I've Been Enchanted Once More

Some of you will think this as a very strange love affair in the dead of winter, but I was simply mesmerized by this photo I found on the website Bored Panda.

 

 Yes I know its bleak and no one in their right mind would want to be there ( as we cope with the piles of snow outside our doors), but.......it haunts me. What more can I say.

At the summer CGA show there was a piece where a woman had used her longarm and "drew" fields of windblown snow. It was awesome. No it didn't win. But I was really, REALLY impressed.

So my first step was to play with dying some fabric in shades of grey. This is a real hit and miss thing for me as I use paints, not dye.

I tried a fractionating method use in chemistry and bio analysis. A piece of white cloth was suspended in a dilute paint solution just touching the surface, and left there for several hours. The paint migrates up the fibres. Then it was dried in a vertical manner. I would really love to have a piece of dyed cloth the full size that I need but this will have to do. I'm impatient to start this.

 

 

 

So there's the first pass. The white fabric on the right either needs some fusible facing to make it less transparent, or I need to cut the road edge on the right. If I did that I could use a whole white piece underneath it.

My sky is in two pieces because my fabric wasn't big enough to do it on one. I don't think it really detracts from the whole. It looks like another hill/mountain. 

 

This is OKAY.......just.

I think My problem is, my mind envisions this piece at about 6 feet by 4 feet. That ain't gonna happen right now. (Never say never).

 

So here it is in its assembled (glue and fused) form. This will now hang on my wall and maybe more usefully become my screen saver. I'll stare at it everyday until I "know" how I will finish it.

 

 

Couldn't leave it alone

This little guy, cute as it is just wasn't finished. This morning I over stitched it with an outline of a Spider chrysanthemum. Perfect to take my mind away from the foot+ of snow that fell last night.

I have wonderful neighbours and, bless his soul, he blew my driveway this morning, something that would have taken both my husband and I the whole day to do by hand.

Here I Am In LIMBO Again

Between projects I drive my husband nuts. (That's also when I usually send out inappropriate emails to my family. Good thing they know me!)

I do have something simmering at the back of my mind that came out of the blue, yesterday, when I was surfing. It's not gelled yet so you'll have to wait.

In the meantime, I came across a notice that Ricky Tims is coming to Mt Forest in May. That's just over the watershed from here.
I'm not going, I don't go to most of these things as I usually have nothing in common with those celebrities who are there to sell their quilt patterns.

HOWEVER I thought I'd have a look at what all the fuss was over his Convergence Quilts. There are lots on Google. They can be spectacular. I looked a few and figured it out but I was left wondering about the amount of fabric that went into this particular quilt.

So this morning I decided to play with........4 charm squares.
I figured at the least I could donate it to the Guild's Mini stash needed for the show in May.
BUT 4 five inch charm squares yielded a patch less than 7 inches across.
That's a lot of waste.
Now I know the quilts use bigger cuts and I still used quarter inch seams in this mini. I'll have to hunt down one of his books to satisfy my curiosity about yardage for a full sized quilt.

So here's my mini, a al Ricky Tims, for the Guild. LOL (I may still embellish it!?)

ps. the narrowest lines are .25 inches wide. Fun!

Kicking Horse Final - unbound

Well I think this is finished!
Included is the original photo taken by my husband in 2011. I took the liberty of making it a bit grander and added more colour to what was a rather dark aspect.
Enjoy!

And I decided to name it "Heather's Morning Walk" or "where is that dog!"  LOL

Kicking Horse - Day 8

Almost there!

The only thing left to place is the immediate foreground, grasses and small shrubs.
Tomorrow.