A Gift For Loretta

While in Auburn at their guild last month, my lodging hostess Millie Ruffalo took me to the local quilt shop "The Whistle Stop." This is a top-notch shop by the way and there I found this last of the bunch  ice skaters fused appliqué kit. It had friend Loretta 's ( lifelong ice skater enthusiast and quilter) name all over it.  I bought it in an instant so wanted to get it  bordered and quilted and of course to her before the holidays....   TODAY is delivery day.   Hubby is home but I am away curled up  recuperating from injury and illness so thanks to my friends Prudy Carter and Janmarie Halliday, it  gets delivered. 
Loretta has had a tough physical year and awaits major  heart surgery ( on the wait list)... thus we are looking forward to her  future skating and quilt retreat outings.   ;-)  Merry Christmas Loretta!

Click on photo for enlarged view

I inset a quarter inch fillet of cranberry dupioni silk  before bordering with a metallic gold and white dressmaker fabric. The fabric was exquisite all on its own so I essentially used gold thread for quilting and used the fabric as my guide  as to how to quilt  in order to play up the beauty of it's elegant design.

Key Learning... cotton is much easier  to use as binding... (Cotton holds the ironed fold over crease where softer/slippery synthetics don't)

 If using something soft for binding, I suggest 2 things...
1) Before adding binding strips to your quilt, sew ( and perhaps overlock) the 2 raw edges of your binding. WHY?  I found that when straight stitch sewing  binding to the quilt,  slippery raw edges of binding ( particularly the out of view edge)  easily slides out of place and fails to be caught in the straight stitch.  ARGH!
2) Once binding is on and turned to the back side of the quilt, consider adding a straight stitch 1/16th inch off the 'ditch' seam and on the binding itself.  WHY??  I  found slippery soft fabric used in a binding... somehow looks a bit lumpy even if the binding is on perfectly. The stitch off the ditch forces the  filled binding to lie down a good bit better.

Snake Shaped LIMBS

Using a slightly lighter value brown on golden brown twist, I used a linear graceful curved pattern to suggest movement that seem to be present in curved movement in the limbs.  Click on photo for enlarged image .

I'll start the big cat  on next post.

Quilting The Jaguar

The painting at the start shown here....    First things first, I  pinned... then secured major areas with monofilament.  Out with the pins then quilting can begin.   I normally quilt from inside ( center of quilt ) outward. This is a strangely integrated image ( one area to another) so the pre securing ( .004 monofilament) permits me to move around a bit as long as I refrain from seriously dense quilting.

 

This background area is pretty much there to support the central image so I minimized the quilting density.

The tree in which this guy is hanging out... has interesting structure. The photographers photo showed both  a rough dark greyed large horizontal limb and trunk structure and some lighter warmer colored snake-shaped  broken limbs which doesn't seem to fit w/ the former structure... BUT .. I found it interesting and painted them without trying to understand. I'll tackle the rough greyed limbs first.  How to QUILT?

Sometimes the fabric can give you a clue ... i.e.... just play up the fabric message. Gotta start somewhere.... I used a dark brown/black twist for this. Here's a start.

Slow quilting but basically a general outlining of the  somewhat out of focus pattern beneath.

I'm thinking I like it . 

A few more days hiding in Sedona, and I'll get it done.

Tucked IN in SEDONA

I left So. Cal Friday a.m. ( to outrun the major storm) in route to Sedona... Sunny upon arrival Friday but storm moved in  here later that day. Still one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Pics below are taken of and from the Chapel of the Holy Cross so beautifully inset into the Red Rock Mountains. A must place to visit when coming to or thru Sedona.

I'm sewing like crazy. What a blessed time in advance of the Christmas frenzy.

Georgia Loves New York Quilt

A former student Georgia Heller has taken off by leaps and bounds.  Here is a finished painted quilt done for a guild challenge. Really Sharp!! I apologize to Georgia for a slow posting.  I'll just say it's been a heck of a year and it finally caught up with me in both injury and cold/sore throat. Dang...  we don't bounce back as fast as when we were 16!  Beautiful piece Georgia.

The quilt had to be 18” w x 48”h  and it should be inspired by where you are from. We have so many transplants here in AZ from all over the country and other parts of the world, we thought it would make an interesting exhibit.

Wanda Seale suggested I send you a photo since it is all painted with the Tsukineko inks.

To get gradations of blue for the sky and water I mixed inks with the Folkart Floating Medium. Since this mix bleeds a lot when wet, I painted them separately and then appliqued the center section to them. I also painted the statue of Liberty separately and appliqued her to the piece. The poem was printed from my computer, painted, and then appliqued. 

Until moving to Arizona in 2010, I lived most of my life in NYC and several suburbs near NYC. Of course you have the iconic skyscrapers of Manhattan, but to me, NY is also about the many neighborhoods. There are beautiful parks so I included grass and autumn trees (living now in AZ, I miss the colorful autumn leaves). It is a city with people who came from all over the world, who made lives there, and created the wonderful place called NY. The Statue of Liberty, with the poem by Emma Lazarus, welcomes new arrivals. On one side of my family my grandparents and on the other side my great-grandparents came to NY  from Europe. Note, I quilted an outline of the twin towers in the background.

Thank you again for getting me started on using the inks.

Georgia Heller

A Three Day Painting Challenge

A brilliant quilting friend bartered with me some mos. ago to take her first ever begun painting and finish it. Since I'm trying ( for my healing knees sake)  to stay seated as much as possible, this seemed a good time. I've got enough emotionally invested in this guy, I almost wish he were mine...  

copywritten image by photographer Jan Stewart
                                   I'm  most of all happy with his eyes...  

Trying a New to Me Metallic

The Wonderfil people gave me a sample of their threads ( I already use and love  their 100 wt. matt finish Invisafil). When I saw they included a beautiful silver metallic, I thought I'd appreciate its beauty but not likely use it in a quilt.  I'm routinely saying...I'm not a metallic person."  But when I got home from Houston and began quilting a mini Father Christmas  that had an icy blue border, I thought I might give the metallic try. I'm glad I did.  It was surprisingly easy to quilt with though I admit I quilt with metallics very slow. I always fear breaking a thread... but didn't here.

It has a bright sparkle.  

I was even able  to use a smaller needle ( I began with a 70/10) without a break but to be safe, changed to a 90/14 ) 

 My favorite part of quilting a piece is the finish... signing my name... because it means "I'm Done."
I quilt my name forward, then backtrack for a more readable text.  The metallic performed just fine. YEAH!