Quilt Guild Challenge

I belong to my local quilt guild in Lexington, VA (Rockbridge Pieceworkers Quilt Guild) and this year we did the two-color crayon challenge.  This was a lot of fun because the two colors I got could not have been more appropriate for me...
PURPLE AND ORANGE!!!

What luck because my favorite holiday is Halloween!  We could also add black, white or beige to our quilt but at least 51% needed to be our chosen colors.

Anyone who follows my work knows that I'm an out of the box thinker when it comes to my artwork.  I have made traditional quilts in the past but I consider myself a textile artist who creates art quilts; wall hangings that incorporate various textiles and most of the time an "unusual object" of some sort.

With this in mind, I went to Pinterest for inspiration.  I found a watercolor and ink painting of a female in a beautiful ball gown.  That was it!! (Pinterest link)  Using my purple and orange colors, I was going to transform this girl from a stunning blue dress to a Halloween Masquerade Ballgown!

I first researched the artist that painted "my inspiration" and her name is Inslee Haynes (or Inslee Fariss).  She is a New York City-based artist and illustrator and she can be found at Inslee By Design.

I then graphed the design to the largest size I could without going over the requirements for the challenge (100" perimeter)

My next step was to cut out my pattern and quilt a background for her.  I found this chandelier fabric at Walmart (cringe!) and I went into my fabric stash for the realistic looking wood fabric.

The quilt peeking out from the right is my Steampunk quilt

Next, let's start designing her ball gown!  Ball gowns are traditionally "pouffy and sparkly" and I enjoy beadwork and embroidery so I knew this was going to be the focal point of my design.  I went through my stash of orange and purple ribbons, beads, embroidery floss, felt and paint.  I then sat for a few days looking at what I had... waiting for inspiration.  I always tell my husband that I could never be on Project Runway because they have no time to sit with their project, they just have to cut and sew and cut and sew.  I am a slower designer.  I have to do a few steps then let it hang there for a few days and even maybe a few months!

Then inspiration hit:

We traveled (from Virginia) to Indiana for Thanksgiving and to Wisconsin for Christmas.  I needed handwork for the car and this was the perfect opportunity to finish her ballgown.

I used beige felt for her head and arms and permanent brown and black markers for shading on her arms and to draw her face.  I initially cut and sewed brown felt for where I was going to put her hair but I knew I would be covering up most of the brown felt with "3-D hair."

And then came the hair...(which I hand sewed in place)

Over the Christmas holidays, I found a white chandelier ornament that I wanted to use.  I wasn't sure how I was going to incorporate it into my quilt but it looked just like the printed background fabric.

Next came the paint and the clay.  I painted the chandelier purple and orange and added the same color beads.  I then made a masquerade mask out of orange and purple Sculpey clay then glued sequins to the mask and the mask to the stick.

Next the chandelier.  I knew where I wanted to put it on the quilt but it was big and bulky.  I remembered a wall hanging I made 8-10 months ago where I cut a hole through the quilt and strung a spider web through it.  Problem solved!

I felt like her hair needed something else, like a hair clip so something.  So I made this out of Sculpey clay also, the same material as the mask.

The challenge isn't until March's meeting so this hasn't been seen by anyone in my guild yet.  I hope that it has enough of the two colors for the challenge but if not it was a blast making it anyway.

Thanks for looking!

The start of my Nutcracker Art Quilt

I love art quilts.  I love making them and I love looking at them.  Sometimes an art quilt contains embellishments such as beads, ribbons, found objects and things from nature.  A few months ago I started hand sewing beads onto one of my art quilts and I LOVE how it is turning out.  Granted it is taking a while but it is totally worth it!  

After deciding to embroider the centers of my Block of the Month blocks (see last post) I have really embraced this type of needlework.   I love it because to me everything about embroidery is creative, I can draw my own pattern and I can use any colors I want.  If you can't draw, or need ideas, all you have to do is search "coloring pages+mermaids" or whatever you little heart desires.

About a year ago I found this Christmas fabric on sale.  I traditionally like red and green but this one really grabbed my eye.

I had not known what I was going to do with this fabric until a few days ago.  Along with peacocks, mermaids and Halloween I also like nutcrackers (like mother like daughter!)  I found a line drawing of a nutcracker online and have decided to embroider him in blues and greens.  He will then be the center of one of my art quilts with this fabric being one of the borders and maybe the backing.

I love adding sequins and beads to make it really "sparkle":

I purposely did not sketch in the eyes because I was going to use black beads and I didn't want the pencil marks to show but last night I had an idea, I may paint the eyes so I can get the tiny details.

This may be for sale at the Newport News Fall Festival next year or it may not depending on how much I fall in love with it.

Sew Sweet Simplicity BOM (#1)

I'm taking a break from making fabric bowls to refocus on quilting.  I found this wonderful lady by the name of Jacquelynne Steves on Facebook who just started a 6 month BOM quilt along.  I am so excited because I've always wanted to do a Block of the Month quilt but I didn't want to commit to 12 months.  Well Jacquelynne has created a 6 block quilt.  It has a large center piece that you can create your own pieced or appliqued design or you can use the design that comes with the pattern.  This is perfect for someone like me who likes to create her own look.

Jacquelynne Steves website is called Jacquelynne Steves: The Art of Home . You can either visit her homepage with a link to the block of the month: Sew Sweet Simplicity or click here .
This is what the original quilt blocks look like but we can choose our own fabrics and color combinations:

I have never been one to follow a pattern and that's why I fell in love with this quilt!  The possibilities are endless as far as fabric combinations and also the fact that you can put anything you want in the center.  

This quilt along started right before Halloween, one of my favorite holidays, so I was going to do a Tim Burton Nightmare Before Christmas themed quilt but changed my mind at the last minute and decided to go with a peacock theme instead.  

Here are my fabric combinations:

And before I even started cutting the pieces I got started on embroidering my peacock for the center.  I used beads and sequins as well as metallic embroidery floss:

Then I started cutting the rest of the fabric:

And here is my finished first block:

I've done half square triangles before but I've never done the flying geese pattern so this was a lot of fun.  I've already started embroidering my second peacock for the center and can't wait to get the second month's pattern so I can put that one together too!

Fabric bowls gone wild!

I have taken my fabric bowls to a whole new level, embellishments!!

The first bowl was a Halloween bowl with hand sewn beads and that crazy eyelash yarn (I finally found a use for it!)

The second bowl isn't finished yet but it's a pumpkin bowl with a lid.  I created the stem out of creative paper clay but haven't painted it yet.  The white piece of paper is the template for the leaves that I drew.  It will be cut out of olive green velvet and this weekend I hope to embroider the veins of the leaf and add sead beads.

My "wedding basket".  Again not quite finished because I think it needs more pearls and sequins but I'm thinking about customizing these for brides.  If your colors are teal or burgundy I could incorporate those colors into the basket as well.  It would sit on the table with the gifts to hold wedding cards.

Then I decided that it would be fun to sew beads between the fabric rings.  My inspiration was these wooden painted beads I got in Cozumel, Mexico on my honeymoon.  I then looked through my stash and found this butterfly fabric, perfect!  Again not quite finished because I'm going to continue upwards and do a few more rings.

Not a new endeavor but putting creative thoughts together

My cousin Susan has always been intrigued by the thought process of my ideas, which I've never paid attention to, but am now more keenly aware of.  So just for Susan I'm going to write down the steps that lead me to today's blog post.

1.  Quilt convention in February ---> bought wool felt pattern packet to make a candle mat

2.  Wool Felt ---> Craft Felt ---> searched for an old project I had started months ago

3.  Small project became large project with beads and sequins and embroidery
     (See previous post called Gypsy Love)

4.  What else could I do with felt? ---> Searched for more felt project books online

5. Found my next endeavor, making little people!

This may be my cheapest project yet! 
All I need are pipe cleaners (now called chenille stems) from my kids craft box. 
Little felt pieces -  .30 cents a sheet 
Embroidery floss - have tons of from my cross stitch days
Markers for the face - who doesn't have a marker laying around!
Wooden balls for the head - 3.00 for a huge bag
And the last thing I need is time - PRICELESS!

First you have to measure and bend the pipe cleaners according to what size doll you want.  Her patterns range from a 1 1/2" doll to 4".  I'm going to start with the 4" size because I plan to do a lot of decorating on their jackets and skirts.  A good hands-on activity to do at night while watching tv is wrapping the pipe cleaners.  These are my first five that I will be "dressing" in the next few days:

The only thing I don't like about the little figures in the book are the way the faces are drawn so mine will be be getting a face lift plus more sequins and no acorn hats.

Here are some pictures from the book:

I purposely cut off the head in this picture so you could see the detail of the clothes:

I'm not sure I'll make any fairies but with some pink tulle I may design a ballerina

My husband and boys are out of town today so I may actually find some time to sit down and dress my little people.  But we have a huge art festival coming into town tomorrow (right near my art gallery) so I'm trying to finish up six of my fabric bowls for my studio too.  Oh the life of an artist... I LOVE IT!

Sequins galore!

This post was going to be combined with another one but I think I just need to share with you my new found love of sequins.  It all started with my first project Gypsy Love (previous post).  I found that to add more sparkle to something I could stitch on sequins because I didn't want to use glitter glue, I do have my limits. 

I already had a tremendous amount of sequins that my mom pawned off on me at some point.  I had no idea what I would ever do with them but I never turn down any art or craft product.

So as you can see I clearly didn't need any more.  Besides what other types of sequins could possibly be out there?  Well that was all I needed to go searching on the internet to see what was out there.  I really didn't think I would find anything other than circles, boy was I wrong!!

I came across this company called Cartwright's Sequins.  I was blown away!!  The sizes range from 2mm - 30mm and they have shapes like squares, butterflies, fans and you have to see their kaleidoscope sequins, they look like mini doilies.  

Here are 6 of the 8 different designs I ordered that arrived a few days ago:

Look at the hologram ones:

But my favorite so far are the square embossed ones:

I have a few ideas for these but it's getting late so you'll have to wait until tomorrow when I write my next post.  Good night!

Gypsy Love

I like deadlines because it makes me finish projects like the one I wrote about in the previous post.  I did end up finishing my felt applique in time for the show AND I decided to put a price tag on it too.  When I finished it, and mounted it on a stretched canvas, I still felt like it lacked something... more beads!  So I added the tassels at the bottom, again all hand strung.

Close-up of bead work:

Details, details: