another one and start over. It is also kind of like coloring in a coloring book. I just have to stay within on the lines. I  figure it is not cheating since the original drawing is my own.

I plan to do my fish the same way. On the left is my first fish. I liked it until  I realized the fin on the side looked more like a birds  wing than a fish part. The one on the right is better but not sure I like it well enough to make it in fabric. I have a few more fish but they are all pretty similar. I think I am fooling around with the hands and fish so I can avoid admitting I am reluctant  to work  on the iris and on the bigger one that I made the sketch and pattern for. I guess I will do the hand and see what I want to do next.
Laura Wasilowski  posted today on her blog how to do a wrapped binding on a small  piece with Timtex in it. I think I am  going to  give that a try on my right hand piece I am also going to put a layer of batting between the quilt  top and the Timtex. The left hand could use a little more dimension.