Butterfly and Tiger Lilies

More than a few years ago I took a picture of some Turk's Cap Lilies while a butterfly was sitting on it. I always thought it might make a good quilt. In the photo below, you can see the original photo, a line drawing of the photo and the beginning of the quilt.

The techniques I am using to make this quilt are essentially the same ones I use to make most of my realistic pictorial quilts, whether they are floral, landscapes or architectural. I start with a photo. I make a detailed line drawing of the photo and use that line drawing to create my pattern. My construction method of choice is a particular applique technique that I call "Upside-Down Applique".

The process involves careful fabric selection to capture the values from the original photo. Often translating the image from photo to fabric results in a more dynamic finished image as I increase the value contrast and color saturation. In the picture above I have begun the applique, using a variety of mostly batik fabrics.

Value helps to define objects.Value contributes to the illusion of dimensionality.

I use mostly prints and batiks in my quilts. Prints and batiks have the benefit of visual texture. They contain value changes within the fabric that add life to the composition. In contrast, solid fabrics tend to look quite flat and lifeless.

Prints or batiks also help to visually blend edges. When working with applique, it can be very difficult to achieve what artists call a soft edge. It is the nature of fabric art to have hard edges where one fabric stops and another begins. In order to disguise the hard edges and make smoother transitions, use prints.

When adjacent fabrics share some hues and values, they create a smoother transition from one to the next. The seam or join is camouflaged by the common elements the two fabrics share.

I am just getting started with this quilt, but it is going well so far.

Cleaning Up, Cutting Machine and Another New Hobby

I have spent the last few weeks cleaning up and rearranging my sewing studio. There are several reasons for the big clean-up. The whole room was a disaster area. Fabric, patterns and supplies were everywhere. It was not conductive for thinking, working, sewing or finding things, and I wanted to do some quilting.

One reason for the big clean up was because I added an Accuquilt Go-Big cutting machine to my studio. I needed to make a space for it. Although it is a significant investment, there are a few reasons for buying the cutting machine. Last winter I decided I wanted to make a simple quilt from largish squares that would put the focus on the fabrics instead of on a complex pattern. Night after night I cut squares until I felt like I had enough to start piecing. By that time my wrists and hands were feeling quite sore. It took some of the fun out of the project, and of course I needed more pieces.

A small part of the quilt

Not too much later, I was looking through a magazine, and came across some information about the cutting machine and the idea took hold.

I should mention that although I am known more for my pictorial quilts than for geometric ones, I have always enjoyed playing with color and fabric and working with scraps. It is what I like to do when I don't want to think too hard and just want to enjoy sewing with colorful fabric.

Electric Cutting Machine and some Dies

The cutting machine has allowed me to take control of my scraps and turn them into useable patchwork pieces. It has also gotten me working on a North Wind quilt. North Wind is a light/dark geometric pattern that kind of sparkles with color once the blocks are put together. It's not a particularly difficult pattern but as much as I have always liked the look, the idea of cutting so many half square triangles for each block had always stopped me in the past.

Some of my North Wind blocks

And finally, during the big clean up, I have made a space for oil painting. My husband has been doing water colors for years. Although I have never been a painter, I have studied art most of my life. We recently started taking some oil painting classes at a nearby arts center and decided to try some at home. I fully expect my first attempts to be rather horrible, but iti s kind of fun to have actual easels in the studio.

Flowers in Winter

One of my crafting loves is making realistic Flower Quilts. I began making them in 2003 as part of the Journal Quilt Project. I made a small flower quilt each month for six months.
This Mountain Laurel from June 2003 is one of my very favorites:

The devil is in the details, and in this quilt the details are machine embroidered (hand guided, not programed).  

Tiger lily is another of my flower quilts, done on a larger scale. 

I begin my flower quilts with a photo. 

Then work with the photo to make a line drawing, and finally, use a special applique method that I call Upside-Down Applique to construct the quilt. Once all the fabric is in place, I add embroidered details and quilting to complete the work. 

I use a number of techniques in addition to applique to create my realistic flower quilts. I emphasize light and shadow, or stated a different way, value and contrast. Contrast can elevate and define our work. The use of value can create an illusion of depth and the skillful use of contrast can take our textiles from folk art into the realm of fine art.

 

I teach my methods at the Academy of Quilting in a class called Flower Power. Many of my students have created spectacular quilts using these methods. You can see them in this Student Gallery. Join me.

Knitting and Quilting

Some may wonder why you see a lot of quilting on a knitting blog. The answer is, this is more of a craft blog, named for a favorite pastime, knitting. 

I have done crafts all my life for as long as I can remember. I was hand sewing and doing embroidery from the time I was very small.

When I was about 11, my mom signed me up for a sewing class where I learned to sew clothing. I made a most horrible bright orange print dress as one of my first projects. But I did learn to sew and put in zippers and do hems and all that good stuff.

Somehow I learned to knit, though I don't remember how I started.

This is a recent hexipuff, knitted from a chart I used for a vest I knitted,
probably in the late 1980's.  I still have the pattern, but the vest was given away long ago.

 

 

For most of my adult life I have been a quilter. First I did clothing, then I started making fairly traditional patchwork quilts from scraps and fabrics I raided from my mom's stash.

One of my clothing projects was an Afghani Nomad's dress, made from a Folkwear Pattern. I spent so much time on the embroidered and quilted yoke of the dress, that by the time I finished, the dress no longer fit.  

I dabbled in lots of different crafts for awhile. I tried fabric dyeing and marbling. I made a lot of beaded earrings. I knit several sweaters and vests, lots of hats and scarves. I bought plenty of materials for crafts I barely tried.

At some point,  I decided to devote my time exclusively to quilting. No more dyeing, because even with a respirator, dyes made me cough and sneeze. No more knitting, since obsessive knitting had given me a bad case of sciatia.

I quilted. I learned lots of techniques. I created some techniques of my own. I taught quilting. 

And then I rediscovered knitting and the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup on Ravelry.

When I first started playing, I made this Harry Potter inspired quilt, based on a tale from Beedle the Bard.

 

Now, I knit as much as I can. I try not to aggravate the sciatica or totally wear out my hands. I can crochet in a pinch, and I still quilt. If you see a mention of Quidditch or Hufflepuff, it has to do with knitting games. But I will always enjoy playing in my scraps and making things with fabric and thread.

The Ultimate Draft Stopper

Each winter I create a "tent-with-in -a-tent" in my basement studio. The basement is a big space and I use about a third of it for my sewing. The rest has space for yoga when I have enough discipline to actually do yoga, a big bookcase and a second sewing machine I rarely use. 

 
I can close off the sewing part of the studio with hanging quilts and a partition/design wall my husband built for me. This makes the smaller space I am actually using much easier to heat and very cozy. Each winter the configuration may be a little different. This time I ended up with a space about a foot wide between the partition and the hanging quilt. 

I needed a solution. I created the ultimate draft-stopper, made completely of scraps from my box of "bitsy pieces"

It is a strip made of 7 large blocks that can hang from the end of the quilt stand and close the gap and cut off the cold air.

I made the blocks about 14" wide and most of them are 10-12" long. The strip goes from the ceiling, almost to the floor, effectively closing the gap and keeping me nice and warm.

It was lots of fun to make the blocks and mix fabrics with abandon. 

This is also a great way to use scraps to make place mats, table runners or even quilts.

Center section

In the picture below, you can see the draft stopper doing its thing, creating a cozy warm space for sewing. 

On the left is the design wall/partition, on the right, a quilt made of alternating simple blocks out of a huge variety of Asian inspired fabrics. For now, the barrier on the right is just a big piece of polar fleece I had laying around.

I always like playing in my scraps. Right now, I have a class called Samplers, Settings and Scraps going at the Academy of Quilting.I hope you will join me!

Hufflepuff Quidditch Spring 2014

FlandersQuidditch - Video Maker

I play knitting games in the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry. 

In Spring 2014 all the players gathered for the Quidditch World Cup, in which different countries were represented on the pitch to battle for the title. I was a Beater, or cheerleader for Hufflepuff. Many Hufflepuffians supported Team Flanders. I created badges for our team to wear. Each badge was a badger wearing a hat from their country. This little video presents a selection of the badges set to music. So turn on your speakers for the music, or turn them off if you hate it. I thought it was funny.

Cicada bags

 These little bags are modified versions of the Cicada bags from Kumiko Sudo's lovely book, Omiage. I have added beads to their heads and simplified the wings. I like combining beautiful Asian-inspired fabrics to make these little bug bags.

These small bags are suitable for a cell phone or a bit of make-up or other small things you might need to carry. They are fun to make and they make nice little gifts.