Tag Archives: quilt

Cathedral Window Quilt

Not that I need a new sewing project to start… but this is amazingly cool looking and the tutorial makes it not too hard looking. I have never seen a Cathedral Window Quilt before, but really love the rounded shapes. I also like the quilt as you go, no backing needed, idea.

I discovered this tutorial, after following a blog link from a comment here on my site. Sophia Aster commented on my ugly quilt post, where she had followed a link from my comment on the Quilting Gallery’s Ugly Quilt Contest (where I regret not entering my doggie car quilt) I just love the paths that the internet can take you on.

Maybe once I am done with rearranging my studio I will take on a little pillow using this technique. It will have to be all my doggie prints for the color parts.

Studio Art Quilt Association

This group looks pretty interesting and is currently having their annual auction. The 12″x12″ quilts up for auction are amazing!

SAQA Benefit Auction 2009 One Foot Squares

There are members from all over the world and quilts that range from abstract to portrait. I thought that with all the blogs that I read and art quilting books I collect, that I would recognize many more artists, but it appears that only Terri Stegmiller  (whose blog link  got me here in the first place) is the only artist I recognize.

I will look forward to going back in September and perhaps placing some bids, and even joining the group. I have seen a lot of different quilting groups and organizations, but not one so clearly connected to art quilts, rather than traditional quilts.

Purple Sunset Finished

At first, I thought I had NO purple beads. I was very upset and immediately went online to order some. Then I found enough to add to my landscape quilt for the Art Quilt Explorations with Jane LaFazio. Her landscapes are very cool. I do like the ones with trees and might do a second one that way to see how it comes out. Now she does not bead her work, but I have been so into the beading lately that I just couldn’t see this landscape without some.

purple sunset finished 0215

It is finished. The completed quilt is 9X12″ and has a hanging sleeve on the top binding to hang with a wooden dowel. Lots of beads, trim and a variety of fabrics. The purples are terribly hard to photograph. I finally got this one with some natural daylight, but it still does not show the richness of the colors and the variety of textures. I am totally in love with how this came out. Purple really is a royal color. I probably need to come up with a more regal name for it.

Next I am doing my February Beaded Journal Page in this same fashion. But I am going to wait for my new beads to arrive and I still need to finish up my January page!

(Can you tell I am on vacation?)

Purple Sunset


purple sunset WIP 0214, originally uploaded by Charger’s Mommy.

Happy Valentine’s Day…

Not a big holiday for me, but I am on Mid-winter break as well so celebrating with some art time, finally!

This is the first lesson from a joggles class I am taking.
Art Quilt Explorations with Jane LaFazio

My friend Diane was posting her work from the class and I was so impressed I decided to take the class too. This will be my first time taking an online class from Joggles, so I plan to post a lot of comments and progress throughout. I am currently waiting for my forum account to be approved so I can post there.

I decided instead of a traditional grass and dirt colored landscape, that I wanted to do a sunset style color theme. Mostly because I wanted to use purple!  So after grabbing a bunch of fabrics from my stash, I went on flickr to look for some purple sunset pictures for inspiration.

Here are a few that I found:

Then I went back to my ironed pile to place them in a fashion that looked good to me. Next I did some satin stitching and fancy styles to hold the layers together. Now I am going to go add trim and beads and embroidery floss.

I have several other projects on board for this 5 day ‘weekend’ mostly for EBSQ shows. So expect to see a lot from me in the coming days.

I still need to get a February page started for the beaded journal project. I am thinking of making a duplicate of this but in my alter shape… we shall see!

First Art of the Year

I started with this photo taken a couple of years ago.

DSC06138

Then I played with some filters in photoshop…
sidewayscutout    sidewayscutoutfindedges

Then I layered some sheer white fabric over some printed white, along with some other sheer colored fabrics in places. I began the free-motion sewing to thread paint the lines.

img023

This is what I have so far and I am not totally happy with it yet, so I will continue to play with it until I feel like it is done. Then add a border and backing.

It will also include my focus word of the year, which is ~drumroll please~

Vibrancy!

But for now, my doggie is upset that I have been in the studio for so long, so I must tend to him.

HAppy New Year!

November Beaded Journal Project Begins

november BJP 2008 b4

November 2003 is when I became a dog lover, when I was completely won over by my first BIG dog. So this month’s page will honor Charger and his big stupid grin. This is the fabric quilt prior to beading. I have some scrabble letters to spell out the word “love” and then plan to bead some borders, bones and his hat and scarf. Not sure what other beading I will do, this one will probably be pretty simple.

See my other month’s pages here (plus theflickr album) and more about Charger here (plus HIS flickr album) .

I had contemplated doing something election oriented but decided that at this point, Charger is more of an influence… perhaps January will be about our new President.

What If?

CQR_sept, originally uploaded by Charger’s Mommy.

Crazy Quilts Revisited a new challenge started by Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth asks us to as “What if?”

So my first What if? Crazy Quilt piece came from:
What if I pieced together fabrics that are really different in texture? This has fun fur, Corduroy, silk, linen, taffeta, felt, and tulle combined. Then I asked, What if I made pockets in the tulle and sewed in beads? Only one pocket is filled so far, because this is still a work in progress. Finally I decided, What if I added a cut out window in the middle? Which is a new technique for me.

SO I will start by saying I don’t like it. It is all scraps so I haven’t lost anything by trying. It was hard to sew through the layers since I started with the thickest stuff towards the middle and used felt as a backing. I am not sure if this block will go any further. Or I might have to ask, What if I kept working on something I didn’t like and finished it anyways?

Playing Favorites: fields of dreams

Creating a gallery of my favorites has been quite fun. Looking through my own work over the years and fitting these themes has really shown me the diversity of my own work. Next up is Playing Favorites: fields of dreams, which I think can be translated to work that shows nature or landscapes of some type. Of course when he put together this series of posts, I think he gathered a lot of art from a lot of different people then put them into these catagories. I don’t think he expected to have an individual artist find art to fit each theme. But I like the challenge, so I plug along here.

Earthfin Rip July 2006

Media:  Fabric Collage Dimensions:  14″ x 14″ Date of Work:  07/2006

Night Sky Wanderer is a RIP for the EBSQ 2006 Ripped Off Show. It is inspired by a pyrography called Workin’ On Wings to Fly by Lisa J. Rough. I was really drawn to the powerful woman and the birch trees. It has a sense of strength and peace. I tried to capture that same feeling in my version of it. This piece is all fabric collage using applique’ and quilting techniques. It is embellished with buttons, ribbon, trim, beads and handmade yarn.