Week 30 Mackinac Island

Week 30 is a photo quilt of mackinac island. This photo was taken while leaving the island on the ferry. It was the perfect day. The photo was printed out on photo fabric. The flowers were cut from fabric from an upholstery book using the Tim Holtz Vagabond cutter. They were sewn on with a button in the center. The Mackinac was stamped on fabric and sewn on. The word "august" was taken from a calendar from 1961. A fun photo quilt commemorating one of the best days of summer.

Week 29 Sunflower

This quilt square originated from a picture taken in northern michigan. A farmer planted approximately 40 acres of sunflowers. This little two lane road turned into a complete traffic jam the first two weeks of august both years. I used fabric from upholstery books that I found a second hand shop. I used photoshop to convert the photograph into a sketch. I then traced the image onto fusible webbing. The pieces were ironed onto the appropriate colors of fabric and then stitched with various threads. The beads were hand sewn on for the sunflower seeds. The quilt was finished with a large red lady bug button.

Week 28 Busy as a Bee

Week 28 is titled busy as a bee. This fabric was also part of the Cloth Paper Scissors fabric swap. It was so much fun to see what Gina Lehman of Selma, Texas created with her hand painted fabric. She has a background rich in mosaics. Recently she was introduced to quilting, and has fallen in love with fabric. Gina says, "It has opened my eyes to a whole new world of art." She hand painted the fabric with acrylics that were mixed with fabric medium. I added the daisy chain ribbon. The word "fly" was created from precut wood letters that were painted with fabric pain and glimmer mist. The border was finished with a vintage green shag trim. Finally, I was able to add one of my favorite buttons, a brass bee.

Week 27 Dream

This weeks quilt design used fabric from the cloth paper scissors challenge.
I received this fabric from Lorie Garver of Phoenix Arizona. She considers
her self a self-taught late-blooming dabbler who is having a ball. You can
see that happiness shine through in this fabric. I tend to use more muted
tones, so I was thrilled to see this bright orange fabric with yellow
circles that were stamped with acrylic paint using lids. She then used a
"dream" stamp with coca-cola colored ink. This was a great addition, and
used one of my all time favorite words. I took the fabric and used thread
painting to highlight the flowers. This was done using a variegated rayon
thread. I then had the "dream" chipboard piece from a scrap booking set.
That was added as a final embellishment. The edges were finished with a
bright organ polka dot ribbon. Lorie thanks so much for sharing and allowing me to use your fabric in my quilt square and blog! Much continued success.
May everyone have sweet dreams.....

Week 26 Fly

This weeks art quilt was a new challenge for me. I had read the book Fabric Embellishing, The Basics and Beyond by Chandler, Kettle, Thomas, and Vlcek. This book is so full of interesting ideas with step by step instructions. I borrowed their technique called Tic Tac Toe Tucks for the background. This was an alternative to just a plain piece of fabric. I then used a scrap embroidered butterfly. Usually, before I embroider on the final product, I test the design on plain white muslin. This was about to be thrown into the trash, when I it occurred to me that it would be just terrible to waste this cute butterfly. The butterfly was sew on with a zig-zag stitch and colorful, thick quilting thread. The letters were on clearance in a craft store. I just love the word "fly", it is so freeing. The border was finished with hot pink leopard ribbon! I hope you all can "fly" in your creativity.

Bingo Bag

One of my good friends is an avid bingo fan. So I decided to take a pattern for an a tote bag, resize it and add pockets so she could carry all of her daubers and good luck charms. The bingo fabric was obtained from equilter.com, the source for all your specialty fabric needs. The bingo bag was a hit!

Week 25 Fly Free

Week 25 Fly Free was serendipity at it's best. I was cleaning out my fabric stash and organizing my scraps for this journal quilt project. I found this embroidered design. I had attempted to use this design which came on my new Husqvarna Viking Diamond sewing machine. This design in it's entirety is very large, requiring the hoop to be flipped. Unfortunately when I flipped the hoop, it bumped the wall and half the design was ruined. Instead of throwing this out, I cropped the design which was perfect for this journal quilt. I loved the colors and the bird in this design. Echo quilting was used around the design and it was finished with velvet trim.