Musings.....

   I know I have been busy, but feel I have little to show for it.  Where did my quilt muse go?  Could be she is hiding under all those squares on the floor of the sewing room.  I keep getting sidetracked onto other things.  It is time to find some focus.
     While looking for inspiration, I ran across the book  Tile Quilt Revival  at Amazon.   The mosaic effect is very intriguing to me.  With my stash of floral fabrics, wonder how it would work?

  I tried a small design.....my technique needs a little work to get it spaced evenly---and not chop off vital edges!  Each piece is fused and machine appliqued with a buttonhole stitch.  The background that shows between the pieces creates the grout lines.  This is only 8 " by 12" and I think a larger design overall would work out  better.  But it has potential for at least a small quilt, or a border.  Come to think of it I have a box full of 5 inch squares that I could use up this way.   I think a second try would be work the effort.   OK, inspiration  found.    Now, maybe I will be motivated to complete what is on the design wall....remember all those squares?.....so I can try something new.

    Insight:  A new beginning can be a powerful motivator to complete a current project.   Remember the rule to avoid UFOs.  

    I am trying to remember to add my blog mark to the photos.....I should have been doing it all along.  Why?  You never know where they will end up.  I had an email from someone who saw one of my quilts on Pinterest and  they  wanted the pattern.  Pinterest?  I haven't gone that route, as I have enough going on.  Whoa!  I was very surprised at to find lots of my quilt photos on there.  The pinned photo shows my blog as the source, but the photo could be used other places with no source.  Just a word to the wise to remember to mark your photos as well as your work.  

Creative break

Not a great deal of stitching got done this week....as it is tax time.  I have been in a brain fog of numbers and forms for most of the week.  I managed to get started on Justin's graduation quilt yesterday afternoon and have all the large squares...145 of them cut  for the 9 patch sections.

   Today though I really needed a creative break.  You know, something fun and spontaneous, almost mindless.  Sounded like a Rx for a journal quilt project.   Ingredients used:   solid black  for the background, and leftover bits and pieces of fused fabrics from prior projects, and 3  butterflies from a panel print. 
  Result.....just a hint of Spring!  I positioned the butterflies first and fused them in place.  Then I began creating "blooms"  of color for them by cutting and snipping the fused scraps.  Some green leaves and a few odd pieces were cut to just fill in the areas.  I tried to leave narrow spaces between each piece so that the black would cause all the colors to pop.  I layered the finished top onto batting and backing and stitched/quilted each piece.  Free motion stitching along or near the edge....just enough to hold it all down, and not intended to be perfect for sure.  This mosaic technique  just had to be included in my journal challenges.....a great stress reliever.
Happy stitching,

Snowbound and quilting

Yep, the forecast was right....snow and lots of it.  The whole place is shut down  and what am I going to do?  Guild is cancelled for tonight and so I guess I will...... Quilt those projects!

I love the look of mosaics.  So this was just a fun experiment to see what I came up with.  Click here for the first post about this project.

Lots of stitching to finish up this one.  Quilting on the center portion was done by a simple outline around each piece.  I added the accent strip as suggested by Eileen before the purple border, which I quilted with "mctavishing" style  texture.  Good practice, and I am improving finally with this style. 

I had the 3-D bow tie quilt  pinned, so I put in some more practice on it.  I used different motifs of quilting in the center area created by the bow ties.  I practiced hearts, and leaves---stacked and packed together, and lots of swirly designs.    Here are just a couple of them.  I have lots of threads to hide and the binding to do yet. 

The snow is still coming down and  we are expecting sleet and freezing rain tonight.  It is going to be a very long week of this.   

Mosaic?

A few weeks ago I felt the creative urge,  so I tried experimenting with a mosaic technique.... it's really just fusing small bits of color to a black background.  It creates a different sort of stain glass effect.  Each small piece is free hand cut and fused in place.   I started with the flower, added the dragon fly---he kind of gets lost in the background--- and then decided to add the branch and leaves. 
 The options  given  to finish were  to either frame the piece under glass----not for me---or to do an overlay of tulle and stitch closely all over to hold everything down.   Instead, I created a third option.  I placed batting behind the piece and free motion stitched around all the edges, using a straight stitch.  After I get the border on I will figure out how to quilt it.  I plan on a border using one, or maybe two of the fabrics shown here.  I think my first choice is the gold  fabric, but I also like the purple.  Since it's an art project maybe I can just use  both?   Anyway, the technique is easy and fun to do, a good way to use up small bit of fused fabric scraps, but I think the next time I need to actually plan the design and focal point  before I jump in. 
  I was stitching on a new "use up the scraps"  project last night, and the Featherweight started behaving badly.  The foot pedal wasn't making contact inside and it just would not go.  Russ performed a bit of surgery on it by adjusting the contacts inside.  A good cleaning  and oiling and she was humming along once again.  Got to love that man!
Happy stitching,