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Archive for the ‘12X12 challenge’ Category

Tacky, Tacky

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Today, Terry and I worked on attaching the Twelve by Twelve quilts to felt panels for our exhibition at IQF in Houston. It was hot; we are not that young; we got back aches but managed to finish half of the quilts.

We are using a quilt basting gun to attach them to the felt.

We measured and placed four quilts to a panel by pinning on the right side, then flipped the panel over and used the tacking gun to attach through the back of the quilt.

Here is the fruits of our labor, packaged by theme in plastic bags.

We had some trouble with our basting guns. The first one I bought jammed and the needle broke after one test shot. I bought another which stopped working. It seemed as if something had come unhinged inside so I took it apart to see if I could fix it. Ha, ha!

So, while I kept pinning, Mr C, our hero, went to Michaels and bought another one. So far so good. The pink thing is the plastic tags that get shot into the fabric.

We are going to finish the other 12 color play quilts at our respective homes and then meet on Friday to pack them up and send them off to Houston.

Quilt Rehab

Thursday, September 15th, 2011


Remember this piece? Beautiful bits of painted organza — total mess of a composition. It now is dismantled and lying in the heap you see above.

I realized when it was done that the proportions of my little pockets were off. I think they need to be square to get the kind of flow that I have in the other 2 pieces:

So I took it apart and trimmed the pockets and will now reassemble the piece. I am going to change the dimensions a bit, too.

I went to Fabric Depot today to buy a quilt basting gun for attaching the Twelve by Twelve quilts to the felt panels that Terry and I have been working on. She is sick today, but if she is well enough, we will get to work on them tomorrow.

While I was there, I started looking at fabric for a quilt for my great niece Gwen. She has orange, yellow and green in her room. I decided to do polka dots and stripes. The backing will be the white with multicolored dots in flannel.

Not sure when I will fit it in, but, sometimes doing mindless piecing is a stress reduce for me.

Family Creativity

Monday, September 12th, 2011

This is a gorgeous necklace made from yarn, designed by my daughter, Stephanie. Isn’t it gorgeous?

She and her creative partner, Maria, have designed a new little, limited edition book of two projects and how to illustrations. It features the beautiful yarns of Quince & Co.

You can read more about their collaboration on their blog, 3191 Miles Apart. The book, Interwoven, is available here.

I had a busy week-end. I have volunteered to be a helper a couple of Sundays a month for our Sunday School program — in the art activity room, of course. We had the open house yesterday. I also was helping with the Trinity Art’s Committee table during coffee hour. Every activity had a table — er, half a table to display their programs for the coming year. I created a poster for the workshops I am coordinating and a take away bookmark of all our events for the year.

Today, I have been working on labels for my Twelve by Twelve colorplay quilts for their trip to Houston. I ordered large plastic bags for each of the complete mosaics. The label has a photo of the mosaic and a label to identify it’s order when they are hung.

 

Terry is coming over later this week and we will get them all attached to the felt panels, packaged and ship them to Houston. Time is flying by.

Secret Project Revealed

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

At the end of June, my good fiber friend, Judy, who lives in Georgia, posted this photo of her mother and her grandson that was taken on father’s day, just a couple of weeks before her mom passed away. I just love this photo. Her mother was failing, but rallied on that day when Charlie came to visit. It just speaks volumes about our lives and moms, grandmom and great grandmoms. I knew I just had to create something for Judy with the photo as a remembrance of her mom.

Using Photoshop Elements, I created a line drawing/sketch of the photo.

 

I experimented with different colors of organza and background fabric and finally found the right combination. I fused the photo to the background chiffon and took it New York with me where I worked on the background stitching, a combination of French knots and seed stitch.

Here is a detail:

I decided that it needed a frame to set it off instead of having a hanging rod. I am very happy with the result.

I sent it off, priority mail, last Friday and Judy called me today, in tears, as she had received it.

I had a really nice long week-end. I managed to stitch the rod pockets for several  black felt panels for the Twelve by Twelve exhibit at IQF in Houston in November. Terry has been cutting the panels. When they are all finished, we will attach the quilts and send them off to Houston.

On Sunday, Mr C and I went to the lighting store to find new pendent lights for the kitchen. We have four, two over two separate counters. They have always been a problem. The lights keep needing to be changed and finally, this week, one of the globes broke and fell in shatters on the counter and floor. Here is one of the old ones.

Here is the new one. Makes more of a statement and provides better task lighting.

Endless Summer And Fiesta

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

For the orange Twelve by Twelve colorplay challenge, I painted raw silk and silk organza with Dynaflow paints. I loved the fabric so much, I ended up creating two pieces. The above piece was created by cutting strips of the painted fabric and fusing the composition and then machine stitching.

Here is the raw silk fabric that I painted.

Here is a detail:

As I was working on this, I kept having a flashback to a memory of something. It finally came to me. When we were a young married couple, Mr C and I fell in love with a certain poster that brought a bit of summer to our Schenectady, NY home. So I have named this piece, Endless Summer.

I love painted organza. I have made many pieces with it.

I painted some batting with the orange Dynaflow. I scrunched the organza and pleated it and ironed it and pinned it.

I then started stitching by hand with Perle cotton. I finished it late last night. Whew! I thought perhaps I should name it Insanity, but instead, it has the fun name, Fiesta.

Here is a detail:

Now, I have to decide which one joins the Twelve by Twelve group. Do you have an opinion?

Reminder: if you haven’t left a comment for a chance to win Masters Art Quilts Vol 2, go to yesterday’s post and add your two cents. The drawing will be on Tuesday.