Puzzled - Again!!!

Again, Firefox is showing only part of the photos that were uploaded using Internet Explorer!!!

Eastern Edge Quilters - June Show & Tell

Here are some of the quilted items shown at the June meeting Tuesday evening.

The Textile Blog / William Morris

I came across The Textile Blog a few days ago. This site is a very comprehensive educational resource for anyone interested in the history of design, decoration and craft. It is easy to navigate. The photos and information are wonderful. You just need the time to explore!

Their latest post is titled the Work of William Morris which refers to some ceramic tile designs by Morris. However, if you go to the subject index, you will find many other articles written about Morris. For example: William Morris and the Snakeshead (Snakeshead was a textile fabric first produced in 1876); William Morris and the Daisy Wallpaper.

Here are some quilts that are inspired by William Morris:
William Morris Quilt Inspiration from Stitching Cow
William Morris Inspired Quilts from The Earthly Paradise
A Quilter & William Morris in Iceland
William Morris and Kelmscott
William Morris Fan Club

Embroidery

Today's post has a list of sites for hand and machine embroidery. Of course, if you spend time searching the web for ideas, you have already come across Stitchin Fingers and the Hand Embroidery Network. Now you can have a look at these:

Stitching Cow has some freebies as well as tutorials.
Stitching in the Sun with Daniela Maschera
Stitch Cloth Colour (check out the Flickr Photostream)
Bustle & Sew  
Pin Tangle
Susan Lenz - contemporary embroidery
Shirley Anne Sherris
Linda Matthews
Skunk Hill Studio with Karen Williams
Living the Creative Life

Enjoy!

Puzzled - again for the 3rd time!

The previous post, when viewed in Internet Explorer shows the photo of a landscape. It does not show up in Firefox.

Gardening!

Today was sunny! However, the temperature was nothing to write home about as it was rather cool when the wind blew around the side of the house. Rain is in the forecast for the next week so I took advantage of the sunshine to work in my garden. We are moving our shed so I have to give up a few flower beds. Thankfully, I can transplant some of my larger plants to new beds out front.

I no longer own this landscape but it is still a favorite of mine. It has over a 100 hand embroidered daisies attached to the foreground.

To celebrate gardens, here are a few quilting projects that I found. Enjoy!
Blooming Lovely
Garden Quilt Pattern
Cat & Sunflower
Daffodil
Garden Queen Iris Block
Gossamer Wings Quilt Block
Garden Quilt
Merry Mushrooms    
Butterfly Wreath Tutorial

2014 Winter Olympics, Sochi, Russia

The "patchwork quilt" is the concept design for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, Russia. The design was created from motifs of ornaments of the most famous Russian national crafts.
One such craft is Gzhel Ceramics, a pottery made of burnt white clay, covered with painted glaze. This pottery is traditionally blue on white. (see photo below)

Check out a few more of Russia's national crafts:
Khokhloma
Palekh Miniatures
Trihedral Champleve Enamelling

Happy Victoria Day Canada!

This is the Victoria Day long weekend! It is a public holiday observed across Canada on the Monday before May 25th to celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday on May 24. As Canada is still a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, of which the Queen is head, we have a holiday. In Newfoundland, this weekend starts off the camping / fishing season (if you are brave enough to venture out into the cold weather). Typically, the weather here in the middle of the cold North Atlantic, at this time of year, is not really suitable for camping. But there are lots of brave souls out there (I'm not one of them)!
This photo is one of my decorative book covers.
2010 Victoria Day post.

To celebrate this holiday, here are some quilt related sites to visit:
Ocean quilts to see
Spool of Fish Designs (paper piecing) blog
Red Fish Quilts
Mary Quilts fish pattern  
Fish Bowl
Tessellating Fish
Fish & Quilts
Three Fish
Fantasy Fish Quilts
Fireworks Quilt Pattern   
Fireworks Table Runner 
Marilyn Rose Journal Quilt: Fireworks
Birthday Bling Art Quilt
Tea Cosy with fish
Pisci Fantasticus
The Deep

Puzzled - again!!

I just posted to the blog. When viewed in Internet Explorer, all the photos are shown. However, Firefox just shows a few! Go figure! So if you want to see them all, switch to Internet Explorer as your browser.

Cabot Quilt Guild - Show & Tell

Here are some of the quilts shown at guild last evening.

Tale Town

Tale Town: A Facebook Game for readers just reached their goal and then some. Check out this Face Book game.  Play the video! Who knows, you just might like it!

Congratulations to the team!!

Puzzled!

Something is going on with Firefox, the browser I use for posting to this blog. The photo is missing from yesterday's post however when I view it with Internet Explorer everything is as it should be. Just thought I'd let you know!

Spring 2011

Today we had sunshine! I took a quick look around my back garden. Armed with my camera, I captured some of the bright greens of early spring! The first photo will eventually grow into soft orange Day Lilies. The Periwinkle are just beginning to bloom. Soon there will be a carpet of these flowers underneath the Globe Cedar. I can't wait for the tulips to bloom as I don't remember their colour. These haven't bloomed in a couple of years and I have no idea why.

Well, here are some flowers that will bloom all year long (if you make them):
Blooming Lovely
Spring Posies Quilt Block Tutorial
Spring Buttercup Block
Dandelion Quilt
Scrappy Spring Tulips Baby Quilt
A Freshness of Spring (for inspiration)
A Spring Scene (applique)
Flower Power
Leaves of Green    
Many Thanks Quilt
Circle of Violets (this site has lots of small projects)
Spring Tulip Place Mat   
Tulip Garden

Enjoy!

Show & Tell - Eastern Edge Quilt Guild

The Eastern Edge Quilt Guild meets the first Tuesday of each month. Here's some of the quilts shown this month:

The last two mini quilts were part of the program. Two of the quilters presented curved piecing from Judy Dales book, Curves in Motion. It was an excellent presentation!

Mother's Day 2011 - Ideas

Some great ideas for Mother's Day:
Tatertots & Jello have some handmade gifts. Also check out the projects listed at the side of the blog.
Sew News: Tasseled Tote
Jenny T's Grocery Tote Bag
Scrappy Hot Pad Tutorial from My Byrd House
Roll It Up from Sewing.com
Zakka Pincushion Tutorial from the Etsy Blog
Scottie Dog Pattern from Colorful Creative Ideas
Denim Do-it-all Bins from Up Craft (these are interesting)
Caterpillar Eyeglass Case Tutorial and  Reusable Sandwich Wrap Tutorial from Betz White
iPod Cozy Tutorial from Black Market Beagle
Tea Cozy Patterns and Potato Baker Bags from Tipnut

Also check out past posts for Mother's Day here, and here. 

St. John's Embroidery Guild - Show & Tell

Royal Wedding

Since this is Royal Wedding week in Britain, I thought you might find some of these interesting:

Wedding Quilts from the Satin Moon blog (lots of stuff here)
Royal Wedding 2011
Book: Knit Your Own Royal Wedding
Colouring pages of London
Colouring pages of Kings and Queens of England
Royal Wedding Baker  

Carrot Table Runner

The Cabot Quilt Guild just had its Spring Retreat. The quilters had a fabulous time. Of course, there is always a project to complete if one wishes to do it. This year, it was the flip and sew carrot table runner from All People Quilt.

This is one of the 21 runners made at the retreat. Aren't the orange batiks just beautiful!

Check out the Show and Tell pages for February 2011. I'm there holding my baby quilt, Sheep at Stonehenge. Our guild has a bunch of very talented quilters. Check them all out. I promise, you won't be disappointed.

Sites to Visit

Today I have a variety of web sites and blogs for you to visit.

Judith Trager, an international quilt artist. See a brief video with Judith here.
Jamie Fingal, mixed media artist. Whimsical house quilt video
Sue Gilgen, landscape quilts and fiber art. Video one,  Video two.
Leni Wiener, raw edge machine applique and thread painting
Nancy Daley, fiber artist (paper making video)
Eileen Doughty, quilt artist. Check out her sculptures here!
Carolyn Lee Vehslage, quilted wall hangings
Ken Smith, textile artist from Australia
Mary Manahan, quilt artist
Judy Cooper, textile art

Easter Row x Row

Fat Cat Patterns has started another block of the month free pattern called Easter Row x Row. You can also use the various motifs for smaller wall hangings for spring and not just Easter. A new pattern is added each month but if you miss one, you will have to purchase it. Also, check out Sindy's blog here.

You will find more Block of the Month Quilts here.
Claudia's Quilt Shoppe has Block-of-the-Month Projects
Row, Row, Row Your Boat  
Row-by-Row  (Autumn)
Block of the Month from Delaware Quilts

VidCasts

I just spent some time viewing some of the VidCasts on Bonnie McCaffery's web site. I didn't realize just how many she has listed. They are well worth watching!


Other VicCasts: (I haven't watched most of these yet)
Pam Holland
Alex Anderson
Quilting Stash
Quilting Gallery
Sue Gilgen   
Lisa & Lori Lubbesmeyer 
Laurie Swim 
Embellishing With Paint Sticks
Pat Sloan
Alicia Merrett

Enjoy!

Fabric Dyeing

Over the years, I have dyed fabrics for various projects. I started out using the Colour Vie Pigment System with Gunnel Hag. In fact, I still use it as it makes the most beautiful skies as you can see in this piece, 'In All Its Glory'.

For some reason, there are two photos of this piece showing up in Internet Explorer! I post in Fire Fox.

I have over dyed commercial fabric to get the right colour for a project. In the long piece, 'Western Brook Gorge', the binding fabric and some fabric used in the mountain range, were done this way. To get the texture I wanted for the mountain, dyed cheese cloth was used, as it is easy to crunch up to give the look of ridges.This sky was also dyed using the Colour Vie Pigment System mentioned above.

For other projects, I have used a variety of fabric paints, paint sticks, stamping inks, premixed fabric dyes, water colour pencils and crayons. I haven't used Ritz dyes yet. I came across a great tutorial on using these dyes that I just might try. It was posted by Vicki Miller, from Australia, called To Dye Another Day. Check it out.

Little Treasures

The program at the Eastern Edge Quilt Guild on Tuesday evening was called 'Little Treasures' by Carol Fletcher. This project was published in issue 20 of the Quilting Arts Magazine, 2005.

The pattern was enlarged to make a casserole carrier as shown in the first photo. Several sizes of 'Little Treasures' were on display during the evening. Some of them were embellished with dimensional flowers. 

For some reason, Internet Explorer doesn't like the posts I do in Fire Fox! It has added an extra large photo of one of the Little Treasures. The post is shown correctly in the Fire Fox version.

Paper Piecing - Eastern Edge Guild

Paper Piecing was the topic for last month's guild challenge. Here are the ones brought to guild last night.

The first piece with the three iris and the one showing the sail boat were wrapped around a canvas frame. It is a very nice way to display a small textile art piece.

Chasing Cottons

Just when I was wondering what I would post today, I came across Chasing Cottons by Rebecca Johnson from Central Coast, Australia. Her latest venture into quilting is by offering Quilt Class 101 which starts on Wednesday (April 6) and continues for 12 weeks. The class runs every Wednesday. The best part - it's free. Here's her class outline:

The Course Outline

Week 1 - Fabric - Choosing fabric, fabric designers, fabric bundles, Fat Quarters, jelly Rolls etc, Where to buy fabric locally or online overseas, shipping costs.. My favorite online shops etc.
Week 2 - Design - 'Sew as you go' OR the Designer - Using a graph book and planning, no rules.. Books/ blogs/ flickr... all the online sources or inspiration..
Week 3 - Cutting - Tools I use, how to cut your material properly, to wash or not to wash, incorporating seam allowances etc.
Week 4 - Sewing - Your machine, threads, needles, 1/4" foot, seam allowances, joining seams accurately, pins,
Week 5 - Constructing your Quilt Top - sections etc
Week 6 - Borders - adding borders the correct way,
Week 7 - Batting - The different types and what each one is used for..
Week 8 - Basting - how to Baste your quilt, spray? Pins? Types of pins? Tape etc..
Week 9 - Quilting by machine - Straight line Quilting, using a guide, free motion quilting, stitching in the ditch etc..
Week 10 - Quilting by hand - Cottons to use, technique, needles, hoops...
Week 11 - Binding - By machine or by hand.. or both.
Week 12 - Quilt block techniques.... This last tutorial will prob run over another 6 week period where i will teach the basics to make various traditional and modern quilt blocks. Sewing curves, 9 Patch, Stars and diamonds, Stack and Slash, Raw edge applique, Needle turn applique, paper piecing, log cabin, spider block, etc... 

If you have not quilted before or are new to quilting, this just might be what you are looking for.

 

Graft Paper Generator

I was reading the most recent post from a blog called Sol Y Sombra, United Arab Emirates.  Ansie was looking for some triangular graph paper and came across a free online graph creator which is pretty neat. Quite a few years ago, I needed some specific sized graph paper too. At that time, I had to create my own. But with this handy tool, any type of graph paper is possible to make. Just think of the possibilities for your own design work! The best thing about it - it's free. Design and print. . .