Gob-smacked -- and Grinning! :-)

I just had a wonderful two-day visit in Calgary.  I go down every six months or so to see my lovely dental hygienist and her boss, my handsome dentist, and I'm happy to report all's well on the dental front.  :-)

While there, I visited with several friends.  D and I went to Out of Hand, where I always have fun browsing the fabrics, magazines, paints, pens, threads... you name it!  I came away with some fabric for my Annual Christmas Project (wink, wink) and some Valdani hand-dyed perle cotton for yummy grass embroidery.  D spoiled me with the latest issue of Stitch magazine and the summer issue of Where Women Create.  Both are a real treat for this gal from the boonies!

I stayed over with Sha-and-Mary, and the former and I went out for a scrumptious dinner at Joey's (Calgary)...Shrimp with pesto on flat bread, quinoa and barley salad, sinfully rich chocolate mousse cake (aka "Happy Endings") and red wine...mmmmm...

S is taking her C&G from Linda Kemshall, so we spent a happy time looking at her samples, sketchbooks and work thus far in the program.  She's a very creative soul with a very different vision and view of the world than mine, so our artistic 'boxes' are stretched even as our friendship deepens over these times together.

This morning, arlee and I met at a gallery inside Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD, for short), to view "Indigo", a new exhibit that arose out of the latest residency of her friends in "Contextural".  It's small as exhibits go, but the pieces are an eclectic and interesting mix that, for the most part, works well.  If your in and around Calgary between now and Saturday afternoon, you might have a quick look.

After thoroughly digesting the show, arlee and I made tracks for a cafe on the SAIT campus where we lunched over more conversation about art, our respective activities and aspirations, and our beloved furry friends -- feline and canine -- and generally got to know each other even better (we've only met 3 times and only twice had time to really talk).  It's a bit of "Mutual Admiration Society" but it's wonderful to have face-to-face friends with whom to share.  :-)

After our lunch I headed up to Olds to meet with Deb, the owner/manager of Different Strokes Art Gallery.  I walked in with 3 large pieces:

Tree Line (c) 2013

Trio (c) 2012

 and

Abandoned: House I (c) 2012

Plus a mid-sized piece that I'd matted to 11" x 14"  (no photo, but it's a still life hand-stitched on hand-dyed fabric), and eight miniatures (the new ones and 2 from April of this year).

With the exception of the "Abandoned" piece -- which she really liked but would prefer mounted differently because she said her customers wouldn't like the fraying linen background -- Deb took them all.  We signed a contract for six months, and she said she'd have them up in a show of new work in late October or early November.

I'm going to explore her ideas for the "rejected" piece...and believe it will find a home someday, one way or the other.  She said if I re-framed it, she'd be interested in seeing it again.  :-)   

So...

Now it's back to work to finish my current 15 x 15 piece...and make a passel of new miniatures, as I have nary a one left in my sewdio!!

Do I mind?  Not in the least!  :-)

Had to Share

This arrived in today's mail.  Smiling? Am I smiling? Can I stop smiling?

It's Official!

I passed my Level 2! I passed my Level 2!  I passed my level 2! I passed my Level 2!

Marking Sheet - C&G Creative Techniques

FAP Photos

I finished my Final Assessment Piece for my C&G Level 2 Certificate in Creative Techniques: Quilting just before Christmas, and e-mailed the Evaluation and photos to my tutor Linda over the course of a couple of days.  As she is taking some well-deserved time off -- this is her grand-baby's first Christmas -- I know I won't hear from her for a bit, and that's okay with me.  I'm taking this time to wind down a bit from the push to finish it (self-administered, I grant you that).

The Evaluation process requires I document materials, their cost (or estimated cost, if from stash or thrift finds), hours spent on the piece, and my assessment of the process.  What were the high points?  The lows?  What problems had to be worked out?  That sort of thing...

Truthfully, all the sampling leading up to the final creation served well to minimize any complications during the production of this piece.  I faced only a couple of small challenges:

• I underestimated the amount of over-dyed floss it would take to do the handwork I wanted on the grassy areas.  Blessedly, Janice at Traditional Stitches had both colours in stock and quickly filled my order for 2 more skeins of each.  I've one skein of the 'Wood Rose' (pinky-brown) left -- but used every scrap of the 'Celadon' (green)!
• I know full well that quilting pulls in the fabric of a piece -- but forgot that embroidery does the same -- especially when done on top of quilting!  The result was a pulling in of the bottom half of the piece, necessitating trimming to square it up before binding.  I'd allowed for some 'ease' when I began, but in the end it is a touch narrower than originally planned.

The toughest part for me turned out to be the hand-stitching -- quantity, not quality.  It seemed to take forever to make progress on the seemingly-vast expanse of surface!  Like knitting a long stockinette project, though, "suddenly" there was a break-through and the end was once again clearly in sight.

These are just a few of the photos I sent to Linda for her assessment:

Sky quilting detail

Grass - detail of quilting & embroidery

Grass stitching & bark embellishment 

Back...

And Front

Final Dimensions: 17" W x 24" L

Materials: hand-dyed, eco-dyed, rusted and commercial cotton fabrics; recycled synthetic machine-knit sweater fabric; muslin foundation fabric; hand-dyed cotton floss, cotton sewing thread; painted and distressed paper napkin; fusible web.  Estimated cost of materials: $46.70 CAD.

Techniques: fused and machine-stitched applique, machine quilting, hand embroidery; enveloped binding.

Estimated Time taken: 28 hours.

Thanks again to the talented arlee barr for her fabulous tree trunk fabric!

Drum Roll, Please!

Though I didn't post this before I left my house early this a.m. (I was co-leading the Advent Quiet Day at my parish church -- and yes, thank you, it was lovely, but I am exhausted...).

WE HAVE A WINNER of the draw celebrating Blog Post 950!  The envelope please...

And the winner is... Dolores!  Congratulations!  As soon as I post this, I'll be e-mailing her for her snail mail address and The Art of Fabric Books will be on its way to her early in the week.

I hope to be tuning in to Bonnie's Quilt Cam tomorrow afternoon; if you're doing "Easy Street" (or even if you're not!), perhaps you'll join in too? I believe it'll start around 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (noon out here in the Mountain region...)  I'll be doing more of the hand stitching embellishment on "Trio", my Final Assessment Piece in the C&G.

Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish family (in-laws) and friends; as I type I am basking in the glow of the First Night candles.  May you have a blessed Celebration of Light and the historic miracle God wrought all those centuries ago.

And to all and sundry, have a great evening and a blessed day tomorrow.

'S No Mystery; It's Monday!

Today's a bit of a snow day for me.  We had a small storm roar through yesterday afternoon and overnight, so the roads aren't ideal for travelling just yet -- and I have a good 5" deep by several feet long and wide to shovel, just to get out of my driveway.  Maybe we'll see the Lacombe County plows today...and maybe we won't.

It's just as well; I have lots I can do here, given that my usual Monday in Lacombe has been cancelled.  :-)

First, I have a few Flying Geese Units to finish up for my Easy Street mystery quilt.  I've made 100 of the 128 required, but those last couple of dozen (+/-) will be finished in no time.  Here sit the finished units (lower left-hand corner), cuddling up to the four-patches from Clue #1.

Then I have some more gift knitting to do...and the inevitable stitching on my Final Assessment Piece for the C&G.  I worked some more on it yesterday afternoon during Bonnie's Quilt Cam, but need to track down some more green floss.  I may just go back to the sample and play with some silk ribbon I have that's the right colour and might work well in the foreground.   If I do, I'll take photos and share that later on.

And then there's the Advent Quiet Day to prepare for.  I need to make another batch of muffins for the attendees, and to write out my portion of the reflections so that what comes out of my mouth on The Day actually makes sense! LOL!

Best get busy!

Oh...and I'm linking this up to Bonnie's Mystery Monday link-up over at Quiltville.  Have a great day!

And Now Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Reading

Now that the give-away is taken care of, here's what I've been up to lately.

Christmas knits proceed apace.  This skinny scarf with the equally skinny fringe is for a young friend of the family who -- far as I know -- doesn't read this blog, so it's safe to post the photo!  Here it is, lounging atop my easy chair in front of my sunny front window.  It's made of Noro Kureyon in a box stitch pattern (knit two, purl two, alternating)...very soothing and simple to knit.  It's a good three metres long, including fringe, so...lots of 'round the neck potential.  Hope she likes it!

The other Christmas knitting and sewing are moving right along too...sorry, no photos. Nope; not a one.  :-)

Pookie's help in the sewing studio hasn't hampered my work on my  "Easy Street" mystery quilt at all.  At right is the tray of 193 four-patches from Clue #1 -- 192 called for, and one for the pot.  Clue #2 of the mystery was posted yesterday, and is now underway.

Clue #2 requires assembling 128 -- count 'em! -- Flying Geese Units (FGUs).  Ms. Bonnie loves the rulers she uses to make these, and waxes eloquent about them in a very helpful tutorial. complete with video.  I believe she used at least one of these rulers last year for Orca Bay, too.  However, I'm still not on board with 'em.  I have enough rulers.  However, she did make one valid point: while there are many methods for successfully constructing FGUs, some waste quite a bit of fabric.  Considering my favourite method to date -- a rectangle and two squares -- I had to admit my method was one of those.

Thus I decided to check out other options, and I came across this one from Pieceful Quilter.  It involves a large square and four small squares, from which one gets four FGUs at one time.  First I made a sample, and once I figured out her method, I forged ahead.

For Clue #2, the FGUs had to measure -- unfinished -- 2' x 3 1/2".  According to Ms. Pieceful, for every 4 units of that size, I would need one 4 1/4" square and four  2 3/8" squares, which you see here in purple (32 of 'em) and cream print background fabric (128 of 'em).

You begin the FGU by creating two heart-like units from  the single large square and two small squares.






Then you add a third small square to each 'heart':

From here you mark 'em, stitch 'em and slice 'em, et voila!   Trim off the little bunny ears and you're "good to go", as my daughter would say.  :-)

Yesterday, after cutting out all the squares I needed, I put together 16 FGUs from four large ones and 16 small ones, with only a tiny pile of trimmed ears left over -- a far cry from the small triangles I've collected using my previous method.  Plus I didn't have to invest in new rulers and I didn't have to sew bias edges.  What's not to love?

In the C&G, I'm working on the hand stitching to add texture to my Final Assessment Piece.  This was the perfect task last evening while sipping decaf and watching Ms. Bonnie on her Quilt Cam.  I began with the brown grasses, but had to move onto the greens because I ran out of "Wood Rose"  and had to order more from my friend Janice at Traditional Stitches.  I only hope she has it in stock, as there's nothing else quite like it in my stash.  I think I have plenty of greens...

Stitching continues into today, as I watch the snow fall softly and try to decide whether or not I want to shovel a third day (in a row)...

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."  

- Garrison Keillor, The Writer's Almanac

:-)

Colonel Mustard in the Drawing Room...

...with the lead pipe.  No -- wait.  Wrong "Clue"!  ;-)

It's Clue #1 for Bonnie Hunter's "Easy Street" mystery quilt -- and here are 193 (192 + 1 for the pot) little four-patch blocks all nicely stacked:

Isn't that background print (the cream ++) funky?!  I love it because I never know what's going to show up when I cut it.  :-)

While I wait for Clue #2 (due out on Friday), I'm sewing my son's Annual Christmas Boxer Shorts.  He never reads this blog, but his sister does; however, even if she tells him, it's a tradition, so there's no surprise there.  The surprise comes in the fabric being used -- and thus, no photo!

In the C&G, hand-stitching has begun on the grasses, starting with the browns.  A photo soon, I promise.

And then there's knitting.  Did I post one of the "Donna Nobis Pacem Cowl" for my friend M?  I thought not.  So here it is:

Yarn: Berocco Ultra Alpaca Fine in "Redwood Mix" (colour #1281).  Soft and lovely!  I await hearing whether or not she's going home for a break in her treatment, before I mail this off.  (By the way, "Donna" is a play on words because the designer originally created this for a friend by that name...so don't criticize my Latin! LOL!)

And there are some knitted gifts under construction...again, no photos.  

More later this week, so stay tuned.

Day's End

And it's quilted -- shown here on my design wall, trimmed up. Now to decide...narrow binding (mitred corners) or facing?  Hmm....Time to let it percolate for a bit -- over the weekend, at the very least.  And while I add the hand stitching.  Perhaps then it will tell me how it wants to be finished.  Oh, and the working title?  "Trio".  :-)

Here are a couple of close-ups for those who are interested.  First, the green grassy area:

I'm really pleased with the way this turned out.  I was going for a pattern that evokes blades of grass.

Next, the brown area -- soil, perhaps, but based on the photos, dead grasses:

Both the green and the brown will now be embellished by hand stitching.

After a few hours break, I was back at it again -- with the first clue for "Easy Street"...and managed to put together 28 four-patches (so far).  The full-sized quilt calls for 192!  I have plenty of the tan print, but we'll see how long the blue holds up.  Who'd-a thunk such disparate prints would play together so nicely?

It's early, but I'm going to crawl into my bed with a cuppa and my book.  G'night all!

Lunch Break!

It's not 'Black Friday' here (tell that to some of our American-based box stores, though)...but I'm joining along with Sandy et al for a Sew In.  I've begun the day with my C&G assessment piece.  Yesterday I did this:

Auditioned final fabric selection

And then this...

Fused background to foundation fabric

And then this...

Added hills, auditioned trees

The little white bits of paper on the tree trunks are numbered.  At that point the trees weren't attached (I wanted to quilt the sky first), so I numbered them with bits of freezer paper to be sure I could remember where I wanted to put them!

This morning I took up where I left off and quilted the sky and fused and stitched down the tree trunks.  In the photo the piece is lying on the extension to my sewing table.  Doesn't arlee's naturally-dyed fabric make great aspen trunks?!

I have a coffee date in a couple of hours...and now that I've had my lunch I'm ready to go back to work.  I thought about starting Part 1 of Bonnie's 'Easy Street' Mystery, but seeing as I seem to be on a roll with the assessment piece, I think I'll keep going.  The Mystery will be perfect for  this evening when I need something less stressful challenging  ...when I need something soothing -- like cutting and sewing strips -- with which to relax!

Will check in again later; meanwhile, check out the Sew Day at Quilting for the Rest of Us for Sandy's give-away and other blogger's BDSI activities.  Enjoy!

Sometimes...

size does matter.  That's one of the lessons I learned from this bit of sampling.  I really wanted to do some sort of free-motion quilting in the grassy areas, but quickly realized that creating the sharp-pointed 'stippling' in a tight space was tough on my shoulders.  I wasn't keen on doing it over a larger area.

Wait.

A larger area... Of course!  The final piece is going to be at least twice the size of the sample!  What could I do in that larger space that would be effective?  I decided to consult FMQ guru, Leah Day, via her FMQ Project -- and I found Lesson #37 -- "Jagged Lines".  Perfect!

To get an idea of what they'd look like, I tried them in the tiny space left on my sample -- see that brown area on the far left?  (Yes Carolyn, you and I were on the same wave-length here. :-)  Thanks for your comment! )

Then I added some hand stitching to see what it would look like (sorry; this one's a bit blurry).  I like it!

The 'what ifs' continued -- next with the sky.  Now, I'm not fond of stitching in the sky.  I'm always concerned about over-doing it.  However, I did try this:

It might work in the larger piece if I can get into the rhythm of the sky fabric, where clouds 'need' to be.  I know that others stitch in the sky, but they're not always working on batting.  (For example, I believe that Monika works on two layers -- fabric and some sort of stiff backing -- Timtex or some such thing that's not batting.)  When you have a stiffer substrate, your sky stitching has quite a different look to it, right Monika?  :-)

So...I reserve judgment on whether or not I'll stitch in the sky on the final piece.

There there was the bark.  I did go back in and play around with tiny bits of painted fusible web, with very ho-hum results, so I decided to try a technique I learned in a workshop with Anna Hergert in Edmonton in the spring of 2010:  stitched, painted and distressed paper napkins!

First you stitch a grid on your favourite paper napkin.  This one is from an inexpensive pack from a dollar+ store, free-motion stitched with whatever I had in the machine (brown, I think):

Next you paint the grid with textile paint.  I had brown textile paint (Jacquard) and black artist's acrylic, so I mixed 'em, diluted with a bit of left-over brown dye I'd mixed up a while ago:

You let that dry.  Then you spritz it with a water bottle, and distress it with your fingers to get this:

Actually, I think the plastic in the black acrylic paint kept this from being as distressed as it might have been.  On the other hand, it enabled me to get a firm tug on a piece, tear it off, and apply it to my tree trunks.  I used a touch of glue stick for the sample, but on a larger piece, I would stitch it down.

See the dark bits on the centre tree trunk?  See how much more effective it is than the snips of black-painted fusible web on the other tree trunks?  See how on a larger piece you'd have to be very judicious in your use of this material so it wouldn't overwhelm?

Yep; sometimes size matters!

Sampling Continues

Yes, I picked the layout I liked best, and I began to stitch.

Sulky (R) Colour #4034

First I fused the sky, earth and grass to a foundation fabric (light muslin).  Then I attached the strip of recycled  sweater, using Sulky Blendables 100% cotton thread in "Soft Blacks", using a zig-zag stitch, my stippling foot and the feed dogs up.

Sulky (R) Colour #4011

Sulky (R) Colour #4019

Next I added some thread painting between the hills and grasses, first with Sulky Blendables 100% cotton thread in "Milk Chocolate" and "Forest Floor".

Then I sandwiched the piece and fused the tree trunks, tot-stitching them down with a straight stitch, feed dogs down now, leaving a rough edge.  I stitched the first two with "Soft Blacks" but didn't like the harshness of it against the fabric.  Looking again in my stash I found a hand-dyed cotton thread that I bought several years ago from -- I think -- Stef Francis.  It bears no label, and I couldn't find it on her website, so I'm not sure she even makes it now (if she ever did).  Sigh...

The good news is that I've hardly made a dent in the spool, so I'll have enough of it for the larger assessment piece if all I use it for is stitching down the tree trunks.  :-)


Wanting to add some texture to the grasses (the brown section is grass that has died down), I debated: machine or hand or combination?

Above you see a section of the grasses free-motioned with a jerky stitch that I thought would give an interesting texture.  It was tiring to do on this small piece, so I can't imaging doing it on a larger one (I'm working on a domestic machine).  I kept reminding myself, "it's just a sample" and went on to play with hand-stitching.

First I tried adding some seed stitch to the already-quilted green area.  The dense machine quilting had made the piece relatively inflexible, so it was a bit tough to get the sharp needle to go through it.  I was using wonderful over-dyed cotton embroidery floss -- 2 strands -- "Celadon" from Weeks Dye Works -- a gift from my friend Jeannette Douglas when I went on a stitching cruise with her in 2009.

I like the way this makes the green grassy area look less stiff; somehow the hand stitching gives it life.  However, I liked this bit even better -- the hand stitching alone.

Here's an example of both, side by side.  I'm liking the hand-stitching alone more and more. (The brown is stitched in Gentle Art Thread's "Wood Rose", another gift from Jeannette.)

I thought about adding bits of painted fusible web to the trees for bark texture, but have yet to try it.  arlee's wonderful hand-dyed fabric is so effective that I'm not sure it needs anything else.  However, to be on the 'safe' side, I might just do it...just to see; just to answer the "what if?" :-)

Planning, Intuition...

or..."Sample, Sample, Sample"?

I know what I want for my C&G assessment piece -- in my head, anyway.  I can visualize it.  So...I set out to make a sample -- 9" square unfinished -- and began to audition for layout and colour.

First, the photo inspiration (a slice of a larger photo):

And its partner in grey-scale:

And the paper collage (from an earlier assignment):

And now the samples (note: nothing is attached; it can still be changed):

Sample #1

The first sample has commercial fabric for sky, brown and green background, and recycled sweater (inside out) for the "hills" or distant bushes.  arlee barr's eco-dyed cotton is used for the tree trunks throughout.  In the final piece I plan to add some bark texture with snips of painted fusible web.

Sample #2

The second sample has hand-dyed recycled sari silk ribbon for the 'hills', my own rusted muslin for the brown background and purchased hand-dyed green fabric in the foreground.

Sample #3

Sample #4

 The third sample is the same as the second, but the sari silk has been swapped out for the recycled sweater, cut narrower and placed right-side out.
















I like this last one best, but I don't have enough of that green to make a large piece (minimum is 18" square)...I don't know if I can duplicate it as I didn't dye this one myself.  I also don't have a large enough piece of this particular sky fabric, which is commercially printed, but I do have a larger one I hand-dyed, which I'm saving for the final piece.

Any thoughts?

P.S. 10 posts to 950...and another give-away.  Stay tuned.

Oh -- and my friend P's Barn Swallow Scarf is finished.  Here it lies across the top of my easy chair: