Lime Green 3-D quilt, Part Four

This is a continuation of the posts about the making of the 3-D green quilt.

I next turned to the background for the globe.  Since I wanted to use fabric that I already had, I used a gray grunge dot fabric.  I wasn't sure if that would be enough for the background, or if I still needed to add lime green circles.  So, I made a few of the circles and pinned then in place.  Here's the before and after pictures showing the difference.

I decided that I liked the plain background the best.  So, I stitched it down and the top was all ready to quilt.

I hope you agree that it didn't need a ton of lime green circles on the background.

P.S. I know that the original intent was to reduce my lime green fabric stash.  But alas, I had to buy 2 yards MORE in order to do the binding technique, which I'll talk about later.

Clark County Quilter's Show - Cancelled

Sadly, the Clark County Quilter's annual show, which was postponed from April  to November, has officially been cancelled.  COVID-19 is still spreading all over the world and events in the State of Washington are being limited to a very small number of people.

Since most of our members and likely most of our visitors are in the high risk age group, it just didn't make sense to plan a large event in November.

While we are all sad that there won't be a physical show this year, there is likely going to be a virtual event.  I'm so glad that there is a group of people in the leadership of our guild that have been able to be nimble and think outside the box.  It's due to these leaders that the rest of us can enjoy whatever event in whatever form can be imagined.

I hope you have great leaders in your quilt guilds too!

Lime green 3-D quilt, Part Three

I've written two previous posts about the making of this lime green 3-D quilt.

I continued to cut, paste, and applique the green ovals onto the background strips of this quilt. After I appliqued down all the pieces, I sewed the horizontal strips together, using the same applique method that I used to make the strips.  I could have easily pieced this stop, but I wanted to use applique throughout this quilt.  It's actually much faster than trying to piece the curved sections.

Here is a picture of the top with  the "globe" part of the quilt all sewn together.

And here is the back of this section, showing the start of the removal of the tear away backing.  It's really easy to tear it away because the stitching lines serrated the tear away.  I left the outside pieces in place so that they would form a nice edge when I will applique the globe to the background.

I hope you like it so far!

Lime Green 3-D quilt - Part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post about the making of the lime green 3-D quilt.

After I finished sewing the horizontal rows, I cut out the circles and ovals for the lime green applique.  My favorite technique is machine applique with invisible thread and dissolving foundation.  I like to use Ricky Tims poly stable stuff for the dissolving foundation.  I dabbed on some glue stick at the edges and pressed the dissolving foundation to the back of the fabric pieces.  Then I ran the glue stick around the edges again, and pressed over the edges.  When I was done with the horizontal row, I appliqued the prepared pieces to the background.  The stitch was set to 1.3 mm W x 1.0 mm length on the zig zag setting.

It was much easier to work on this quilt while it was still in strips than to wrestle the entire top under the sewing machine.  Here are some progress pictures:

The first one shows one horizontal row of the applique pieces with the green fabric on top and one row of vertical pieces with the dissolving foundation.  The next picture shows a bit more progress.  (Sorry that the picture is skewed.  It's hard to get a good shot with some of my furniture in the way.  

I think you're probably able to see the lime green quilt emerging.  I hope you like it so far!

Lime Green 3-D quilt - part One

It takes a few months of staying at home and staring at your fabric stash to come to the conclusion that some of that fabric should be USED and not stored.  I've known for a long time that I had two stacks of lime green fabric.  And that it was too much.  I know, you're SO surprised!  My mantra has always been that there can never be too much lime green... in anything... clothes, dishes, jewelry, decorations, and of course, fabric.  But, now, I've decided that it just has to be used and reduced to one stack, like all of the other colors.  Many of the lime green pieces were just scraps, but others were 1/2 yard or more.  This screamed out to me to make a quilt using as many of these different fabrics that I could fit into the top.

The other color that I had a lot of was gray.  Normally, I wouldn't think to combine gray with lime green, but I consider them both to be neutrals.  Yes, lime green is a neutral for me!

I looked through the file where I had been saving scrap quilt ideas.  And I also looked at the quilts that I had pinned on Pinterest.  A couple of them popped up as possibilities.  In the end, I landed on a quilt with a lot of circles on it that had a real 3-D effect.  The original quilt was named "Forca Barca" and was made by Rosa Rojas and Olga Gonzales-Angulo.  I believe it was exhibited at QuiltCon in 2018.

Here is the drawing of that quilt which was blown up to 54" x 54", with one row of background fabric already pinned in place.  I traced the entire circular part of the design onto a tear away stabilizer.  Then I cut it into horizontal strips.  If you look closely, you'll see the stabilizer on top of the drawing.

Here it is with a few more background rows in place.

 I traced each horizontal strip onto freezer paper and used that for my templates.

I ironed the freezer paper to the front of the fabric, turned under the top edge where it would be appliqued to the next piece, and pressed it, using the edge of the freezer paper as my pressing guide.

Then, I pinned it into place on top of the stabilizer, making sure to line up the pressed edge with the seam line on the stabilizer.  When all the pieces were pinned in place, I removed the freezer paper and stitched it with invisible thread and a narrow zig-zag stitch (1.4 mm W x 1.0 mm L).

Here is the background with all of the strips done, and some of the templates ready for the lime green applique.  You're probably wondering why I have been referring to it as the lime green quilt.  Don't worry, it'll get there.

Stay tuned for further posts about the making of this 3-D lime green quilt.

Bee on pink rhododendrom

I've been on a roll.  Several "bee on flower" pictures were printed about a year ago when the Master Gardener Foundation of Clark County asked me to donate an art quilt for their summer auction.  I decided to finally paint and quilt the rest of the pictures that were candidates for that auction quilt this year.  If you look back into my blogs by searching on bees, you'll find my previous posts.  This one was a bee on a purple rhododendron.

Here is the picture and the painting.  I added more shadowing so that the bee wasn't floating above the background.  Notice that the purple rhododendron turned into a pink one!

Here are the threads that I used to highlight the piece.

And here it is all done.

I hope you like it.

Bee on flower - Bumble bee on a white rhododendron

I love to take pictures of bees on flowers.  It's one of the things I do when I'm in my own backyard and when I'm out for walks.  People see me taking pictures with bees buzzing around me and probably wonder if I'm loonie.  Well, all I can say is that I get super excited about nature and never tire of seeing living things, blooming things, and being outside.  I don't know if it is because I live in the wet Pacific Northwest and I have to sneak out between rain showers.  Or if I like to see things grow.  Or if I am love with the changing seasons.  Or if being in nature makes me feel alive.  Its all of those things and a little something more that is hard to put my finger on.  Elation, gratitude, oneness.

Here is the piece after the painting was done, with the picture of it side by side.  I could see that I needed to darken the bee a little bit more, which I did with permanent markers after the painting had dried.

I highlighted it with several threads:

Then quilted the piece and faced it.

I hope you like the finished piece.