I made this pincushion from my pile of BIG scraps.
I stuffed it with scraps of wool batting. It is about 4 x 5 inches. It’s perfect to keep my pins separated by different colors and sizes.
This is the quilt I made with my “scraps too small of use”! It is 6 x 8 inches.
And just as there is a beginning, there also is an end. These are the little bits I had left and they all went into the trash!
I had planned on showing you the finished vest today. I did the hand sewing on the binding last night while I watched the Oscars. I still have more than half way to go.
So instead I’ll show you the fabrics I have leftover.
I photographed these on my 12 inch square Olfa matt to give you an idea of how big they are.
I call these “scraps too small to use”!
But wait……….. I have bigger scraps too…………..
Yes, these are the BIG scraps I had left after the vest was bound. The strip of the stripe was all the extra binding I had.
I don’t think I’ve ever cut it this close on a project before. Being able to make something and make it work while working so tight can only be accomplished with my history of sewing for years and years.
Of course I’m not done with this fabric yet. Stay tuned to see what I do with the leftovers!
I have the back and both fronts ready to put together. I used ALL the fabric I had to make this happen.
Each of the 5 pieces was a fat quarter. I love a challenge and this definitely was a challenge.
I measured the pattern and knew I would need 176 inches of binding.
I was able to piece a bias binding with the fabrics I had left after making the patchwork vest pieces.
I have 182 inches of binding. It took a lot of math and a lot of creativity to make this happen!
I can’t wait to put this all together later today.
When I finished making my new jacket it put me in the mood for making wearable art.
This is a section from the center of the back of the vest I started yesterday.
I am using my Almost Crazy Vest pattern to make it.
It looks NOTHING like the pattern. All of my patterns are flattering basic shapes and this was the perfect style for the piecing I am doing.
This is the picture of the original Almost Crazy Vest from the pattern front.
I am piecing this directly on the lining. I don’t want a heavy warm vest.
I have also started piecing the fronts. I am working from the centers out to the side seams. This will allow me to keep the most interesting parts of the design where it can be seen.
I hope to finish the piecing today and possibly get the entire vest finished.
I couldn’t wait for this to arrive.
It was so much more than what it looked like in the pictures. I had committed to this acquisition about 3 p.m. on the 13th of February, a Wednesday afternoon.
I unpacked it and hung it right away as I knew exactly where I was going to put it.
It is 3D and amazing. There is so much symbolism in it.
It was also the beginning of strange story.
At 10:30 that evening I opened my front door for something and thought I saw something whizz by. I thought it was probably a bug.
I closed the door and looked around and there was a BIRD sitting up on my big quilt in the great room.
What to do? I opened the door hoping it would go back out, but didn’t see it go out.
I looked around the room and couldn’t see it so I decided to look in the rest of the house.
It had gone through the master bedroom and into the master bath, which meant it had to take 2 left turns to get there.
I had the presence of mind to close the door to the master bathroom. Then what?
I felt it was too late to call anyone so I walked down the street and saw a neighbor who I thought could catch it for me still had their lights on. He came over and spent about 10 minutes trying to capture it with an old bath towel. It was in the tiny room that just has the toilet. He finally got it and took it outside for me. I was so relieved.
End of story? Oh, No!
Sunday evening I had friends over for dinner. They all left about 9 p.m.
After they left I heard a chirping sound and figured I hadn’t shut the refrigerator. I got up to do it and the bird was BACK – flying across the kitchen part of the great room. This time I had the presence of mind to close all the doors off the great room and open the BIG sliding doors to the lanai. Took a walk down to the neighbors and they were gone. So I called one of the friends who had been here for dinner and Lynn said “John will be right there with his net.”
He got here in record time. I was not sure whether the bird was on the screened lanai or still in the great room hiding in the artificial greens on top of the cupboards.
When we were sure it was on the lanai I closed the doors so it wouldn’t come back in. We turned on the lights which just drove him up to the 20 foot ceiling. John threw the chair cushions up in an attempt to get him down. John figured it was a better idea to turn off the lights and so I got him a flashlight lantern. The bird then came down to the floor and tried to hide under the furniture. John caught him in the net several times and he kept escaping. Finally he got him and took him back outside.
He came in and said “He was such a cute bird and he’s out in the tree in the back”. I said I didn’t think he was so cute.
I tried to get a picture of the bird when he was on the floor but was not successful. I have no idea what kind of bird he was and I couldn’t find one that looked like him on line.
I have taped my front door shut so I don’t forget and open it for a while. All guests will have to come in through my messy garage.
I also took the wreath off the front door which could have been attracting him and put it in a bag in the garage so he wouldn’t come in the garage when I opened the door.
I am so lucky to have such wonderful friends and neighbors.
Life at “Seldom Inn” is never dull! I wish it had been last week.
I am laying all my fabrics I recently dyed on my ironing table. I thought I could take a picture of all of them, but I can’t get up high enough to get them all in the picture. Almost all of them were arashi shibori dyed on PVC poles. Many were dyed more than once.
It is going to take me several pictures to show them all to you.
By having them all laid out like this I can see what I have and I can start using them to design more compositions.
200 pieces of fabric are a lot. Some pieces are a half yard or more. Others are fat quarters or notebook paper size.
Whatever size they are, they are all exciting to see – IMHO!
I overlapped these more so you could see a wider range of the fabrics in one photo.
This shows some of the fabrics that were larger pieces. The patterns on many of them spanned the width of the fabric.
My goal was not to dye as many fabrics as I could. I was just trying to get a good assortment and a variety of types of fabrics.
I also usually mixed up too much dye so rather than throw it out I just kept dyeing.
If you try to count them and don’t find 200 it is because I have already used quite a few of them.
I didn’t expect to be able to wear this coat in Florida since out temperatures have been in the 70’s and 80’s.
Today we expect a high of maybe 50 and we haven’t reached it yet at 2:30 p.m.
So guess what I wore to the grocery store?
That’s right………….
I have been rolling fabrics on poles getting ready to do some fabric dyeing. Many of the pieces I am using were previously dyed and needed another layer.
This was in that group but I decided overdyeing was not the way to go so I got out my paints and added some stamping to it.
It had previously been dyed twice. I think it is finished, but I will let it wait and see if I think it might benefit from another layer of pattern.
The fabric I started with for this piece had been previously painted with thickened dyes. I thought it was dull and boring.
I added two more layers of design with stamping. As I look at this I feel it still may need something else.
I am going to hang both of these on my design wall so I can study them and wait to see if they need anything else and what they need.
By the way, I started working on these late last night and worked until 11:30 p.m. – sometimes that’s the best creative time for me.
I'm posting this puzzle to keep your brain sharp on this lazy weekend!
I have completed my mystery project which used the silk that used to be on my pillows.
This is a jacket I made from my Blue Ribbon Pattern 116 Slashed Jacket.
This is a close up of one section of the jacket. You may be able to see the colors of some of the pillows I recycled into this jacket.
The base (or inner layer) of the jacket is black silk noil.
The outer layer is a soft rust dupioni silk.
The many layers between them are composed of the silk from the pillows and a collection of small pieces of dupioni silk I had.
In some places there are as many as 12 layers and in others just a few.
One of my goals in making this was to only use fabric I had on hand. I became reacquainted with my fabrics when I did my recent studio reorganization.
If you would like to see the various layers I created you can see them at this blog post:
http://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/2013/02/my-colorful-mystery-project.html
I really enjoyed creating this jacket. It has been a while since I created any wearable art, but I think there will be more in the not too distant future.
I am really going to enjoy wearing this jacket. When it is on a body it drapes so beautifully.
I hope you enjoy finding all the colors from the pillows as you work this puzzle!
Today I am going to show you the rest of the Valentines I received in our fiber art exchange up close and personal.
This one is by Chris Fitzreiter. She used a lot of gorgeous sparkly metallic fabrics. Her background is also significant as it features a musical theme and music is something near and dear to Chris.
Judy Devaney attached a little message on a separate tag to each of the Valentines she sent. Her Valentines were a crazy quilt style, one of my favorite kinds of quilts.
It is obvious she knows how to use her sewing machine and it’s various stitches to advantage and she knows how to make a person feel good about themselves.
Carolyn Eaton did a masterful job of combining many different sewing techniques and trims.
Did you notice the see thru ribbon she used? The “dream” message? The fleur de leis she stitched? The flower with the pear center? and of course the strip pieced background. It’s hard to integrate so many varying things and she sure knew how to do it.
Gloria Meacham is one of the members of our group who is a master at using all the features on her sewing machine.
She even used her machine to sign the back of each valentine.
Carol Walker made each Valentine different. Her theme was using texture on them. She showed us all of them and then sealed them in envelopes and had someone shuffle and cut the envelopes and passed them around and we each got a beautiful card. The one I received features metallic fabrics woven like a Swedish heart.
Of all the Valentines I received this one reminds me the most of the type of Valentine we used to exchange in grade school. It also is a perfect quilters Valentine featuring sun bonnet Sue.
Elaine Scully is another member of our group who is so talented when it comes to using her computerized sewing machine. In addition to that what creativity this shows. Of course I ate the sucker right after I photographed it!
One of the guidelines for this project was they had to be in an envelope. Elaine made her own envelopes with a heart print fleece type fabric. No one else thought to do that.
This was such a fun project and really allowed every one to play to their strengths. We do something like this about once a year and it just keeps getting better and better. Can’t wait for our next project.
There is not puzzle cut that is a heart so I used a star symbolizing the fact that each and every Valentine our group made was "STAR" quality!
Our Art Quilt group decided to have a original Fiber Art Valentine exchange.
It took place yesterday.
These are the 9 Valentines I made for the other 9 participants. I had them finished on January 15th. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever had something finished more than an hour before it was due!
This is a close up of one of my Valentines and the envelope. Each Valentine has a pin on the center than can be removed and worn. When I was making these it brought back memories of exchanging Valentines in grade school and how special the ones with a sucker or a piece of candy were.
This picture shows all 10 of the Valentines. Each was so creative and drew on the strengths of the maker. They are something I really treasure having and will enjoy looking at them for years to come and remembering who made them.
This was made by Gladys Tice. She used hand dyed fabric for the background If you look closely you will see she did hand beading near both edges. I can’t imagine doing this on 10 cards!
Beth Shutty chose to make her Valentines with a pin back so we could wear them. I’m sure I’ll see a lot of people wearing them at our meeting today.
Although she used the same shape and sparkly background fabric for each pin, all of hers were different.
We each received a little fabric “container” from Beth Sherman.
When we opened them up there were 3 “kisses” inside. Guess what I had for breakfast today!
A lot of work went into each and every one of these.
Stay tuned as I’ll feature the remaining individual Valentines tomorrow.
I am wishing you a Happy Velentine's Day with this puzzle.
One of my favorite brands of clothing is Blue Fish.
I was lucky enough to be one of the few that purchased this limited addition Valentine shirt several years ago.
I smile each time I take it out of the closet to wear it.
It even has a large design on the back. I think one of the things I love about this shirt is it doesn’t shout Valentine, heart, cupid!
It’s subtle and tasteful.
I made this quilt with fabrics I received from Virginia Spiegel as a bonus in one of the past Fiber Art For A Cause Fund Raisers.
She does not sell her fabrics, but put together a few bundles as incentives for the people who made donations..
Although Virginia has made many Boundary Waters quilts my goal was to make one that did not look like a Virginia Spiegel quilt.
I think I succeeded, and yet still evoked the feeling of the Boundary Waters.
I thought you might enjoy a close up of the quilting.
It was one of those quilts that said “Make me right now” and also said “If you do that I’ll let you finish me in record time”.
And that is exactly what happened!
I have not faced it yet as I am scheduled to give a demonstrations for our Art Quilters group on facing quilts February 27th so it will wait until then.
In case you are one of the 3 people in the universe that hasn’t heard the news, the 2013 Fiber Art For A Cause fundraiser takes place this Tuesday and Wednesday.
It is a great opportunity to acquire some amazing fiber art and support the American Cancer Society.
I don’t think I know anyone who’s life hasn’t been touched by this horrible disease. Lets all contribute so that we can conquer this dreaded disease.
Here is a link so you can get the details:
http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/blog/archives/8304
You can enjoy this quilt while putting together this puzzle.
This may not look quite as colorful to you as the last time you saw part of this!
Looking even less colorful!
Ah ha – seeing more bright colors!
I can’t tell you what is happening…………….
But I can tell you I am on the homestretch.
I can’t wait to finish this and show you the completed project.
