Being Productive

The last few days have been quite productive.I have been working on my crazy quilt, which got a little behind in the winter when I was ill.

I have been working on this block (left) this week

And as you can see, it is nearly finished!

I also coloured some pieces of lace for crazy quilting.  White gets a bit boring after a while.

I finished my 12" block for the ravelry  2015crochet-along.  I have also done a 6" one.
On the journaling front, as well as my daily journal, I did these pages.

I drew all over the pages with inktense blocks and the little book, was drawn on every page.

I sprayed the pages with water, saturating them and ran a brush over them.  At present, they are spending a few pages drying.  I saw this recently on design matters TV with Laura Kemshall.  I have not done it the same as Laura did, but the video reminded me of this method I saw on you tube a few years ago using ink.

This is a little thread sketch I did this afternoon.  It is obvious I am a little out of practice as my wren is a little fat!  A bit more practice will get me back into the routine.

This is a small thread painted/mixed media collage I put together with a few scraps of fabric, some papers and a card die cut.  I like this one and as I was stitching, the name 'Into the darkness" came to me.

I had been thinking about a textile project for this year and had been thinking of doing the thread sketches (like the bird), but In April, I will be doing a class with Ro Bruhn at AQC.  She makes beautiful fabric books.  I also saw Leslie Tucker Jennison on Quilting Arts TV 1503 making similar collages and  Liz Kettle also talked about thread sketching practice in qatv 1505.  So this is a cross between all of the above, with a little bit of Cas Holmes thrown in so  I think this will be my project for this year. A mixed media collage with fabric, paper and stitch, including thread sketches.

Often with these yearly projects I have planned to do it every day...and I always failed, simply because life happens, so this year my intent is to do at least 1 each week,with the intention of doing at least three.
One might think that, since I have failed at these yearly projects in the past, that I might give up, but although I have never been perfect (ie each and every day), I have learnt a great deal from these projects.  I have a vast library of journal quilts, atcs and stitched squares

Whilst I was looking for all the links above, I found The Slow Stitching movement  which has podcasts and a blog  This looks like great reading and listening.  Go have a look!


Happy Creating!

Going crazy

Well, yes, I am.  I have been working on crazy quilting, trying to catch up with my CQJP blocks

Also A happy T day to everyone over at T for Tuesday!

Happy Creating!

CQJP2014 January

I have just finished this in time for the end of the month.

I have sent it to the Crazy Quilt journal project 2014 blog and it will go up there soon, I expect.  I have enjoyed finishing this block and have used a few different things I like.  The butterfly is actually a felt scrapbooking element and the tiny doily is one I tatted.  I have actually cheated in one area and used free motion.  I wonder if anyone can spot it?
I love embroidery, but I get bored with large areas of the same thing, so this project is great for that, and for satisfying my need for embellishments of all types.  I can pick it up and just do half an hour here and there and it slowly builds up to something really complex.
Now on to February's block......

Happy creating!

Escaping the weather

I have been hiding for a few days, trying to keep cool, but  today the weather is a bit cooler.
Something I love to do is free motion embroidery, and I love making things out of just thread.  A bit like stumpwork, but with the sewing machine.  Most of these little things will end up on my crazy quilt,  but they are so lovely, I keep making them.

This little butterfly is about 2 inches square.  Basically, I just scribbled to create this one.  But it is done with some gorgeous new metallic threads I got recently - a bit of a test run.

This pansy is about the same size, perhaps a little smaller.  With this one, I made all the petals separately the sewed them together and added the yellow by hand.  This one has already been pinned into place on one of my crazy quilt blocks.

If you have followed me for a while you will know that I have a crazy quilt in process, but I put it aside so I could participate in CQJP2014, so I will have my January block finished soon.

Happy Creating!

a few bits

I have been working on several fronts, but not my tangled textiles piece, the deadline for which is beginning to loom.
I have been continuing my free motion samples.

Here is a week's worth of patterns.
I have been working on my Creative sketchbooks course, which I won't share here, but have also done a little art journaling, as well.

This was a dragonfly I drew on a very red page I didn't know what to do with.  I like this page a lot.

This was a very cathartic page to do.  The tree was done using a mask.  I sprayed over the mask, then  printed with it instead of painting around it. I stencilled the butterfly with some lumiere paint.  I am not happy with it's colour, and think I might change it to a green.

Another reworked failed page, This page had several incarnations and I now have this tree on it.  It doesn't have very good contrast, but I think it might make a great fibre piece using bias applique.

This is just a background, but I was playing with borders and just used a flat brush to make the squares in this grid.  I liked that.

And on the crazy quilt front, I have done a little

This is my first block with some satin samples.  I have actually done the last two seams on this one, now.  At present I have four blocks, but I may expand to nine, we'll see.

This second block also has a bit more since I took the photo.
I have also been practicing making flowers.

Here are a few pansies.  The top one is organza, the middle one  is satin ribbon and the bottom one is velvet ribbon.  The top red bit is just a gathered poppy, but has no black centre as yet.  The two red objects at the bottom are a rolled rose and bud, but they were not smiling at the camera like the pansies!
So, as you can see, I have been working away.

Remember to create every day

Going crazy

My quilting group have decided to do some crazy quilting.
I decided to do a bit of practice before we start, so I enrolled in Alison Aller's course at Craftsy.  It's a great beginner's course, and even includes her book as an ebook!
So here is where I am up to with my samples.

These are the samples from the course, but I also did a few more combinations.

I am enjoying doing this a lot.  Each seam on the blocks is only a small bit of stitching, so there is plenty of variety and I don't get bored.
Here is my sample block, with the first round of stitches done.

The fabrics were all cotton, just what I had to hand, as I don't have too much in the way of quilting cottons these days, but this is only a sample.  My real quilt is going to be made from satin, as I have a whole sample book of Belgian satin which are just the right size and I am a bit partial to shiny fabric!
So hopefully you will see some of that soon.
My free motion samples are mounting up and I am getting quite a stack, which I will show you soon, and I have also been doing a bit of journaling as well.

So, until next time, keep creating