Garden Lady # 8 - Fall Princess - Part Seven

This is a continuation of 6 previous posts about the making of Garden Lady #8.  I quilted the background in circles in two different sizes, 1-1/4" and 1", by using a machine template from Quilters Apothecary.

The dress and sash were quilted in meandering and circular shapes, and the face and arms were quilted on my domestic machine in matching threads.  I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm in the depth of quilting, I feel like it takes forever!  Of course, it is only days, perhaps closer to a week.  I guess I'm spoiled by all of my cool machines that make it easy for me to complete my art quilts at home.  I did have to put some leaves on the quilts before quilting because they needed to be behind the pumpkins.  And, of course, I forgot to take another picture when the quilting was done.  Dang it!

I put the quilt on the floor of my sewing room and scattered the leaves from about 5' above, letting them drop wherever they wanted to.  Here is the picture after they were scattered:

And here I am on my hand and knees, pinning them in place.  (Well, I'm taking the picture while I'm on my hands and knees!)

I hope you like it so far.

2nd quilt from marbled fabric - Marbled Circles

After making an art quilt from the marbled fabric (and using only 3 small pieces), I decided to make one that included nearly all of the marbled fabric together in one quilt.  I remembered that I had made a quilt out of Hawaiian fabrics that showcased the material, but where the pieces didn't touch each other.  Since there was an overall theme to the fabric, I thought this might work with the marbled fabric too.

But, I recently bought a set of  Bloc loc  half rectangle rulers to make rectangular pieces and I wanted to give them a try.  

I cut my pieces 4" x 8" and followed the instructions that came with the rulers.  My final 3-1/2" x 6-1/2" pieces were perfect and the rulers were very easy to use.   The great thing was that most of the marbled fabric was in small pieces - less than a fat quarter - so this size made the most use of the fabrics.  Note:  there are great videos posted by the company on how to use the ruler.

I added blue, orange-red, and a 1930's green that matched the color of the inks used for the marbled fabric.  I sketched up this design:

And here is the quilt.  It's quilted with 2 sizes of circle rulers, all in green thread.  The final size is 43" W x 54" H. and I named it "Marbled Circles".

I hope you like it!

Vagabonds 2020 Challenge

I wrote several previous blogs about the making of this quilt.  It is the Vagabonds 2020 Challenge.

Since I was stuck at the house for the Stay at Home order for the State of Washington, I discovered that my patience and focus was compromised.  I had the whole day and every day to complete projects instead of distinct time frames around all of my social activities.  So, I actually got bored and flitted from one thing to another.  You know, out in the yard, cleaning closets, writing in my journal, eating too many snacks, playing with the dog, calling my friends .... the typical behavior of a procrastinator.  What?  Me?  No Way!

Anyway, it took me several weeks to get back to this challenge piece.  I knew that I needed to make a smaller test piece to refine the technique I wanted to use.  So, here it is.

I started by quilting a 12" x 12" background and making more of the yarn and tulle pieces.

Then I marked several places where I wanted to place these tulle "holes".  I stitched around the marking 3 times then cut out the inside of the holes, leaving about 1/4".

I placed the tulle on top of the hole and stitched it from the backside, so that I could see the previous stitching.  Then I cut the seam allowance to a scant 1/8".

I turned the piece back over and stitched the edges twice with a zig-zag stitch, set to 4.0 mm width and .60 mm length.

I had previously printed the photo onto fabric; this was backed with fusible web and cut out into shapes.  I cut out both the large circles and sections of the smaller circles.  These were stitched with  zig zag stitching.  And here is the test piece.

I really like how it turned out!

I'm not sure if I will make more this size and join them together, or if I will use this technique on the large quilt.  More to think about.

I hope you get ideas that you can try out on a smaller scale too.

Vagabonds Challenge - 2020 - Part 2

This is a continuation of a post about the Vagabonds Challenge for 2020.

I had so many ideas in my head for this quilt, and it was very difficult to narrow them down to the quilt that I wanted to make.  My intention was to try a different technique, or a combination of techniques, to give the look of a 3 layered quilt with cut outs.  I don't know which layer will be which, so I decided that I would try to make up some sample pieces.  Then figure out what I would do for the full size quilt.

I knew that I wanted to print the picture in several colors onto printer friendly fabric.  Here's what those prints looked like.

I don't know if I will sew these together or cut them into pieces and piece them with other fabric.

Here's what I want in the three layers:
  Circular cutouts with some sheerness and some thread embellishment.
  A layer of the printed fabric.
  Some kind of stuffing to add dimension to the circles.
  A layer of painted fabric, also with circular cutouts.

I made one of the potential layers out of two layers of tulle, and many different colors of thread, yarn and ribbon.  these were stitched down and then pressed slightly.  I have no idea how I am going to use this, but it's one of my ideas and was kind of fun to just play around.

I can't wait to see how many nights I will lay awake while these ideas peculate in my head.  Stay tuned!