Tag: free motion quilting

Posted in embellishing, painting, quilting

Friday Finish: Creation Wall Quilt

Posted on by Laura Kate

Today I’m showing the finished wall hanging that I made based on a 13th century illuminated manuscript. The project got its start when I wanted to try out my new watercolor pencils on fabric. This link shows the original artwork that inspired me.

More Fun with Watercolor Pencils

After getting the blocks sewn together, I quilted the sections in a dark blue thread. I was proud that my free-motion quilting skills were proficient enough to make swirls, wiggles, spirals, shapes and lettering.

Most of the fancy stitches were done on the pale grey fabric. In each of the four cardinal compass points, I stitched images that were in the style of those found on the medieval manuscripts. That style is typified by drawings of flowers, animals and figures worked into lots of filigree lines. I love the flat imagery and the primary colors used by the artists of the time. They were simple monks living a simple life.

The giant focal point, God’s eye, is sewn with spirals: symbol of the cycle of Life.

This quilt done, I can now focus my time on the Stay-at-Home round robin quilt. Right now I’m working diligently on a large number of flying geese blocks. If I stick to it, the border will be finished in time to post to the Linky party before it closes.

Posted in embellishing, painting, quilting

Experiment with Stitch and Slash

Posted on by Laura Kate

While perusing available art quilt technique tutorials, I discovered another use for my hand-painted fabrics. Carol Ann Waugh teaches a modern take on reverse applique in her class on Craftsy. She calls it Stitch and Slash. It was inspired by the traditional molas made by the Kuna women of Panama.

Molas

In Carol’s interpretation of the mola, four pieces of fabric are selected and layered together. Then a design is chosen, marked on the back of the pile and stitched into layers. The similarity with the traditional molas stops here, when Carol gets out her seam ripper and slashes away at the assembled fabric Instead of nice, neatly stitched edges, she ends up with frayed, textured ones.

Okay, I thought, I have the perfect set of fabrics to try this out.

The two painted pieces are layered with a dark green batik print and a brown textured print. You see here the back side of the brown fabric, which I will be using for the top layer. Nearly all of the this layer will be cut (or torn) away.

Here is the back of my piece, showing marks stitched through.

Getting started with the slashing: You see in this photo all the top layer is gone, part of layer two gone, and the center of the circles showing the bottom layer.

This ripping took more time and was a little trickier than I expected.

All the excess fabric is now removed.

I was excited by how well the painted design is showcased.

The next steps are really just embellishments. To start, various ribbons and yarns are couched down over the seams. (Couching is just a zig-zag stitch worked over the ribbon/yarn/cord.) After that, it’s time to explore thread and machine embroidery options. I went with metallic yarns and threads in warm colors and dark shades.

To finish up, I made a quilt sandwich with batting and backing and stitched it together using free motion quilting.

My Stitch and Slash sample suggests to me how much the trees are suffering from drought and temperatures above 100 degrees. I will call it Heat Wave.

You can find Carol Ann Waugh’s class here:

https://www.craftsy.com/class/stitch-slash/

Posted in quilting

Finally Finished Friday

Posted on by Laura Kate

Starting back in January with some musings over passed-along weaving samples, today I celebrate the finish of a fiber object unlike anything I have done before.

Margaret Howard wove her samples on a small loom that she kept at the family’s summer house in northwestern Wisconsin. When I first saw them, I felt that these pieces could be compiled into a cohesive fiber object. As I began working with them, my mind traveled to the little cottage on the edge of the lake with the big stone fireplace. What might it have been like for Margaret, to do this work, at that place?

Before long, my own experience while visiting that same cottage began to overlay the story of Margaret in my imagination.

The resulting quilt is a consolidation of her history, my experience and skills, fabric from assorted cast-off shirts, fabric from my mother’s stash, and prompts from the 2022 Stay-at-home round robin quilt challenge.

The little cottage is represented by the center block.

It holds the heart of the Shell Lake story.

Each corner block on the quilt represents some aspect of the experience a trip to the lake house may bring. Let’s go there now.

To reach the cottage, one travels through a piney wood along paths lined with ferns.

Crossing an ancient and overgrown tennis court, the visitor encounters the path to the lake. Turn right and follow the dazzling rays of sunshine to get there.

As the day turns to dusk, all camp visitors are again drawn to the lakeshore, where the sun is saluted before it disappears over the horizon. Sunsets at the lake are relaxed, and sometimes, if you are lucky, meditative.

When the air becomes chilly, a fire will warm the body. While fires on the beach are jolly, often the stone fireplace is brought to life, usually in the cool morning hours.

Here is a final look, showing the fabric chosen as the backing.

This little flower print has no special association with the Shell Lake story. I simply thought that the colors just looked nice.

I truly enjoyed making this quilt, and am a little sorry that the work is done.

And so ends the tale of a weaver, a fiber artist, and the quilt that grew from their intersection. Where will this object end up? I am not sure, but at some point soon, it will be released into the world. Fifty years from now, perhaps another artist will have something to add to its story,

Posted in quilting

WIP Wednesday: Shell Lake Quilt

Posted on by Laura Kate

For the past two weeks I have been laboring slowly but surely over this quilt. The first week was spent sewing blocks together and sandwiching the quilt. Because I plan to do the quilting in sections, I assembled the quilt in three pieces.

I dithered about for what seemed like forever to come up with a quilting plan. Many hours were spent viewing various classes on Craftsy. Christa Watson’ class “The Quilters Path” is one that gave me some guidance.

https://www.craftsy.com/product/the-quilters-path-plan-it-stitch-it-quilt-it-dvd-streaming/

By Monday, I had come up with a plan.

I started with the Around the world block. First I worked stitch-in-the-ditch every three inches to stabilize the section. Next came the free motion pattern. All of those straight lines needed to be softened and quilted down.

I worked gentle curves across the straight lines.

What remained to be quilted in this block were two large sections of background fabric, including the part with the whirligig. Christa’s all-over motif of loops with random flowers and leaves came to the rescue.

Here is a photograph of the completed sections of an adjoining block.

This is very pleasing to my eye. Having now completely quilted one of the three pieces, I feel that I will likely finish the other two by week end. Then I can move on to final assembly, binding and the Big Reveal!

Posted in collage, embellishing, quilting

Catbird Sings Reveal

Posted on by Laura Kate

In his Guide to Birds, David Sibley describes the gray catbird’s song thusly:

” …a rambling, halting warble with slow tempo…low hoarse notes with high sharp chips and squeaks interspersed….little repetition and little mimicry.”

…..which is, while accurate, a rather dry and technical explanation for what I heard that day:

Catbird Sings

In my final arrangement of this fiber object, I ditched the blue fabric which I was going to use as a framework for the “notes and chips.” Instead, I let the purple satin cord act as a highway for the eye to travel to each vocal outburst. I also unified the color of the lower section by overpainting the batik print using violet.

Close up of bird hidden in purple shrubbery

The free motion stitching wasn’t overly planned. I mostly just followed the clues given by the appliques and the color changes in the background.

Upper section finished with closely spaced stitching and pearlescent paint

I hope you enjoy “seeing” this catbird’s song, as much as I enjoyed listening to it.