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.

Back to the Cats

I have started working on this quilt again. The last time I shared a progress photo of this project I only had half of the middle cat covered in fabric. The next cat will be purple. I've got all my fabric pieces cut and ready to start putting in place.

Remember this quilt I shared recently?

Well I wrote up a tutorial on creating this with dryer sheets as a foundation to sew on. You can find the tutorial on the Three Creative Studios free project page here. I hope it inspires you to use up your scraps and to use your used dryer sheets.

In Other News...
Lynn from Fibra Artysta blog has started a new Etsy shop. Here's the special thing about this shop. She is selling screens for screen printing. And you can have her create a screen just for you! From your own design! She is creating thermofax screens and this is a great service for those of us (like me) who don't have a thermofax machine to make these screens. Lynn will help you through the process of getting your image ready. Check it out!

Quilt Reveal on the Fiberactions Blog

Today is the reveal of quilts made to a theme of "memory" over on the Fiberactions group blog. They will be appearing throughout the day. Please stop by and take a peek at all the quilts. You can read more about my quilt there as well.

Color Talk

My current color combination obsession is purple and orange. I am so very attracted to the combination of these two and I'm finding it doesn't really matter what shade of purple or orange. The purples can range from the more bluey tones to the more reddish tones and the oranges can be more yellowy or more reddish. Either way, my eyes send happy vibes to my brain when these colors are seen.

I find it a little funny, though, because on the color wheel, yellow is exactly opposite of purple. And these two are supposed to be complements. I recently created a quilt for the Twelve by Twelve group using these complementary colors and I found that my heart wasn't in it. I wanted so badly to grab the orangey yellows or yellowy oranges to put into the quilt rather than typical yellow.

I found that I have many examples of the purple/orange color combination out in my garden this year. Again, the oranges and purples vary in their color range, but here is five examples of this in my garden. Some of these photos don't show off really well as it was very sunny outside when I took them.

So now I am wondering did I pick these flowers for their color and how they'd look together, knowing that I liked these two colors together. Or did I start loving the color combination after seeing it outside and elsewhere. Which came first, the chicken or the egg, right?

Painting Again

I've been doing some painting in the past couple of days. This first face is one that I added to my repurposed music book/journal. One thing I'm finding is that as I paint on the pages in this book, they tend to curl. I think perhaps I should have glued a couple of pages together throughout the book to add some strength to each page. Oh well, live and learn, right?

This next face is one I added to a small repurposed children's board book that I'm painting in. I am not done with this spread as of yet. I want to add something to the background, just not sure yet what that something will be.

And these next two faces are painted on 4" x 4" mat board. I had cut them a long time ago for another project and these were left over and so I thought I should do something with them. All I have left to do on these is to sign them and give them a protective layer.

In other news, Vicki is planning a postcard swap over at Three Creative Studios and if you are interested, please let her know. Find more information about it here.

Sketching and Quilting

I woke up early the other morning, unable to sleep anymore. It was still dark and quiet so I decided to quietly sit and sketch. I am behind on my Creative Cue words and so I sketched a couple of them. Up first is the cue word "arm".

The next cue word I sketched is "drink".

I am officially declaring this quilt finished. This is my Block of the Month quilt #1 from the Three Creative Studios BOM project. Here is an angle view. I don't know how well you can see any of the quilting.

Here is an overall view. Notice the inspection taking place. I hope I pass.

Gosh, even the underside is getting inspected. Now I'm nervous.

You may recall that I created the BOM quilt in two color versions. The other version I did is waiting patiently until next month. I have contacted a local long-arm quilter and she has put me on the waiting list. I'll share the finished quilt with you at a later date.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Anybody Out There?

Hello! I've been somewhat lazy lately in blogging and catching up with all of you out there in blog land. It's not that I haven't been following your blogs, it's just that I've been hurriedly scanning and then stepping away from the computer. I do apologize for my lack of participation. I hope I'm forgiven.

We've been having such lovely weather the past few days that I've been spending quite a bit of time outdoors soaking it in. Of course I love flower gardening and right now my garden is in full bloom and it keeps me busy with weeding and removing spent flowers, etc.

I have gotten a few things sewn in the studio too, although nothing in the art quilt department. I think I must be on an unannounced break from art quilting as I seem to be just working on things that are sort of mindless sewing. My three cats art quilt is still sitting there peeking at me every time I walk into the room. Yes, one of these days, I will return to you.

My next priority is to make a quilt for the next Fiberactions reveal on July 15. The theme this round is tough....memory. Actually I've found all the themes from this group to be very challenging...can we please have an easier theme next round??? Pretty please? So, I need to quickly brainstorm and come up with a quilt idea for the theme of memory. I had a flash of an idea last night while lying in bed waiting for sleep to come. Maybe I can get a rough sketch of it today.

Yesterday I caught up on some sewing that I started a couple of months ago and haven't shared here with you. I'm saving my used dryer sheets and using up scraps to create a quilt. It's a basic foundation sewing method that has been around for years and years. I learned about doing this from a fellow quilter at a local guild meeting. I thought I'd give it a try and use up those used dryer sheets and fabric scraps. Here is my progress so far on this.

I think the idea of using up the dryer sheets and scraps is a wonderful one and I have written a tutorial on doing this. It will be ready next week and I'll let you know where you can find it.

Hope you are having a beautiful summer.

Don't Step On The Cracks

Today is reveal day over on the Twelve by Twelve blog. Our reveal this time around is based on the color theme of purple and yellow. You can read all about my quilt here. Do check back throughout the day as all twelve quilts will be revealed at various times.