A Pretty Quilt and WIP Wednesday: Zen Garden

Since today is Wednesday, I'll start with a Work-in-Progress: my Zen Garden art quilt.

I have slowly been adding more beads to the gold "structure" area

and the blue "water" area. Even a little sparkly fishy!

Next up is the last of Teresa's quilts that I finished quilting yesterday. This one has lovely Moda fabrics with floral and cross-stitch motifs. I got to do my favorite kind of quilting...flowers, leaves, feathers. We selected King Tut "flax" cotton thread.

This quilt has a pieced back, with patchwork perfectly centered. I tried my best to keep it centered by pinning the top and lining together at the center, and then putting pins where I should start the top. It is really hard to keep it centered, though, because the quilting draws up the backing. It looks nice on the back, though, with the quilting really showing up.

In other news, when I walked Maggy yesterday, I discovered that my street is now a cut-through street connecting us to Rogers Road. They finally removed the barricade at the former end of the street. You can still see the bent-over red sign that warned you to stop. There are only about four houses built so far in the new neighborhood.

The new road still needs a little work, as the manhole covers are still sticking up. You rusted-fabric lovers would have fun with this one...I love the "quilty" design, and who would have thought of a manhole cover named "Dancer?" I didn't actually know they had names!

And while you were draping fabric over rusty items, there is an old rusty fence over an old family cemetery in this neighborhood. I would not recommend draping fabric there to be rusted...just not respectful...but it is a very attractive fence.

Yesterday when I was eating lunch on my front porch, I was startled to see a great blue heron fly by just beyond the porch rail. I think he was pond-hopping and was considering a stop in my little garden pond. These birds can have a wing-span of almost seven feet, and are often seen in inland ponds as well as in coastal marshes. Here is a picture borrowed from the Internet that looks exactly like what I saw from my porch rocker.

Christmas in July?

Well, yesterday I showed you the Christmas tree farms. Today, a Christmas quilt that I worked on yesterday. It was definitely not Christmasy weather here in North Carolina. The day was hot and humid, and then erupted into thunderstorms in the afternoon. But I managed to finish this very pretty quilt in contemporary colors.

The customer wanted an overall design, so I looked at the motifs on the fabrics and used spirals, holly leaves, and little leaves/berries.

We used King Tut "Reed," a yellow-green cotton thread slightly darker than the greens in the quilt. I was not too sure how it would look, but I am really happy with the way this quilt turned out. The back is the yellow-green with colorful small squares in the picture above, and the quilting does not show on it at all.

I have one more to do for this customer- a gorgeous Moda in soft taupe, rose, and blue. The thread I ordered from Gammill was waiting on my doorstep when we got back on Sunday- they provide super-fast service.

Mountain Fun

It was another gorgeous weekend in the North Carolina mountains. Charlie and I went up on Thursday night. On Friday afternoon, we got to meet my newest great-niece, Lacy. Sixteen days old! What a sweetheart! I caught her smiling in her sleep in this picture.We did not have our grandchildren there this time, but we enjoyed watching everyone else's.We spent lots of time fishing in the pond, putting our chairs in the creek and watching the little ones, and of course, riding up the mountain on our Gator. The weather was sunny and warm most of the weekend. Look at the happy clouds and blue sky!Mother Nature decorates the Christmas trees in the field during the summer.

So pretty on the mountain! Charlie and I picked blackberries on Saturday afternoon, and Mary made a cobbler for dessert. I did most of my picking from the Gator, since at our first stop I almost stepped on a very big snake. Just a black snake, but ....The wildflowers were abundant, with lots of black-eyed Susans.

We took one more ride on Sunday afternoon, and it looked like we might get a storm. Look at these scary snag trees!

This picture reminds me of the John Denver song: "There's a storm across the valley, clouds are rolling in..."

However, we only had a few sprinkles before we left for home. We stopped in Cary for a birthday dinner with our son Dave and his wife Emily. Here they are with their new ECU flag.

Dave wanted us to try some Thai food and Sushi for his birthday dinner...something we normally would never had experienced. It was an excellent delight!

Tired today...I have a customer's Christmas quilt on the Gammill today, so I guess I know what I will be doing!

Baby Quilt Again

It's almost "Deja Vu all over again"...but this time, I quilted Teresa's pinwheel quilt for a baby girl. I decided to add an informal feather border, although this was supposed to be all-over. The back is very plain lavender, and I thought it would look cute to enclose the hearts and flowers like a frame.

Now I remember why I charge extra for custom quilts- this little feather practice required a lot of starts and stops and burying threads. But I am really pleased with the result.

So, the continuing saga of our technical troubles...Tech Guy came out, turns out I was the computer skills coordinator when he was in 8th grade, he is happy he has computer skills. Tech Guy installs new modem, Internet works on desktop and laptop. Tech Guy leaves, a little while later it stops working upstairs on the desktop. But at least the laptop is connecting okay for now.

But what's next??? Maybe we will confer with our old friend Jack Daniels.

Another Baby Quilt

Today's Wednesday WIP is our home computer network...still trying to resolve our connection problems. You know the drill...it doesn't work...the tech guy comes out for five minutes...it works...he leaves...it doesn't work...you spend hours on the phone with tech support...you spend $100 for a new router...and so on. I am currently waiting for home visit #2 from our provider, hopefully with a new modem. Our connection comes and goes, so I am typing fast!

More technical problems...I have been waiting for a new foot pedal from Bernina since mine died on July 9 at my bee's sew-in day. Yesterday I got the call I have been waiting for...oh, yeah, they had one in stock all along! $125 and no return if it doesn't work. New one not in stock will be $195. Got smarter and took my machine with me to see if the foot pedal works. (It was still in its travel bag since the workshop.) Plugged in new foot pedal...it does not work! New problem! So, I left the whole thing there in hopes that it is not DOA.

So, this has opened up a window of opportunity to do some long-arm quilting. Yesterday I finished the first of two flannel baby quilts made by Teresa. Her work is amazingly precise, always square, ironed perfectly, folded in fourths lengthwise and draped over soft hangers.

Here is the first one. It is for a little boy. I free-hand quilted it much the same as the one I made for my niece's baby Christopher. Stars, swirls, and loops.

The back is also flannel and is pieced with leftover blocks. That made slow going over that part, but the needle and thread both held out without breaking.

I have been working on the Zen Garden quilt, adding more beads, but it does not look significantly different than last time.

Here are a couple more samples of Shiva Paint Stik stencils and rubbings that I don't think I have previously posted.

Gold PS over salmon-colored hand-dyed fabric

Copper and maroon PS rubbed over maroon tie-dyed fabric

Various blue and green PS stenciled over a fabric used as a paint blotter

Wish me luck with my technical issues! Heading for the mountains tomorrow night, so this may be my last post for a few days if I am not back in business. (We never have Internet up there- by choice!)

My Fabric Painting Lecture

No, I have not been up at our mountain cabin with no Internet service this weekend...I have been home with no Internet service! Something is wrong with our modem or router, and our service has been very sporadic. But it is working right now...hooray! We also un-installed the hated Internet Explorer 8. And now I can drag and drop my pictures in Blogger again!

You know all the fabric painting I have been doing? I was making samples for the program I presented at the Carolina Longarm Association meeting at the Forest Lakes clubhouse in Louisburg, NC. I made a new name tag to wear to Capital Quilters Guild meetings. This one has Shiva Paint Stik stenciling on hand-dyed fabric, needle-felted strap, and Swarovski crystals and ribbon.

While I was painting almost everything in sight, I noticed that my CLA name tag was looking white and boring, so I painted it with Tsukineko inks and Setacolor paint, and free-motion quilted it on the Long-arm with Tie Dye variegated thread and a metallic gold thread running together through the machine. It also has Swarovski crystals and a dyed fluffy fringe that I purchased at the Symposium from Artistic Artifacts.

We were planning to have a quilt show in September, but that has to be postponed because the church that hosts us will have to have sprinklers installed per the fire marshall. That means I still have time to make one of the challenge quilts. Here are two beautiful ones already quilted by two of our members, Suzanne and Donna. The object is to show what a difference the quilting can make.

We had a good show-and-tell with several beautiful large quilts. Here is Ann Hull on the right with the quilt she made from the Guild's Block Party blocks.

And here are the John and Dottie, a husband-wife team, with a gorgeous quilt that she pieced and he quilted.Then it was a terrific pot luck lunch, and on with my program. I started setting up my tables about an hour before the meeting. Charlie saw me with my car packed up and said, "I hope you enjoy your trip to Paris!" I brought a LOT of stuff.

I had Shiva Paint Stiks, Setacolor paints, Lumiere paints, Tsukineko inks, Neocolor II water-soluble crayons, Prismacolor pencils, Pigma micron pens, a few acrylic paints, and lots of tools and samples. I was asked to talk about the kinds of fabric paints I use, as well as how I go about embellishing a quilt. There was not really time to do much of a demo, although I did peel back the film on a Shiva Oil Paint Stik and load some paint onto a stencil brush. I also showed how I rub the Fantastix applicators on fabric to get most of the excess ink off before applying any color to the fabric. Here is my Shiva Paint Stiks display.

I got the little denim jumper at our local Goodwill thrift shop for $2.59, and stenciled some flowers, butterflies, and ladybugs on it for 3-year old granddaughter, Lily. I brought some ladybug buttons, red polka dot ribbon, and some rickrack that I may use to further embellish the dress.

These are my Setacolor transparent paints and a piece I painted and quilted.

and Tsukineko inks in their workstation with two Fantastik applicators for each color. I love that you never have to clean the applicators...a real plus if you have ever had to spend time cleaning paintbrushes. Those are my Lumiere paints and Necolor II crayons behind the inks.

After talking about the paints and other materials I brought, I had a trunk show of my painted and embellished quilts. I told the story of my "Something Girly" shadow trapunto quilt and my persistence in solving its problems. You can read about it here and see why I named it "Trouble."

I always enjoy the mixed reactions to The Green Man quilt- I think I will enter it in our show so I can hear the comments elicited by this, my strangest quilt ever.

So, now I still have to put everything away, but I am doing some sorting and re-organizing in the sewing room first. I spent several hours going through stuff on my cutting table, ironing board, and sewing table, but I have much more work to do. Anyway, I think my talk was a big success and I am relieved to be finished with it so I can move on to other projects.

I am very grateful to Donna Sontag for taking photographs during the program, and helping me pack up my dog and pony show at the end of the meeting.

A Finished Baby Quilt

This is my little great-nephew Christopher, to whom I was introduced at our family beach vacation back in June.

I just finished sewing on the binding and label for his baby quilt.

I used some of the motifs from the border fabric to paint a label with Tsukineko inks.

This little guy was born in March, so I am a little late. He lives in the mountains of Tennessee, so I guess he will still be able to use this soft flannel and Minkee quilt. Rachel, I will mail it to you after I show it off at my quilt meetings. Tonight is Capital Quilters Guild, and Saturday is Carolina Longarm Association.

Wednesday Works-in-Progress: Zen Garden Embellishments

Do you ever have trouble deciding whether or not to embellish your quilts with beads, paint, fibers, or other objects? I already made the decision to paint over some of the quilted motifs with Shiva Paint Stiks, which has transformed this piece from a piece of quilted fabric to an art quilt. I began to see the illusion of a pagoda, fence, waterfall, creek, and flowers. I have already added some blue-green beads to the waterfall area.
I will be adding more gold beads to define the gold "structures."

If you are going to embellish, it should certainly make a positive addition to the quilt's design, theme, meaning, or appearance. What I usually do is gather my containers of beads, ribbons, jewelry, silk flowers, buttons, and fibers. I pull out anything I think might work with the current project. Then I lay them on the quilt to see if I like the project better with or without the extra "stuff."

Below is an old brooch on the left side. I like the way the aged patina of the metal looks when contrasted with the gold and copper metallic paint. I may use it.

I am not opposed to adding silk flowers to add dimension to this piece, but have decided against these beautiful coral ones because I don't like think the warm color adds to this serene piece with cool colors. I will save them for another project.

Mountains in July

Last weekend it was back to our mountain place, this time with son Bryson and our two grands. The weather was beautiful and sunny all weekend after a rainy trip up on Thursday night.

On Friday morning, we went to visit an acquaintance who has a summer home on a bend of the New River. There is an old mill on the property that has not been a working mill since 1977. I love the weathered planks that are set at a 45 degree angle.

We ate lunch with my father and two brothers Chris and John in Boone after that. They have a great Applebee's, and we all enjoyed our lunch and visit. The kids arrived that night, and we had a world of fun fishing, riding the Gator to the top of the mountain, floating in the creek, and playing on the Slip and Slide.

Old Dog Maggy made the trip to the top of the mountain again several times.

We had a lovely mountain sunset and a great time. Life is good!

Catching up on everything since Thursday is going to take more than one blog post. I'll start with the Whacky Ladies Bee sew-in at Quilts Like Crazy. We had a pretty good turnout for a summer meeting when several were away on vacation. We decided to make quilts for the charities sponsored by Capital Quilters Guild in Raleigh. We make quilts for senior citizens at rest homes, babies in neo-natal intensive care units, children of parents in child abuse education programs, and several other programs.

Our member Donna is a longarm quilter at the shop. She arranged for us to use the workshop area for sewing and cutting. It was very inspiring to see the beautiful quilts at the shop and all the gorgeous fabric to fondle.

That's Mary working at the end of the table.

Here are Joanne and Jean working at their machines.

Joanne, Carolyn, and Marilyn having fun at work on their quilt projects.In the foreground, you can see the instructions I wrote on pieces of poster board, along with samples of each step. I guess you can tell who was the old elementary school teacher.The shop not only provided us with space and a 15% discount on purchases---they made us lunch! Fabulous!

I was the first to arrive at the shop after Donna, but when I set up my machine, I noticed that I did not pack the power cord to my machine. So, a short trip back home to get it, and then I found out that my foot pedal had died. Bummer! I spent my day cutting up fabric to make kits for Quilts on Wheels. Then, to finish my day on a similar disorganized note, I left my Rowenta travel iron behind when I left.

We left for our mountain place on Thursday afternoon...more to come. I am having trouble manipulating my photographs on Blogger lately. They don't drag and drop easily any more. But we had a fabulous time and I am really tired this morning!

Wednesday Work-in-Progress: Zen Garden

Remember the oriental fabric that I had fun quilting on my long-arm on Monday? Here it is after quilting with light blue Signature cotton thread. I outlined some of the gold shapes in the fabric, and just had fun making feathers, flowers and vines in other areas.


Today we are having more of the gorgeous sunny, breezy, low-humidity weather that is so rare in the South in July. I decided to embellish the piece with Shiva paint sticks to bring out the gold of the fabric and some of the quilted motifs.

I am very happy with the way this piece is coming along. When the paint dries, which is not taking long in this weather, I will probably add some Tsukineko inks to some of the smaller detailed areas, and possibly even some gold pen. Then, some beads for more highlighting and shine.

Tomorrow my quilt bee is having a sew-in day at our local quilt shop, Quilts Like Crazy in Wake Forest. One of our bee members works there as their long-arm quilter. The store is going to provide lunch and drinks for us. We are going to be working on more charity quilts for the guild.

After that, Charlie and I are heading to the mountains again, where this time we will have our oldest son and two grandkids to keep us company.

Charity Quilt Kit Assembly

We got at least fifteen quilt kits assembled yesterday at The Flower Cottage on the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus in Raleigh. These will be for small, 40-inch or less "Quilts on Wheels," for senior citizens in rest homes. Our guild basically has a room in the cottage available to store fabric, and we had eleven huge boxes of color-sorted fabric to work with, plus some bolts. Some of this was donated by families of deceased quilters, and there were some bolts and large pieces donated by the owner of Archangel Quilt Shop when they closed.

Jean and I were met by another CyberBee member, Roberta, who works nearby at N.C. State. I was disappointed in The Flower Cottage, as the little house is not well-cared for, had no charm, and had a musty smell. It is surrounded by other small homes that probably once were provided for staff members at Dix Hospital. One of the nearby homes had beautiful windows with leaded arch designs. Sadly, all the buildings have peeling paint and a shabby appearance. The hospital is scheduled to close, and the local developers are salivating over the chance to add condos, office buildings, and shopping to this beautiful green campus with huge oak and pecan trees. My camera's battery died after just one pitiful picture.

Since it is at least a 45-minute drive from Wake Forest, I decided to go ahead and bring home fabric for the kits I am to provide in January. We signed up for different months to sit at a designated table at Guild meetings, take in finished quilts and give out new kits. There was a large stash of homespun plaids as well as some outdoor-themed novelty fabric with cabins, moose, etc., so I took home a bunch of those. They were destined to go straight to the washing machine to get rid of any musty smell.,

Will try to finish two other small quilts on the longarm today, but don't have the backs ready yet.

Baby Quilt and Artsy quilt

Yesterday I fired up my Gammill Longarm machine for the first time since January. Yikes! The first project was the long-abandoned baby quilt for my niece Rachel's baby. He was born in March. It is all flannel, Minkee, and combed cotton. Super soft! I decided to just use some of the cloud, sun, kite, and other motifs from the cute border fabric, and freehand the whole thing.

Pleased that everything worked great after the months of inactivity, I decided to do some freehand quilting on an interesting piece of oriental fabric, about the size of a fat quarter. I am thinking of adding fabric paint, beading, and/or other embellishment.

Heading out today with my friend Jean to prepare some quilt kids for one of our guild charities, Quilts on Wheels. The fabric is stored in a place called The Flower Cottage. It is on the campus of the state mental institution in Raleigh, which is actually one of the most lovely, tree-lined, grassy real estate in our capital city. Not sure how the guild got hooked up with them, but I have heard it is very nice. I'll take my camera!

It was wonderful to be in the North Carolina mountains for the long Fourth of July weekend. Good weather, good friends, good food, good drinks, good mountain river float. It was a much smaller group than normal, since one of my nephews and his wife are expecting a baby any day. My sister's whole family stayed home to wait for the baby, who is still not here. But one of their good friends gave birth on Thursday, so congratulations go out to Amy and Mike. Mike gave us the gift of his electrician expertise on wiring the cabin two years ago. I think little Shelby may be getting a home-made gift from me!

When we arrived at the cabin, I was thrilled that some nasturtium seeds that I planted among the plastic flowers in our window boxes had bloomed and were trailing. I watered them ASAP. Little did I know, there was a nest of baby wrens in one of the boxes, hiding under the foliage.

I did not drown them, but Mama Wren was mighty glad when we left and she could feed her babies without so many people close at hand. We had our son Dave, his wife Emily, and four of their college friends all staying at our place.

I put some more perennials out where our driveway forms a switchback coming up the hill. the ferns and rhododendron are gratis from Mother Nature.

Inside, I hung up one of my Collage Mania pieces that were recently framed. I decided to leave it in the horizontal orientation. It is next to my little kitchen sink area.

We had not one, but two days of floating down the New River on tubes. It is so much fun, and what a bonus to see some of the most beautiful picture-perfect postcard scenery as we drifted. One of our college friends and his son joined us on the float on Saturday.

The past few years, we have experienced thunderstorms and even hail last year by the time we reached our pick-up point. This year, no rain at all until all the fun was over and it was time to leave on Sunday. It makes it easier to leave when it is raining. Even in the rain, I hate to see it go.

Wednesday Works-in-Progress: Kid's Quilts and more Painted Fabric

Wednesday already...this will be my last blog until next week, since we are heading to the mountains for our annual Fourth of July river float with family and friends. Can't wait!

Here is a finished quilt top for a little girl. Very easy, just squares and four-patches, plus two rectangles with machine-appliqued hearts.

I like for appliques on bed quilts to have turned edges, not just fused, but I did not want to hand-applique. I turned and ironed the edges, pinned on, and machine-stitched. On one of them, I used some of my machine stitches to add decorative elements.

This one is for a little boy- frogs, fish, and construction equipment. Just blocks on the design wall. I mark the left side of the rows with numbered post-it notes to help when piecing the top.

And here is the first of the Yellow Brick Road tops to be pieced together. Soft and pretty!

Yesterday I continued to paint fabric on the porch since I had all my "stuff" downstairs.

Red and yellow Setacolors mixes

Shiva paint sticks on maroon dyed fabric. The patterned ones have the paint applied over rubbing plates.

Turquoise and green Shiva Paint stick on purple fabric.

Blue and green paints on upholstery fabric, with blue stamps.

Remember my neighbor's cat that thinks it lives at my house? Now they have a kitten that thinks he lives here. He was definitely checking out all the activity on the porch. Those are Tsukineko inks and Fantastix applicators.

I experimented with some glue resist designs. I used Elmer's gel glue, but it is the kind with glitters. It looked pretty drying in the sun!

When the glue was dry, I covered the fabric with Stewart Gill paints. The Byzantium paints have lovely bits of mica or something shiny in them. When this piece has dried for 24 hours, I will wash out the glue and see what I get.

I am continuing to experiment to find the best materials for my "Grand Canyon tree" art quilt. I painted some Nutmeg Stewart Gill paint, and also mixed a brown with red and green Setacolor paints. I tried drying a couple pieces with cheesecloth to add a textural design.

That's it! Have a wonderful rest of the week. And Happy Birthday, America!