More Lucky Stars and More Gelato Art

I spent the last two afternoons sewing away in our little mountain cabin.  Now some of the Lucky Stars squares have the rectangles sewn all the way around, making them fifteen-inch squares.  (The blocks are not sewn together yet.)

This will make sewing the rows together much less tedious.  I have lots more stars cut out and partially sewn.

I tried using my new Faber-Castell Gelatos on a Bible journal page.  The pastel colors look nice and soft.  I added some watercolor pencil for the stems and flower centers  I added just a little water with a brush for blending.

I took lots of photos this afternoon.  I love the long shadows and reflections in the afternoon sun.

Trying out Gelatos

Happy Easter!  We are spending Easter weekend at our mountain cabin.  We plan to stay awhile and get some R&R.  Charlie got a drone for his birthday in March, and is having fun flying it around the mountain.  It provides some remarkable photos!

The first one is our cabin, driveway, and the pond below.  That is a reflection of the sun on the water.

The next one shows the cabin and surrounding land.

I recently ordered a set of Gelatos by Faber Castell.  I had noticed a lot of people using them on the Bible Art Journaling pages, and was interested in giving them a try.  The set I got had only pastel colors, a paintbrush, and some wedge-shaped sponges for blending and applying color.

                                                       

The first thing I always do when I get a new set of paints or "colors" is make a color chart.  These gelatos come in tubes like chapsticks.  I applied the color directly to a journal page, then used the paintbrush and water to blend them.  Don't you like the names of the colors?  Yum!

Next I tried making a background by just applying the colors straight from the tubes, blending with water, and then drawing over the background color with different Gelatos.  This have a rather pleasing effect.  The journal I am using has rather smooth paper.  I noticed you can still see the marks of the original application lines.  Probably should have used those blending sponges.

 Then I played around with a composition using the Gelatos to make fruit.  I had to add some darks with watercolor pencils after blending the Gelatos.  My set had only pastels and I just needed some darks for contrast!

I also brought up my Lucky Stars quilt materials to work on this weekend.  I now have stacks of background patches and lots of prints for making many more stars.  I even marked the diagonal line on all the small squares which become the star points.  I hope to do some sewing tomorrow.  I am making this quilt for my friend Marcia using fabrics that she purchased in Europe.  

                                       

I thought this would be a quick pattern to make, but it is not.  There is lots and lots of cutting, lots of seams to sew, and then you have to trim each block to size.  After that you add the rectangular blocks all around the stars to make 15" blocks.  Once those are done, it should be much faster to put this quilt together.

Here is a fun page that I made for the Bible Art Journaling Challenge.  It is about when Solomon was building the Temple, and all the artists and skilled women were called to weave and spin and make the garment for the priest to wear.  It is called an "ephod" and is worn with a breastplate that has twelve symbolic jewels.

I had to look up all this information, especially since I had no idea what an "ephod" was.  To illustrate this verse (Exodus 35:25-29) I decided to make an ephod and breastplate.

I fused Angelina fibers along with some Textiva film to make the garment.  The breastplate is on a piece of gold metallic fiber that you can sew through.  I glued on twelve hot-fix crystals.  I added two pieces of onyx beads for the shoulder straps of the ephod.  The ephod is attached to the page only at the top with Washi tape, so it can be lifted up to reveal the scripture beneath.

I used gold Lumiere paint to frame the actual scripture verses on the opposite page.

More later!

More Lucky Stars

I got a little time on our mountain weekend to cut and sew a few more Lucky Stars blocks.  Here they are, laid out on my kitchen counter!

These are my two favorite.  I love the blue/yellow combination.  I fussy-cut the big sunflower on the left block.

I played with a few of the sashing strips.  This is going to be so colorful!

Sewing in the cabin is somewhat challenging because I don't have a dedicated sewing area.  It has been a long time since I have had to drag everything out, clear the dining table, find extension cords, etc.  On top of that, I got a new iron and a new sewing machine for Christmas that I have only used about twice, and I was referring to the manuals for awhile before I got going.  But that's okay.  It was a rainy mountain day and I got to do one of my favorite things.

Lucky Stars

Guess what, quilters?  I've been sewing!

My good friend Marcia collected lots of fabrics from travels to France and Italy, back when her mother was still alive and an active quilter.  Marcia has now given me the bin of fabrics, and we went shopping last spring for background fabric to make the Lucky Stars quilt pattern by Atkinson Designs.  Then life intervened when my husband was diagnosed with cancer, and this project was put on the back burner.  It has rained the past few days, and I thought I would finally get started on this project for Marcia.

The fabrics are in cheerful primary colors with some greens and golds.  There are both Provincial prints and some fabrics that are solid or that read as solid.  There are also some other fabrics from her mother's stash that I think will blend well with this project.

The background fabric is a pale yellow cotton.  I wish we had chosen one that did not have a right and wrong side.  I have already had to unsew a few blocks because it is hard to tell the right side of the fabric.

After you sew the stars blocks, you trim them down to 9.5" square.  I have not done that yet, since my square ruler is in the mountains (I think...will have to look this weekend.)  

This is meant to be a Fat Quarter pattern.  You cut strips from each fat quarter, then subdivide to make both squares and rectangles.  The longer strips will form a sort of double sashing around each block.  I have not sewn the sashing strips yet, just placed them around the stars to get an idea how the top will look.

  

Now I have made about eleven stars.  To make a king size quilt calls for 122.  Yikes!  I guess I will get faster as I have more strips and pieces cut in advance.

I also painted two more maple leaves to go with the series I began earlier.  This time I traced around the actual leaves and built up the color more slowly.  I also scratched some veins into the wet paint with a craft knife.  I added a little bit of shadow around the leaves to give a little depth.

Getting there!

Reversible Holiday Table Mat

I recently made a small quilt to use on our dining room table.  It is reversible, so can be used for either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

I started out by making a "Lucky Star" block from Atkinson Designs.  I am making a large quilt using this pattern for my friend Marcia, and wanted to practice.

The green outer border is flannel.  I did freehand machine quilting with my Janome 6600 domestic machine.  I used a variegated poly thread everywhere except in the gold background.

The feather is just done freehand, no drawing or pattern used.

Here is he other side.  I used one block from a fabric designed to make pillows or a cheater quilt.

I did not feel like binding it, so just made a pillow-case type block by turning it, hemming up the opening, and top stitching the edges.

I hope you are enjoying your fall, and thinking about your holiday projects!

Purple Lucky Stars

I finished another customer quilt yesterday. 

 This one was made from the Lucky Stars pattern by Atkinson.  This is a fat quarter pattern that is very forgiving to make, since the star points do not end at the quarter-inch seam allowance. 

                                     

 My friend Mary Nennstiel from the Whacky Ladies made this one for her seven-year old granddaughter who loves purple.

I couldn't decide what overall design to use, so I decided to treat this as a magical star garden.  I stitched star bursts...

starry flowers...

 flowers, hearts, and swirls...

more swirls...

No tension problems or knots on the back this time after my machine tweaking the other day.  How fun to do a quilt and not have to do any "reverse sewing!"

Sewing and Reading

I have been cocooned in my sewing room for the past two days, finishing up two quilt tops and cutting out another. I have finished the deer fabric Yellow Brick Road, including borders and backing, and also added the borders to my Lilly Pulitzer fabric quilt and made the backing. One of these will go on the Gammill today. It might have to be the Lilly: its bright cheerful fabrics will be a solace for cold winter days!


The one I cut out is using up lots of the other deer/mountain related fabric. I am a little tired of Yellow Brick Road, so I pulled out another Atkinson pattern, Lucky Stars. This one also uses fat quarters cut into strips. This is the quilt on the pattern and the website. I am thinking of combining flannel and regular cotton in the top. Anything wrong with that?


Bonus: Much more space in the sewing room after cutting up all those fabrics and making backings!

While I have been sewing, I have been listening to the audiobook, On Agate Hill by Lee Smith. I love to read books by North Carolina authors, and Lee Smith is certainly a master story-teller. This book follows Molly Petree from her girlhood on a plantation during reconstruction days, to her adult life teaching school. Guess where? In Ashe County, North Carolina! Huge smiles as I listened about living in Jefferson, NC in the late 1800's. Of course this is where we go shopping when we are in the mountains at our cabin. I want to go to the sewing room and make some bindings before quilting on the Gammill, just so I can listen to the end of the story.

When we got back from the very same Ashe County on Monday, I had a Voice message from a woman in my Cary High School class with information about our 40th Re-Union. Yikes! That seems impossible! Our re-union will be very informal, a pig-picking followed by a DJ and dancing. This is to occur on the day we return from our annual beach vacation. Usually that is a day to unwind after frantic packing, traveling, and unpacking. I may be attending by myself if I can't talk DSH into going. I live about 45 minutes from Cary in non-rush hour traffic, and may join the group of planners at the monthly lunch meetings. How fun to re-connect with old school chums.