Crazy patchwork mini quilt

A little crazy...

Most of my  creative time over the past week or so has been taken up by writing. For details and information on how that has been going, see my Rohinval blog.

I have, however, managed some time for stitching, mainly in the evenings, as well as the occasional daytime slot when I needed a breather from the computer. The result is this mini crazy patchwork quilt, the first I’ve made using pure fabric scraps and stitching directly onto the batting. There’s a lot of hand stitching in this, including some embroidery. I embellished it with lace and two bought iron-on motifs having decided against buttons or beads in case the person it’s for wishes to use it as a mug rug. She says that she likes strong colours and contrasts, including ‘clashes’ like red and purple. So hopefully this fits the bill Personally I loved mixing all the different patterns and will no doubt make more crazy quilts in the future.

For those of you wondering where the latest Heart Journal spread is, there isn’t one. I was so engrossed in the writing that I forgot to do the spread for last week. But, to be honest, I wasn’t inspired by the prompt, or the one for this week either. So I suspect that will be the end of the heart journal project as far as I’m concerned. Although I may well finish it in my own sweet time with my own prompts taken from other sources.

Coffee mug quilt

Coffee Mug mug rug

It was too late to post by the time I finished this last night, plus the light wasn’t good enough to take a decent photo.

Having trimmed and squared the mug rug, I decided to add a mug to the quilt yesterday morning. After selecting the fabric I drew on the mug with tailor’s chalk, cut around the shape and used Bondaweb to fix to the quilt.

Close up of the mug

I then outlined the mug using backstitch before filling in the coffee with satin stitch (or my version of the stitch, lol!).

Having stared at it for a while I decided it needed something else so used fabric paint to add some steam and a ‘base’ for the mug to stand on. It didn’t look right, however. In the end I stitched over the paint around the mug – looks much better. In a way I wish I had stitched on the ‘steam’ as well, but trial stitches over the paint didn’t work, so I left it as is. I won’t make the same mistake again. Finished off by binding.

Reverse

Day 8 of get-your-art-on

Mug Rug in progress

My creative activities today started with my morning pages then moved onto the mug rug quilt.

Having cut out and tacked some pieces yesterday, I rearranged them and cut out more for an extra strip this morning. Eventually pleased with the design, I machine stitched them together. I then  attached the batting and the backing before free machine quilting. I definitely need more practice with the latter, lol. Still, I’m not dissatisfied with the resulting swirly, squiggly lines as I think it adds more interest than the straight quilting that I did on my first mug rug.

The next stage will be to trim and straighten the edges before choosing and sewing on the binding. But that can wait until at least tomorrow whilst I decide whether or not to add any appliqués or other stitching.

Close up

I’ve also been reading through Zentara’s journey from the beginning whilst watching snooker. Amazing how much I’ve written since the start of the journey almost a year ago. My characters need to make their way back to the Guild soon; I’m hoping that by reading everything through it will spur me on to continue the writing, sadly neglected since June.

The finished mug rug quilt

As promised, here are the photos of my mug rug quilt:

Black & white cats mug rug

The back

Measuring roughly 13″ by 8″, it’s not as neat as I would have liked – I’m still getting used to my new sewing machine – but for my first effort, I think it’s ok. The little white cat on the back is my label, although you can’t see the writing very well on the photo. Plus the binding is a shiny cotton and hasn’t come out overly well in the photographs.

For those interested in learning about mug rug quilts, I used the tutorial by the Curious Quilter as my guide, changing things a bit to suit my own ideas. For a swap-bot swap, so I hope the recipient will like my efforts.

Arting-every-day progress

Originally I wasn’t going to post work in progress but thought as this quilt won’t be finished until tonight  or tomorrow I’d show it now. I’ve been working on this mug rug quilt for a while:

My first mug rug quilt - work in progress

Yesterday I worked on it for about an hour, hand stitching in place the appliqués and binding the top and bottom before neck ache forced me to stop. This morning I’ve pressed the binding and pinned the rest of the binding in place, ready to stitch later, along with adding a label to the back. So I’ve already done some of my arty time for today but hopefully I’ll manage to finish the quilt tonight. My first mini quilt, and my first mug rug quilt. Have really enjoyed doing it so am sure it won’t be the last.

As for the arting challenge, I’ve decided to add photography and reading/ studying art to the list. For some time I’ve been working through an old book as part of my new structured approach to my creative efforts (see my post Structure).

“Art School: an instructional guide based on the teaching of leading art colleges” by Colin Saxton, published in 1981, goes through what was then taught in the foundation year at many leading art colleges. Although restricted to drawing and painting as the author realises most people won’t have access to printing presses and other specialised equipment, the book is thorough and goes through perspective, colour, design, composition and everything else that should give the art student a good basic understanding. At the time I bought the book I suspect that I only read the parts that interested me. I certainly didn’t do all the exercises. I probably won’t this time, either, but I’m finding it useful to go back over the basics and re-examine certain ideas and lessons.

Sadly I’ve been neglecting my ‘studies’ lately. So it seemed right to include the studying as part of the get-your-art-on challenge. Hopefully it will help me to get back into working through the exercises.

Snowman quiltie

For a Christmas/Winter themed swap within Unlimited Textiles. A mix of needle felting, fabric and stitching. The snowman is a vintage clip art image, altered and printed onto fabric, then stitched into place.

Another long break…

Again, apologies. But I’ve done very little art since the last post, and have been in a rather hazy world for the last month or so. Hopefully, the mist is slowly lifting, so here are the 2 little creations that I have done.

The first is an altered matchbox for a rather belated birthday gift. Luckily the recipient didn’t mind about it being late, and seemed delighted with her little ‘treasure’ box.

Open matchbox with goodies

I made the 3 flower embellishments (one on the box, 2 inside) from air-dry clay; the other items in the box were from my stash. The box itself was decorated with paper and paints, including crackle paint, an item which I love using.

The other item I made was a quiltie for a swap. An interesting one, we had to base our design on a photograph taken by our partner. Here’s the original photo (I’m sure Alis won’t object to me sharing it here):

And here is my finished quiltie:

Mostly fabric-painted cotton. The bench itself was printed onto cotton after having been turned into a ‘drawing’ using PaintShopPro and painted before being stuck onto the hand-drawn background. Finished with hand needle-felting and stitching.

And that’s been my creative output for the last month, apart from a few doodles in my journal. Still, I’m working on a collage at the moment, so hopefully there will be more to share soon.

Abstract Quiltie

abstract quiltie

It’s been a while since my last post, so I thought that I’d better update my blog before everyone wonders where I am!

Admittedly, I haven’t been creating much in the last three or four weeks. One of the things that I have done is this quiltie, a felted piece for a swap in the Unlimited Textiles group. The more aware may notice some similarities to the doodle I did in my journal and posted here on 1st February – it was, indeed, the starting point although not planned as such. But nice when a doodle can inspire my work – somehow makes the journaling seem more worthwhile!

As for what else I’ve been doing – some more doodling in my journal and sifting through ideas and photographs for my next personal project. After deciding on a title and format for this at the end of last week, I’ve finally made a start on the cover for the altered book, and labeled, sorted and even printed out some photos. No images to show yet, however. But I’m quite excited by the whole thing and, once the Welsh Open snooker is over, I promise to show you some images of my progress so far

Let it snow quiltie

A seasonal quiltie for the swap on Unlimited Textiles. I was a bit late with mine, although within the December deadline, but I’d hoped to get it done and sent before the xmas postal rush. Especially as it’s going to Finland!

Still, better late than never, as they say. I used printed fabrics for the base and the images, one of which came from Lisa Vollrath’s holiday giveaway. Plus some textured fabric, wool and a festive ribbon for the frame.

Autumnal swaps

It’s been a while since I’ve done any swaps via Unlimited Textiles, but I’ve been missing working with fabrics so signed up for two this month. The theme for both was a choice between halloween and autumn: I chose the latter.

The first is for an art doll. About 8″ tall, she’s been created using a combination of needle felting, fibres and wool, glueing (with gel medium), braiding and a few stitches. Plus the addition of some embellishments like the leaves hanging from her ribbon belt and the beads in her hair. In the photo she looks rather crumpled, lol, as the bottom of her ‘skirt’ folds – a deliberate decision as I wanted to create a sort of loose fringe to make it look as if she’s been blown in the wind.

The second project was a 5″ square quiltie. For this I made a fabric collage with various autumnal printed fabrics and a cut out (fabric) cat, again using gel medium plus some needle felting and fabric painting, with the aim of creating an autumnal evening scene. Not sure the cat would ignore the fireworks but perhaps they’re far enough away not to disturb her