Marie's Quilt

When I started dyeing fabric and designing quilt blocks the girls in my patchwork group were very supportive and participated in a block a month with me. This quilt is one of the finished ones which has a few of someone else's blocks added to make the quilt bigger. I thought Marie had done a wonderful job of the quilt and wanted to share it with everyone.

Aussie Beach Scene
When your friends make something and you just love the colour, in this case it was orange, sometimes you just have to make something too.
This piece came about for just that reason.
Right now I'm just loving orange, it cheers me up.

Painting with a big brush

Had some fun this week playing with dyes.
Getting some background pieces ready for a show.
I was using procion dye on wet and dry fabric and really liked this piece.

Journal Quilt

I've made a January Journal Qlt from a photo of one of the journal qlts I made in 2004.
I played with the original phot using Paint Shop Pro, Effects, texture effect, weave.
I did the playing some time ago and kept the picture because I thought it would be a good idea to play with and maybe make a quilt.
What I did instead was, make the image A4 size, using bits of the image to fill in around the edges, then when I was happy with what I had I printed it onto white fabric.
Next step was glueing it to batting and using a small zig zag stitch to emphisise the weave pattern. Some shading was done with a fabric pen to enhance the darker areas then a back was put on and a small border and binding to finish.
Top photo is the original.

Play Day

Today I played a little with some soda ash soaked and dried fabric and procion dyes.
This is my work table, a little overcrowded but then you cant see the other table and shelving. The 2nd table is folded away as I wasn't planning to do a lot.
The plan was to work with the dye and paint some fabric. I mixed up manutex and added dye and the first 2 pieces were an experiment and I'll let you know how happy I am with them when they've been washed, dried and ironed. Something about that process makes them all look better.
The view from my work area is stunning at the moment, we have had an abundance of rain, for our area, and the trees have grown, full of glistening leaves. So much better than the dry, brown, dusty look of the drought.
I spread dye/manutex mix on plastic for the following 2 pieces spread it out with fingers, then the spatula (no more cakes being made here). Positioned the fabric on top and rubbed it all over with a rag, sprayed a little water over just to help fill in the white bits.
I like both of these.

The purple piece has since been overpainted with a gold colour.

More of play day
This is the beginning, always good to see where you started.
Now I'm still using soda soaked, dry fabric but I'm not happy with the look.
Find a spray bottle and spray the fabric, just enough to dampen, not soak. Just using dye mix, no manutex.
Now I'm thinking about trees, be it cutting out individual trees, or, quilting the whole piece, maybe with trunks or leaves.

I really like this piece, it looks a little lighter in the picture than it actually is.

Playing More

So we begin again, still spraying the dry fabric with water to dampen.
What a shade of green that first one was, thats what happens when you just work with whats on the table.
Add a bit more blue, then a bit of red, play a bit which is the most enjoyable part of the whole experience, and finally I'm happy with what I've got.

Final Pieces
Again on damp fabric.
A 2" wide paintbrush used this time, the others were all foam.
I only used gold on this, half way through I added some water to lighten the shade.
May play with it a little more yet.

The Green piece was laid on bubble wrap, then sponged with a light green and gold, then a lumpy bumpy roller with dark green then brown.
Please excuse the technical terms (lumpy bumby)

Test Strips
Do You use test strips when your mixing your dyes. What do you do with them? Something tells me they should be thrown away, no fun in that.
This is one of my journal quilts made from the first collection. I now have an icecream container full and I'm planning the next project.
My friends know I don't throw away that which I think might be useful.

Dying Day

With the visitors all gone its time to get back to normal.
Had a small workshop yesterday and managed to get some dying done for me. A 12 step colour wheel with black added to each colour, a little overboard on the yellow which is now greener than the yellow green. Loving these colours, and the next step is to add them to the website.
Did a few others which I will take photos of tomorrow.

Evelyn's Elephant Art

My sister has been staying and working hard while here. She collects Elephants and this piece was made from a drawing she did. We collaberated on the quilting, she did the outlines and I quilted the background. I had to give her a quick lesson in machine quilting, even free motion quilting and for a novice she did extremely well. She now believes anything is possible.

In earlier posts you can see Evelyn's self portrait with an elephant on her head, now she has one to hang on the wall.

Tea for Two

What a difference a background can make.

I made up 'Two for Tea' lady, building her on baking paper first so I could try her on different backgrounds. I really love bright greens just now and so wanted to use it for the background but I wasn't happy with it. I put her on the black fabric and the difference was obvious. I wasn't happy with her face colour on black so changed it. Its not as bright as it looks in the photo, but I was happy with it.

The hair colours show up better with the different coloured face and background fabric.

The eyes too were changed, made darker as I thought they couldn't be seen well in the first one. Much better darker.

A digital camera is a great tool to have when you are playing with different colours for backgrounds etc. I take photos as I work then I can look back through them and see the changes. I can open the photos on the computer screen so I can see them together and the needed changes are sometimes obvious.

Bouquet for Mum

While my Mum was visiting over Christmas she wanted to make something. This is the almost finished arrangement we did, we added another stem of orchids and I forgot to take another photo before she left.

There wasn't time to quilt it so she took it home and did it at home.

Mum really enjoyed doing this piece, which is about 21in x 24in. She has said she'd like to do another one so I'm going to pack up a little project every now and again and send her something to work on.

I have her and my great grandmother to thank for my interest in all kinds of sewing which led to patchwork & quilting.

Christmas Eve Crash
My Daughter and Grandson were on their way to get some last minute shopping when someone turned across an intersection in front of them.
Fortunately they only have bruising from their seat belts and air bags. Theirs is the blue car.
They went to hospital in an ambulance and had x rays and we're glad they were not seriously hurt. Now they have no car to get around, Kirstie is on work holiday and the children on school holidays and they are going to be spending a lot of time at home.
She said yesterday that she was catching up on some reading.

We sleep over at her house Christmas Eve and have our Christmas dinner in the cool of the evening, prawns, ham, salads, desserts. Pancakes with jam and cream for breakfast.
We get to see the excitement of unwrapping presents in the morning then we go home and hide in the airconditioning and celebrate with friends and this yr visiting family Christmas Day evening.
Hope you and your families are safe this Christmas. I'm thankful that mine are only bruised.
Christmas temperatures for the last week have been from 34c - 39c (95F -102F) its humid and very opressive and the airconditioner is working overtime.

More Playing
Working with 7 shades of one colour. Light Grey to Dark Grey

Playing with Friends

I bought the book 'Color & Composition by Katie Manopust Pasquini' and have been playing with friends. We were away for a weekend and did a couple of the exercises from the book. Drawing the still life a few times then making up a journal size piece from the drawing. Not using the drawing as a pattern but free hand cutting the pieces for the applique which was quite different. This is one of the best books I've bought lately.

This piece is mine, that lovely red orangefruit, is, or was, an orange. Might need more practice at drawing.
This is Lexie's














This is Trish's

Hearts & More

This is one of my favourite wall quilts that hangs in my family room during spring and summer. It is in Patchwork & Quilting magazines Year Book for 2006 as a project. The magazine arrived in my mail box yesterday and the quilt is displayed beautifully. This is my first project for that magazine.

Decorated Bras

A group of quilters go away every 2 months for a weekend of stitching and laughing.
Last year we decided that decorated bras would be our Christmas party highlight for 2005. Lots of moaning and groaning followed and continued throughout the year, but the outcome was outstanding.
One member was diagnosed with breast cancer during the year & had surgery so the Bras turned out to be a special tribute for her.

Great weekend

Being the modest creatures they are I am only posting pictures of the bras not the ladies wearing the bras.


The Bra Bag

Another Photo

This is a photo of the two beings that share my life. Couldnt help playing with this photo and I was really happy with the way it turned out. Keep thinking there must be a quilt in one of these photos I've produced. The bigger being had just finished digging out the pad for his new shed, and the small being was a constant companion, always lying in just the wrong spot, either where the dirt was being dug from or where it was getting thrown to.



The original photo

Special Photos

I've been playing on the computer with a couple of photos and showed them to a friend last weekend. She really liked them and asked me to print them out for her. She sent me photos of them framed and hanging on her wall and now I'm wondering why I only played with them and didn't think of framing them myself.





This is the original photo before I played with it.





The second framed photo
and the original

There is one more photo thats been framed but that will have to wait until after the weekend as it is going to be a door prize for someone at our bi-monthly retreat and it may spoil it if I put it up here now.

Off shopping today to buy a new printer, scanner, copier, fax machine today. I'm excited about the prospect of another new machine to play with.