Free Motion

Last month I took a free motion class

with Teresa Fusco.

The class was titled "Feathers, Feathers, Feathers!"

Please visit her web page; her

quilts are just gorgeous! 

Teresa taught us how to draw feathers

free hand in corners, squares, triangles of your quilts and

also along the borders.

A great learning experience for all!

Here I am at home

practicing in a square!

What is it about feathers - we just love them!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We had a Tote bag challenge at our guild this year.

We were given 5 pieces of fabric and were allowed

to use just 2 pieces of our own to make the tote.

Here I'm auditioning   a piece of my gold shiny

fabric with the fabric that I was given. This is

harder than I thought!

Unfortunately, I had  to miss the Guild's Christmas

Party this year but.....

I was told that my bag won - Best Use of Fabric.


The bags that were submitted will go to Domestic

Violence Services here in Lancaster County.
 


Happy quilting!



 
 

Old Country Store Museum

I went to the Old Country

Store in Intercourse and

upstairs there is a museum

with items that you can purchase -

also they have quilts exhibits.

This month they were featuring

Jo Morton! But I also found this

one that was hand quilted!  

Whole cloth

Close up - wreath medallion

Another close up---feather chain

feathers are beautifully stitched

Part of the border - Scalloped

 Whole Cloth 103" x 80 1/2"

by Reba Dagen.

Winterberries by Jo Morton (reproduction fabrics)

 

To be continued....

 

Hurricane Sandy

Due to the hurricane many people
are without homes. My heart aches
for them!

I was born and raised on Long Island;
and the devastation there is unbelievable.
I can't imagine what my friends and
family are going through - some in 
my family lost their homes and cars 
to the storm!

So I was happy to read on Facebook
that eQuilter is doing another Quilt
Relief for those "most drastically
affected" by the hurricane.

Here's is the URL <a href="http://www.equilter.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/quiltrelief.html?sid=31U9Hz2zEA113Ub-18112267225.76">
eQuilter Quilt Relief

I hope that you'll join me in 
making some quilts!

 




  

   
   

October FMQ challenge

Our FMQ tutorial on Sewcalgal this month is

from Teri Lucas!

http://terilucas.us/9415.html



Incorporating various quilting motifs:

shells, writing our name, feathers and 

a lot more!

Teri encouraged us to use different

color threads.

My favorites were the shells and of course 

the feathers.

My first feather on the left - I then changed 

the spine a little on the one right 

and made it a little more fuller. I like the 

way this one came out.



Learned a lot during the year from this


challenge -- now if I only had time to

practice more!

Thank you Teri and SewCalGal!

  

Wordless Wednesday

Photo Collage

I found this web site for

making collages

          http://www.picmonkey.com/




You don't have to sign up and best

of all it's FREE!

They only have 2 templates - here's

the other

You can make one of family, quilts,

your photos, etc.

If you have Photoshop or even Paint

you can "cut" them and instead

of 9 photos I made it 6 - for Example:

This I did in Paint (XP version)

Just open up you collage in Paint

Up on the left side - you see that

little square? Click on it - start

at the right hand corner and move 

along the top row of photos. It 

should outline the top 3 photos.

(This may take some trial and error

just keep practicing) It's worth it!

     
   See the broken lines around the top

photos? Once you see that go up to "edit"

Now click on "cut"

 

 Gone! Now what you do is go to 

"file" and click on "new"

  It will ask you first If you want to

"save" the photo (with the cut out)

Click on "don't save" this will preserve

your original photo.

Now you have a blank page

 Now click on "edit" 

 And then click on "paste"

It will paste the 3 photos that we just

cut out of the 9 photo collage.

And there is your photo! Now see those

broken lines - to make them disappear

for further editing - just put your cursor

"outside of the lines" below and just

click and the lines will disappear.

Now your left with all of this white

space which you want to get rid of.

Look closely at this white space and

you will see a little blue dot to the

right.

    
 Place your cursor over this blue dot.

when you place your cursor over the blue

dot you will see a double arrow. When you

see that just gently slide it to the 

left and you will see the "white space"

move with it - just go to the edge of 

your photo and stop.

    
Great! Now see the blue dot on the

bottom of the white space - do the 

same thing and now you can "save"

your new collage photo!

I know this may seem like a lot of work

to some of you but it's worth it because

now you can do other things with it.

You can make a new banner for your

blog or even Etsy if you have a shop.

Or you can play around with quilt blocks

that you created.

Hope you will give it a try!



  

More Breast Pockets

I am in the process of finishing

up more Breast Pockets for  

 Melanie Testa 1,000 pockets drive.

Here's what I have so far:

 Pleated pocket but......

when you put stuff in it - puffs out and looks like a booby (-:

You would have to read Melanie's blog post to understand.

I love this one.

Kind of whimsical!

That's all I have done for this

week. Next - to get them in the

mail.

Breast Pockets

As most of you know - October is
Breast Cancer Awareness month.

One of my Facebook friends and fellow blogger -
Melanie Testa - is asking, whoever is willing,
to make "breast pockets" - the kind that you 
sew on a blouse. You can make them for someone
you know who had  a mastectomy without reconstruction
or in memory of someone that you knew or family
member. Melanie will tell us where to mail them.

You can read more about Breast Pockets <---here
at Melanie's blog. She needs 1,000 by October 22.

I hope that you will join me in making some
pretty cool pockets and flaps. If you need
a pattern; Melanie has one on her page in
a PDF file.

I'm not a seamstress but I did manage to draw
my own pattern - the pocket is easy but the flap
can be kind of tricky. If I can do this so can you!
You can make one in a night - they go very fast.

I had three women in my family with breast
cancer: My cousin Ruthie, my cousin Roe,
and my sister-in-law Joy. I'm making my pockets
in their memory. Come and join me!

Here's my first attempt:

I'm making some of them with 
my hand painted fabrics. I also
want them to be happy, fun,
and a little wonky. This is
an improvisational pattern -
make it up as you go along.
It's one of my favorite things
to do.
I think it's great for my first
try!


Please stop by Melanie's blog and get more details.

Thanks!

More Free Motion Fun!

This month from SewCalGal's Free Motion Challenge

Paula Reid!
 
This is the quilt pattern:

I'm using Sulky Wash Away Stabilizer - you can draw your pattern on top, stitch over it and then just rinse in water water. Fantastic!

 Just pin it on your fabric and
make sure that it's secure. You may
also use a hoop.
But Make sure that you don't get
any water on it before you sew or
have very sweaty hands (-:

 This one was my first try where
I left out the corners.

 This is the one where I used the
Sulky - around the edges I used
a pattern by Leah Day. -
Quilt along #31

I made it a bit too busy but that's
okay - it's practice!








This is from the lesson by Susan of Blue Moon River Blog

 

 I love the way this one came out and am constantly changing the petals.
The top one is the original and I changed the petals on the bottom one.
I also have a third one (which I didn't photograph) Where I removed
the tiny petal on the bottom right. I'm making a applique pattern out
of this one.

 

I thought that this one would be fun. After the rose petals fall off and the rose hips are just starting to form.
Cool!






I've learned a lot this month! Thank you Susan, Paula, Leah,
and SewCalGal!


Do you blog? How do you find the new blogger? I'm still struggling.

Have a Great week!

Free Motion Challenge - Susan

This month at SewCalGal
Free Motion Challenge - we have a bonus tutorial by
Susan Brubaker Knapp! I have been following Susan's
blog Blue Moon River
for quite some time. Please visit her blog - one of my favorite
pieces that Susan did is "Friso" (the cat)! Stunning work!
She is also a Facebook friend.
You may also be familiar with her work in Quilting Arts Magazine.

Our challenge is to take some photos in Macro
mode (no problem here) and then print and
trace the obvious lines onto cloth. This will
be our original quilting design! I love this idea!

Looking through my photos; I can't decide which
0ne to use first. I want something simple as this
will be a "test".
I chose the mushrooms:


One day after it rained; I walked around the
garden with my camera and spotted some
very unusual fungi. I had never seen this
type before and they were very tiny. I also
found a couple of unusual slugs - slightly
pink in color and also very tiny.




This is the little group of mushrooms that I decided to use
for my project.





As the color is very light; I had difficulty finding the lines.
(my light box is in storage and I used the sliding glass
doors to trace the photo)

I thought that maybe it would be easier to trace
if I turned the photo into a black and white. Which
I did in photoshop.




This was a little easier to trace.

I used a washable pen to trace the design on one
of my hand dyed fabrics.


This is my first attempt. I didn't like the variegated thread
on this fabric. The design kinda gets lost if you stand
a distance away.


For test #2 - I used the same fabric but with black thread...


First of all - I think that the black thread shows more
of your mistakes. The second thing is - (-: I tried to
imitate the mulch and it didn't translate too well
into stitch.

So I tried using a lighter fabric and again the
black thread... test #3You can see more clearly where I back tracked using
the black thread. Also my mushrooms look like flowers!

I will still use this design - I need to get my lightbox!

This is a very fun project! Thanks Susan!

I will probably add more during the month!