Friday Feet 02-03-12

The lady is wearing black hose and standing in front of a black tablecloth.  But my camera reads it as blue and I cannot make it black.  Sorrry.

Design Inspiration, Fiber Postcards 02-02-12

I'm sure that anyone who creates anything original is asked how they get their ideas.  I always feel that they come to me out of thin air, but my brain knows that the inspiration can come from just about anywhere.  I have tried to track down the source of that initial spark and a few times I have been able to do so quickly, but most of the time I don't know - it just appears inside my head.  When I teach a class I always try to give students an idea where they can seek inspiration when they are first starting to do original design.  Postcards provide an opportunity to try a great many designs within a limited format and the making of the card is not going to take months, as a quilt might. 

One place a novice might begin is to look at fabric designs and cut out pieces to compose in a new way on the postcard.  This fabric is several years old and was designed by Ruth B. McDowell and her daughter Leah.  It makes a charming baby quilt and came in several colorways. 

This bunny jumping out of a top hat is cute and is within the size restriction of 4" x 6", but I don't like the fact that he is tipping over!

So, I have cut him out of the background and will fuse him to a different background.  Since the color contrast between the bunny and the hat is so stark I will have to try a number of fabrics to find one that works. The dark line between his ears is a shadow since the motif has not yet been fused down.

Here is an overall small pattern - the color works, but I think the pattern is too busy.  I'll keep looking.

Here is another possibility from the same fabric.  I fused a rectangle of Wonder-Under to the yardage in the correct place so that I didn't have to worry about off grain stretching when I cut out the postcard shape. 

 

If I am deciding to use a preprinted fabric design I sometimes cut a window template 4" x 6" to see how it is going to work.  As you see, the motif I am looking at is a little smaller than the postcard size, I will have to put a narrow border around the card or throw exactitude out the window and use it this way.  If our quilting background is traditional it is sometimes difficult to let go the strictures we have learned when making patchwork fit together. 

Wordless Wednesday - Gone South! 02-01-12

Winter Flowers 01-31-12

This jade plant that grows between my garage/pathway and that of my neighbor, Mark-to-the-South, is blooming with wild abandon right now.   In twenty+ years it is quite literally a jade TREE, even though I cut it back severely so it won't block the pathway.

As a child in Oregon I saw my mother haul her precious potted jade plant into the basement every fall and out again in spring, but I never remember it blooming. 

When I first had my own new yard in Southern California and started looking for plants to fill it I found it hard to believe that potted plant in Oregon was the same one that grows outdoors so vigorously all year here. 

We don't have a lot of resident bees, but those that are in the neighborhood find the flowers.

Looking very closely at one little bloom makes me think of something from a movie about outer space or maybe The Little Shop of Horrors. 

 

They are very symmetrical and quite lovely - but so tiny!

Monday Browsing 01-30-12

Ruth B. McDowell has posted a new chicken quilt – “Red Hen with Chicks”
http://www.ruthbmcdowell.com/clients/rbm/catalog.cfm
 Click on the picture for her comments.

Australian art quilt exhibit: http://www.ozquiltnetwork.org.au/index.php/australia-wide-two

One-minute Baby Belly Laugh:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4abiHdQpc

5-minute video on colored pencils:  http://stegart.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-first-video.html

Another site for “word clouds”:  www.tagxedo.com

Free tutorials:  http://andthenwesetitonfire.blogspot.com/2012/01/ufo-tutorial-day-1.html
Rayna Gillman is January guest Blogger


Patterns for many different totes, storage bags, organizers:
http://www.sewingsupport.com/sewing-how-to/free-patterns-and-projects/caddies-and-organizers.html




"Keeping Warm"  Not an original picture, but I couldn't resist lifting it!

Terri Stegmiller quilt in TCQC 01-29-12

This is another of the Twelveby12 gift quilts.  It didn't make the cut for the VAM exhibit because there are two of Terri's bluebirds in the Collection and I chose the earlier one from the SAQA 2011 auction.

Such a perky little bird with a very authentic beak. Notice the spiral quilting that focuses attention on the eye and the feet.  Terri has used a pieced background, something I always appreciate in a quilt of any size, and close-set vertical quilting lines on either side of the spirals.  A very effective quilting choice. 

The view of the back shows the FMQ with black thread "sketching"that forms the outline of the bird which is filled in with color on the front of the quilt.

 

A hand printed label that gives the four most important bits of info - Title, Artist, Date, Contact.