Creative Cues and a New Quilt Top

I've been slowly catching up with the Creative Cue words I haven't interpreted yet in my sketchbook. This week I made a lot of catch-up progress. The first photo is my interpretation of the cue word speak. This word was a tough one for me.

Creative Cue: Speak

Creative Cue: Nail

Creative Cue: Cloud

Creative Cue: Pink This is a purple coneflower that is growing in my garden. I am a bit puzzled why these are called "purple" as they appear much more pink to me. Anyway, this bloom is trying to be pink but can only get half way there. I seem to have a branch or two on my plant that has these types of booms...perhaps they are deformed.

Creative Cue: Book

And this is a new quilt top that I've been working on the past few days. It measures approximately 40" x 54" at this point. Now I need to get it layered and start quilting on it.

Kitty Trio Progress

I've gotten quite a bit accomplished on the cat quilt in the past few days. After the thread arrived (in super fast time, I might add, thanks to a great eBay seller) I got the quilting all finished.

Next I added flower stems. I auditioned a few different ways to add stems to the flowers, including novelty yarn, ribbon, perle cotton, and fabric. In the end I opted to machine stitch with a heavy weight thread and I stitched each stem line three times. I wanted thin stems as that was my original vision from my sketch.

Here it is laying on my studio floor. As you can see I'm in the process of hand stitching the binding on.

I did add a few painted highlights and shading but decided to do so sparingly. If you look in the photo above you can see that I've shaded the area straight up from the feet, to indicate the shadow between their legs. I also did some shading on the feet, neck, face, and flowers. Here are some detail shots:

Screens

I spent a couple of hours today making some new screens for screen printing. I use a product called PhotoEZ to create my screens. I had some PhotoEZ left over from last year and thought I better get it used up. When I pulled out the instruction sheet I read that it should be used within an approximate six-month time frame and if storing it, it should be stored in the refrigerator. EEEEEEK! I didn't follow the directions very well as I've had this stuff around a year and I had it on a shelf in one of my cupboards.

Well I am happy to say it worked perfectly! Yay! I made six new screens today and I still have a couple of unused sheets left. I need to figure out yet what kind of image I want for the last two sheets. I'm hoping to do that within a few days.

Here are the images I did today. These are my digital images, I haven't yet tested the screens themselves to see how they print.

This first image is something I created in Photoshop. I started with one diamond shape and then repeated it. Next I used a Photoshop "brush" to add the distressed look.

Next is an image I manipulated in Photoshop. This image came from a photograph I took of a square flower pot I have outside that has a raised or embossed image on the side.

This next image is from another photograph from my garden. It is a succulent plant that I think is called Hen and Chicks or something like that.

Next is an image I manipulated in Photoshop. This image started out as a photograph of a glass dome ceiling.

This next image is one I created from corrugated cardboard. I peeled the top layer off one side of the cardboard and was left with the ridges. Then I took a piece of copy paper and did a charcoal rubbing. I sprayed the rubbing with a fixative and then scanned it into my computer. I manipulated it in Photoshop and this is the result.

And last is a drawing I created online with a cool drawing program. It's called Scribbler Too and is so fun to play with. After I saved the drawing to my computer I manipulated it in Photoshop. I'm not sure how this one will print with all those fine lines, but we'll find out.

I Rund Outta Thread

There I was, free-motion quilting my little heart out when all of a sudden, WHAM! No more thread.

I had an inkling that was going to happen when I started with that thread in the background. So earlier in the week I got a spool ordered and on its way. I would have bought one locally if they sold that particular color. Sigh!

So here I sit with the quilt mostly quilted. I have all three cats quilted and most of the background. Here are some detail photos for you.

I used Hobbs Tuscany Wool Batting for the quilt and with the dense background quilting, the flowers are puffing up and I love that look. You can sort of see it in the photo above. The kitties' cheeks are slightly puffy or rounded too, which gives is some dimension.

So yesterday when I couldn't work on the cat quilt I finally got around to hemming some t-shirts that have been sitting around in the studio for oh, probably around a year now. Sheesh!!! That's bad!

I don't now about you, but I live in t-shirts. They are my shirt of choice. If you look in my closet, you will see 95% of the shirts are t-shirts. Best invention ever, in my book. One thing I like to do to my t-shirts is hem or crop them to a shorter length because I don't like tucking my shirts in. I sound like a slob, don't I? Well cropping the shirts makes them seem neater than if I'd just left them their regular length. So really, I'm not trying to be a slob, I just want comfort. That's my story and I'm sticking with it!

Flowers and Quilting

Here is a view of the quilt with the flowers fused on. I plan to add the flower stems after the background is quilted. I'm not sure yet what I want to use for the stems....will it be fused fabric or perhaps some couched yarn....hmmmmmm.

I started quilting on this yesterday and I've now got the entire middle cat finished and part of the background directly above the middle cat.

So far I'm happy with how the quilting is looking. I wasn't sure how I wanted to quilt the cats, but after seeing how the gold cat has turned out, I'm pleased.

Creative Cue Catch Up

Here are a couple of sketches I did the other day. I'm still four or five cue words behind, but I hope to one day catch up. I am skipping around with the words I'm behind on because sometimes I come up with an idea for one of the words but not the other. I'm really at a loss at the moment as to what to sketch for the cue word "speak". So that one is still on the drawing board.

Here is my sketch for the cue word "market":

And here is my drawing for the cue word "road":

Hope your weekend was wonderful!

Purple Cat

Introducing, Purple Cat!  It was very hot here yesterday so guess what I did most of the day?  Yep, created purple cat.  Don't they all look so colorful?

One question that was asked in yesterday's comments was how big this is.  At the stage it is in now, with extra around the edges, it is approximately 48" x 58".  That will change once it's quilted and trimmed so I don't know what the finished measurement will be yet.

Last evening I didn't feel like watching TV, so I played with adding the flowers in the background and so far I have them just pinned on.  I'll share a photo of that progress soon.  I need to decide on the flower placement and then get those fused down.  I also need to see if I have a piece of batting that is the right size.  I hope I do.  

It's supposed to be a hot one again today, so I wonder how much progress I'll make today.  I hope you are having an enjoyable weekend.

If you are looking for something to do and your weather is bright and sunny, you might be interested in some sun printing.  Vicki wrote up a great tutorial on sun printing and you will find it at the Three Creative Studios free project page here.  And you don't even need a sunny day to do some sun printing, she explains all that in her tutorial.