Who says grownups aren't allowed to play?

Sometimes you just need to play. And when you can play and end up doing something productive, it's even better. After all the deadline sewing I've been doing, I wasn't in the mood to continue work on SITP this weekend. I wanted to do something a little more spontaneous (play). And I need to rebuild my stock of fabric postcards for sale, so that's what I played with.

I've been on a palm tree kick, so that's what I mostly worked on. I do these free-hand, using fusible applique. So I spent a lot of time pressing! For these I prepped the backing (a stiff interfacing called Stiffy that I get from Long Creek Mills) with fusible, then fused on fabric covering the whole card for background (sky). Then I cut shapes for the water, beach, vegetation, and palm trees, from fabric that I've prepared with fusible.

The prepping fabric is the longest part (but not unpleasant on a cold day) but the cutting and arranging is pure play!

Next up will be a day on the sewing machine, anchoring the applique, thread sketching and enhancing the design with quilting, then embellishments and finishing.

A bunch of quick HSTs

I promised I'd post directions for making 12 half square triangles (HSTs) at a time, so here it is. This method is based on one I saw somewhere else for making eight at a time. I liked that method, but not having to stop at each corner, then come back to the fabric, so I adapted it to 12, so I could do continuous lines of stitching.

To start, decide what size you want your HSTs to be. (Mine are 6.5 inches.) Add one inch. (that's 7.5). Double that for the short dimension of the rectangle (mine is 15) and triple it for the long dimension (mine is 22.5.

Cut two rectangles in this size, in the two fabrics for your HST. Lie the lighter fabric face down on your work table. With a fabric pencil, mark one short end at the halfway point (7.5 inches for me), and mark both the longer ends at that distance from the end you just marked. Draw lines from the first mid-point to the points on each side, then from those points to the opposite corner, as shown in the picture.

Starting in one corner, stitch 1/4 inch from the marking line on both sides of the lines. For the outside stitching, you can stitch off onto a scrap of fabric, pivot, then stitch right back on the next line.

After stitching both sides, cut vertically and horizontally first, then cut along the marked lines. Press the HSTs open, then use a square to trim to exact size.

Super quick HSTs, ready to go.

More later.

From photo to fiber

I've done two pieces now based on a photo manipulation of an original photo I took a few years ago. I thought it might be fun to show the evolution from photo to quilts.

 The first photo is just as I took it, on Tybee Island, GA, a few years ago. I was struck by the leaning angle of the tree, and it's starkness against the sky. Behind it is a walkway crossing the dunes and leading to the beach.

The second is the photo after I'd played with it in Photoshop for a while. I don't remember now exactly what I did, but I know I selected the circle around the top of the palm, then did all the manipulation to the inverse (everything else). Later I added lens flare, which looks like reflections and created the impression the top of the tree was in a bubble.

Palm Bubbles was the first effort to turn this into a quilt. I liked the other-worldly effect of the colors (which are a little off in this picture), but the bubble is too dark and there's not enough contrast to see the stitching for the palm leaves.

Next came Painted Palm (color is a little off here, too). For this one, I used fusible applique to create the palm leaves, then stitched over them.  I used threadwork, enhanced with watercolor pencil, to create the image of the circle. Without the highlights, it's not as suggestive of a bubble.

In both of these, I like the color and the stitching, but the bubble or circle really isn't a strong element. I'm thinking there will be another incarnation, this time dropping the idea of the bubble, and concentrating on the alien landscape effect through colors and stitching.

Any thoughts?

More later.

Palm Bubbles

Painted Palm

Random thoughts before the sun comes up

What is it with cats? For the last few mornings, Mr. Stomp-O-Matic (usually known as Pepper) has been going nuts early in the morning, wanting to look out the windows in the bedroom. There's something very unsettling about suddenly awakening to the pop and swish of a cat pushing behind a window shade. For a moment you don't know what it is, then you cringe in fear of the shade falling down (it has) or the cat knocking something off the dresser (he has). This morning, just opening the shades wasn't enough, Pepper wanted me awake and breakfast in his bowl, so here I am.

Don't you just love it when you unexpectedly find something that you had given up looking for? I dump all my too-small-to-use bits of fabric and thread into a big shopping bag, which sits on the floor of my studio. Last night I was looking for selvages for a project, and ended up dumping the bag on my cutting table. There in the bottom, I found the ergonomic seam ripper I bought over a year ago! I had used it for a while, liked it, then it disappeared, along with most of my other seam rippers. This summer, on our annual trip to Mary Jo's in Gastonia, NC, I bought a couple more seam rippers (not ergonomic) and since then the others have reappeared. I think this makes the full collection.

Then later, I found several of my self-threading needles that had disappeared. I had been down to one, and had just gotten my sister to bring me more (no place around here to buy them). Sadly, my close vision doesn't handle threading hand-sewing needles very well any more, I'm lucky to be able to thread machine needles!

I've been enjoying the basted applique, so decided to start a project that I can keep ready as hand-work. I decided to do a Baltimore album style block, but with sea and beach themes. I designed the first block Monday night, and have enough background fabric for two more blocks, which will limit the size of this quilt.

As if I didn't spend enough time on the computer, I've been reading more and more blogs. Last night I joined the Artful Quilters Web Ring (icon in sidebar) and have been looking through many of the blogs. So much creativity! I really appreciate it when people explain a little about their techniques, or the materials they use for a project.

Time to get moving, more later.

The blocks are finished!

What a gorgeous morning! It's kind of a Goldilocks day. We had some days that were too cool for this time of year, then some days that were too warm. Today it's just right.

I'm in a good mood because last night I finished the blocks for the Shakespeare in the Park! I started this last year, with a spin-off group from the Stashbusters list,. and made pretty good progress for a while. But then I had Christmas gifts to make, and cold weather kept me out of the studio and so on, until it had been almost a year since I worked on it. But once our quilt show was finished, I decided to make it my first priority and get moving.

I was pleasantly surprised when I went through the box. I had finished all the small stars, and the Snail's Trail blocks and all I still needed was 18 large star in star blocks. To be on the safe side, I made 20, half light on dark and half dark on light.

I'll still need to cut the filler and setting pieces, but I'm looking forward to figuring out the layout. That's always one of the more fun parts for me.

Another thing I'm looking forward to? Getting the rest of this fabric back into my stash! For the past year, whenever I've needed a blue or purple, I've found my best fabrics were set aside for SITP. I'm looking forward to emptying the bins, putting yardage back into my stash and putting all the assorted cut pieces into the appropriate scrap bins. I know my 2-inch squares and triangles bins will get a nice infusion.

Here are the blocks. More later.

A reversal of fortunes

Have you ever.... carefully listed all the size pieces you need for a set of blocks, figured out which pieces need to be light, which dark, how many you need of each, got them all cut and then....

Realized you reversed the values and cut lights where you needed darks and darks where you needed lights?

Yep, did it. After finishing one set of star in star blocks (the light star on dark background) for Shakespeare in the Park, I figured out what I needed for the last set of blocks, the dark star on light background. I got everything cut for the inner star, then the outer star, then realized.... I had reversed the values for the outer star.

The worrisome thing is that I'm running low on the cream I'm using for the background, but the good thing is that the 40 cream squares I cut at 4 3/8 inches can be cut down to 3.5 inches, so I should be okay.

While I was cutting I noticed my rotary cutter was dragging a little. I replaced the blade and what a difference. I have to remember to replace/sharpen the blades more often.

At least it will be easier to recut the rest of the pieces today.

A couple of nights ago I got back to the thread work on the sample piece and added another couple of colors. I used some polyester machine embroidery thread with a nice sheen and it's really added to the depth of the piece. Instead of filling the open space with a tight filler, like I did on the first sample, I just added some small spirals and that fills it pretty nicely.

Fun comes in all sizes

The great thing about working on small projects is that you can see the progress so fast. That's especially nice when you use them as a break from larger projects – like the queen-size Shakespeare in the Park I'm working on.

Last night I trimmed up the rest of the Flying Geese and sewed a couple of sections together for my large star blocks. With a little luck tonight I can finish sewing together the large light on dark stars, and be ready to move on to the last batch of stars. This is going a lot smoother than I expected. For some reason I thought I had a lot more to do on this quilt.

More fun with the little stuff. I had decided my little lighthouses were too big to be inchies, so I made them two-inch squares instead – twosies? They are coming along pretty well, last night I added some thread scraps to make vegetation around them, and did some quilting on the background and added metallic thread for the light area. I think some more quilting and then some embellishments and they'll be done.

I promised a picture of the basted applique. This is the palm tree I'm working on, with one of the leaves basted on. It seems so much easier to me to turn under the edges a bit at a time along the basting lines. I know I'm getting smoother curves than I did when I tried to iron around freezer paper.

And I'm really having fun with this thread work. This started as a sample piece, quilted in the dark pink. Then I added pale yellow. Last night I added a pale blue machine embroidery thread with a nice sheen. I haven't decided what's next, but I'm thinking sparkles....

 More later.