I've Got the Blues

I've Got the Blues 

I'm having a hard time typing this morning 

as I am eating ALL the roasted pumpikin seeds from 

the Halloween pumpkin carving fisaco that took place 

in our back yard yeasterday. 

Type one word, eat a pumpkin seed, 

type 2 words, reach for more pumpkin seeds. 

See my predicament????

As I mulled over this quarter's Four In Art theme of...

I've Got the Blues, 

I decided I just can't have the blues becasue........

I'm happy that we still have 2 kiddos living at home with us. 

(Aren't my nerds cute?)

I also got to witness a friend getting a pie in the face

 at our church Harvest Festival.

(Doesn't he look happy?

Oh, and look at that cute Brony shirt.)

I helped a high school football player sew his first 

and probably his last quilt for a school assignment. 

(He was a quick learner and did a great job.

Go North High Huskies!)

And lastly...I get to see this view

 twice at week at my daughter's soccer practice. 

Back to reality.... I traced the word 'azul' meaning blue in 

Portugese onto a white background. 

See my nifty high end light table? 

I chose this word becasue I lived in Brasil for a summer 

and even though my Portugese stinks, 

I'm always happy to find a way to use it. 

I then drew 3 circles to encompas the word azul. 

I wanted to quilt inside just the circles and use the 

negative space of the quilting to spell the word azul. 

I decided to use 3 different thread colors, 

one in each of the circles.

Right here I'm quilting around the 

letter Z with medium colored blue thread.

One of my kids decided that I needed to be documented. 

I'm always the photographer and never get to be the photographee. 

Before quilting I added some fabric inside the quilt 

sandwich that could be seen behind the white fabric.

The intention was to highlight the 3 different circles. 

I chose fabric that had circles on it, to go along with the circles I quilted. 

I know there's a name for this technique. 

Right now I can't remember the name and I can't find it on the web. Boo hoo. 

I quilted the cirlces to overlap each other and bisect in the middle. 

It looks more meesy on the quilt than it did in my mind. 

I think sometimes my mind tricks me into thinking it has good ideas. 

This time around I chose to finish the 2 1/2" binding by machine. 

You can view other Four in Art Quilts too! Check out the links below.

Bette Ayers	https://www.flickr.com/photos/toot2
Camilla Cathro	http://faffling.blogspot.co.nz/
Catherine Chisholm	http://www.knottedcotton.com
Elizabeth Eastmond	http://www.opquilt.com
Janine Green	http://www.rainbowhare.com
Nancy Myers	http://www.patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com
Rachel Riley	http://www.rachel-thelifeofriley.blogspot.com
Susan Snooks	http://patchworknplay.blogspot.com

Purple Chop Chop

Our Blog  Four-in-Art Quilts

Other Four In Art Quilters 

Betty         https://www.flickr.com/photos/toot2

Camilla         http://faffling.blogspot.co.nz/

Catherine         http://www.knottedcotton.com

Elizabeth          https://occasionalpiece.wordpress.com/

Janine         http://www.rainbowhare.com

Nancy         http://www.patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com

Rachel         http://www.rachel-thelifeofriley.blogspot.com

Susan         http://patchworknplay.blogspot.com

This quarter's Four In Art theme is Purple Passion. 

We've owned 3 purple sofas. Here are a couple of photos of #2 purple sofa. 

Our townhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Four generation photo after our first daughter, Claire, was born.

The sofa looks more red here due to poor lighting. 

I used to wear a lot of purple, we've owned 3 purple sofas, 

but I really hadn't quilted in purple before. I thought it was time to experiment.

I decided to draw some lines on a piece of paper. 

I then cut it into strips on the diagonal and taped it together. 

Then I cut on the diagonal from the opposite direction and taped again. 

This is the final mock up, mind you I did this in bed at 11pm,

and my husband couldn't understand why I was doing 'crafts' in bed. 

I was doing this in bed because at the time, 

I thought I had a bright idea.

 I used some PURPLE silk from one of Claire's semi formals,

I added some equally vibrant orange for balance.

I chopped and sewed....

 and copped and sewed....

 and chopped and sewed.

I stopped chopping at this point and spray glued it on a gray background.

I was afraid the spray due would show through on the silk, 

lucky me I won the quilting lottery today and

the spray glue didn't show through. 

I decided to leave all the raw edges exposed.

 I started quilting my chopped up purple silk with straight lines.

Then I quilted a bunch of circles that matched the orange fabric.

A good artist knows when to stop. Well....

I kept going thinking more is better. I forgot that less is more. 

I was fine with the quilted wavy lines, straight lines and circles. 

Remember how I said a good artist knows when to stop?

Well... after I stippled the word PURPLE I knew that

I would NOT be quilting any words onto my next quilt. 

 I decided to leave the edges raw since the silk edges are raw and this is an experiment 

At the end of the process this was a great experiment to be part of. 

I wouldn't mind chopping a bunch of fabric up again, 

but I'm not going to be stippling any words or letters on a quilt anytime soon. 

Not all ideas are brilliant, they are just ideas.

Butterfly Scales ~ It's a Microscopic Reveal

Our Blog  Four-in-Art Quilts

Other Four In Art Quilters 

Betty         https://www.flickr.com/photos/toot2

Camilla         http://faffling.blogspot.co.nz/

Catherine         http://www.knottedcotton.com

Elizabeth          https://occasionalpiece.wordpress.com/

Janine         http://www.rainbowhare.com

Nancy         http://www.patchworkbreeze.blogspot.com

Rachel         http://www.rachel-thelifeofriley.blogspot.com

Susan         http://patchworknplay.blogspot.com

BUTTERFLY SCALES

This year's theme is COLOR.

This quarter's sub category is MICROSCOPIC (which I chose).

I went straight to the internet and found electron scanning microscope 

photos of butterfly wings. Here are my photos I found 

and printed on white fabric after I cut them out. 

Butterflies actually have SCALES on their wings. 

I was originally interested in designing a modern twist on a Dresden Plate, 

but then I got out my wedge ruler and I said good bye to the Dresden Plate. 

The low volume fabric was a Christmas gift from my friend Lisa Johnson. 

I was happy to find a home for it. Since the photos are a little more

technical in nature I thought the technical drawings on the fabric was a good match. 

I included two butterfly eggs in the quilt. 

One of them is above. 

I will let the other butterfly egg be a Where's Waldo mystery. 

The quilting was going well until my walking foot broke!

I had actually forgotten that my walking foot was on the verge of collapse 

from my last quilting project and needed to be replaced. I learned my lesson.

It is not easy quilting with a lame foot!

I actually sewed the wedges together randomly. 

I realized I didn't have enough wedges, so I cut off some overhang 

from the lower left and sewed it onto the upper right corner. 

If you look closely you can see how the upper right corner

doesn't jive with the rest of the quilt. 

I decided to bind the mini quilt in raw silk. 

I thought the silk had some reflective qualities that 

were close to that of real butterfly wings. 

Summary: Even if you have 3 months to make a mini quilt 

don't wait until the last week because....

1. You might get sick and need to make your quilt in one day.

2. Your daughter might get engaged and then you get to plan a wedding.

3. You might even make a wedding dress for your daughter. 

4. You might also have a Spelling Bee deadline the same week.

5. You  might end up helping a friend who just moved clean her house.

6. You might teach/help 4 girls sew matching pencil skirts.

7. You might end up going to a funeral.

8. You might end up with more wedding plans than you expected.