Another Scrap Quilt

Just playing .....

Right now it's only a pieced top. It will get quilted when somebody needs a quilt. Making it was one of those spur of the moment projects inspired by a baggy of scraps given to me recently by Alison, a fellow Thursday bee member.

She never dreamed that I would piece all the tiny triangles she had trimmed from blocks into the squares that became the centers of my scrappy blocks. In the photo below is one of the finished blocks. That pile of trimmings from a number of blocks are now in a bag of supplies for future "ortwork" pieces.

The block in the above picture is the smaller of the two sizes made. I experimented with their arrangement on the design wall. The main point being to see the effect ... the movement ... of those white triangles.

I chose to surround the larger squares with shades of neutral fabrics to make those bits of color sparkle and stand out. The playful patterning of the white dots on the black sashing fabric with the smaller blocks in corners create a strong grid pattern that holds all those dancing triangles and sparkling colors together.

I couldn't come up with a machine quilting pattern that pleased me on this sample square. I played with couching a textured and variegated color yarn around the shapes. To carry through the feeling of playfulness, plus a nod to tradition, I left lengths for ties on the corners. Unless something else that's extraordinary comes to me before this top becomes a quilt, I'm pretty sure the couched yarn will double as the quilting.

Button, Button - 14"x 14"

Very little that I make goes to waste. The outside edge of this piece is finished with couched yarns and an array of buttons from my collection makes an art piece. It will be donated to the Smoky Mountain Quilt Guild to sell at the 2012 quilt show in March.

Unusually Shaped Quilts

The Quilting Gallery Blog has weekly exhibitions of themed quilts submitted by readers.  This week's theme is "Unusually Shaped Quilts".  I entered this one ...

Marriage - 24" x 38"

This piece was made to celebrate the union of marriage between my nephew and his bride in the year 2000. Two shapes join together, yet each retains its identity. However, a new shape, patterning and coloration is created where they intersect. The technique is reverse applique through as many as ten layers of fabric.  It is mounted on a foam core board cut to the quilts shape.

Click on over to the Quilting Gallery see all 17 entries submitted from 5 countries that includes 3 provinces and 6 states.  Be sure to cast a  vote for your favorite quilt before Sunday at 11:59PM.

Look, Ma - No Hands!

Well, I do use my hands to guide the fabric ... and with this set-up I get to use both hands for that job.
Since posting the tutorial for how I machine couch yarns to fabric, I've devised a set-up for the yarn to feed "hands-free".
A container for the yarn is placed out of the way to the rear of my machine. I use the contraption made to feed thread wound on a cone for domestic machines to feed the yarn from the container.

This set-up works only for couching yarn to the surface of fabric. The yarn still needs to be held and guided by hand to successfully couch it for an edge finish.

The quilt in the photos is the one featuring the leaves I pounded in the Smoky Mountains last fall. You'll see more of what is being doing on it pretty soon.

This method was used to couch the yarn to the frame bordering the "Our Biosphere Reserve" featuring the Smoky Mountains.

Onto the Next Project

This yarn has transformed ...
this subtly striped upholstery fabric ...
to this richly textured fabric for my next project ...

Creating Layered Borders

For this Smoky Mountain series I decided to keep the composition small (9"x 9"). To give the pieces substance as well as to emphasize the distance of the furthermost mountains they are framed with 2" wide borders.

Sugarlands Overlook (14"x 14")

These borders are created by laying and couching yarns as well as adding decorative machine stitches to a foundation of fabric. All four borders are constructed in one piece. The surface foundation fabric is layered with batting and a backing fabric. I use a spray adhesive to adhere those three layers so they don't shift while doing all the machine work that lies ahead.
Also apply a spritz of spray adhesive to the top surface of the foundation fabric. Make a selection of decorative yarns that complement the composition. I chose two variegated chenille yarns plus one that is twisted with a finer thread and a decorative rayon one. Cut lengths and arrange them on top of the foundation.
Select a tulle netting that complements your choices and the composition for which the border is being created. I used black. Spritz a layer of adhesive to the underside of the tulle before carefully laying it in place. Pin baste all the layers together.
Machine stitch around the outside edges to secure the yarn ends. Run straight rows of stitching parallel to and between the rows of yarns.
I had used a metalic copper thread for that first set of stitches.
And then I couched rows of this twisted fiber yarn across the piece.
To read the tutorial about the method I use for couching yarn go here. Scroll to the middle of that post for the instructions to couch yarn on a surface. The first part is about couching yarn to raw edges.
This is the result of couching that variegated twisted linen type yarn.
My last step was to fill in any spaces with rows of a narrow zig-zag pattern using a #40 quilting thread.
When you are satisfied with the amount of stitching trim one ragged edge from the layered border fabric. Measuring from this clean edge cut the fabric into four borders. For this small composition each of the borders are the same width. On some of my larger quilts the bottom border has been cut wider than the other three.
Do not cut any length away from the borders. Align the edge of a border with the edge of the quilt. Apply scotch tape to keep the pieces together. Turn it right side up and stitch the two together with a wide zig-zag stitch.
Apply the border on the opposite side of the quilt. Then zig-zag stitch the other two borders just to the sides of the quilt. All the corners will be overlapped and hanging loose.
My preference is to miter the corners of these borders. Although, they certainly could be finished otherwise. Use an acrylic ruler to draw the angle between the corner of the quilt and where the edge of two borders meet. For equal width borders this will be 45 degree line. It will be a different angle for two borders that are different widths. Cut along this line through both layers. It's easier to cut one layer and then draw on and cut the other. Tape and zig-zag stitch the miter closed.
To finish the raw seam between the borders and the quilt I cover it with a flat decorative yarn. It is zig-zag stitched in place by machine. Do this before applying decorative yarns to those same seams on the front of the quilt.
Here's a close-up photo of the decorative yarns that finish the front side of the quilt. Use the first method described in my tutorial for couching yarns to apply it to the outside edge. Sometimes I cover the mitered corner seams with yarn. Doing so will draw attention to that detail. Omit that step if doesn't work for your quilt.
Here are links to other quilts that feature my layered fabric borders:

• Smoky Mountains
• Regeneration
• Bear Lake
  

Moon Dance

This is my final entry in this year's SMQ Guild show. It was awarded 1st Place in the "Wall Hanging/Mixed Techniques and Quilted" category. It also received the Surface Embellishment Award.

Moon Dance - 38"x 42"

The background was constructed several years ago. It's made up of four small sections using Ricky Tims "Harmonic Convergence" technique. I posted about my Shiva Oil Paint Stick rubbing techniques on it here last fall when I began to work on it for this show.

Initially, this was my plan for the center. My friend, Judy, had given me several pieces of African fabrics. One of them had a marvelous single warriors head printed with metallic gold. I had in mind for him to wear the macrame neck piece I had created back in the 70's. It's made with trade beads I had purchased in Morocco.However, it ended up as his headdress in reference to east African tribes who used zebra manes for that purpose.I sculpted the warriors face with layers of of batting. The nose, lips, and hair in the middle are machine quilted on the first layer placed down the center. His eyes and facial contours plus the rest of the hair are quilted on the second layer. When this quilted piece was appliqued to the quilt it became even more sculpted.

It's embellished with beads and buttons and African themed doodads I've been collecting over the years. Antique black glass beads are scattered like stars over the dark fabric areas of the background. There are hand-made ceramic buttons layered with beads to create shields.
Yarn was couched over the seams of the pieced background. Long ends were left with the intention of burying them in the batting. I liked the look of them hanging loose on the surface and ended up adding even more, plus gold metallic ones as well using the same thread that I machine-quilted the background.A heavy gold metallic yarn is couched to the outside edge of the binding as well as outlining the warrior's neck piece. I wanted to soften that outside edge since this piece is about moonlight as well as to give strength and to define the shape of his neck piece.

Silk Roses

This is the second of my three entries in the SMQ Guild Show. It is awarded 2nd Place in the "Pieced Wall Hanging" category.

Silk Roses - 28"x 45"

I had hand-painted the center panel of silk 5-6 years ago. I didn't have roses in mind when it was painted. The more I looked at it, the more obviously they were there. Four years ago I pieced the top and began the hand-quilting. A dark brown Japanese silk twist thread and a larger than usual stitch was used. To increase the size of the center panel I strip-pieced home decorator fabrics. I chose ones that created a diffused sparkle ... kind of like a dewy, sunshining morn ... around the panel of roses.

The backing for this piece is fabric printed with a subtle leaf pattern. I quilted around some of those leaves from the back in the side panels using the same silk thread and size stitch as for the roses.What was I thinking? There was NO CONTRAST between the stitch and the front surface fabric pattern, nor between their colors. To make the leaves visible other than the pouf of fabric that resulted from the quilting, I wrapped the quilt stitches with a fine metallic cord (see "Whipped Quilting Stitch" post). That helped, but it was not the solution. I lightly colored the leaves with a metallic gold oil stick pastel and set it into the fabric with heat (using that tiny iron seen in the previous post). I doubt I could have found, or created up front, fabric that worked more perfectly than my problem-solving solutions.
I ended up machine stipple quilting a tiny loop pattern between the leaves in these panels as well as between the roses in the center. I don't recall seeing a combination of hand-quilted motifs surrounded by machine stippling. Surely, I'm not the first person do this.

The bottom panel is a dark brown chintz fabric. The background is shiny while the rose and leaf pattern is a matte texture . I hand-quilted one of the roses with the same silk thread used in the top parts of the quilt. It just did not work here. I repeated with a finer black thread. That didn't work either. Machine quilting around every flower and leaf with black cotton/poly sewing thread was perfect. The density of this quilting led me to stippling around the roses and leaves in the top of the quilt.
All that machine work distorted the dark gold leaf strips down each side of the center panel. I had previously decided to couch yarn at their edges to carry the dark brown from the bottom up into the top. That couched yarn also served to disguise the wavey edges of those strips.

I can hardly comprehend that this quilt took so long to complete. It is one of the most elegant pieces I've ever created.

Couched Embellishment

A project that my friend Alicia and I had fun with when she visited last year was to embellish purchased shirts with strips of fabric.
Hers is a linen shirt with a damask weave. We had pulled all the red fabrics from my stash and rotary cut wavy strips in various widths. These were put into a laundry basket and drawn at random to decorate our shirts.
The underarm seams were opened so the garment would lie flat.The red strips of fabric were sewn to the shirt by couching yarn down the center length of the fabric strip.
Since posting my tutorial for couching yarn, I've added another tool to free up both hands. The thread stand meant for feeding thread off big cones works well to hold the yarn in the correct position for couching it down the center of these strips.
I had purchased a light-weight plain weave linen shirt to make my jacket. My initial intention was to space the strips much like Alicia's shirt. However, it "told" me otherwise. Initially I couched yarn to the linen between the strips. I ended up going back to fill in all the spaces. This meant going into my stash and cutting more fabrics. So, I pulled fabrics that went with the reds.
It also indicated that it wanted to be a jacket rather than a shirt. If I had known this up front, I would've looked for a colored shirt. Red, orange, pink, or even black would've been great.
The edges of my jacket are finished with couched yarn. I did this two times on each edge to stabilize them as well as for a more substantial finish. I ended up using a whole skein of yarn. I love the texture of the raw edged strips and couched yarn. This 3/4 sleeve length jacket is light-weight for wearing in the Spring and Fall here in Knoxville and cool summer evenings in Michigan.

Pretty Postcards

Pretty, but not Monet's flowers.

These postcards are collages built with silk flowers, roving, angelina fibers, and silk threads that were shed from fabric edges. The foundation pieces are cut from an old nightgown with lace edging. The gown had been used to clean up paint from a T-shirt painting project by my friend, Alicia. What's the saying? "One person's cast-off is another's treasure" ... or something like that.

Last evening I used these fabric cards to demonstrate to our quilt guild members how I couch yarn. Five of us each gave five 15 minute demonstrations of techniques to small groups. The groups rotated so each member saw all the demonstrations. I suspect there will be a bit more couching going on now that they've seen how easy and effective it is. I made up an instruction sheet based on the posting I wrote last fall about couching yarn.

These six postcards will be donated to our guild for its small quilt sale at the Smoky Mountain Quilt Guild show in mid-May. Now to get my entries for that show finished up.

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Kitchen Art

This delightful small piece hangs in my kitchen. It won the blue ribbon for miniature quilts at the 2004 Dogwood Arts Quilt Show.

Sweet Gold - 9"x4"- 2004

It hung in a spot that called for a companion piece. So within the next year I made this one using the same collage technique.

The pears and grapes are shaded with oil stick pastels. The white highlights are paint. The butterflies and flowers are also enhanced with pastels.

Both of those pieces had their beginnings as appliqued and embroidered dish towels belonging to my friend, Alicia. When they got worn and grundgy she used them as clean-up rags for her painting projects. When I made a fuss over them they became mine. Here's the last one she's passed onto me.

This is where the pair of those miniature quilts hang.
This area features a collection of chickens. I find it amusing that I really dislike real chickens, but I very much like chicken art. My negative feelings stem from living with and caring for and plucking those stupid birds on the farm in Iowa.My Carol Bryer Fallet tea cozy lives in this cupboard. It covers the clear glass teapot.I'm especially fond of this cozy, comfortable corner in the kitchen. It's a nice place to enjoy a spot of tea with a friend. The first scrap quilt I made is hanging over the back of a chair.
We have a permanent guest, Bertha Big Body, who occupies this corner of my cozy corner. The painting of the chef with the chicken was made by my husband when he was 11 1/2 years old. He did the wood burning of Toulouse Lautrec about 40 years ago.As you can see, our kitchen is full of art. There's a 4' tall wooden banana tree standing in the middle of the island. Of course there's Elvis as well as one of my favorite chickens. Really, there is space to work and room to eat here.