Not Forgotten, just slow

I know that many of you think I have stopped  quilting on this little quilt.  The fact is simply that it has been taken out from under the needle a few times, but it keeps going back for more.   I have been a bit sick with a mystery respiratory ailment that has consistently tested NEGATIVE for covid.   So, that negative test has at least been a bit of a relief.     But, the illness did knock me out of the quilting "saddle" for a bit. 

I am feeling better, although I have some bronchitis that is lingering.  That is mostly annoying, but I also wear down a bit faster.    

I finally got all of the interior sashing and cornerstones quilting on this and now I am quilting a block at a time. That helps me to avoid "overdoing it."  

Here is the current photo of the quilting. 

If you are wondering, one of the reasons for taking this out from under the needle

is my compulsion to keep making the quilted faces.   So, YES there will be a new

one on Friday for the Face Off challenge. 

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.

Friday Face Off June 24, 2022

Welcome to another week of the Friday Face Off.  This is a "challenge" that I find very satisfying.  This past Wednesday, I showed the basics of how I start these faces.  

I am linking up with DVArtist.  You can go to her blog to visit other "Face Off" participants. 

Here is today's face: 

Pablo

This fellow has an odd little mustache and beard. I don't know how well it shows, but I attempted to give him dimples.  I purposefully made part of his face askew, because I think it is more interesting. 

I used an interesting fabric, I think it is batik, for the background.  Most of the other fabrics are hand dyed, but there is at least one print, a solid and a batik there also. 

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.

Quilted Faces - How I start them

The fun faces that I make and quilt are not terribly hard to do, although they take  a lot of time. A Left Handed Quilter asked why I don't show the process. I jokingly said "I can't give away all my secrets."  Of course the fact is that once I get "in the zone" - I forget photos.   HOWEVER,  today I made a "plan" and decided to post the basic process. This is fusible applique. 

I start with hand-dyed fabrics -or- batiks. Both are great for fusible applique.  The reason is that there they are generally a higher thread count (less fraying) and the color goes all the way through the fabric. Thus there is never a "white outline" from the base fabric as there is often with a print. 

I start by fusing some fabrics.  Okay, to be honest I have a bin of pre-fused fabric ready to play.  But for this tutorial, I grabbed some pretty hand dyed fabrics and fused them. (You can never have too many "crayons" in the box, can you?)  

I am not showing the fusing process as it is different for various brands of fusible. Today, I used MistyFuse, but I also have Wonder-Under and Steam-a-Seam 2.   The MistyFuse is thinnest and thus easier to quilt through.  You can layer the Wonder-Under almost as well, but the Steam-A-Seam is a bit thicker and more than two layers is difficult to quilt through.  I never know how many layers I will have for these.  

So I fused these fabrics:

When the MistyFuse is properly attached it gets a nice shine as you can see in the picture below.

You can actually see the web of glue in this photo. But I assure you it is just the shine.

This is well fused in place. 

I also have this bin of pre-fused fabrics

You will notice that there are some odd pieces cut out and some small pieces that 

many people would have discarded. But continue on and see why I keep them. 

As a work place, I use a silicone sheet - I think this one was sold as an oven liner.

There are many on the market.  The MistyFuse Goddess sheet leaves a nice wavy

design in the fusible on the back of the fabric. Yes, I would like one of those, but, 

I already have this one, so I spend the money on other supplies. 

Also in the photo is a piece of silicone release paper from the back of some wonder-under. 

That is an acceptable surface also.  And you see my Clover mini-iron, which is handy for

this when I am not working at the ironing board. And yes, sometimes I do this at the

ironing board also. 

Now comes the fun part: Cutting the pieces.  For this one I am doing an "alien head." 

So I decided to cut the shape using my Tri-Recs ruler but stretching it out by moving the ruler 

after the first edge was cut. (Hint - think outside the box and make the most of your tools!)

I layered two fabrics because I like the two color faces. 

There was an overlap so that I could trim a curved edge. 

I trimmed off some of the brown -which will be on bottom- to have less layered. 

Then I cut the curvy line on the edge of the blue. 

Next I lightly fused these together.  This is a temporary heat fuse. You only press the iron until

the glue melts enough to hold it in place.

I have two pair of scissors that I use for cutting the features.  One is from Famoré Cutlery, 

the other are Karen K. Buckley 4" perfect shears.  I prefer the Famore ones for general use.

I also keep some pre-fused white (ish) batik for eyes. The trick is to fold the piece of 

pre-fused fabric right sides together and cut both eyes at once if you want them to match. 

Here are those eyes placed on the face. 

For a human face you would place the eyes roughly halfway

down the face, for an alien, you have more options. 

I want you to see that the eyes are only tacked in place, so I could pull them up and move

them if I wanted to do so.  This allows for creative options

Next the nose is added.  Notice the small scrap of light blue fabric.

Had I thrown that small scrap in the garbage, I would have 

needed to cut into an extra piece of fabric. As it is, 

I have the larger piece of this saved for another project!

In this one I have added a mouth with the tongue sticking out, just for fun. 

The mouth was also cut from some very small scraps that I had kept. 

I will add "hair" and a neck and some other features before he is finished. 

Do you think you could do this?  I think you could. 

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.

Quilting It, Baby!

You all probably thought that I had lost this quilt top.  But, I have pulled it out and started quilting it, finally. I did add a 2 1/2 inch border around the outside of this baby quilt.  I am using a wool blend batting on it as I had a piece that was just right for this top. 

The outer border doesn't show in this photo but it is "almost" the same color as the sashing.

I really don't think anyone will really notice the slight difference in the color. 

I had no idea what to use for backing, but I thought "Since there are flowers

on the front, I can use this fabric with flowers that has been in my stash for

YEARS.  It is a white background with a large, loose floral print. 

I am doing the quilting with a cream colored thread.  Which honestly is one of

my "go-to" threads for quilting.  And yes, there is another face in the works for

the next Friday Face Off.  This is another quilted one - but it is a guy. 

I found that creating a male face in fabric was a bit more challenging

for me. 

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.

FFO - Friday Face Off

Welcome to my Friday Face Off for Friday June 17, 2022.   A few days ago you may have seen the start of today's quilted face.  

Linking up with DVArtist.

Unfortunately, once I get going in the artistic process, I forget to take any photos. So, at this point there is only that beginning photo and this completed photo.  

Margo

This face is mounted on a canvas in a slightly different manner.  The batting was basted in place with extra fabric going outside the quilted area.  Then it was placed over the canvas and stretched much like a canvas is stretched.  The corners were very neatly folded so that they look neat and proper.  

I did go in with some Inktense color (Inktense blocks) and added some yellow around the left side and just at the bottom on the right side. I did this to enhance the sunburst effect that I did with the quilting; but also to give a bit more contrast with her face on that side. 

Every part of the figure was hand cut freeform using some nice serrated scissors that I got from Famoré Cutlery.   I find these scissors to be very handy for this type of work. 

I really love her hair design.  I got to use some interesting colors in the hair without it appearing to be overdone.  ---but of course at times, I channel Dolly Parton who said, "Some people say less is more, but I think more is more."  Or perhaps Mae West who said "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." 


And just because I can,  here is a "face" from June 2020:

A dear friend loved this painting when I showed it on social media.  It now lives with her and I hope she is enjoying it. 

One of my friends said that the bird is a chicken, but I think it is a wren, like the one who had taken over my gas grill by building a nest in the area where the igniter is located

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.

Starting A Face

This week I have started a new quilted face for Friday's FFO post. You may notice in the photo that the background has a red basting line around it.  As I will be mounting this on a canvas,  I designed that basting line to limit my work area. 

What you may also notice is that the head form almost blends into the background.

I will have to adapt for that. One thing that will help is the outline 

quilting that I will do on the head form. This is essentially how I begin

most of my faces, although the basting outline is a new addition. 

Someone politely reminded me that I never again showed the puzzle that 

Mom and I started.  It has not only been completed but has since been

taken apart and put back in the box.  Luckily I did take a photo of the 

completed puzzle. 

There is one damaged piece. My brother's chihuahua will chew most anything that is dropped from 

the table as he thinks it is food. That piece fell to the floor while he was visiting. And thus 

it is damaged. 

I still managed to get the piece in place although the damage is pretty obvious. 

Ah well, we had fun and that is what counts. 

I also put a version of an older song on my YouTube channel. 

This is me singing and playing, although there is only 

a still picture and no true video. 

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.

Friday Face Off - One Quilted, One Painted

Welcome to another Friday Face Off.

Following a prompt developed by Nicole at DVArtist,

a few of us create faces in various media. 

Today my new creation is a lady created in 

fusible applique and quilted. 
I love doing these as they present a different type 

of challenge for me. This particular face 

required me to change the color of her nose

AFTER it was quilted. 
Yes, I took a photo and realized that the yellow half of

the nose didn't play well because of an

extreme in contrast. What to do?

I simply took a Derwent Inktense pencil and 

changed the yellow to a blue/green shade. 

Adriana

Next up is a rather old painting. 
In fact, it is so old I don't remember when I painted it. 

This is painted on a canvas board, 

probably because I was trying to be "frugal"

-some would say "cheap" - 

She is interesting but flawed - like most of us. 

I do like the way I used multiple colors

to create the vignette background. 

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.

A Squishy Mail Win

On Saturday I got a lovely squishy envelope in the mail. I was expecting it because I got the email that I had won a prize in Vicki's giveaway on Colorways by Vicki. These prizes are always special because they are my FAVORITE hand dyed fabrics.  Vicki did a weeklong giveaway with a prize for each day while she was on her family vacation. (hint: she does this every year!)   
I won the Monday prize.  When she showed it, she apologized that the picture was really washed out. So the fabrics were a surprise when I got them.  It is two yards of two colors - a super nice prize.  I tried to take a photo when I got them and was shocked that my photo looked like her photo and NOT like the fabrics at all.  

I finally got a  photo that is "close" but not exact.  It took a lot of photo editing to get it this close. 

Both of these are a bit more to the red/rust side of the color.  The darker has a nice cyan/blue color that peeks through the red-brown.  You will have to trust me that they are lovely.  There is a lot of visual texture in these which makes them far more interesting.  They work well in piecing, but really shine in art quilts.  You should go to Vicki's site and check the customer gallery.  Perhaps you will find some inspiration there. 

Did I mention that I typically don't have a good selection of darks in my stash?  I am not sure if I use them up or if I just buy less of them, but these two will help to fill that gap in my stash.

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.

Friday Face Off

This has been (and still is) a busy week.  Thus I have decided to share an older face painting for the Friday Face Off with DVArtist (aka Nicole).  

This face was painted years ago just for fun. It is not anyone in particular, although she certainly reminds me of someone. I just can't place the "someone."

This started out as a texture sheet for an abstract painting.

 I saw a suggestion of a face and just went with it. 

Be sure to visit DVArtist and check the linky list to visit the other 

Face Off participants. 

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.

Tiny Quilts and Puzzles

While sorting some fabrics, I came across two small fun fused quilts. These are pretty tiny to be honest. The first one is 4 inches by 5 inches. And the second is 4 1/2 by 6 1/2, roughly.  

I had the machine set up for quilting, so it was easy to decide to quilt the pair of them. 

Small Quilt #1

4" by 5" 

Of course once I put the photo here, I see a stray thread that needs picked off.

Small Quilt #2

4 1/2 by 6 1/2

Both of there were fun to make and to quilt. 

I do love creating fabric collage with fusible backed fabrics. 

My mom had a birthday recently and my nieces planned a surprise party for her.

My job was to make a "diabetic friendly cake" and to get her to the event and 

keep it a surprise.  Both were accomplished nicely.  

My aunt and uncle gave her a new puzzle as a birthday present. 

Here is the photo of the puzzle from Amazon. 

There is a lot going on in this photo, so the puzzle is fun but not too difficult. 

Mom and I started on it yesterday. Last night my brother visited her and 

had a hand in piecing part of it too.  We still have a way to go. 

We put the puzzle together on one of my old painting boards. It looks "dirty" but that

is dried acrylic paint.  

Then we have what I call the  "parts department" which are pieces of matboard

with partially assembled pieces that don't connect yet onto the big board. 

We are having fun with it but Mom and I are both a bit compulsive about it. 

We have a hard time stopping. 

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.