Emerging Foggy Spring

March, being the month of early Spring, was the month that I signed up to present a challenge for my favorite Etsy team.  This Spring challenge for the Blogging Business Artisans was called  Emerging Foggy Spring  (which is the title of my finished piece too!) and I wrote the challenge this way:

I am proposing that we try something this month that is a little softer.  I call it - Emerging Foggy Spring. Let's explore color in terms of tint. In color theory, a tint is the mixture of a color with white, which increases lightness. We often create with bright color and ignore tints of color. Create a project with muted tints leaving lots of white space, if you can. This project is to challenge your thought processes about color, using tints. Don't be intimidated by the absence of bright color. Get creative!

So here is what I came up with, and mind you, I didn't even have a clue what I was going to do, back when I signed up for presenting this challenge.  I have been thinking about it quite a bit, and today I got an idea.  

I started with a bunch of scrap fabric and made a crazy quilt block.  I decided to explore the WRONG side of the fabric.  Many fabrics have a whitish reverse side, where the color has only bled thru in the screen printing process. The pattern is not actually woven into the yardage. Thus it has a tinted look.  

At first, it was a bit daunting to my brain, sewing wrong sides together, since I am used to sewing with the right sides facing each other.  As you can see, I actually did the bottom two strips and the top right hand corner with the "right" side up to facilitate the design that I had in mind.  

Here is what is looks like on the "wrong" side --that I am not using--more colorful and not the stuff of this challenge:

Next, I made a quilt sandwich with it, adding the batting and backing and quilting a scene to it.  I used different colors of thread, from black to gray to white, to create the tree's depth in the fog, but it is hard to detect in this photo. (WOW, do I need a new camera--not just this phone camera--broke my good camera!- Maybe you can click on the photo and zoom in and see what I am talking about.)

Anyway, using the right side up in the bottom strips has created a more "real" look in the foreground.  The flower field then fades into the fog with the next strip being reversed to the tint side.  I also have the sun peaking thru the clouds at the top right using the "right" side of the fabric for the sun's brightness.

The actual quilting process shows the tree, flowers and swirling fog of the scene on top of the muted fabrics. 

Reverse of my quilt sandwich

I haven't decided yet how I will bind the little mini quilt, but I am quite proud of the way that it has turned out for a simple afternoon's work!  

P.S.  Linking today with Pink Saturday! 

Who Am I?

It's January and I am still in the self and creative evaluation process! January is really a reflective month for me.  Exploring my love of quilts in this post.

Exhibit at Tillamook Creamery in Tillamook, Oregon

I love to look at quilt magazines and books; sewing TV "How to Do it" shows; as well as go to quilt exhibits. I love quilts where ever I find them--on my bed, in flea markets, or as backdrops for commercial fabric vendors.  I recently bought a new sewing machine that is more conducive to quilting, with drop feed dogs and a darning foot attachment!  Much better than my old basic machine!  Love it!  But . . . I am getting sidetracked!

An early tablerunner project that I quilted

I have found that when I quilt, I am better at getting smaller projects finished than I am at finishing a large bed-sized quilt.  (Previously I sent bed and lap quilts out to another studio, Janice Jenney Studio. She's done a nice job for me on the quilting, after my patchwork was done.) This may be just that I am not as accomplished at quilting as I would like to be, and afraid that the satisfaction of a "Job well done!" will not be there at the end, if I do it!  So I have dug a little deeper into my psyche to find out about a few peculiarities about myself.

1.  I am not a "purest" quilter!  I really don't care if the corners match up with precision!   I've seen on TV:  "Always press to the dark side of the fabric!" and "Trim the little corners, so it will lie flat!" and "Always have the presser foot in the down position."  These are all good instructions, but I find that I enjoy doing it my way! I like to finish my projects satisfying my own desires to be creative.  I march to the beat of my own clock!  I don't quilt to be judged by others nor by their standards!   Call me a rebel! (And I will never win any honors by traditional quilt judges, but that's OK with me.)

2.  I love the exploring process.  Learning to complete the process, start to finish!  Learning to do free motion quilting on my own machine!  Coming up with my own designs!  Exploring color combinations!  This quilt was done because I loved the block's center pieces of pansy fabric.--I designed around those pieces and their colors.  You can see the finished quilt here, when it was actually shared in a quilt show!

Exploring fabric colors to match 

3.  I don't like using someone else's patterns!  I love the creating process!  Thinking it through, planning and finishing!

4. I love using materials that I have on hand--I personally, do not like leftovers!  I like to "Use it up!" as the old adage goes. I like using materials that are not considered the "proper" materials! I guess that stems from the artist in me! This quilt was made for a friend, who had already cut out dozens of squares of fabric that was a bit  too loosely woven and stiff for a "normal" quilter, but I didn't want to waste her work!  It came out fine as the black and white border of this bed quilt (and the girls liked it!)

Well, That's enough self-evaluation, you get the point!  Be creative and don't worry about what others think. Decide who you are and go from there to find your greatest achievements!

 Enjoy the journey and keep on learning! 

Are you enjoying the journey?

Two Baby Quilts

I have been staying at a friend's house--house and pet sitting for her.  She has a huge sewing studio (see previous post about it) and I get to use it when I am there.  So, last week I took advantage and finished up some quilt projects using her Pfaff quilting 2027 machine. I had finished piecing them previously and was waiting to have them quilted or be able to quilt them myself with a good machine--I am sorely in need of a good quilting machine!  But Oh Well . . . . that's another story!

I quilted and finished the edging of two baby quilts. One in greens and yellow; and the other brown and pink.

The green one is to be an heirloom quilt for my family.  It is made of scraps that are from a larger quilt that I made during my recovery from breast cancer surgeries.  It has special meaning to me and my family.  It will be kept in my legacy box for my grandchildren until such time as I want to give it away or the contents will be given away at my passing.  I want to leave some of my creations to my family, so I cannot sell them all!

The pink and brown one will be sold in my shop, to be listed sometime later this week.  It is made of a minky and flannel panel that I found on sale and I added the cute pink flannel backing. Doesn't it look so soft and cuddly!!

Sure was fun to use a good machine!  Thanks Sharon!!!!

March BBA Challenge - Part 2

I have finished my BBA challenge project (see Monday's Part 1 post) and was going to post it on Tuesday, but held off until today.  Several reasons for this, one was presented in the Tuesday post but the biggest reason is, I was disappointed with my resulting product.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love the color combination, which is what the challenge was all about!  I was pleasantly surprised that what I thought was a little 'out there' combination, turned out to be beautiful and I can't say that enough!

I made a quilted Easter table runner. 

As you can see, it doesn't lie flat, although it might after it is washed.  It's all cotton, so it will probably soften up in the washing process. 

Not to belabor my disappointment, but I am also just learning to free motion quilt on my standard machine which does not have a stitch regulator.  To get an even stitch you must learn to have an even moving hand while sewing in the pattern you chose.  Stops and starts cause a stitch with uneven stitch lengths.  You might be able to see them in this picture. Larger stitches can be seen at the bottom of the picture if you look closely:

And there were stitching curves that had corners in them, which is not what I was going for.  All stitch lines should have had flowing curves.  But worst of all is that I didn't think ahead to the quilting process before I did it.  I should have used a basting spray between the layers, so while quilting there would not be any layer slippage.  When one quilts on a frame, which I don't have, the three layers of fabric are held taunt.  This prevents any excessive pleats or puckers in the fabric.  Mine has plenty of puckers, which I am not happy about!

 
I was able to fix this somewhat, but it still makes me unhappy with the finished product.  Oh well, practice makes perfect, they say!  Oh boy, could I use that new machine I have been wanting that has the proper hopping foot/walking foot, that would have helped too!  But that is another story.

As to my initially not liking red and turquoise together, maybe I could have learned something from my little 5 year old grand daughter, LaRaya, seen here with her sister, Vivienne.

 Live and Learn!

P.S.  This is for the Blogging Business Artisans March Challenge.  Hop on over to our team blog to see the other participants came up with in Red and Turquoise!

Sandwich Practice

One new technique that I am trying is machine quilting.  I have only used my old Singer machine to quilt small projects, up to this point, i.e. table runners, small quilted wall hangings, a baby quilt.  But never a large quilt.  One reason is because the feed dogs do not lower on my machine.  I have to cover them with a home-made plastic plate to do any quilting with free motion design.  So I have mostly stuck to 'in the ditch' or straight line quilting, if I have done the quilting myself and not sent it out to a quilt studio.

I was recently at my friend's house, who has a good free motion quilting machine, and I did some practicing. After I practiced free motion meandering, I was a little disappointed in my work, since it is not easy to do. I had heard that it takes practice, and that is right!  So I wouldn't show you that particular practice piece--it doesn't look very good! I decided to stick to straight line quilting, until I have more practice time finished.

Then, I decided to make a sandwich.  No, not the kind you eat!  A quilt sandwich.  This is a small square of the materials that you are using in your current quilt project, approximate 12 inches by 12 inches, including a piece of the top, a piece of the batting and a piece of the backing.  With this you can practice stitches with free motion, even different threads and thread combinations, and sizes of stitch lengths. 

Since I wanted a look of water, I tried parallel wavy lines . . . .

and . . . overlapping wavy lines.  I tried some different colors of thread, but it doesn't show very well in these photos.

My current quilt project has a scalloped edging, so I cut the sandwich with a scalloped edge and tried two different stitching patterns along the scallops.  I had originally thought that I wanted wavy lines there too, but hubby suggested straight lines going out from the center.  I didn't like his thought very much, until I tried it.

My thought:

His thought:

I think his idea makes the scallop's look like seashells . . . and I like it better! It doesn't look so good here, since there is no edging to define it.  Anyway, I think that this sandwich practice has helped me decide how I want to quilt my large project.  The only thing left to decide is how I am going to quilt the patchwork portion that I haven't shown here.    Decisions, decisions! Oh . . and I decided on a name for the quilt . . .
Stay tuned for the progress on the "Antique Bubble" doily quilt.