Colorful Inspiration

I mentioned in my post the other day that I was working on another painted quilt. The photo below shows the quilt at the stage I'm at with it now. It is painted, that's it! Next I want to layer it and quilt it. I'm hoping to work on that this week.

The quilt design above was inspired by the work of Magaly Ohika.  Her blog, The Itsy Bitsy Spill, is a wonder to scroll through and if you have time, I urge you to grab a cup of coffee and spend some time there and drink in the color and design.

I don't recall how long I've been following Magaly and her colorful, whimsical art.  But I do know that I'm so glad I found her and her cheerful creations. Recently I purchased the following little pouch from her etsy shop.  She called it a coin purse, but it really could be used for anything.

Here is the back side.  I'm not sure but I think I may just prop this little cutie up in my studio somewhere where I can see it every day.  It makes me happy!

Journal Quilt #15

For some reason, I found this week's journal quilt a struggle to create. Perhaps my muse was on a coffee break when I was trying to be creative. I will have to have a talk with her. Any way, here it is...

Springing Out (Journal Quilt #15)

Mistyfused cotton fabrics, free-motion quilting, decorative stitching around outer edges

See more journal quilts here.

I've started quilting on the doodle flower quilt and I'm almost done.  All I have left is to figure out how I want to quilt the black and white squares along the bottom.  Here is a detail photo on how I quited the background.  

This is a new-to-me quilting design and I absolutely loved stitching it out.  I learned this one from Patsy Thompson.  It is a great filler design and very fun to stitch.  I was sort of sad when I ran out of background to quilt.

Beach Walk Color Palette

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter weekend.  I created this composition notebook cover over the weekend.

Cotton fabrics, Mistyfuse, heavy duty interfacing.

I made this for the Beach Walk Color Palette Challenge at 3 Creative Studios. 

I've also been busy painting on the doodle flower quilt.  And I think I might be done.  I will probably think on it for a day or two and if I deem it ready, I'll get it sandwiched up and start quilting on it.

I've also been painting on another new quilt.  I'll share that one with you soon.  

Journal Quilt #14

Coffee Break (Journal Quilt #14)

Fused cottons, free motion quilting, raw edge finish

This is my first journal quilt in three weeks. As I mentioned a few days ago, I took a short break from doing them and it felt good.....refreshing. Taking on a weekly challenge can be, well, challenging at times and right from the start (at the beginning of the year), when I decided to do a weekly journal quilt, I gave myself permission to not get in trouble if I missed doing some. Oh and I know I wouldn't get into trouble if I missed some, because there are no weekly journal quilt police.

In keeping with my self-imposed journal quilt rules....I used only pre-fused scraps on this one. I created the design as I went. Usually I will pre-draw my plan onto the batting and then cover it with fabric, but this time I decided to just let the fabric do it's own thing.

Doodle Flower Progress

I started adding a second layer of color to this quilt yesterday. In the first photo I am working on the background areas. I painted a layer of teal over the entire background.

In this photo, I've finished with the teal background layer and I've also added a golden yellow to the flower centers.

Next I'll be adding the flower petal color. I'm going with magenta.

A Tale of Three Vases

I have a quilt design in mind that I want to create, not shown here. I am up in the air on how I want to create it. I decided to do a small quilt design using different techniques to see which result I like best and may want to use for the quilt I want to make. Here are my results.

The first one is bright colors painted on a piece of cotton. Free-motion quilted, no binding yet.

The second one is a whole cloth painted design also. Free-motion quilted, no binding yet.

And the third example is a fused applique. The background is hand painted. It's also free-motion quilted and has no binding yet.

They each have their strong points and while I like most things about each one, I know I won't use the techniques in example 2 for my quilt idea. I think I may be leaning toward example 3 for my quilt design but I may still choose example 1 because I really like the bright, bold colors. I do think in example 3 I should have used a darker color or another fabric for the lower background. While I free-motion quilted the lower area in a darker thread color, I think it still looks like the vase is floating a bit.

Anyhow....which look do you like most of the three?

Surgery in the Studio

I bisected the doodle flower quilt. When I started this project, I was working from a sketch in my sketchbook that I had done a long while ago. When I sketched it I think I had other ideas in how I was going to create the design. All the while I've been working on it, I just couldn't figure out what I was going to do with the bottom half, so I decided to get rid of it. Poof!

And here is the other project I have made some progress on today:

Blog Break

Hi everyone! I decided to take a blog break recently and also a break from participating in the Zentangle challenge and weekly journal quilts. Two weeks have passed since I did either of those challenges. I feel rejuvenated! A good feeling.

I have been busy in the studio though and here are some photos of work in progress in my space.

I've currently got about 4 works in progress on my design 

wall along with other miscellaneous little items tacked up there.

 Here is a pile of fabric ready to be sewn into pillowcases (left), and four completed

 pillowcases on the right.  I have another similar stack of fabric ready to be sewn in another pile

 elsewhere.  I've made about 10 pillowcases before these four that I donated.  My

 local quilt shop is a collection point for them.  There are several programs in my community

 that can use the donated pillowcases.

Here is a view of my chest freezer.  It makes a great surface for painting...except when I

 need to get inside and find something to make for dinner.  The two projects are both the same

 design.  I'm trying two different painting techniques to see if I prefer one over the other.

 This is a small square of cotton fabric that I tried a rubber band resist with FW Acrylic

 Inks.  I think I prefer to use the rubber bands more than creating a resist with stitched

 circles.  It's much quicker to wrap with rubber bands.  

In other news...there's lots of new activities going on over at 3 Creative Studios.  A new Guest Artist, a new postcard challenge, a new color palette challenge, giveaways, and more!  Check out the web site or the blog for more information.

It's Chartreuse Time!

Today is the day the Twelve by Twelve members reveal their quilts made to a color play theme of chartreuse. The quilt I made and will submit as my official challenge piece (shown above) is actually my second version of the design. Read more about my quilt and the eleven other quilts for this challenge on the group's blog.

Happy Birthday!

No, today isn't my birthday....but it is in the month of April.  And to celebrate I'm offering free shipping all month long for any purchases from my Etsy shop.  I'm sorry to say, though, that this offer is only good in the USA.  I will, however, discount shipments to other countries by US $5.00. The discount code to use upon checkout is APRILFOOL2011.  If you are located outside the USA and would like a shipping quote, please contact me.

I just added some more goodies to my shop too.  I am offering my 2011 weekly journal quilts for sale and I have uploaded the most recent of those.  Thanks for looking!

And here is a look at the latest progress on this quilt.

The last time I shared progress on this one was here.  Wow I didn't realize it was that long ago....the end of February.  How time flies!  I've been working on this piece in small spurts, whenever I get a little time from other things.

Free-Motion Quilting Class

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I was taking a full-day class on free-motion quilting with Laura Heine. Laura is a terrific teacher and has accomplished much in the years she has been in the quilting arena. Much, much more than I had realized. She is a fabric designer and also has a line of threads through YLI. She is an author and also a quilt shop owner. She is very inspirational. If you ever get the opportunity to take one of her classes, I recommend it.

Here are some of my free-motion quilting exercises from the class:

All of these designs come from Laura's book:

While I went to this class with knowledge on how to free-motion quilt, my main goal was to learn some new design ideas as I feel like I'm sort of stuck in a rut with the same designs.  Some of the designs I stitched on my sample pieces I really like and plan to use as they are and/or develop further into something more customized.  We were stitching our samples on pre-quilted muslin, which is handy to have on hand when you need to do some practice quilting.  The stuff I bought was from my local Hobby Lobby and I used my 40% off coupon.

Happy Quilting!

Uh Oh!

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

Here, let's get closer!

Drats!  My knitting needle broke.  I was working on the second sock of my third pair of socks when things came to a screeching halt.  Now I'm sitting around waiting for a replacement.

Journal Quilt #13

Blue Vase (Journal Quilt #13)

Fused fabric scraps and free-motion quilting

I got my journal quilt finished early this week because I'll be in a free-motion quilting class most of the day today (Friday) with Laura Heine. My local quilt guild scheduled her to come to our area and teach some classes.

I'm looking forward to the class and my main objective is to learn some new free-motion quilting designs to add to the usual designs I normally stitch, and hopefully I'll learn more than that.

So anyway, back to the journal quilt... This one is quite different from the other journal quilts I've done so far this year. I guess I needed a change. I'm pleased to report, however, that I am still using up scrap batting in my journal quilts and that pile is starting to get quite low. Yay! And I also am still using up pre-fused fabric scraps and this quilt is made completely with those. I'm not pleased to report, though, that the pre-fused scrap fabric bin is NOT getting less full. I just don't understand why it isn't. I was told one time that scraps do tend to multiply when you're not looking...so I guess this is what must be going on.