Artsy Fartsy Bluebirds

As an Island Batik Ambassador we get a new challenge for each month. 

Products are provided by Island Batik and industry partner Aurifil for these projects.
Thanks Aurifil and Island Batik.

The July challenge is called the "Artsy Fartsy" challenge.  We were challenged to create an some type of artistic piece that uses three weights of Aurifil thread.  I had a great time gathering my threads and fabrics and deciding on my project.
I confess that there was not a lot of planning in this quilt. Rather, I put fusible onto some chosen fabrics and cut shapes.  Then I had some play time arranging and re-arranging the pieces. (then I fused and cut some more because I wanted more of some of them.)

Once I had an arrangement that I liked I fused it all into place. Then I started stitching.
I realized that I didn't have enough petals on the red flower, but I had some lovely red Aurifil thread #1103 in a 40 weight.  It went on the machine and I did some thread painting with it to create more petals. The 40 weight does nicely for free motion thread painting. I also used it to stitch down the other petals.

You can see that this was taken mid-process.
 The flower changed a bit more before it was finished. 

Meanwhile, this bluebird wing was cut from the exact same fabric as the background.  OOPS!  So let me fix that, but how?  Again, Aurifil thread to the rescue.  The wing is a rather delicate structure so a lighter weight thread seemed in order.  I had some 50 wt.  Aurifil #2730 that looked perfect for this.

The thread painting changed the look of the wing so that it doesn't blend into the background.

I did thread painting on several of the elements including this little broderie perse appliqué flower.

In a few places I got out of the lines, but I don't worry about that too much.
This is 28 wt Aurifil thread.

All of the broderie perse appliqué pieces were cut from a strip of Island Batik

 fabric that came in a Stash Builder package.  

This strip was all flowers and birds just perfect for this project

This odd little fantasy flower was embellished with some 40 wt thread.

The flower petals and blue birds were cut with a couple of Accuquilt dies that I have had for a long time.   After the green leaves were cut, I used the "waste" fabric, trimmed slightly to create the grass.

The grass was fused in place and later thread painted with both 50 wt and 28 wt Aurifil thread.  The 28 worked great in my machine with a size 90 needle and a 50 wt Aurifil thread in the bobbin.  I adjusted the tension to be sure that the bobbin thread did not come to the top.

The same red used for the flower petal was perfect to sign my quilt with free motion stitching

Finally, I fused the backing fabric over all the stitching and added a binding.   The binding was hand sewn to the back using 28 wt thread.  Surprisingly, it doesn't show at all.

 Two more broderie perse close-ups 

And that red flower....

It has more petals and embellishment on it. 

And now the final reveal

Isn't it delightful?  

Aurifil thread and Island Batik fabrics are a match made in heaven. 

(p.s.  I can hardly wait to show you my August project!  

      It is a new fabric line that I love and I think you will too.) 

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.

Value Makes a Difference

While playing with some more orange and purple fabrics I made two versions of a particular block.  More about the block later, but first let's take a look.

You can clearly tell that  one has higher contrast than the other. But you can see the design.  But suppose you were colorblind...  To simulate that, I changed the photo to grayscale.

The one on the right appears to be all one color. This is the difference that value plays in quilting. In either version of the photo, the block on the left is nicely contrasted and would even show well in dim light.  But, in dim light the block on the right would look "fuzzy" and lack definition.
The old saying is: "Color gets all the credit, but value does all the work."  I hope you can see the truth in that by looking at these blocks.
 If you are uncertain about picking value you can use a value viewer or if you have a smart phone, just take a photo of the fabrics together.  Most phones have an option of converting the photo to black and white.  If not, there are plenty of free apps that will do it.

That said, I will still use the bland block in the final quilt (unless I end up with an extra block.)

This block design is one that I found on Pinterest (I think.)   But there it was made with all half-square triangles.  I quickly saw that I could use the Accuquilt Go! Qube set to make an 8 inch version using the parallelogram  and the half square triangle. That removed eight seams per block. It did take a bit of thinking to figure out how to do the construction.  But it turned out to be easier than I initially thought.

I am considering doing a tutorial for this block using the Accuquilt Qube set.  I just wonder how many people would be interested in seeing it.

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 to Crow About

For the past week I have been suffering with a cold/sinus ailment.  Today, Saturday,  I woke up feeling like I actually wanted to do something besides hibernate.  So,  I have something to crow about.  I downloaded a design from Laura Wasilowski at Artfabrik and made this little art quilt.
I confess that I strayed away from her directions, but then this is MY quilt and I can do that.  **Today's hint- give yourself permission to take a creative detour. **   I used some Floriani stabilizer called Stitch 'n' Shape to make it firm so it will hang straight easily. It is a fused design, but then I free motion machine stitched on it to add some extra texture. I forgot to put a layer of batting under the top fabric so that I could hand stitch some embellishments on it.  The Stitch and Shape is easily machine stitched, but is a little too tough to hand stitch through (at least for me!)
Here is my creation that I am calling "Something to Crow About."

This is based on Laura Wasilowski's "Singing Chicken" design. I really just used her pattern to cut out the pieces of the chicken.