Homemade Holiday Ornaments

This year I decided to use up some scraps and make ornaments for friends and family.

I started with my pile of scraps from my fused pieces and attached them to a piece of muslin.

Then I put some angelina fibers over it to add sparkle.

I free motion quilted the whole piece then cut out shapes.

Satin stitched the edges to finish them off.

The satin stitching on the shaped pieces was a bit challenging, so I moved on to circles.

I added InnerFuse to the layers for some stiffness and individualized some when possible.

They looked lovely on the Christmas trees that I had the pleasure of seeing in person.

So far it seems that our friends and family have greatly enjoyed receiving their ornaments.

Check out my friend Colleen's blog to read about her Top 4 Christmas Cards of 2009, and see mine along with our homemade card.

How a Belly Dancer Triptych is Created

It starts with a moment that moves you,

and the thought, I have to make this into a quilt

You take your poor quality pictures and crop,

edit, play with color and value to come up with 3 images of the dancers

Posterize them to accentuate the values in Elements

Make them black and white

Do it again

And again

Print them to desired quilt size, tape together, you like it

but, realize it is not enough

Print color posterized on 8.5” x 11” paper

Print original photos in color on 8.5” x 11”
and think...

Use a light box to trace each figure from original picture on clear plastic,

then trace in the values using the posterized pictures

Scan clear design, print to desired quilt size, and tape together

Print on white 8.5” x 11” paper

Color in with colored pencils, old school style, to figure out colors and values

Spend a lot of time figuring out the right fabrics for values

Trace onto tracing paper

Tweak some values and number on template, flip

Get to work with Wonder Under, trace, press, cut, assemble,

press to hold, repeat, repeat, repeat…

Realize, this is going to take a long time,

but know it will totally be worth it in the end

This is just the beginning.

Primary Chairs

Here is my second chair for Adaptations.

It will be part of a series of 3 chairs called, Primary Chairs

becasue they will be yellow, red and blue, the primary colors.

I wanted the chair to have a white box on it.

To figure out the 2 point prersective for the box

I used tape to create the lines to the 2 vanishing points.

Using the angles of the seat on the chair I was able to figure out the vanishing points.

I used tracing paper to sketch out the cube.

Shiva paint sticks were used to create the shadows.

Black tulle was used to create shading on the cube.

Here are the two chairs together.

The white box represents faith.

The rocks on the yellow chair represents the differnt things or people who help keep you balanced when life is not.

This is a weird shot of the box from a severe right close up angle.

AQS, Des Moines, Iowa 2009

Here I am proudly standing next to my piece, Patience.

AQS from above.

Yes, those are bras in the above picture.

We got a kick out of this.

SOme of my favorite pieces:

This was a really cool three dimenional piece.

Side view

Margaret’s Hope Chest: Quilts for Homeless Children

These are two traditional quilts I made for Margaret’s Hope Chest,

http://www.margaretshopechest.com

a quilting non-profit organization that serves other people in seemingly hopeless situations. They strive to share with people around the world the HOPE that we have been given. They have partnered with Craft Hope

http://crafthope.com

and made it their goal to provide a quilt for each child in the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Public School system who is homeless during the Holiday season.

They estimate they will need 400 quilts.

This project touched me deeply, and knew I needed to make a quilt.

I pictured these children and thought about how much a homemade quilt would mean to them. The project was easy, make a quilt out of squares.

Any size, any number, any color.

I spent almost an hour trying to pick out the right fabrics to communicate “you are loved” to the child who would receive my quilt.

The fabric I found, and had to have in the quilt had, “bloom, imagine, love, sing, dance, believe, create, wish and play” written on it.
Since traditional quilts are not my thing, I over estimated how much fabric I would need. So I ended up with enough squares to make 2 quilts.

Though this meant extra work, I thought about a pair of sisters receiving them.

I am fortunate enough to have a sister, and growing up we often had matching things. I hope that if there are a pair of sisters, they will be thrilled to have matching quilts.

Here is a picture of me and my sister as kids

All grown up now, here we are with her daughter

I finished one quilt so far, and the top for the second.

They are slightly different in pattern.

I quilted hearts and XO's

The second top, I hope to quilt it during the week.

I had this adorable flannel fabric for the backing

They are due November 16th.

Innovations St. Louis Con't

One of my favorite stops on our tour was,

The Craft Alliance, Elements: The Art of Textile Collage exhibit

It was a beautiful display featuring artists,

Bob Adams, Luanne Rimel, Joan Schulze, Fran Skiles, and Barbara Lee Smith
We absolutely loved Barbara Lee Smith's work, including these cool boats.
We asked what she used to make her pieces, it looked like an interfacing or something.
We found out that is is called Lutrador, a fabric made in North Carolina generally used for the upholstery business, she paints the white surface with watered down acrylic paints
Some of her other piecesThey captured a feeling that we just connected with

The Arch, of course

I love this

I love the way the sunlight is creating lights and shadows on these leaves.

I love the composition of this picture, could be a future quilt

For lunch we went to Schlafly Tap, http://www.schlafly.com/brewpubs.shtml

It was a great recommendation from Robin at Art Saint Louis

It was a yummy meal, and they had this cool shirt signed by Obama

I couldn’t resist getting a picture with this Buddha Bunny

High School kids helped make it

Some other cool stuff we saw

St. Louis is a great city for the arts,

there is a real sense of appreciation and energy for the arts everywhere we went

Our second to last stop was at the Morton J. May Foundation Gallery at Maryville University

for the ArtFiber exhibit

Our last stop before leaving was Quilt National 2009 at the Foundry Art Centre

http://www.foundryartcentre.org/

I loved having the opportunity to see them again with my husband, to have someone to discuss each piece with, and to examine how they were made.

I am always pleased when we like and dislike the same art.

There is no photography allowed at Quilt National.

We truly enjoyed our trip to St. Louis and hope to make it back in 2 years for the next Innovations event