See the Houston Quilt Show by VidCast

Did you know that Bonnie McCaffery does vidcasts on various topics? They're great and they're free! She did one on the Houston International Quilt Festival that is just fantastic (and I'm not just saying that because my Journal Quilt shows up in it!) If you couldn't get to Houston, this is a great way to see some of the absolutely fantastic quilts that were there. Click here to see the video. It should start playing right away or you can click on one of the other formats shown. Be sure to look at some of Bonnie's other vidcasts. Thanks, Bonnie!

Books for Sale!

I have books for sale! Mostly quilting but some other books, too! Check them out at my Amazon store front.

Journal Quilt Process

I've had a few requests for my process for this quilt, so here it is. Try to stay awake. I started from a photograph I had taken. You can see it in the picture below. I enlarged that to 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches, traced it, reversed it and then took it to a copy shop and enlarged it to the dimensions I needed (17 inches by 22 inches). I decided to only make one of the chairs.


The quilt was essentially fused onto the white background, so I started by bulding the components such as the chairs by tracing the shapes onto fusible web and then fusing those to the desired fabric (chair or railing in the pictures below), cutting out and assembling on a pressing sheet by fusing the overlapping places so that the pieces would become one unit. Here is the chair and the deck railings during assembly.




To make the trees, I wanted something that gave the indistinct look the leaves had in the original photograph, seen as they were through the snow and in the background. So I fused web to the back of several shades of treen and blue gray fabric and some sheers, then rotary cut them and spread them over the white velvet I was using for the background. That was a slow process, as I had to make sure the pieces were right side up. I only ended up with a couple stuck to the iron. I blew a lot more onto the floor as I worked!

I used my cool little iron to fuse them down. My intent was to put a sheer over everything to make them more blurry, but it was too much. The fused fabric didn't adhere to the velvet really well, but it adhered to each other and to the velvet long enough for me to stitch it down. I used an angular stipple to stitch it down, as the trees were pine trees. I also thread painted the trunks before stitching the leaves down.


I used white velvet for the snow as I thought it would give the depth and light absorbing qualities that snow seems to have, and I think I was successful, but it was a pain to work with. All of the white you see, except for the seat of the chair, is white velvet. The background is a solid piece and then cut pieces were applied on the chair arms and the deck railings. I really learned a lot from this project which is part of the Journal Quilt Process!

Sandra Betts Journal Quilt

One of my fellow Quilt Art members doesn't have a blog to post her journal quilt, so I'm hosting it on mine. Isn't it incredible?

Sandra Bett's entry in the 2007 Journal Quilt Project. 17"x22"

Sandra Betts Journal Quilt detail.

A Page from My book: Journal Quilts 2007- Journal Quilt Project
Sandra Betts
Saint John, New Brunswick
Canada
MY FUNDY SHORES
Creative Quilting techniques used:
painted distressed tyvek(page 148); stitched woodgrain( page 227);yarn,beads and shell embellishments(page219);confetti composition on bubble wrap base with tulle overlay; thread painting; shiva paintstiks;encaustic wax; puff paints;dimensional sculpting on wire mesh covered with hand dyed fabric;coloured pencils.
I have participated in the Journal Quilt project from the beginning. It has been a great opportunity to digress from the mundane and step out of the box. For this ,the project finale, I was inspired to document my home province of New Brunswick in the shape of the project and to use as many unconventional techniques as I could include to convey the beauty of my surroundings. I especially enjoyed being able to sculpt the driftwood by quilting wire mesh between hand dyed fabric and using bubble wrap as a base.

Journal Quilt 2007

Here is the Journal Quilt I did for the 2007 Journal Quilt Project. Currently showing in Houston. This quilt is 17" x 22". Based on a photograph I took in Colorado.

Where Faeries Dream

Here's the 3D project I've done as part of an "Art Train" challenge for the art quilt group I belong to, Q&A Quilt Artists

The Big Picture

ROTFL!

I couldn't resist a picture of my "studio" after I sent my friend Lynda (www.matlyndesigns.com) a picture of a work in progress and she said I was organized. I had to send her the "big picture."

My "New" Iron

OK, I succumbed to this little beauty on eBay. It's a Sunbeam travel iron, complete in its own little heatproof box. It works (boy does it work--it gets very hot!)
and is very heavy. I can't wait to use it. The cord, on the side in one of the pictures, is in perfect condition.

Fabric

2006 February Journal Quilt

This was my journal quilt for February 2006. 8.5x11 inches. It is included in the book: Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project, edited by Karey Patterson Bresenhan. Thanks, Karey! Karey has just posted the rules for entering the last and final year of the project; it's going to be different in that it will be only one quilt, 17x22 inches and must incorporate, and cite by page, techniques from three quilts from the book. Mine is on page 138 and uses fusing, beading and machine and hand quilting.