Monday, March 26, 2018

Work in Progress: One Love One Heart and What You Can Accomplish in 20 to 30 Minutes

No sooner than I finished my wall quilt, Frida, I resumed working on my Bob Marley-inspired quilt.  I spent my Sunday trimming down embroidered panels to 8 1/2" x 9 1/2" (nerve wracking!)and then hunting through my stash for the right color of sashing.  I do love this color palette....saturated colors of Kona Purple, Rich Red, and Brown.  I've seen from the interaction of colors in Frida that the colors of embroidery and pearl cotton thread in topaz, lavender, and dark pinks will pop while the hand quilting will look just glorious.  I will probably stitch down with light pink thread the applique blocks.  As for the the embroidered text which is rather small and tiny, I'll frame each line of lyric in a box with a thread that matches the background fabric.
Last night I measured and fused and cut Warm and Natural batting and Kona natural for the backing and then spray basted AND pinned One Love One Heart.   
This morning I managed to stitch in the ditch the rows running longitudinally before leaving for work. It's amazing how much sewing one can get done in the 20 to 30 minutes.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Quilting: Frida

Yesterday instead of agitating and marching for gun control in San Francisco, I stayed home all day and did not venture out once...NOT ONCE!  That's how obsessed I was with finishing my wall quilt of Frida Kahlo, which started out as an embroidered panel that I thought I was going to frame and then give to my clay instructor.  But then it took ever so long that I decided, no I love Debbie, but I'm keeping this for myself because it's such a showcase of all the learning that has happened in my quilting and was so proud of that record.  I joined a Fat Eighth Kona Club at Pink Castle Fabrics and so used some of that fabric to log cabin Frida.  I loved pulling embroidery thread and seeing how their colors interacted with the colors of the fabric below.
I even loved the stark contrast of those colored embroidery threads on the white backing.  I so adore the look of the running stitch even though hand quilting takes such A LONG TIME that I even think I'll hand quilt my Funny Valentine quilt on which I spent a Friday evening from 5 to 9 stitching in the ditch (and it's still not done!)....that'll be another blog.
A neighbor visited and interrupted my binding and addition of a hanging sleeve to Frida, which was fine as I kept thinking below MUST.  NOT.  SPILL.  RED.  WINE. while finishing Frida.
I couldn't retire until it was done, and now it is and now I can get back to Mighty Lucky and another Valentine foundation paper pieced quilt as well as a crazy quilt that's still in my head as well as my One Heart One Love wall quilt...sew many quilts, sew little time.

Work in Progress: Mighty Lucky

Now that my Frida mini quilt is finished, I've time to construct the next two rows for my Mighty Lucky quilt, which were designed by Nicholas Ball who also happens to be a fan and advocate of improvisational quilting.  I, however, am not such a fan of wonky blocks though I am a fan of crosses and will get improvisational with color, meaning I'll cut my strips and maybe put them in a paper bag to pull and randomize.  Below are the crosses in one color.
And below are the crosses in two different colors from my palette.  I want my quilt to look cohesive, and I feel like the rows I made from Carolyn Friedlander's design are so orderly and precise that I kind of want the same in the second and second to last row.  I finished my Frida quilt last night, and so today will be devoted to this quilt after a little embroidery on my One Heart One Love quilt followed by a little tai chi, pilate and yoga in body flow class.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Work in Progress: Hoop Art

I took a workshop at QuiltCon 2018 from Nichole Vogelsinger titled "Layered Abstraction."  I wasn't very happy with a result there and decided on a re-do.  I can't help myself.  I love text, and so I decided to embroider another favorite quote.  I've bought two fat quarters for this embroidered art--a sea green batik and a light blue fabric with a repeating pattern of waves to highlight the quote below.  If you look more closely at the photo, you can glimpse a Hokusai line drawing beneath the text--and so that will be another opportunity to embellish this text.  I'll be breaking out my light box this weekend:)

Work in Progress: My Funny Valentine Quilt

I thought I had basted my latest quilt adequately, but alas some H U G E puckers emerged.  Last month at Stashbusters, one of the veteran quilters recommended that I use basting spray instead.  And so for the past month, I've been ripping out those stitch in the ditches.  I brought it back to quilting studio the other night just for B A S T I N G.  I sprayed and then also pinned and am returning to the studio after work to use the huge tables for creating infrastructure before free motion quilting this bad girl.

Work in Progress: Frida Quilt

In between getting dinner done (and I'm not talking cooking, merely popping Stouffers into the oven), cuddling my dog and cleaning up after our meal, I managed to free motion quilt the Frida embroiderered panel and get started on hand quilting the borders.

From a Lori Kennedy video tutorial, I picked up the tip to quilt the background of Frida and to stitch down some of the embroidery, using monofilament invisible thread--and it truly is naked to the eye in the needle because I just started stiching on faith that thread was going down.  This wall quilt is also my first foray into handquilting.  I quite love the look of it so far and can't wait for it to be done....am still deciding what color binding to use.


Monday, March 12, 2018

Work in Progress: One Love One Heart Wall Quilt

This quilt started with my love of Robert Indiana's bold, simple and iconic "LOVE" and a discovery and affection for foundation paper piecing hearts (they're perfect for beginners to this quilt skill).  Put two and two together, and you get a theme derived from Bob Marley's "One Love/People Get Ready" of course!  
Since this text is larger than what I usually embroider, I decided to use 6-ply rather than my usual 3-ply of thread.  I don't like that I lose some of the finer and smoother detail of 3-ply, but I'm gonna go with it just like I'm gonna go with the lack of contrast between the hot pink and oranges and red...viewers are just gonna have to get up close to read the text.
 Below I went with my usual 3-ply work, and it seemed to take an ever long time to finish.  However, I do like the contrast of coral and red.
And the project evolved.  I wanted to add more pictorial panels.  Below you see the reverse raw applique block of the world--a new technique for me.  I plan to outline the globe in maroon as well as add text.
 I added another pictorial panel to encompass people as you can see below and traced on a light box more of my favorite lyrics.
I'm not sure if I am going to log cabin these panels in orange and purple or sew sashes between them.  However, I love the look of them so far and am going to re-watch Lori Kennedy's "Creating a Quilting Plan" on how to stitch down applique and embroidery.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Work in Progress: Frida Portrait Quilt

I started embroidering this portrait of Frida Kahlo sometime last year and finally finished it a couple weeks ago.
 I decided it was not quite finished as she needed her signature unibrow and mustache.
She is ready for borders as a frame to her portrait.  However, my friends said the colors below were not right...perhaps not vibrant enough.
 Below are the colors that people say complements the portrait better.


Ceramics: Sea Mug

This is the first mug that I’ve made and was most satisfied to put out into the world.....and it only took 20 or so mediocre mugs to get there