My 3rd Soupcon Quilt Along

I could not resist beginning yet another quilt using Karen of Faeries and Fibers instructions for this group quilt along.

It started with this hexagon I had made back in the first week of this group project.

 Soupcon Step 1

I got carried away with the "what if" possibilities and had made a bunch. I had ended up using this one to make valentines. It was printed out on textured paper and then I glued and couched threads to make designs. While doing all that I came across a square of silk I had hand painted quite a few years ago. The color reminded me of roses. So I went digging through the home dec fabric samples and found this piece ...

 

I scanned it in my printer, cut out one rose and a bunch of leaves and placed them on the hexagon. I liked what I saw a lot.

Soupcon Step 2

Paper cut-outs on left. Machine appliqued and quilted on right.

I had applied bonding to the fabric rose and leaves before cutting them out. The rose and leaves were adhered with a hot iron. The leaves were positioned under the edge of the hexagon and bonded down before it was hand-stitched in place on the background.

I wanted these elements to stand out a bit more on my finished piece so had placed a layer of wool batting on the under side before machine quilting around the rose and leaves. The excess batting was trimmed away.

Now it was time to add the rose-colored ring and background fabric...

Soupcon Step 3

There are a number of ways to make the ring. This is how I did it for this project (I skip this step if the fabric can be spray starched stiff enough to hold its shape).

Many years ago I had purchased this ruler that has holes punched at half inch intervals. By anchoring it into my small ironing pad that is a piece of covered fiber board I can draw my circle. These are the lines that are machine stitched...

The next step is to cut away the excess fabric beyond a seam allowance. Tear away the freezer paper from the inside seam allowance and clip the fabric at close intervals. Note that my scissor points don't go beyond my stitched line.

I use craft glue to adhere the folded seam allowance to the the freezer paper. Note that I fold and glue short sections that are opposite each other on the circle at a time. Repeat those steps for the outside seam allowance. Pin the circle in the desired position and either hand or machine blind stitch in place.

I hand appliqued mine, then machine couched rayon embroidery thread over the edges. (Go here for a tutorial on how I machine couch and scroll down to "couch yarns to the surface"). I used the same stranded rayon floss to embroider around the leaves and the rose.

Also, I wrapped the quilting stitches of the rose petals with this thread.

To my mind this piece begged for "dancing squares" in the next border.

 Soupcon Step 4

I learned this technique in a class taken from Ricky Timms. It goes together something like this...

It's been a while since I had made this type of border and had difficulty getting my spacing figured out. I will be hand appliqueing the two squares pined at the top of the side panels to fill in my too wide spacing.

Go here to see all the creative variations made by the Soupcon group members. If you're intrigued and wish to join the fun of making one of your own, go to Karen's blog to get instructions.

Soupcon Quilt Along - Step 4

Yesterday Karen gave us instructions for the fourth step for our hexagon quilt along. I consider this to have been a very nice valentine from her. I spent the afternoon cutting and sewing the pieced border. I had no experience with this pattern and was glad to learn how to set those squares on point without going crazy.

19"x 19"

It wasn't until all the borders were sewn on did that pieced border begin to glow. To me it has the shine of faceted jewels.

In this close-up shot you can more clearly see the fabrics. Who would've thought that hand-marbled fabric would be the one that works. Wish I had taken photos of my other considerations, but I was too excited to get started to take the time to do so.

Now I'm excited to add this border pattern to my initial project for this quilt along ... the one that grew beyond the boundary of  Soupcon's first step. I did take the time to photograph the border fabric auditions on this one. I'm still in the process of embroidering around the hexagon motifs and will finish doing that before adding the border pattern.

Audition #1

The red patterned squares pick up the red in the hexagon's centers, though that scale is too large. I liked the colors in the pattern of the fabric around them, but it's really too busy.

 Audition #2

The dark fabric behind those same red squares is flecked with bright colors. It's the one in the background of my single hexagon piece at the beginning of this post.

Audition #3

I'm still liking that red fabric for the squares. This time over the same shaded black fabric that's behind the center star hexagon.

Audition #4

I happened to take notice of how the marbled fabric used for those diamonds in the other piece picked up the purplish hue of the big squares in this one. I do believe this with the shaded black background will be my choice. I think the striped fabric may be the one I use to outline the diamond pattern. Although, there's time for something else to take my fancy before I actually begin cutting.

Take note that the fancy border around the center star motif is appliqued and embroidered. I'm pleased. It's a bit of struggle coming up with designs to border the "round" hexagon shapes. I've just this moment begun to suspect they don't need embellishing. In which case, the embroidery I've done around the top center will need to come out.

Trillium Patch

My little trillium patch is complete ...

The stamen are embroidered. I used several shades of yellow floss in the 6-ply strand to stitch a variation of the bullion knot. I opted for irregularity in those stitches to reflect reality of perspective and nature. Also, the trillium leaves have been highlighted with oil stick pastels as well as shaded around the edges with a dark blue water color pencil.

Now to decide on the finishing. I'm excited by this idea ...

This afternoon I'll be playing with the placement of the trillium piece over the yardage of batik that has the effect of discharged leaves. I'll consider making my own discharged leaf fabric if I change my mind about the scale of this one. Right now my thought is those large "dead" leaves in the border complement the focus piece and add to the story. After all, old dried leaves are what I saw most on my recent woodland hike ...

Trillium

I'm liking this piece a lot!

However there were moments I considered scrapping it ... which means eventually cutting the woodland floor background into pieces for something else. My problem was that every color of tulle I placed over it to hold the sprouting plants in place "killed" the woodland floor hues. The whole piece just "died."

The solution was to choose the tulle color that enhanced the new growth parts ... that one is the bright yellowish green one...

It was pinned to cover the whole top. I stitched/quilted around the greenery then trimmed the tulle away from the woodland floor sections.

Well, most of it. I see that some more needs to be cut away. Do you see how the color is lost in the upper left corner in the above photo? Think I'll be trimming that away. Pieces of white tulle were placed over the blossoms, then the excess trimmed away after free-motion stitching around the petals. That stitching also anchors the calyx pieces which are loose on the surface. Some new growth pieces float on the surface as well.

Now I'm really excited about this piece. Next the yellow stamen will get embroidered and I have an idea about framing to pursue.

Hairy Mess Controlled

Trimming is a slow and rather deliberate process ... what to cut? where to cut it?

After two days of slow going I think this is it. The loose yarns are contained so the surface is no longer "wild and wooly" and controlled so there's a suggestion of the green triangle. Here's what was trimmed away...

I'm playing with the idea of this band across the top ...

It's a piece of large yellow rick-rack (found in one of the scrap bags given to me) interwoven with a piece of green suede. Not sure if it'll stay and if it does, if it will remain in one long piece. I'm still playing with the composition.

Unraveled VII

This piece has been brewing in my head for quite some time. Finally, it's being realized in materials to be one of my entries in our guild's upcoming quilt show.

First, I laid out silk fabric samples on a background of raw silk to see the effect. I liked it! So I went digging for the disc shaped "beads" I bought in Colorado last summer. Seeing those discs in the bead shop is what sparked the idea for this...

Then I got serious about the arrangement of hues ... to create a diamond shaped focal point with the yellows, plus arranging the others in a loose progression of hues...

Then I determined that another row was needed to balance out the proportion of the design made with the silk squares to the size of the background...

This is part of the "unraveled" series ... meaning yarns are part of the surface design. I'm always on the lookout for the yarn made in Nepal from recycled silk saris. This past year I found the two that are hanging to the sides in the photo above.

The background silk tussah has batting and a backing of upholstery fabric attached with a minimum of machine quilting. The silk fabric samples were kept the size they were already cut and have been sewn to the sandwiched background. Each silk square is individually stuffed on the surface, then the disc bead is hand stitched in place with mono filament thread. The variegated green silk sari yarn is couched around the squares that reflect the diamond pattern made by the yellow ones.

Stay tune for the next step ... the variegated gray silk sari yarn will be stitched around the other silk squares to fill the surface ... I think.

A Tropical Garden - the Beginning

The foundation for a new piece featuring a garden of tropical flowers was created yesterday. As usual, it's made up of recycled materials in the technique I call "ortwork". Scraps of silk sari fabric samples are arranged over an old woolen blanket with a piece of someones excess upholstery fabric as the backing.

Laying the silk pieces was like working a puzzle to cover the whole surface. Then I got out a container of thread and yarn ends/tangles to add a vertical element to it. Camouflage printed netting was layered over it all, then sparsely quilted to create a shadowy depth for the upcoming garden of flowers.

I couldn't resist playing a bit with various hues of tulle and a few flowers over that background piece on the design wall before packing up all the materials. Building layers to make a lush garden of tropical flowers on this piece will be done in Michigan.

Playing with Paper Piecing

I had a few days between my last big project (more about that later) and getting ready to move north for the summer so I dug into my scrap bags and played with this idea I had recently come across at this link.

Making my own pattern for the diamond shapes that create these wonky spider webs based on a Victorian motif was easy. Watching it grow on my design wall was fun ...

At this point, it began to be a bit more work to figure out which scraps to use where ...

 

Further along, I began to think about how in the world all these diamond shapes would be sewn together ... and could see no other way except with "Y" seams. So I finished up with a plan to use this as the center motif for a larger project.

Sewing the "Y" seams was not as bad as I had anticipated. The biggest trick for success is to not stitch into the seam allowances. Also, to backstitch at the beginning and end of each seam ... and each side of the diamond is a separate seam. In these two photos you can see the sequence of my getting those diamonds sewn together.

Here it is all stitched together ... front and back.

As you can see, I marked key diamonds on the paper clad backside so I wouldn't mess up the spider web patterns. The paper was torn away from the seam allowances so they could be pressed before I trimmed the whole piece to size and square it up in preparation for it to be used as the center motif in a future bed quilt.

Last evening I dug through my stash of fabric pieces that had been cut for other projects but had ended up not being used. Among my finds were a baggy full of red hued squares and the cut strips of the striped fabric. Both of those look good with the spider web piece. Ricky Tim's "dancing square" patterning is the perfect wonkiness for working those squares into a border. The same goes for that irregular striped fabric.

It's time to put all this away ... maybe I'll pack it up to finish designing and piecing sometime this summer.

Now to get busy so I can get back to creating in my Studio North.

Another "Unraveled" Begun

I think the clothing labels that I've been collecting for years will work well in this concept.  So I spent an afternoon sorting a box full by size and color to come up with this.

The background fabric is a black geometric print that I had colored with oil paint sticks a number of years ago.

I think a black yarn twisted with a subtle variegated colored one will combine well with the spots of color in the fabric as well as the labels.

The basic elements work and I'm excited about the possibilities.

PS:  That hank of variegated brown/pink yarn is pinned to my design wall so I won't forget about considering it for a future "unraveled" piece.

Big Mess of Yarn

I couldn't resist stitching the silk sari yarns onto the rest of this piece.

Untitled - 12"x 18"

That's a lot of looped yarn.  Now to decide how much of it will stay ... how many will get knotted ... whether all the loops get cut  It will stay pinned to my design board until I get back from up north after the holidays.

Seeing it up there now, I think it may benefit by having a border to frame all that wildness.  I look forward to the adventure of taking this one to completion.

Messing Around

I really don't have the time to mess around with this.

However, this newly discovered concept excites me.  So I went digging through fabrics and yarns last evening instead wrapping presents.  The background is a heavy upholstery fabric sample and the rectangles are silk fabric samples that I rotary cut free-hand to get irregular shapes.  Then there was the time it took to sort through a drawer filled with variegated yarns.  I found three balls made from the cloth of recycled saris.  How perfect is that?  Shadows are an added bonus element on this piece that does not appear on that first one.

Now, I've really got to get those presents wrapped before anymore playing.  All of my holiday chores must be completed before I fly out of here next Wednesday.  But I think I'll find the time to couch the rest of the yarn in place.  Then I can take the piece with me to play with the knotting and cutting of the yarn.

Pounded Leaves Piece

Since the beginning of this new year I've been struggling to make this piece work. Even the possibility of cutting it up to make smaller works occurred to me.
I'm pleased with the background piecing. All those elements came together easily and fit together so well. The negative maple leaf images in the discharged linen fabric mirrored those pounded into the muslin square. The bottom piece "reflected" the muslin square. While the fabric with stripes of natural colors became winter time tree trunks. The five tapestry woven dragonflies seemed the perfect topper.
It all began with this piece of muslin that got an impromptu pounding of leaves into it. I've had moments of nostalgia for its original fresh appearance of simple leaves.
Over time I've added paint, ink, oil stick pastels, and lots of seed stitching trying to make it work ... to integrate it with the background ... to keep it visually anchored instead floating above. In recent days even more paint, ink, and pastels were added. This solution of darkening the muslin panel came to me when I began to see and think of this piece in a different context.
Earlier this month I joined the Liberated Quilters Yahoo group. The group's project, The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI), got me thinking about this disease that afflicts loved ones in so many families. At some point, I began to relate the dimming and loss of memories to the background elements within this piece.
From my own experience, I know the joy experienced when a memory or moment of recognition surfaces momentarily in a loved ones afflicted mind. That is what I now see in the muslin square.

Now that this piece has a meaning beyond that of being a delightful whim, I can take it to completion with thought and care.