More Improv and a bit of a capella

I have been playing a bit more with improv piecing.  I am undecided if I will use the pieces to make a quilt.  Perhaps I will use them to make more notebook covers.  The notebook covers are a fairly quick finish compared to making a quilt.  Although I just had  a "brainstorm" about using these pieces for a modern quilt  with a lot of negative background space. Hmmm... time will tell.  I do love making the notebook covers.
Here are the last few bits I have pieced.  They are not "squared" but rather just have the edges straightened.

While it doesn't look like much, there is a lot of work and time invested in these pieces. But, getting to use up a lot of smaller "scrap" pieces is a joy.  I did pull out a couple of my smaller hand dyed pieces to add to the pile.

Here are the rest of the pieces on my portable "display board."

They clearly need to be pressed again.

I recorded the little a capella video  a couple of nights ago to share

 with whomever wants to hear it.  It is also on YouTube.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible.
Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply.
Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Improv and more

It has been interesting to be isolated.  I am an introvert but that doesn't mean I am not a bit social.  I do like interacting with people. So, I have been sitting outside recording some tunes to share on Social Media.  I have no idea if this will work but here is a link to one of them.  My Facebook Page for quilting and other art is HERE. 

Meanwhile I decided to take the random scraps that have accumulated near the sewing machine and just do some improv sewing; no real plan, just paying attention to value a bit -but no stress!

The yarn that I worked on is now finished and put up in a center pull ball for ease of use.  I also finished another single ply of bamboo that I had spun.

Bamboo on left - Wool spiral ply on right

Stay home! Let's flatten the curve. 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Forgotten Project Finished! And Spinning Q's Answered

The "forgotten project" has a binding on it.

I used an old multicolored batik from my stash that has dots on it.  I thought that it would add color and repeat the circles in the quilt top. And honestly, it was just fun!

Here are some quilting closeups.  The quilting is NOT perfect because it is hand guided by me, a human.

I had fun doing all the quilting on this little quilt. 

Yesterday on the "spinning wool" post, A Left Handed Quilter asked "...could you explain what "stacks" and "coils" are?"  These are a couple of ways that spinners add texture to yarn.  Since my yarn is still hanging to dry, I "borrowed" some photos to show you. 

Spun Coils

Spun Stacks

As you can tell the coils are a much more defined "orderly" texture.  But the stacks are more "wild and messy."   As I have woven with both in the past I will tell you that for weaving both get distorted a bit by the warp threads.  But they both add a nice texture to the woven fabric. 

She also mentioned "ply" in her comment. So I will tell you that plying is simply combining two spun strands into a unified strand.  The sewing thread you buy is most likely a 2 or 3 ply thread. 

We call the original spun strand a "single" - it has been spun but not plied. Singles can be used for weaving but are rarely used for knitting or crochet. 

I hope you are staying in and staying virus free. And I really hope you are washing your hands very well if you have to go out - both before leaving and after returning home!

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Thoughts and a bit of Yarn

I have been just chilling the past couple of days.  Monsoon weather has set in here again.  I awoke to thunder and heavy rain that is still falling down.  Yesterday I  decided to take a wool single that I had spun and make a spiral ply.  Before I started, I watched a class that I bought on Craftsy a few years back;  Spinning Art Yarns by Jacey Boggs Faulkner. 
Being in "chill" mode, I watched most of the lessons. So as I was doing the spiral ply, I also added some stacks and coils in it.  I am not a great spinner, but it is very calming for me.

But while I was reading a "suggestion" to parents today, I decided to add my two cents worth. Feel free to send it to anyone you know who may need this idea.

Those of you with school age children (and younger) remember that reading stories (yes I mean fiction) is perfectly valid for learning. Do NOT tell them it is educational. Snuggle up with them and read. If they read well out loud offer them the opportunity to read to you (and siblings.) If you read the right books, they will learn a lot without realizing it. i learned about science from children's books that later sparked my imagination to find out more about it.
This is great for stress reduction for them AND for you. Just enjoy the time together. If you read a story where something is cooked/made/etc and you have the stuff, you can cook/make/etc together as a follow up to the story. Then they learn life skills in the process.
What if it is a failure? LAUGH and explain that we all fail at times but if we look closely we can learn something about what went wrong and maybe do it better next time. But LAUGH - and they will hopefully learn to find humor in the worst of times. And what a glorious life skill that is!

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Some Practice FMQ -Tablerunner

The old table topper that was minimally quilted - wow - virtually not quilted.

There was a line of quilting in the ditch where the pieced center met the borders. And two lines of ditch quilting, one on either side of the center strip.   Seriously, what was I thinking????

I started by doing a row of pebbles and a row of zigzag lines.

Ooh, I like the textural contrast of those next to each other.  So I alternated that on all of the skinny strips.  I did a few other designs in the border and did the zigzag twice (crossing itself) on the wide strips.   Then the narrow border got an organic line  in it.  Boom! Done.

What are you doing in your sewing/quilting room these days?

Until Next Time,  

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Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Wow...This is quilted

Staying in is causing me to get things done. 
I did a LOT of cleaning in the room where most of the fabric lives until it is ready to be used.  I found some things to play with. But I also used some time the last two days to quilt on the new Juki TL2010Q machine.  Here is the quilt I quilted.  You may remember it from a February post when it went from "Forgotten project" to "quilt top" in one day.

I did all sorts of fun quilting on this with no concerns about perfection. Guess what?!!??
Yes I love it.  I do.

One of my "finds" in the cleaning session was an old table topper that was minimally quilted.  I am quilting away on it.  No photo at the moment. But maybe tomorrow or the next day you will see it.

#quiltersquarantine

Until Next Time,  

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Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Really Finished

And now "The Night Sky" quilt is finished.  After a drizzly morning,  the sun came out and started to warm the earth.  I decided to take the quilt out into the yard and snap a few photos.
I didn't worry about spreading it on the ground because it has yet to have its spa treatment. (washing before giving.) 

But since today is St. Patrick's day, I couldn't resist playing with the color in the photo editor. Now it won't get "pinched" ha ha.

A lot of the quilting on this is simple wavy lines, but three of the corners got special treatment.

And of course it has one of my labels on it - for posterity and all that.

The binding matches the front background fabric - mostly because that was an easy choice to make. It was all sewn on by machine - specifically the new Juki TL 2010Q machine.  It sews really fast so the binding went on pretty quickly.

Now, to decide on my next project and get going!

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Something New

This year I got a little bit of money back from the IRS.  It wasn't enough, but with some saved up "fun" money,  and finding a good deal I was able to buy a Juki Straight Stitch machine.

It only does a straight stitch - no zigzag, no programmed stitches. But it does backstitch with that lever on the bottom right.  It also has a thread cutter that you can activate with a button on the machine OR with the heel portion of the foot pedal. 

I decided to lower the feed dogs and put on the 1/4" quilting foot that came with it.  Then I tried some free motion quilting.   I was amazed at the quality of the stitches.  It is easier to see where I am going and where I have been when quilting due to the nice wide open harp space.

So, I put it to the real test.  I pulled out some "problem threads" that just don't do FMQ all that well.
Rather than starting easy, I pulled out a cheap, old metallic thread that I started to throw in the trash and then decided to keep for hand embroidery.

No breakage,  no skips, the stitch quality is as good as I have ever gotten.

So I did another one.

Again, no problems.

I tried embroidery thread too.

Nice!

Just to really test the machine, I basted the quilt sandwich with a basting spray that did NOT work well the previous time I used it. That spray caused the thread to break continually,  even using the best thread I own.

It never hesitated.  I think I love this machine.

I even signed my name.

Yes, I do believe this is a keeper. 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

An "Almost" Finish

Though the binding is not on yet,  this quilt is much closer to being finished. You may remember The Night Sky quilt that I am making for my nephew.  At last the pieces are all joined and the label is even sewn onto the back. 

I know now that I do not have a good place to hang a quilt this big for a photo.  The quilt is 80" by 80" -so it is a pretty good sized quilt.

The wind lifted the bottom of the quilt off the ground; otherwise it would be dragging.  The pieced blocks are all made with Island Batik fabric (even the white!) The blocks were cut with my Accuquilt Go! cutter and the 8" qube set and companion sets.  The blue background fabric is a different brand of fabric but I don't remember what brand.

I am really happy with this quilt right now.  I just need to choose binding fabric and do that last step. Then it will get a nice warm bath, as I always wash my quilt s before they leave my hands.

I am sure my nephew will love this. His only request was "blue." Ha ha.  The great thing is that he doesn't have to figure out which is the "top" end when he puts in on the bed.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Using Some Hand Dyed Fabric

Just for fun,  I pulled out two pieces of hand dyed fabric that I bought from Vicki Welsh. The pieces were her Barrier Island Gradient and one of the color wheel gradients that I don't see in the store anymore.  I think it was the "warm" version. 

I pulled out this book by Ricky Tims that I have had for years.

 I decided to go with the most basic version of a convergence. So I cut and sewed the strips. Into this piece.

Then I cut that into strips the same order and sizes as the original strips.  It was about this time that I realized that this is a lot like making a bargello quilt- but with a totally different outcome.

I sewed and sewed and sewed......and then I had this:

I think it looks like a really interesting plaid at this point. Now I have to decide "where do I go from here????"

I have several ideas but I will need to play around a bit more before I decide for sure.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Some More Stitching

First off, for those who have asked, the play is going well. If I can just remember my few lines. Ha ha.

I have gotten some stitching done on my handwork piece.  As you can see in the photo.

There is actually a bit more than that done now.

I used some of the thread that I dyed in a couple of places. Honestly, I can't tell once it is stitched in -which is the one I dyed.  The photo below is one that I am sure is my hand dyed thread.

I love the color changes as I am stitching along.

Then there was that thread that did not dye well. It only took color in spots.  As I had a narrow warp on my loom,  I went ahead and wove that thread to see how it would turn out. 

I love the way this came out. The colors pooled in places but it has a nice heathered look. 

Back to learning my lines---and maybe some sewing for fun as a break between sessions. 

Until Next Time,  

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A February Finish

Once upon a time, my work was exhibited in the gallery of the Mountain Valley Arts Council.  For the exhibit, my paintings, weavings and some quilts were shown.   The person in the gallery who hung the show saw something that I had not noticed about my work.  I have specific color palettes that I tend to work with.  He hung weavings next to paintings that looked like they were planned to go together.   However, I never think about working that way; it just happens.

That brings up to the latest finish.   I looked at the finished piece after the mounting glue had dried.

A Sunset Melody

Suddenly, I had a realization.  It goes so well with this painting from  years ago. 

Morning Magic

It is no wonder that I chose the hand dyed fabric as the base for stitch work.  I see this painting every day as it hangs in my house.  The magic that was in my imagination as I painted it still fascinates me.
Is it any wonder that I love this new stitched piece?  Of course not.  It sings to me and makes my heart happy.

In case you are wondering,  I have already started a new piece to do handwork on.  The colors are totally different but still in one of my color palettes.  Here is a teaser photo of it. Ignore the wrinkles, they will vanish once the piece is finished.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.