Art Quilt

My art quilt is finally finished!

I wish I had a plain wall to hang it on.  But, that wallpaper will be gone someday.  Until then, it is what it is.

HOW MY ART QUILT CAME TO BE
It all began sometime in 2012.  Text fabrics were in their early stages of showing up in quilted items.  I immediately was drawn to them (and still am).  But I couldn’t find much locally and online shopping required a minimum of a half yard or more.  I didn’t want that much at the time.  That could quickly add up to big $$ that I didn’t have.  I wanted a largish variety of text prints.

Being a scrapbooker, there was more of an endless array of papers with words on them.  So I ordered several yards of Miracle Fabric.  I began printing my own text fabrics on my printer for a quilt.  Even then I began running out of different text papers.  I didn’t want to keep using the same ones over and over.  I had those four rows done when I decided it was never going to get four more rows.  I set it aside.

I had printed the little girl you see in this section for a postcard.  I printed her twice.  I made the postcard and mailed it.  The extra little girl got pushed around on my table for awhile.  I didn’t want to loose her so I set her on top of this quilt (that was probably never going to get finished).

Well, wasn’t she cute on there.  If I ever get this quilt made, I think I’ll sew her onto it somewhere.  Then I thought, she would need another little friend on it somewhere else.  

I processed that idea for awhile until finally concluding that I was going to switch  my plan from a regular quilt to an art quilt.  And turn it into an ephemera collage art quilt.  It took my little pea brain a long time to figure out how to accomplish this. 

When I got the itch to sew again, I wanted to finish this art quilt first.  I finally figured out how to get to the finished quilt.

I first decided to quilt the blocks before adding the ephemera pieces.

Not all of the blocks are printed miracle fabric.  Some are regular cotton text fabrics.  But the majority are printed on my Epson Ink Jet printer.

With the quilting done, I decided to also bind it before spinning it round and round in my machine appliquéing the ephemera.  There was no need to leave that for last.  Binding it first would save me the trouble of raveling edges during appliquéing.

It was finally time to applique the ephemera!

There are 45 pieces of ephemera printed, backed with Wonder Under, cut out and raw edge appliqued onto the quilt.  I did not make them recently.  They had been pinned to the quilt for all the years it lay dormant.

My daughter looked at this art quilt and said “this is so you”.  And it is.  It’s full of things I like, things I find interesting and things that speak to me.  I have a bicycle postage stamp that I need to print and add to my quilt.  I like that I can continue to add to it if I choose to.

The quilt measures 41” X 55”

I’m really happy to have this quilt finished and I’m really happy with how this art quilt turned out.

It’s a little wavy on the bottom in this photo.  It was hanging oddly on the stick across the top.  It lays nice and straight and flat now that I’ve fixed that little mystery. 

I really love paper collage and I’m really enjoying this fabric collage.

TADA! 

Fabric Boxes and Postcards

While I continue to work on my art quilt, I have stitched up a few quick and easy fabric boxes.

I found the instructions on Pinterest where they are officially referred to as thread catchers.  But I don’t have any threads to catch, so they are boxes to me.  I seem to have a bit of an obsession with tiny boxes.

This next purple one made the perfect tiny thank you gift when I filled it with Lindor chocolates and Starbursts.

I will send this next one off with chocolates also when the weather gets cool enough to not melt the chocolates while traveling.

They are pretty simple and fun to make even with all the hand sewing they require.  I made the first one as instructed.  But I thought it to be a bit flimsy for my liking.  So I added fusible interfacing to one side for the next ones.  Much better!

After attending the Madison, Wisconsin Quilt Show and picking up some new Halloween fabrics (like I needed more), and cute patterns for making postcards, I had to get started on Halloween fabric  postcard greetings.

Such fun.

Now back to my art quilt..........

Sewing again!

I have finally gotten back to sewing again!  One thing that kept me away from it is my teeny tiny sewing space now that I am back home.  It was not at all inviting.  I moved more stuff out of it to make space for cutting and pressing.

It isn’t even so much the lack of space as it is that dang low slanted ceilings.  I hate them.  I am tall.  Then there’s the awful striped wallpaper.  All still better than no space at all.

Even a mini design wall is better than none at all.

I’m a little disappointed that this large bottle holding my wooden spool collection cannot be kept within this tiny space.  But priorities must be met.

I have four unfinished quilty projects.  The first needing to be finished was my sewing machine cover that I started a year ago.

I was very ambitious when I started this improv piecing.  I did a little more, but I had no patience to finish it.  So I cheated on the back and sides.

I don’t see those sections much anyway.  So I moved on to quilting the thing.

It’s quite less than perfect and I don’t care.  At least I don’t have to throw a dish towel over my machine anymore.

So tacky!

This is much better.

Now I can get down to some serious sewing!

Calendar Journals

Have a peek at what I did during August.  Just barely by the end of the month I got back into doing some sewing!  YAY!  

You will notice on the 17th that I began training for the company’s sewing jobs.  Oddly enough, that seems to have been what finally spurred me into action to get back to sewing.  I’d been wanting to, but just wasn’t actually getting at it.  Just small stuff at the moment.  But I will be working on three largish quilt pieces that have been waiting SO long for me.  (At least I hope to stay motivated to work on them).

And September is in the making.

Again I’ve let the scrapbook paper do all the design work.  I just added some die cut lettering, rubber stamped year and some Washi tapes.

I hope to fill lots of day squares with “sewing”.  I truly have missed it.

Calendar Journal and a Gift

There isn’t much arts and crafts going on over here these days, but I still keep my calendar journals.  July is complete.

August is in the happening stages.

This paper did all the designing work for me.

I wrapped a very tiny gift.  I didn’t measure it, but it’s in the neighborhood of the size of a credit card and an inch deep.  That’s pretty much all I’ve done creatively.

I’m putting as many miles on this new bike as I can.  112 miles to date in less than a month’s time.  It would be more if it weren’t so humid out this past month.

I’m not looking forward to the coming cold weather.  I hate it when biking weather comes to an end.  I’m planning on enjoying what’s left of it.

Have a great August!

Cards and Calendar Journal

So many birthdays this month.  But I’ve only made a couple of cards. 

Supplies: Card base, inks, acrylic paints, modeling paste, stencils, rubber stamping, die cuts.

June 2018 is complete.  The year is half gone already!

Working on July

The usual supplies:  scrapbook paper, modeling paste, watercolors, rubber stamping, stencils.

Calendar Journals and Father’s Day Card

My May 2018 Calendar Journal is complete.

There’s a lot of cycling going on these days.  Bicycle LOVE!

Working on June now.

Father’s Day card

The envelope

That’s the extent of my creativity lately.

I’m getting back on my bicycle now as that is what I love doing most at the moment.

Altered Photos

Another technique I have admired and long been afraid to try is altered photo art.  Dive in, I told myself.  What’s the worse that can happen...it lands in the trash bin?  Exactly.  

Begin with a photo.  (This can be done with any size photo). I like postcard art, so I began with a 4”X6” photo of my parents house where I grew up and also spent several years recently.  If you sent mail to me in California, this is where it landed.

Here it is altered using Gesso, sand paper, rubber stamping, Washi tapes Distress Inks, Tombow markers, a water brush and Tim Holtz Paper Dolls. 

I’ve done this technique twice now.  The above postcard was my second try.  My first go at this technique started with this house photo.  A house in my neighborhood.

Here it is altered.  This one was intended to be on the creepy, spooky side.  I think I achieved that somewhat.  Same supplies used as mentioned above.

It was hard for me to have an actual plan for these altered photos.  Even though I tried to have one.  They came together just one step of trying and experimenting at a time.  Not the easiest process I’ve ever tried, but it was fun.  Especially using photos that I took of real houses.

Postcard Mail Art

A few postcards that have been sent out as mail art.

This first one is spray inked with Distress Inks for the background.  Stamped with words and a butterfly.  Then die cuts from white cardstock.

Next is my most recent abstract with acrylic paints, Washi tapes, stamping and my favorite supply, modeling paste.

Last is this postcard stamped on scrapbook paper with this awesome type writing machine stamp.  I just love this old type design.  

All I added was Washi tape pieces of alphabet and the woman is also Washi tape trimmed very close.  I have a pen pal friend who loves typewriters as I do.
Wishing everyone a happy mail day!

April/May 2018 Calendar Journals

Let me see, which day block shall I write...

“I’m becoming a lazy blogger” ?

April is history already!

I became officially old a few days ago... I am now on Medicare.

Living through May now.  

It’s my fault that it does nothing but rain now.  I had my bicycle readied for riding and rode only one single day to work and now it will rain waaay too much to please me.