Mysterious Star I, II, III

Quilt documentations #  127 – 128 - 129

More Table Toppers

I named this pattern Mysterious Star because I taught it as a mystery class back in 1998 when mystery classes were all the rage. I usually end up with a second quilt when teaching because of the samples I make for the class but I can't really remember why I made three. I must have really liked the pattern. 

Quilt # 127 - Mysterious Star I - 1998

Mysterious Star I 

This quilt has 3 different blocks, 1 centre star, 4 middle blocks and 4 corners.

detail

Some of the flying geese in this quilt are 3-D (remember those?) 

30D Flying Geese

Mysterious Star I was quilted in the ditch and stippled, it measures 28" x 28".

Mysterious Star I - back

Quilt # 128 - Mysterious Star II -  2000

Mysterious Star II 

  The small inner border is simply folded and caught in the seam allowance.  I learned that using a tightly woven fabric  (like batik) and making this border as skinny as possible works best.  I like the one on #III best.

detail

 Mysterious Star II was quilted in the ditch and feathers, it measures 29" x 29".

Mysterious Star II -  back

Quilt # 129 - Mysterious Star III - 2001

Mysterious Star III 

 Mysterious Star III was quilted in the ditch and leaves, it measures 28" x 28".

Mysterious Star III - back

 All three quilts have double fold bindings. 

Happy Quilting,

Terry

Red Vortex

Quilt Documentation # 126

Remember this ?

Sneak peek from a couple of weeks ago

Red Vortex

Red Vortex was accepted in the 6^th Annual Juried Contemporary Art Exhibition 2013 at our local Museum in Kirkland Lake.   Approximately half of the pieces entered were juried in.  The theme for the show is Digging Abstract.  Although it did not place but I'm always so happy just to be juried into any shows.

A friend also entered a fibre piece into this show and she tied for the Viewer's Choice award. It seems that we (as fibre artists) are making progress with being accepted into the “Art World".

Construction 

I started with a small cotton piece that I dyed using the shaving cream method, some black cotton, and a red snow dyed fat quarter.

supplies

I first made a quilt sandwich and then cut the small monoprint into strips and applied them to the black cotton and stitched it down using a red-purple variegated thread. I kept echo quilting in a random wavy design.

quilting on monoprint

To tie the curves to the centre I decided to paint 3 of the rows, starting with a coat of gesso and then using a fabric paint mixed to match the centre.

painted with gesso

I then thread painted 3 rows of using the same variegated thread and then quilted the remaining curves with a semi circular design to try and give them some shape.

detail

detail

I added a facing and stitched it to the back.

before appliqued onto background

  

When I placed it on my red fabric I decided it needed something to tie the two together, so I extended the rings onto the background. I layered my red fabric, batting and back and quilted it all with straight lines except for the “rings”. I painted those with Tsukineko ink.

background quilt

Red Vortex

I added a binding strip on each side and then finished the top and bottom as a facing.

The “black quilt” was then appliqued to the top of the “red quilt”.

A sleeve and a label were also added.

It measures  20” x 24”.

I will link up to The Needle and Thread Network and Nina Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday.

Happy quilting,

Terry 

Table Toppers – Miniatures

Quilt Documentations  # 123 - 124 – 125

It seems that making table toppers has always been one of my favourite ways of trying out new patterns, techniques and/or practice my quilting.

Some more recently made, are already documented here.

Three Oldies from the Early Nineties

I didn't realize how many I had made until I recently came across several oldies, some of them well-worn. I'm happy to see that my piecing & quilting has improved over the years, although at that time, I thought these were all wonderful. Only one of the three is dated but all three were made in the early nineties, when I was in my miniature phase. 

It's still hit and miss when it comes to labelling my quilts, but since I started this blog to document my quilts, I try hard to at least sign and date even if it is just with a marker, but preferably stitched in. A label is always a bonus.

Quilt # 123

Beige & Blue Mini Charm Quilt

Beige & Blue Mini

 This one is probably the oldest, it is dated 1991, the beige is a polyester and it is also hand quilted of which I did not do a lot of after I found out I could machine quilt.

I remember going through all of the fabrics I had at the time and anything with blue in it was fair game for the 1” half-square triangles.  I think this would make it a Charm quilt, which means that all the pieces are from different fabrics, no two pieces the same.  I'm not sure if using one fabric as the background makes a difference to calling it a Charm Quilt.

1" half-square triangles

It has two borders, a double fold french binding and polyester batting.   The back is one large half-square triangle and it is signed.  It  measures 23" x 23".

Beige & Blue Mini - back

Quilt #124

Jewel Box Mini

Jewel Box Mini

This mini also has some polyester fabrics in it and it is machine quilted using invisible thread on the top and white polyester on the back.  It has one border, double fold french binding and polyester batting.

four-patches and half-square triangles

The half-square triangles are 1½“ and the little squares in the four-patch are 3/4” square.

Jewel Box - back

The back is made of four half-square triangle repeating the pattern on the top.  

The whole quilt measures 23” x 23”..

Quilt # 125

Crazy-Patches

Crazy Patches

3” x 3½” crazy-patch rectangles were sashed and machine quilted with some hand quilting added to some of the patches.

piecing

The fabrics are all 100% cotton and I see that the navy has faded. We are so lucky to have the fabric we have nowadays. 

Crazy Patches - back

The back was turned to the front and stitched down as binding. It measures 23” x 24”.

More Table Toppers to come.

Terry

NOFA Book Challenge

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.ca/2013/03/studio-pegboard-for-off-wall-friday.html

Quilt Documentation # 122

NOFA Book Challenge - Textures

This is another NOFA challenge, made in 2009.. (see previous post for Green Challenge)

NOFA stands for Northern Ontario Fibre Artists, a group of seven from 3 Northern Ontario communities, Englehart, Kenogami, and Timmins. We meet 3 or 4 times a year to exchange ideas, show and tell about whatever we are dabbling in at the time and enjoy each other's company.

We also like to challenge ourselves to try new techniques. There always seems to be a challenge in the works.

For the Book Challenge each person chose a theme and made a cover for the “pages” that were going to be made by everyone else. The size of the cover determined the sizes the pages had to be made.

My book measures 9” x 13” and the pages are 8” x 11”.

The theme for my book is Textures.

THE COVER

Textures Cover before assembly

For my cover I wove together 2 1/2” strips of fabric which I then stamped. I added loose threads, trims, even small crocheted flowers and covered the whole thing with tulle. I free motion quilted, outlining some of the stamped designs and filling in with as many designs as I could think of.

The inside of the cover is one my hand dyed. Two of the edges were shaped in a curved designs and zigzagged with variegated thread.

Inside cover - detail

I made a button from FIMO modelling clay and added a couple of beads to the end of a sparkly string to wrap around and hold the book closed.

closure

back

THE PAGES MADE BY MY FRIENDS:

made by Marie

made by Silvia

made by Karen

made by Kit

made by Jane

made by Marnie

SOME OF THE PAGES THAT I MADE FOR MY FRIENDS' BOOKS:

I'm missing a couple, I'll update when I find them.

Window for Kit

Tree for Marie

Flowers for Jane

Doors for Silvia

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Needle and Thread Network.  Hope it is OK to link up as I feel that my whole blog is a WIP as I document quilts, etc. old and new.

And Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.
Enjoy!

Terry

Door #2

Quilt Documentation #121

Door #2 

This mixed media piece was made in answer to NOFA Green Challenge. Each person, in our art quilt group, brought in an item that had to be used in the making of our piece.

These were the items brought in:

cloth serviette with a raised pattern

aluminum pop can

long rectangular bead

silk leaf

seashell

large copper staple

wine cork

I used mine this way:

I made a rubbing (blue) from the serviette, for my wall background, on a piece that had previously been spattered.  I also painted the bottom part blue to match the top.

layout before stitching

I then quilted the whole piece, fused the “bricks” and stitched on the door and the steps.

The pop can was cut into a door and painted, the bead became the handle and the staple was cut to make 3 hinges.

I used the bottom of the pop can to make the vase into which I put the seashell and the cut-in-half leaf. I also added some of the curly cutting to the vase.

vase made from pop can bottom & hinges from large staple

The cork was cut into several pieces to build the sidewalk and I added clumps of “french knot” flowers to finish things off.

I wrapped the quilt around a piece of plywood and glued a ribbon over the raw edges.

Door #2 - back

This piece was made 2009 and measures 10” x 13½” .

Thanks for coming over,

Terry

Quilting Books Organization

How is your quilting library organized?

Mine did not LOOK so bad but I could never find a book easily because I would just shoved books anywhere on the shelf.

So, on Tuesday, after spending a whole lot of time looking for a specific article but did remember which book it was in, I decided it was time to do something about it.

I pulled every single book off the shelf and sorted by subjects.

These were my categories:

Piecing	Surface Design	Free motion quilting	Applique
Thread play	Quilt Design	Dyeing and Painting	Patterns
Hand Embroidery	Garments	Miscellaneous

Back on the shelves.

So now books on specific subjects are all together and not all mixed together.

Looks about the same, but if I put books back in their section, I should be off to the races.

Here is the rest of the shelving unit.  Could use some help, too!  Not so neat looking but functional for me.

SPRING FEVER?  NOT!!!!

Just in case you think I'm getting spring fever, think again.

Either we're in the deep freeze or getting dumped on this winter.  We'll appreciate spring when it gets here!

Here's looking out my kitchen window.

Terry

Looking south over the lake.

Little feathered friends.

Linking up to The Needle and Thread WIP Wednesday and Off the Wall Friday at NinaMarie's.