Actually Metro Twist Back

 

The Metro Twist quilt top now has an official backing made. I had worked on this at the last Sew Day and without measuring had made a quilt back that was just shy of fitting. The width was just a little bit too small. I'm still very pleased with how close I came just intuitively sewing pieces of fabric together. And I don't mind the addition of the orange strip along the right hand side. Now to make the binding out of the strange blue from the quilt top background.

Gone in Circles

 

Back to hopefully finishing the walking foot quilting on Running Out of Raincloud. I want to do some piecing and I need to swap over the feet, so time to get this done.

Even though I didn't get it done in time to submit it to the quilt challenge, I still want to see where I'm going to end up with this one. After alllll those straight lines, it Needed Circles.

Yes, yes it did. It was hard going at some points to follow and echo the correct line of stitching.

The complexity of all the lines of quilting intersecting is really fun to look at.

Am I now done with quilting this thing? Maybe. Probably. 

Most of the quilt has more than one direction of quilting line, some more than four. But there is some space that only has one line of quilting. I think it's okay. It lies flat enough and doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.

Really like the look of this circle. I think I"ll put the facing on and sit with it for a bit.

Sister Artists Butterflies & Bird

 

I got the other two butterflies and the one bird embroidered pieces inked up. This is the only piece that was on a cream colored background. I was little concerned that the blue color would end up being drastically different. I think it turned out just fine. I still need to figure out what this brown flower (maybe?) is, although it looks a bit like four yams arranged together.

The embroidered initials are signatures of the artists. I kind of like them hanging out there like they're smaller butterflies or other insects off in the distance.

My current plan is that the bird will be pieced into a tree sort of situation.  I'll continue the brown of the tree branch and blend in greens with the rest of the background.

On the bird I used some yellow in the background and instead of inking over it with blue, I added dots of green fabric pen for more texture.

Sister Artists Butterfly

 
Time for me to start working on the Sister Artists piece I need to do.  I have received these really great hand-embroidered butterflies (and one bird) made by women artists in Uganda. They're all done on white or cream fabric, and I need either a blue or green background to make the quilt work that I want to make with them. The white is just too high contrast.

I started out with some sky blue Tsukineko ink all around the butterfly, the ink wicked up through the fabric pretty quickly. I added it a small distance away from the embroidery so that it didn't change the thread color too obviously.

Then I added some "orchid odyssey" aka lavender.

That mixed together pretty well for a nice sky effect so I put in a bit darker of blue with Cerulean blue.

Here's how it looks after it's dried overnight. I like the look of it much better now, it'll be so much easier to incorporate into a quilt without the glaring white background. And even better the ink didn't affect the embroidery threads.  Now to do the other embroidered pieces in a similar manner.

Definitely Legible

 

Well, I was good and waited a day to try peeling my work from the class on Thursday with Ana Buzzalino. It came up pretty easily, except for a couple places along the edges. I just used the tip of a pair of sharp scissors to pry it off the freezer paper.

I was surprised at how much matte medium this used up. This was a new container when I started the class, and I used a bit more than a third of it. 

It peeled up quickly once the edges were all started successfully. There were some bits of the Sharpie writing left behind on the freezer paper.

This one turned out to be so yellow because I'd written with an almost highlighter yellow marker that hadn't fully dried before I applied the matte medium in class.

The freezer paper is re-usable for this process as long as it is still shiny (so it will release). But the marks left behind by the first round of writing may be transferred in the second attempt.

Here's how the four pieces look up on the white design wall. I'm glad I used different types of sheers to try out how they look, it really is startling in a way. Now to try and figure out how to use these somehow in a quilt!

To Be Legible Or Not

 

I am absolutely gutted over the election results, the above picture is copied from Facebook (art by Philipp Gumonov) is my sentiment as of the moment. I took yesterday off to be sad and then angry, and I am Carrying On and making myself be Creative today anyways. I hope you are doing okay too.

This morning I woke up very early (at least for me) to join in an Ana Buzzalino class through the Mancuso Brother's online Quiltfest Virtual Schoolhouse. It was totally worth getting up for and I had a lot of fun learning about Text on Sheers. I love learning about the reasons for choosing to be legible vs. illegible.

I had to choose something to write in several different ways, so I went for what Rebecca Solnit wrote in the first paragraph of her essay today. It was rather cathartic to write it out over and over again. This white polyester sheer I used above has a printed black and a grey 1/4 circle, definitely a FabMo acquisition.

My workroom still smells of Sharpie and Golden matte medium, so I have my little table fan blowing as everything is drying, it really helps with the fumes as you're working with this kind of stuff. 

This one above was written over and over again in different colors of pen in different directions as well as ruler drawn lines. This is just a standard grey polyester tulle net.

In class, Ana mentioned all sorts of tools for mark-making and writing one of which most of us in the class had never heard of, a Cola Pen. I found this great how-to video on how to make one for yourself out of aluminum cans and wooden coffee stirrers. I haven't tried it yet, but I certainly will and report back.

This one was a thin sheer cotton or possibly silk another FabMo special as you can still see a piece of the designer paper tag up on the top. I can't wait until everything is actually dry so I can peel them off from the freezer paper and see how the text looks after it was transferred. That'll be tomorrow.

Product Review: Sew Tites Magnetic Ruler

 

After trying out the Sew Magnetic rotating cutting mat, I decided to try out one of the magnetic rulers. The 6.5" square one seemed like a good one to start with as it would fit on the surface of the rotating mat well. The ruler and mat and magnet boosters all fit inside the storage box which is nice. I can keep all this together.

Wow! This ruler goes down in place on the mat and there it stays. It's easy to move when you need to move it though. As I used the rotary cutter to cut the fabric, I only held my finger on the rotating mat to keep it steady. The ruler didn't budge at all. Pretty amazing. If you have thicker material, several layers, or even a quilted piece you're trimming you can use the boosters on top of the ruler to keep it all steady.

See? It made a great cut, all without gripping holding or steadying the ruler at all. 

Here's a closeup of the magnets that are embedded in the ruler. The ruler is a fairly thick and sturdy plastic to accommodate the weight of the magnets. 

There are four magnets in this 6.5" square ruler. They don't block too much of the view of your fabric or block as they're placed far enough away from the edges.

I'm now considering investing in the large mat and big ruler (the non-rotating version) to replace my usual cutting mat,  because this system really works well for me. Now to work on one of my project to really use this cool new tool.

Metro Twist Back

 

Yesterday at a very delightful and entertaining Sew Day, I buckled down and sewed this together to use for the back of Metro Twist. 

It turns out it's almost exactly the right size, even though I didn't measure it all as I was making it. Which is actually just a little bit weird! A bit too long, and just a bit not wide enough.

I started with this one curved pieced block left over from making the quilt top and just kept adding fabric scraps and pieces. All of these were the same fabrics used to make the quilt top.

November To-Do

 

November is underway and here's a look at what's on my design wall at the moment. The back I just started making for the Metro Twist quilt top, and the almost finished Running Out of Raincloud quilt. 

Begin Something New

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for the BAMQ swap.

Oxbow Tote - cut out and begin the assembly.

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using cut out the cut out stamp block centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

Design a quilt for the Sister Artists 3 embroideries. 

Continue Assembly

Trim to size and then sew the 12 columns of the Temperature Quilt together.

Bohemian Wife -finish assembling the quilt back, sandwich and make the binding, take to long armer this month.

Pantone Project - work on a overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

City Sampler -Put together a backing, make binding. - take to long armer this month.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed.

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching

Kawandii - Finish hand stitching/assembly

Quilting

Running Out of Raincloud -  finish quilting, binding or facing.

Trinket

Metro Twist (finish the backing)

Slopes

Final Steps

I'm so close to being to put Running Out of Raincloud in this category...