Free P.O.T.S.

 

You just never know what's going to be on the Free Table at the Bay Area Modern Quilting meetings and Sew Days. This time it was this kind of large, two sided opening thread organizer box. I think this will be a much better solution to corralling all the embroidery threads I've accumulated instead of digging around in a bag for the right one. It won't be one that I carry around with me for a project on the go. And, Yes it's yet another P.O.T.S. (Plastic Organizer ThingieS) but one that I'll hopefully actually use. If not I'll put it back out on the Free Table.

I like the idea of the two-sided doors too. I'll have to fill it up and show how it looks.  It seems like it will hold a lot of different size/shapes of spools which is a good feature. 

Also seen above another of my favorite batting Hobbs 80/20 fusible that I just bought to replace the last one I used earlier this year for both my SAT 25 piece, Our Mistake and Sky Structure, made for the Sister Artists auction.

Sky Structure

Oops, I meant to post about this yesterday, but in some good news, I finished "Sky Structure" for the Sister Artists exhibit. 

We got 5" of rain and the power went out not once but twice, but I was hunkered down inside doing my hand sewing so it was just fine. I was glad I didn't need to be ironing.

I think I'm going to miss these lovely embroideries.

They're so cheery and lively.

I hope that this quilt and all the others in The Advocacy Project exhibit raises money and awareness for this very worthy project.

On the label, I credited the names of my sister artists who did the lovely embroideries, Judith Adong and Stella Grace Awor from Uganda. 

And then I moved on to sewing down the facings on the quilt for Stretching Art & Tradition. Almost there. I'll be mailing them out today.
 

Approaching Finishing

 Just a bit left to do on the "Our Mistake" quilt for Stretching Art and Tradition.

The newly-added lake waves are all done, so now it was time to break up the boat into dissolving-in-the acid lake pieces.

Very happy with how this turned out.

And there it is, now all that's left is to just add facings, a sleeve and a label.

And the Sister Artists quilt, "Structured Sky" has been trimmed down to size. This one will be getting binding, a sleeve and a label.

Blue Finish

 

The new blue worked out just fine. Thankfully I had a large selection of light blue thread to choose from.

Now that the blue is finished, so is the quilting on this one. Now for the trimming and all the rest.

And here's how the other quilt is looking now that the green acid lake has been re-pinned.

Mostly Blue

 
I carried on with stitching more blue in the Sister Artists quilt. 

But I lost at thread chicken! Instead of bobbin chicken for once.

Trying to give some sense of butterflies flying through the air with the quilting motifs.

Stitching around the embroidered butterflies I'm going slower not wanting to catch any of the embroidery threads. So far so good. I've got some more blue stitching left to do on this one.

I also finished off all the blue thread quilting on the Stretching Art & Tradition quilt. Yes the green section has been unpinned. It's getting a bit redesigned.

I like how the blue turned out on this one.

The clouds are floating by...

Our Mistake Sandwiched

 

Started in on the green acid lake part of the "Our Mistake" quilt top. This is a picture of getting one of the curves pieced in.

It turned out pretty well and I like how it looks.

A close up on the word window.

Oooh no, that's the wrong size now, that bottom blue part is just too wide.

Reconfigured it and now it's the right size.

Decided to do the stitching of the green part right on the quilt sandwich, so it will likely change. The boat will also be added back on in that way.

The two quilts are now sandwiched with backing and batting and ready to be quilted.

Sister Artists Quilt Top

 

The quilt top for the Sister Artists embroidered blocks is looking a little askew at this point, but was coming into focus. My DH said it was looking through a window into a tree and the sky. My response was "hooray!" because that was what I was going for.

Bottom border adding on the blue and then some cutting.

And there it is, all framed up and ready to layer and quilt and finish.

Sister's Curves

My first step today working on the Sister Artists quilt top was to finish off the bird tree/bush section. I added the dark strip at the bottom and the pieced together top strip at the top.

I like this outer frame-ish thing that I've got going. It may remain on the quilt top or be turned around to the back as a facing/edge treatment, we shall see.

Here's part of the curves of the tree/bush now pieced in. I changed out the fabric sewn to the bottom left butterfly section to the darker spiral-y one. I also removed about an 1.5" of one of the horizontal green strips.

Here's my stopping point for today. It's nearly there I think.
 

Sister's Bird

Now that the three butterflies are started, I switched over to green and worked on the bird embroidered block for the Sister Artists quilt. (still in need of a title at this point)

One the way into the green.

That's how far I got with it.

Here's how it's looking with the butterflies. Now to combine them.
 

Starting Sisters

I began my quilt for the Sister Artists exhibit today. Using the now-inked-up embroidered butterflies, I'm working on getting some fabric added around the colored part of the background.

 The first round of border strips, cut improvisational style of various widths.

And then the final, at least for now, borders.

I'll be joining these together with other blue fabrics for the background.

I tried to vary the fabrics I used except for two.

I'm pretty pleased with how I've started. Now to get the bird-y border started.

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.