Terra Cotta Flowers

I have finished the second of the rust-dyed pieces. My plan was to take it to our guild meeting this evening, but am fighting a cold so it will have to wait until another time.

I am giving this to my friend Anita and she will display it at the Pensacola Quilt Show in a couple of weeks. Hopefully it will help to advertise the rust dyes that she will be selling in her vendor booth…..and it might even sell too…who knows.

Tomorrow I am off to the North Georgia Mountains to teach a one day Machine Quilting Class at the Misty Mountain Quilter’s Guild retreat. I taught last year as well and am truly looking forward to seeing all of the wonderful quilters again.

Hope you are having a great quilting week!!!!!

Rust Flowers 2

Today I started on a second wall hanging using a rust dyed panel from my friend, Anita and her husband Bill. I asked Bill to think about a vase of flowers when he did this dye and he came up with a bunch of wonderful designs. Unfortunately I didn’t take a photo of the piece before I started working on it.

As I started thinking about what to do on this quilt, I was looking at a crocheted doily that my Grandmother had made and I got an idea to include a doily for the flower vase to sit on. I wanted to try it out first, so I got online and found a few photos that might work…..

This was one of my favorites and the perspective was pretty good as well so I traced out a basic design and started to practice.

I was pleased with the design and was amazed at how easy it was to do…….

My husband suggested that I might want to use blue instead of brown, but I decided to stay with the monochromatic theme.

I also decided to make the doily a little bit bigger.

The first step was to draw the basic outline of the doily on golden threads paper and sew around the outline. I then filled in the “shell” designs with stitching.

Next step was to fill in the first round….

…..the the next two rounds…..

Next I used the golden threads paper to draw the sunflowers and then I stitched around them to transfer the design to the fabric piece.

The final step for the day was to remove the Golden Threads paper. One trick that I have learned is to use a lint roller to remove the little bits of paper that get stuck in the stitching.

Hopefully I can get more time in the next day or so to work on this…..it has been a blast so far!!!!

Sunflowers in the Rust

Well, I can happily report that I have finished the rust piece that I have been working on for the past couple of weeks. I wanted to enter it in an Atlanta show and the deadline was today, so I was working down to the wire.

In doing some practice work (see previous post), I realized that I was going to have to do some thread work on the piece, so I started out by backing it with a very lightweight fusible interfacing.

I used Golden Threads tracing paper to draw the sunflowers…..wasn’t game to try to freehand them with thread.

I then sewed around the paper design.

…..and removed the paper.

I did the same thing with the leaves, and then sewed around the designs 2, 3 or 4 times, depending on how heavy I wanted the lines to be.

As I did the thread work, the fabric started to draw up slightly, making the fabric look wrinkled in the flowers, so I decided to trapunto the flowers and ended up adding extra batting to all of the elements, including the grass at the bottom.

I am happy with the borders on the piece as the first one on the right and bottom used fabrics that I had stamped.

Final step was to baste and quilt the piece. All of the rust colored lines were quilted just following the design of the flowers. Then I had to decide what to do to the background. I started with even lines at the top, but moved into curvy lines in the interior of the piece. The main reason that I did this was because it was easier to do, but, in retrospect, I really like the way it looks.

I decided to face the quilt rather than bind it.

It is always a good feeling to finish a piece…..now on to the next 4 or 5 that are in my mind!!!!

Shhhhh…..It’s A Surprise

Well, I would love to show you my latest project, but, as it is part of my guild challenge, I cant post it until it shows at the meeting……here is a photo of the part I can show…..just to keep you in suspense.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been doing some planning on the rust piece and would LOVE to be able to start with the quilting. However, I realized that I probably needed to add a border first so I have been trying to come up with an idea that will properly frame this wonderful piece. Yesterday, I found a piece of fabric that has all of the colors that I think will highlight the piece…..now I just have to decide what to do with it!!!!

If I cant decide, I may go ahead and quilt it first, but just add extra batting and batting so that I can add the border once I figure it out. My other thought is to not put a border on it so who knows which way I will go.

I hope that you are all enjoying a restful Memorial Day Weekend!!!! What a great time to remember all those who have fought to keep us free!!!

Friend bearing gifts

Yesterday, one of my quilting friends, Anita (check out her blog here), came by to pick up her income tax returns, and (unlike most of my clients), came with thank you gifts in hand. She does some gorgeous hand dyes and brought these 5 half yard pieces to add to my stash. She had read on a previous blog post that I was missing light colors so she brought these to help fill in a bit.

They remind me so much of Spring and I cant wait to use them in some way.

Her husband, Bill, has been recently playing with Rust dyeing and has come up with some amazing designs. He sent about 15 pieces and told me to pick my favorite. There were several that I really liked, but this one grabbed my attention…….

I can see cutting out the “chain section” and bordering it with some cool piecing. Another idea to add to the “to-do” list.

Isn’t it wonderful to have such good friends!!!!!

Thank you Bill & Anita!!!!!