Monday, October 28, 2019

Painted rose

I wrote a previous blog about teaching paint and stitch to our guild in January.

After I wrote the blog, I realized the sample we picked would not help us to teach the technique, which is basically paint by number.  The picture that you start with HAS TO HAVE shading so that you don't have to imagine it - you just trace the pieces where the color changes.

So, here is a picture that I took of a rose earlier this year that has just the right shading for the class.



I traced this picture onto my prepared for dying fabric, then painted it with fabric paints.


It was then thread highlighted and finally quilted.  Here it is, all ready for the class.


I hope our students learn a lot in our class in January.  Remember, if you are a member of Clark County Quilters, you can take this class for cheap, cheap, cheap!  We love teaching each other our techniques.


Monday, October 21, 2019

Baby born and in the blanket with Dad

I wrote a blog about making a Minky blanket with tab edges for my nephew and his wife.  Their baby was born on September 19th, and here is a touching photo of Dad with the baby in his little blankie.  I can't wait to meet the little boy.


Aah!  Think of all the dreams that are occurring at that house!

Monday, October 14, 2019

Polka Dots and Spots - Part Two

This is a continuation of a previous blog about the Polka Dots and Spots theme quilt that I've been making.

In order to transfer my idea to my design board, I taped together several sheets of freezer paper.  (I used to "melt" them together with my iron, but my off-brand freezer paper didn't hold the ironing! Note to self: buy the real brand next time).  I added the circle for my inspiration piece, and then free hand sketched as close to my sketch as possible. You'll have to look really close to see my sketch lines - sorry for the poor photography. 



I used this great technique to transfer extra-large circles to foundation paper - either tear-away or water soluble.  You can purchase a set of these gadgets at a drafting supply store.  One part has a pointed end and the other part has the pencil.  Each piece has a slot that fits exactly on a yardstick.  It is basically a huge compass when you're done mounting the parts onto the yardstick.



After the foundation pieces were cut out, they were glue basted to the material, the edges were turned, and all the adjoining edges were machine appliqued to each other.

The next thing was to place some defining parts onto the background.  Those pieces that would inform the rest of the design.   I knew that I wanted to use pinks and greens in graduating shades and offset these with very large polka dot/spot black and white fabrics.  Here is the piece with some of these wedges in place.



I like it so far and I hope you do too!

Monday, October 7, 2019

Polka Dots and Spots - Part One

Clark County Quilters selected "Polka Dots and Spots" for their 2020 quilt show theme.  I like to make quilts for the theme of the show, and encourage others too, so that our display is awesome!

I looked at a lot of pictures on Pinterest and through some of my books and magazines for ideas.  While I'm not a huge polka dot person, I really like a lot of material that has tiny spots on it.  Or even large spots, like Moda grunge dots.  I even made a blouse of Moda grunge dots.  (OK, that was a little off topic.)

I found a great hand dyed piece of fabric from Maureen Schmidt for my inspiration.  Fabrics to match this piece were either pulled from my stash or purchased from Island Quilter.  Here's a picture of the fabrics I have in mind with the inspiration piece. Don't you just love the hand dyed piece?


Here are some of my sketches for this quilt:


I picked the one in the lower left-hand corner and decided the size would be 50" W x 70" H.

I hope you like it so far!