Packing

It's amazing the things you find when sorting and packing! Occasionally, I would hold up something and wonder  "Why did I buy this? or "What was I thinking!!" My advise to all my stitching / quilting / sewing buddies: go through your stuff every few years. Go on a sorting mission and decide what's useful and good to keep and what's ready to leave the house.

Most of my studio is packed up. I'm leaving the downstairs stuff until my sister arrives either Sunday or Monday.

Everything I pack is either in plastic totes or plastic lined cardboard packing boxes.  I'm also using a yellow duct tape to designate my 'stuff'! Each box is labeled with a list of the contents and ready to be shipped to its new home!

Just some of my sewing machine threads.

 

Almost empty!

Thank You and Other Stuff!

I'm overwhelmed by the number of views my posts are generating lately. Thanks so much! It's much appreciated.

I'm having a stay at home day (in the motor home that is). My granddaughter, Gale, is a bit under the weather and just wants to lie around but I'll bet she'll be at my side when I take out some stitching. A couple days ago she asked to work on her rainbow stitching. This project was her own idea. The rainbow is straight not curved as she told me it was her own 'design'. Yes, she used that word! She also has a specific order for the colours. Her other comment, 'Grandma, isn't this so relaxing!' Her mom said that she likes the process of creating. In any case, she likes all things related to fibre and textiles.

I will show you her work when it's finished. Bet you can't guess I'm a proud grandma (GRIN)!

Here's a few sites to visit:

• Snow flake / flower patterns for stitching at Magpie's Mumblings (check back a few posts for others). Also lots of crazy stitching as well
• The Basics of Thread Weights from The Sewing Loft
• Pinterest: Craft: Hand Stitching
• 10 Picnic Items to Sew at A Sewing Journal
• Crazy Mom Quilts: Finish It Up Friday (lots to check out) 

I'm having great internet today! 

Shopping at Quilt Festival

I have mixed feelings toward the Quilt Market at the International Quilt Festival here in Chicago. For one thing, I had expectations that it would be bigger (guess the Houston Show years ago, spoiled me). This one is much smaller. I covered it twice in one day.

There were few books on display. None of the publishing companies were there. All the major sewing machines were represented as well as several thread manufacturers. I noticed that felt embroidery kits were a big item and Valdani threads are the ones of choice for use in these kits.

I did buy a few things! Have a look.

Ĵ

Variegated Batiks 

Perfect to shred for grass in landscapes!

Hand dyed wool

Sampler kit of Wonderfil Threads

Hand Dyed Pearl Cottons

Oliver Twists Embellishment Threads / Yarns

Finally! Valdani Threads Have Arrived

My order of Valdani Threads finally arrived!! As you will notice, I ordered lots of greens. As this was my first order from this company, I ordered samples from all the different categories they offer. I have used some of their threads before so I knew the quality of the product. Of particular importance: the colours are hand dyed and guaranteed colour fast. Visit their site to see all the luscious colours and threads as you won't be disappointed.

Silks

Perle Cottons and Floss



Polyester and Machine Cottons in various weights

Recent Purchases

Here's a few of my purchases from my recent quilt shop treks.

• I couldn't resist getting  more variegated greens for making lots of foliage on organza.
• I have a project in mind for the stripes and dots.
• Wool roving called out to me. It's hard to tell, but the various colours are wonderful!
• Who can't resist metallic cottons.
• More threads but this time for the embroidery machines.

The photo needs to be rotated but my internet connection is slow!! I won't tamper with it. With my luck, I'd lose all the photos and have to start from scratch. Ask me how I know that!!!

Enjoy!

On My Table

Here's what's on my table! I now have sterling silver pendant and earring bezels. These are much smaller than the previous ones and as a result, will be more of a design challenge. I am experimenting with beading, sparkly threads and thin braid.

Soft Sculpture

As I was exploring the internet this morning, I discovered soft sculpture artist, Ed Bing Lee. As one who works with textiles and fibre, his work fascinated me. Lee uses coloured thread and ribbons as well as thousands of knots to create soft sculpture versions of all kinds of food. Have a look at the many pieces he has created using his knotting technique. For a close-up of the food sculpture check HERE. I also found a short video of Lee working on a knotted vessel. He says that the process is more important than the object itself. How true that is! This video shows more of his work. The links above are well worth a view.  Enjoy!

My Sweet Prairie

I've been corresponding with Monika Kinner-Whalen, a fibre artist from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She does the most wonderful freestyle embroidery by machine as well as by hand. If you have ever travelled across the Canadian prairies by car, you will see that she has captured the beauty of the landscape in marvelous stitch.  Materials used in her art include silk and cottons, sheer ribbon, glass beads, rayon and cotton threads. Please stop by her site, My Sweet Prairie for a visit. I don't think you will be disappointed! Permission was given to use any of her photos from her web site. Check here as well as The Needle and Thread Network.

Monika is also the feature artist in A Needle Pulling Thread / Spring 2012.

3-D Fish

Last evening at our 'mini guild', I finished stitching the stuffed fish or Pisci Fantasticus (Fantasy Fish). The only thing left to do is sew a small clear bead to the top fins, thread some monofilament thread through it, tie it off and they are ready to hang. The metallic threads used in the fins is Sulky Sliver. These were started these in January but I had to put them aside to work on the Back Garden piece. Now I have another art piece to start. There are just not enough hours in a day!!

Back Garden 01 - Work in Progress

I am working on another piece of wall art. For now, I'm just calling it The Garden. This will probably change before it's finished. I started with a piece of commercial fabric in various shades of green. This has a stabilizer attached so that I can do free motion stitching on it. The fence and tree trunks are not attached yet as I have more to add to the background. The tree trunks were done, using free motion stitching on white cotton, using cotton threads in various shades from white to grey to black.

Paint Sticks

Have you ever played with oil paint sticks? Check out Cedar Canyon Textiles for information about this product and where to get them. I have a few sets of the paint sticks as well as some of the rubbing plates. However, I haven't spent much time playing with them. They do have lots of potential for adding decoration to fabric. Cedar Canyon Textiles blog has a wealth of information about this product.

Here are some sites to check out:

• Sue Dennis
• Threads
• You Tube Embellishing with Paint Sticks (there are lots of demos)
• Quilting Arts
• Melody Crust - Fiber Artist
• Better Homes and Gardens: Color Your Own Fabric
• Stitch with the Embroiders' Guild (a fantastic British magazine) - Make Your Mark
• The Magic Bean - Shiva Paint Stick Tutorial

Felting with the Embroidery Gals

Caroline Lindsay was teaching day two of the felting course to some of the St. John's Embroidery Guild members today. I dropped in at lunchtime to see what they were doing. Here are photos of the pieces. As you can see, different threads, ribbons, leaves and bits of fabric, were embedded into the felt. Several already had some hand stitching started.

Quiltennium Dreams

photos by Judy Cooper

The Cabot Quilters' Guild challenged its members to make a special quilt to welcome in the year 2000. Yes, I'm going back a few years now! I was into quilting at that time so I decided to meet the challenge. For a few years while on summer vacation, I had collected fabrics with gold metallic in them so this project seemed the one to use them. They turned out well in my opinion. I used the pattern, Magic Tiles by Kathleen Bissett . It was made into a queen size quilt by adding two extra rows before putting on the outer border. The quilt was stippled all over with wine coloured thread. Quiltennium Dreams was exhibited at the Waterloo/Kitchener Quilt Festival, 2002 and at the Cabot Quilters' Guild Show.
Last New Years, my daughter was home for a visit and decided she wanted the quilt. So on our visit to Chicago in June, I brought it to her. It has a home at last!

Close up

Evening Purses

Photo by Leon Cooper

Back in April, I blogged about Tote Bags & Purses. A couple of years ago, I made a couple of evening purses for a wearable art exhibit. I designed several types. The base fabrics are all made with lots of decorative yarns, threads and glitzy fabrics. The five shown here have shoulder straps that are tucked inside the bag. They all have magnetic snap closures. All the purses have detachable art pins so that you can wear them on a jacket or sweater (if you so desire). I thought that the wearable art pin was a unique addition. After the show, I decided to make more of these for the Fine Art & Craft Fair here in St. John's. Some of these evening purses were also on exhibit in Korea last fall.
The black and red shoulder purse has a fold over flap with a magnetic snap. I made a series of different fold over flaps. Most of the shoulder straps are hand made as well. This particular purse is one that I kept for myself as it matches several of my outfits.

Now for the free patterns (not mine)! I came across a textile site by Linda Matthews with lots of free purse, tote & handbag patterns and tutorials. It's worth a look.

In All Its Glory

I thought I would share this piece, In All Its Glory. It was first exhibited at the Grand National Quilt Exhibition, Ontario, Canada. This textile piece represents a small part of the Newfoundland coastline. The rocks are made from bits and pieces of silk which are hand appliqued to the background. I take lots of photos of rocks, play around with the images, and then print them onto white silk. Enlarging a rock often produces interesting results. I will then cut this up to make rocks for the picture. For this image, I also used commercial green cotton which I cut in short strips and pulled some of the threads to make a fringe. Snipping the fringe makes the grass lengths irregular. The lupines were stitched free motion on the sewing machine, stiffened with fabric stiffener, and stitched in place.

Work in Progress: # 5 Chimneys

I have made a little bit of progress with the picture. Yesterday I made a few chimneys. I didn't realize just how many chimneys are in the older part of the city. Often a downtown house will have several instead of one. In the second photo I removed some of the background foliage as I wasn't satisfied with it and make some more using different shades of thread. There are still lots of stickpins visible in the photos.

Early Bloomers

Here are some early bloomers from my back garden. Inspiration for my some of my art does come the garden. I delight in the many variations in colour from bloom to bloom. In fact, I have, on occasion, matched the colours to my embroidery threads and dyed fabrics.

I don't remember the names for the first two pictures.

The periwinkle underneath the globe cedar is flourishing. Several years ago my friend, Judith gave me a snip from her garden.







Take a look at some other flowers (quilted, of course):

Garden of Eden art quilt
Indian Flower 
Quilt As Art 
Nature's Numbers
Orchard & Flower Garden 

Sewing Portfolio

A couple of years ago, I designed and created a Sewing Portfolio (scroll down) which was exhibited at the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador Member's Exhibit, Devon House. That particular piece was sold at the gallery opening. The piece featured here is one I made for myself.

The flap has two magnetic purse closures to keep it closed. I put a full size pocket with flap on the back for note paper/patterns.

The pockets for the inside are made from vinyl window screen bought from the local hardware store. This product sews up very nicely. In fact, I've embroidered the edges of several pockets. This piece was a bit of a challenge as I wanted to have places for a small cutting mat, ruler, rotary cutter, scissors, thread, glue, pin cushion, needles, note pads etc. I'm pleased with the design however, after using it, I realized that I should have put flaps on all the pockets as things do occasionally fall out of them.

Here are some free sewing project patterns that I found while surfing the web:
Here's a needle book from the Crazy Quilt Studio
Sew, Mama, Sew has a nice pincushion organizer for your sewing room
Sewing Organizer tutorial from Tipnut
Sewing machine cover from About .com
Small sewing caddy from All People Quilt

Table Toppers

The Eastern Edge Quilters are making table toppers for Quilt Canada 2010 in Calgary. As a result, I searched for some free patterns for quilters to use.

Fat Cat Patterns
Hexagon Table Topper or Wall Hanging
Wool Flower Table Topper
Hot Cross Buns Table Topper
Free patterns.com has lots of table topper patterns

As a rule, I don't do piecing. My hexagonal table topper consisted of a basic quilt sandwich. The back fabric was about 3 - 4 inches larger than the front because it is brought to the front and used as a binding. I did free motion stitching over the hexagon shape using a variegated thread. The binding was machine stitched. This particular type of topper is reversible. I thought for sure I had taken a picture of it but I can't find one!

Several quilters used leftover blocks from quilts they had made.

Hand Embroidery

I found this neat site called the Hand Embroidery Network or HEN. "The website's aim is to encourage and pomote the practice and knowledge of the art of embroidery in all its forms and to bring together like minded people who enjoy needlework and wish to learn and share their knowledge."
You will find the following:

• An illustrated hand embroidery stitch A to Z
• Focus on embroidery basics such as threads, tools and fabrics
• Free projects such as design templates and creative backgrounds
• Take part in online exhibitions
• Embroidery events
• Embroidery techniques
• Members gallery
• Embroidery forum
• Video tutorials

The network also has a blog. Check out the listings for October's Stitch A Day. The stitch samples are quite well done.