Beyond the Secret Garden

This was my entry for the "Doorway to Imagination" challenge that Quilting Arts had. Although it didn't make it into the magazine, I'm still very happy with the way it came out, and am looking forward to seeing it again when they return it to me. I thought it would be nice if you could see what was behind the door, so the door was hinged with a few stitches, and many techniques were used. The door is made of soy silk paper that I made and fused together with fast-to-fuse, and there was puff puff paint, fabric and acrylic paints, hand-dyed fabric, silk ribbon embroidery and hand quilting. The image inside the door is from Dover, printed on purchased prepared for printing fabric.

embellished green velvet

This will be the outside of an evening / party purse that I've got in progress - almost sewed it together without taking this photo. I thought it might be nice to have a picture of what it looks like when it's flat and you can see all the emellishment at the same time, because once I sew it into a bag only one side will be visible at a time. I did roughly pre-fold the velvet to help plan my layout, but it was still one of those gut instinct projects, although I did take notes as I went along so that I will be able to create a pattern to make another.

Beautiful Bargello pattern is ready!

I had originally hoped to have this pattern ready in August, but it's been such a busy year! So ask your local shop to contact me if you like it and they don't have it yet.

Wet felted purse in progress

Here's my first wet felted purse in progress. It was created with just wool, soap, water, and a form that I cut from a scrap box in the garage. Unlike working with fabric, when felted in one piece, the lining color felts through to the outside (duh), so my spots dissappeared from the pale blue/ grey lining, and the lining made the outer bag much greyer than it started out - originally, it was mostly black wool, with multi colored wool sprinkled through it. The blue and green were added before felting, so right now it's looking very dull to me, and I'm busy dreaming up a way to brighten it.

Chickadee mini quilt

Here's another little quilt that I made for the Art Quilt class I'm taking at joggles with Jane LaFazio. The assignment was to make a bird quilt, and I couldn't resist making a quilt of the cute little chickadees that come in small flocks to visit us. It isn't perfect, and if I was going to do it over, there are things I'd do differently - like the satin stitch outline, which I went around 3 times and still am not happy with. I think I'd rather do piping than satin stitching, even though it would have taken longer, and consider it a lesson learned.

giraffe art quilt in progress

This week I had some time to get caught up in a couple classes that I'm taking at joggles. One assignment that I was behind in was creating an animal quilt in colors that were not realistic.This is the Dover image that I decided to work with, as it had larger areas to work with, and the giraffe's portrait just plain appealed to me.

It was hard to decide what colors to use, and I had considered orange for the giraffe, so boldly started with a watered down salmon fabric paint, which dried a bit too pink for me. This was then washed with golden yellow. Next I went with orange as the main color, highlighted with yellow and shaded with dark purple. Tiny highlights were added with an iridescent purple gold metallic fabric paint.

My Journal Quilt in Houston

Here's the quilt that I sent to Houston for the Journal Quilt Project. It's a tribute to the huge tulip fields that we have visited several times, and the memorable barn that we see every time we visit. One of my photos was used for inspiration, and the barn that I printed on pre-treated fabric. There are a variety of techniques, from torn fabric, fabric printing, dyeing and puff paint, to the free-motion embroidered tulip.