Posted in quilting

Gorgeous and Productive Day

Posted on by Laura Kate

Today’s weather was quite remarkable, for August. Upon rising, the air was 66 degrees and winds were calm. It stayed so cool all day long that the A/C didn’t even turn on until early evening. I enjoyed the backyard for an hour or so and did a modest amount of gardening. It was almost 11 before I resumed work on my current project.

Appliqueing the turtle was really fun. After some fiddling about with the shapes and color choices, my center medallion looks like this:

Combination of batiks and hand-painted fabrics.

More dimension and texture will be added when I stitch it. I painted the turtle’s head Very Slowly, using Jacquard Textile paint mixed with floating medium. I rather like the primitive-like quality resulting from the bright colors and blocky shapes. This piece is roughly 20″ by 14 and 1/2″. To make it into a square, I made a strip with my baby turtle stenciled blocks and added it at the top.

I like what I see so far. But now, the hard part. I will need to build a quilt around it. I’m thinking about log cabin blocks, mostly because I purchased a package of pre-cut 2 and 1/2 inch strips. Here they are:

These are all so pretty. And a nice range of tones.

You can see also see a few fishy blocks that I made months ago using the stitch n flip technique. These could become log cabin centers……..or I could group them into a block of their own. That would make a school of fish.

Okay, quilting bloggers, this is an invitation to weigh in on this design. Any thoughts?

Posted in painting, quilting

Hello Turtle – Under the Sea Project

Posted on by Laura Kate

I have a bag full of fabric, sketches and some small quilt blocks that have been languishing in my closet for too long. The time has come to start working in earnest on this quilt. The tipping point came when I decided to organize the blocks around a medallion center. I chose this photograph as the feature image.

After making a sketch,

……. yesterday I grabbed my last piece of white fabric and painted it a sea green color with Dye-na-flow paint. I used a “mask’ and some stones on top of the fabric while it dried in the sun to reserve a turtle-like shape.

Now I can select some fabrics to applique on top of the base fabric. Here is a selection that will be used to make the sea turtle.

Oranges for the shell, blacks for the flippers and shadow areas. The white is for the head.

Once I get the shapes cut and fused to the base fabric, I will hand paint any needed details.

This is a short post. I’m keen to keep my momentum going. More details will be revealed soon.

Posted in knitting, painting

Vacation in the Rear View Mirror

Posted on by Laura Kate

Another view of travel knitting, this time on the way home. While on vacation I was too busy to finish this sock. However I do have a few things fibery and artsy to share.

When visiting one of my favorite yarn/book stores, I snagged this pretty ball of Berroco Sox yarn and 1000 yards of Plymonth Encore in a heathery mahogany color.

My grandson agreed to accept a pair of socks from me, and approved of this yarn. I plan to use the Plymouth yarn to knit myself a loose cardigan for lounging around the house on cool winter nights.

I got the sketch book out during the vacation just once. Here is a view of Shell Lake.

It was so fun introducing my 2-year-old granddaughter to water color paint. First I made an assortment of paint puddles, taped down a piece of drawing paper and handed her a cotton swab. Following my example, she dabbled with lines and dots.

She also grabbed a small sponge, stroked it over the red paint then applied it to the paper. When she ran out of space on the paper, she wiped the sponge vigorously over her belly.

FYI: Red watercolor paint on a baby’s body looks very much like a bruise. Gramps had a moment of concern upon viewing her body art, which he quickly overcame after I wiped her clean.

Today marks the last day of WorldWatercolorMonth. Despite being gone for twelve days this month, I was able to complete fifteen of the 31 challenges. Here is my final one. The prompt is Pose. I chose this little cedar waxwing, who was posing for the camera by cocking his head to one side.

It’s nice to be back in my studio. I look forward to digging in to my stash of UFOs and dreaming up some interesting new projects.

Posted in painting

#Worldwatercolormonth This week’s work

Posted on by Laura Kate

My poor sewing machine has been relegated to the bookshelf while my paintbrushes are getting quite a work-out. I am making a painting everyday in conjunction with WorldWatercolorMonth.

Here is a selection of paintings completed this week. Each one is headed with the daily prompt that directed the painting’s subject matter.

7-13-20 Twisted. This gray-haired yogi is from an older generation, and she is flexible and strong.

7-14-20 Green. The reference photo is a Japanese painted fern, a cool, grey-green.

7-15-20 Forgotten. I’m told that umbrellas are the items most often left behind at museums. This sad blue umbrella was left at the terrace cafe.

7-16-20 Machine. All I could think of was Leonardo da Vici’s marvelous drawings. Here are two of da Vici’s machines done in pencil with color wash on top. I even added some reverse-image handwriting as practiced by da Vici.

7-17-20 Spontaneous. Angela Fehr provided a tutorial on painting spontaneously. This was made following her example. After throwing down some sepia lines, I spontaneously added purple and yellow patches. The painting began to reveal itself as a mountain meadow in early summer.

After today, I will be taking a pause from painting. Tomorrow we leave for Wisconsin. The lure of the North woods is irresistible, wherein resides our daughter and her family. The trip promises to be a cool and noisy respite from our state of self-isolation.

See you in a week or so.

Posted in knitting

Toddler Jacket Finished, on to Socks

Posted on by Laura Kate

It’s Christmas in July, based on the appearance of this toddler jacket. Because there were only two skeins of green yarn, I was forced to make contrasting cuffs and collar using cream colored yarn. The result is a garment that might be found on one of Santa’s elves.

Thankfully, toddlers are rarely fussy about clothing. I feel confident the jacket will be deemed acceptable by my two-year-old granddaughter.

Detail of cuff and pleats.

It was a fun and a quick knit. Here is a link to the pattern:

Milieu Panache

Now I can turn my attention to socks. I have these yummy yarns from Knit pick

The Capretta is a cashmere blend that is incredibly soft. This will be made into socks for hubby. I haven’t yet decided who will get the socks made from the Felici self-striping yarn. Perhaps someone in my daughter’s family.

Everyone deserves to have a least one pair of custom-knitted wool socks. It is one of the secret luxuries of life not easily available to most people, and totally appreciated by those fortunate enough to be loved by a knitter.

A jacket in the style of Santa’s elves? Well, you must have a strong fashion sense to pull off that look.