Spring

Well not yet outside, but Spring is the theme for February for Sky is the Limit. And this is what I created for this theme:



 

After the winter months, I really am in need of flowers :-). But let's get back how I started working on this. First I made the background by tearing a piece of snow dyed fabric into strips and placing the strips in random order on top of the batting and background fabric:

 









Whenever I make something which has applique on it, I prefer to do the quilting before I add the applique. And as there are multiple pieces of fabric in the background I need a rather dense quilting. I decided to go with this design and quilted till the edges of the fabric. In other words over the edges of the batting:



For the appliqued flowers I used commercial batiks and for the vase a hand dyed fabric.
Normally I write my labels, but this time I decided to include the qr code of my website on it as well. I printed this together with my usual information and ironed the label to the back of the quilt.

This will probably be something I will be doing in future with all my labels. Just for purpose of posting the picture on my blog I removed part of my address. There is some privacy I prefer :-). I am linking this post to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.



a new project

 

After working on some older tops, it was time for me to start a new project. Having different projects at the same time, gives me the opportunity to change techniques in between. Here is the first picture:

 

A couple of hundred black fuzzy cut squares, a box of pins (I hope I have enough of them) and a piece of batik. I will show you more the coming days :-).

last snow dyeing of the season

With a bit of luck we had the last snow of this season last week. Everything is melted now. I took advantage of the snow and these are some of the fabrics I created:

Don't ask me which colors I used as most of the time I just pick a couple of containers. I do know that I used avocado and a blue from Dharma and an old black from G&K. Plus some other colors as well. For the first 2 pictures I scrunched the fabric, for the blue piece I accordion folded it.

Birds of a Feather is completed

My birds of a feather quilt is finished! Here is a picture of the total quilt - size is 40"x40" -:

 And because you cannot see the quilting in the total shot, here is a detail picture:

 And so see it even better, a detail picture of the back:

This is the 3rd picture of my bird series. I have one top waiting to be quilted, but before I start on this one, I will work on some other quilts. After all, I only started this series in 2011 :-).
I am linking this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

quilting continued

After some tlc, or in other words rethreading, cleaning and a bit of oil, my HQ is behaving much better. Here is what I have been able to quilt:

This area is about 15"x20". The whole quilt will have a size of roughly 38"x46", so I still have quite a lot of hours of quilting work ahead of me :-)

Not happy

Most of the time I am working on several quilts at the same time. Besides the Feathers that is now an other oldie which I started in 2011 as well. Here is the quilting I did this weekend:

Now you know why I picked this title -:(

feathers continued

Work on the feather quilt is going well. I have outlined the feathers as you can see on this picture of the fabric at the back. By simply outlining the shape the feathers will show up at their best.

When this was done there were still some open spaces on the quilt. Some additional quilting was needed. To stay within the theme I decided to quilt the words of the title of the quilt in these open spaces. Using Words I found a font which I liked. Here you see how the word 'feather' looks like. The title of this quilt will be 'Birds of a feather'.

I am linking this with Nina-Marie and her Off the Wall Friday Blog.

Request

A couple of days ago Jenny Bowker placed an announcement on one of the list I am a member of. Maybe some of you have already heard about it.  A major project of her is the work of the Tentmakers of Chareh el Khiamiah. Their art is awsome and needs to be preserved.
On this link you can see some of the quilts which were made by the tentmakers and which were shown in Birmingham: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHzWRui7Kjk
Here is an example of one of those quilts:

To help preserving their knowledge and their quilts Kim Beamish wants to make a movie of their work. But to be able to do this, money is needed. The amount which has to be raised is US$ 20.000 and to help raising this I am posting this message on my blog as well.
Right now you can pledge money and if Kim reaches his target you will be asked to donate. Check out this link on Pozible to see how it works: http://pozible.com/tentmakers. It would be wonderful if we all could help a bit to make this movie possible.

feathers

Summer 2011 I started working on 4 big quilt tops. All are around 40"x40". Two of them are completed: Swallows of San Juan and Snowy Owl. And this week I started working on number 3. The background I dyed dark. Don't remember anymore which colors I used for this. On this background I screen printed white feathers. Now it was time to make the sandwich and start the quilting. After some googling I came up with this bird design which I copied into different sizes on Golden Paper. The pieces of paper were pinned on the sandwich like this:

Stitchting black on black is not something you want to do for a long time. So every day it is time for some birdies. Here are the pictures after the stitching, taken from the back:

 And taken from the front:



Yes, I still have to remove the thread ends :-). To be continued.

And another show

My quilt Swallows of San Juan has been selected for the Celebrate Spring! show. The first appearance will be in Cincinnati April 11-13 and after that it will travel for a couple of months through the USA.

I've been tagged!

And the person who did this is Kelly. Thank you! Please visit her blog: http://kellyartist.blogspot.nl/

 

The rules:
1. You must post 11 random things about yourself.
2. Answer the questions that the nominator set for you
3. Create 11 questions for the people you nominate
4. Choose 11 blogs with less than 200 followers and link them in your post.

You must post 11 random things about yourself.

 1. I would love to live in a red barn in the USA on lots of acres.

 2. Can't spend too much time in my studio.

 3. I don't like butter on my sandwiches.

 4. I should loose weight, but that is so difficult.

 5. My zodiac sign is Leo.

 6. Wouldn't mind being an e-hermit :-)

 7. I share my house with 2 cats: Gundi and Katrien.

 8. Need my daily shot of coffee.

 9. I have a big stash of fabric, but is it too big???? No!

10. I was 37 when I became a widow.

11. Can't imagine a day without reading.

Eleven questions for my nominees:
 1. Today is the last day of your life. How are you going to spend it?

Croissants with coffee for breakfast, followed by studio time. Attend the opening of my solo show at an art gallery and celebrate this afterwards with dinner at GC.

 2. What traits in a person make you want to get to know them better?
 Introvert, compassionate, unconventional

 3. Favorite artist:

There are so many I appreciate. Let me pick a few which of which I saw work lately: Kathryn Matthews, David Hockney, Lutz Baar, Joan Miró.

 4. If regrets were flowers - would you have a field, a garden, a bouquet or a boutonnier?

A garden.

 5 Scariest fear you have conquered:

A difficult one. I think learning how to swim as a young child.

 6. If you could go back to school - would you? And if so, what would you want to study?

 I don't think so. But if I would HAVE to, I would study art.

 7. What is your favorite kitchen gadget?
My espresso machine.

 8. Favorite food:

 Indonesian

 

 9. Favorite actor:

Cate Blanchett

 

10. Your favorite way to 'stop and smell the roses':
Take the day off from commitments and just read.

11. What country would you most like to visit?
LOL I do this every year: the USA

 

And here are the questions for my nominees:

 1. If you could live somewhere else, where would that be?

 2. What is your favorite memory?

 3. What do you collect?

 4. Which musician did you 'discover' the last year?

 5. Is there something you would do differently? And if so, what?

 6. Who is your favorite author?

 7. Which country do you want to visit again?

 8. What is your weakness?

 9. What do you detest?

10. What is your favorite art tool?

11. What is your favorite pet?

The nominees are:

http://cheshirecheese.blogspot.nl/

http://artwithaneedle.blogspot.nl/
http://www.rayela.com/category/blog/

http://idahobeautyquilts.blogspot.nl/

http://soulbrush.blogspot.nl/

http://katesquilting.blogspot.nl/
http://stitchclothcolour.blogspot.co.uk/
http://gurligregersen.com/
http://www.margaretblank.com/
http://notesfromnorma.blogspot.nl/
http://kquilt.blogspot.nl/

 

Some of these have almost 200 followers and a couple are just starting out and could use the encouragement and support. ALL are well worth a visit!

And while you are visiting them...why not sign up to follow them!!

Nominees don't HAVE to participate if you choose not to! I just wanted to honor your blog. I love it and I want others to see it!

SAQA auction

I had so much fun with my last line quilt, that I decided to use this same idea for my quilt for this year's SAQA auction. Here is how it turned out: