Wigwam Book

I am one of the many people who have been participating in Maggie Grey’s free online classes. You have to have her book Textile Translations in order to participate.

We have been experimenting in Mixed Media using a number of different things.

This is my work for the first lesson. The colors are fairly true in this photo.
















In these photos that follow the color is bluer than the piece really is.
























I didn’t have any hand made paper for the pages so I used some scrapbook papers I had and stamped images on the blank sides.

Sunset

Here are a few photos of the sun going down on the little bit of fall color still left around here.

Looking to the east.














These photos are looking more or less to the north.




















This one was taken last and already it was getting darker just within a few minutes time.














Tomorrow I’ll show what I’ve been doing this past week or so.

Moonflower

When I first started this I really didn’t have much of a plan. I knew I wanted a big flower and that was pretty much it. Well I also knew that this piece would either be hung in our bedroom or the hallway. Anyway, I just kind of played it by ear and this is what I ended with.




















I know it’s not the best photo (as usual) but it really looks better in person. The leaves seem to blend into the background too much when viewed from a distance but they really are quite different from it. I may work a little more on this to see if I can do something about that. Here’s a couple of close ups.

















Looking through some of my books and after a little bit of playing around on paper I finally came up with the leaf quilting design. It took me a little while longer to get my nerve up to start free-motion quilting the bottom.

Click on any of these for a larger view.



















If you look back in the previous post you can see here that I eliminated one of the halos around the moon. I’m not sure if that was a good thing to do or not. DH thought it looked too big, and after all, the flower is suppose to be the focal point.

Something I want to mention here is the size. It is 19 inches by 28 inches, which is a little off from the original plan. It was supposed to be 18 x 29 ¼, which seems like a weird size to me, but I was trying to use the Golden Mean Ratio with this particular wall hanging. The Golden Mean Ratio was used in ancient times by the Greeks in their architecture and is said to emphasize elegance and beauty of line. The ratio of the Golden Mean is approximately 8:13, meaning that if your piece is 8 inches wide it should measure 13 inches long. I’m not sure if the Golden Mean made my piece more elegant but it did keep it from ending up looking too short and fat.

I am open for all critiques and thoughts on this piece.

New Work-Sort of

Last week or so I picked up working again on a piece that I started way back at the beginning of the year (January or February?). This is what I chose for the background.




















That light-ish rectangle in the center is where I had a piece of totally stable ironed on the back. It is no longer there.

Next I drew a pattern and cut out these pieces.















They were stitched together and pinned to the background. Then I made some leaves and a moon. They were also only pinned on at this stage. I stopped there.




















More on this to come soon.

Finally

YEA! I have finally completed the lap quilt. I started it back last April. Of course, there were periods where I didn’t work on it at all and that’s why it took so long to finish. That is the front above. This is the largest piece I have ever worked on. It measures 49 inches by 72 inches. When it came time to decide how to quilt it I chose to simply “stitch in the ditch” because I only have my domestic sewing/embroidery machine to quilt it on. It did prove to be a hassle at times trying to wrestle the thing through the machine.

You probably don’t remember that when I finished the top I mentioned I ordered fabric for the back but then didn’t really like it after it arrived. I went back to the stash and pulled enough fabrics to piece together a backing.This is what the back looks like. Sorry for the poor picture quality. The fabrics really look better in person than they do in the photo.















Now when I started to piece this backing I had in mind that I wanted the squares to line up with the blocks on the front even though they are different in size. When I got ready to put together the quilt sandwich I used a temporary basting spray. I “basted” the back to the batting, sprayed the batting again to adhere the front and discovered that lining up the front with the back was going to be a lot harder than I thought. After two attempts, I pulled the top off and left the back/batting pieces lay out on the living room floor for about a week waiting for the stickiness of the basting spray to “go away”. I proceeded to try laying the top out again, this time really taking my time and all in all I did a pretty good job of making it happen. This isn’t a prize winning quilt but it certainly will keep us warm.

On another note as you can see in the photos, we still need to stain the deck flooring.

I also want to thank everyone once again for stopping by. I will try not to make it so long in between postings and hope to have more to show soon.

This Is...

Just a quick post to update you on what’s happening around here. DH and I have been working off and on re-doing our deck. Since he works third shift, we have to work on it when he’s got time and/or feels up to it. So I still have not really done much in the way of getting any art/sewing etc done. Sunday past, we had the remnants (read as very high winds-around 65-70 mph) from Hurricane Ike. We lost power around noon. About half an hour later we discovered a small field fire at the back of the property and the fire department had to be called. They/we worked that for a couple of hours and when it seemed it was out they left but told us to keep an eye out for any flare ups. We stayed out in the wind and watched for a couple more hours until we felt that it was definitely not going to catch fire again. We were lucky we caught it when we did, because with the winds it could have been a lot worse.

Our power came back on the next morning around 11:00 a.m. and though it seemed like a lot longer we are fortunate because there are many people who are still without power, our son being one of them.

My heart goes out to the many people who have lost their homes due to the hurricane. Sometimes we think we have it bad, but there are many others that have it so much worse.

Checking In

Since it’s been two weeks since my last post I thought I’d better let you know I’m still around. I kind of got behind on my blog reading but am slowly catching up and therefore haven’t left too many comments on your blogs, but I wanted to let you know I am reading them whenever time permits. I hope you don’t give up on me here, either.

I have been working some on the lap quilt. Even though I bought fabric for the back, I decided I really didn’t like it after it arrived. So I went back through the stash and found enough fabrics to piece together. I just have the borders to sew on and then I will be ready to put together the quilt sandwich and attempt to quilt it.

I will try not to be so long posting again and hopefully will have a photo or two for you.