Trees - A Workshop - EVERGREENS

I've been a bit rudderless this last month helping my I.T. guy and soulmate navigate the medical system. He experienced a cardiac event early last month and its been a bit of a roller coaster ride in our household.

Medical appointments are keeping me unfocused. I chose to stay home and forgo what had been becoming a yearly retreat with my quilting friends in Algonquin Park each late summer. The cat quilt went to an RN friend who has been helping hubby cope with the uncertainty of all this.

I've been trying to focus on some new art. It's not going well.

But it was proposed that I give a TREE workshop to some of my friends in September. The prospect is rather exciting so I'm now trying to focus on that. The art will happen when it happens.

I decided to make some samples that people can examine. Putting them on stark white allows the technique and the stitching to be highlighted.
(Sorry I can't rotate the picture....nasty Windows 10..  I'll remember when I take more pictures.)

I decided to start with Evergreens.
The first thing I assembled was a sampling of raw applique and some "cheater fabric" use.

The next piece is a composite. Half this "typical "evergreen is stitched with free motion and half with a zigzag stitch. They both have merits.

And this last "page" is an selection of tiny landscape application. None of these trees are over an inch in height. The trees get slightly larger as they move forward and more detail is necessary.


A few more "tiny" ones.
This first one at the far left is simply ragged stitches moving in an irregular pattern, ie. no pattern with a general idea of evergreen shape. Omly the "point" defines the shape. This gives a more open appearance.
The one on the right is stitched in a similar motion over a fragment of needle felted wool.

Also on the same sample page, continuing along the "hill", on the far right, a thin piece of green material was placed along the line and trees stitched over. Again, it's really only the tips of the trees that are important here. This can be very loose and minimal. Underneath that line, loose irregular trees are stitched in two colours. They are spaced further apart and the different colours are stitched between. This adds more character and depth.

Window's 10.......... I'm Dead in the water!

He warned me .......sort of.
I installed this "gift" and it's holding me hostage.
I have yet to figure out .......anything!
Settings, security, access......!

I can't massage any pictures in photo shop ...BECAUSE I DON"T HAVE AUTHORITY !


sigh!

and my I.T. guy (who secretly grinning,)  just doesn't have the energy right now...............


But WAIT... I can still direct access my Canon
Whew.....sort of....

So here's what I'm doing.......off and on.
My sister asked me to quilt another of my mother's bed sheets. She been deceased almost 20 years.
( I'm still trying to wrap my head around the things my sister chose to keep.)
Finding a backing for this sheet had been an on going issue for a few months. This is spectacularly Floral

She had dismissed batik out of hand but after a few months I decided to go with it anyway. This was an economic buy from Connecting Threads. The colours are almost right.  A little heavy on the pink, but the blue and gold are about the same weight in both.

Then I had to decide how to quilt this. I considered an all over, totally independent pattern. In the end I've started TRACING the motifs. This gives an copy of the pattern on the backside.

This is going to take A LONG TIME.
I'll keep you posted.

Siamese Cat Quilt - Final

 

The hold up on finishing this was finding black batting. I ended up paying the full ticket at a local store rather than wait a week to order it on line from the states (and spending more getting the price break.)
Someone had suggest quilting in some mice, but I didn't think they would be entirely appropriate for the intended recipient.

But I put them in the quilting and as I used mono-filament on the top and cotton thread on the bottom they can only be found from the backside. Barely there!

The cats were shadow quilted twice only. I had placed a bit of batting behind them during construction so they had some additional dimension when the quilting was finished. Photographing that lift was tricky but I think I caught a bit with my camera.
And I finished their eyes and whiskers.

This type of fill remains exciting because it changes every few inches.

The bulk of the quilting was the dimensional meandering, back and forth then up and down. The cats were surrounded with bubbles that drift out into the main quilting.

The label sat under one of the cats so the intrusive quilting was minimal.


A simple black binding and this will be in the mail!

Backing for the Cat Quilt

In keeping with using up material in my stash, I pieced together a backing with an unused red fabric. It wasn't quite big enough, so I stretched it with one of the reds from the front and.....the 10th Cat.

All set now to finish this one tomorrow.

I guess I'll have to call this quilt " 9 Lives plus 1 "

Brushing up on my Quilting

I had a couple of comfort quilts waiting to be quilted so I thought I'd do them before I tackled the Cat Quilt.
You just never know when my machine will have a hissy fit.
Half way thru my second quilt it decided it wasn't going to stitch moving to the left. I tried a number of things and then just turned it all off and went out for an hour. When I came back it must have felt very contrite as it did not misbehave once.

The pink one is done in feathers and hearts.

The blue is geometric squares and triangles, in keeping with the pattern.