It’s been 5 weeks since David Taylor visited us at Riverwalk Quilters Guild. We had a fun evening as he shared his Reluctant Journey of an Art Quilter with us.
Here are Cheryl and Yvette showing off his latest quilt, Marmalade’s First Snow.
The next day David taught his basic hand applique class. I tried really hard, and it was a great class but when I took my piece home and tried to get to grips with it things just went from bad to worse. My pieces didn’t fit together and I ended up unpicking it all. By then I had frayed all my edges beyond redemption … I went shopping for new fabrics and tried again…
By the time I had prepared all the pieces and tried to start sewing them down again I realized I was not finding any joy at all. This is as far as I got.
The picture actually looks a lot better than it did in reality…
Third time’s a charm so they say so I decided to try a new approach. I know it was supposed to be a hand applique class but sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do… I unearthed my bolt of WonderUnder and it didn’t take long to produce a beautiful fused chickadee!
Then layering was a cinch and I quilted away… Not too bad at all…
I added a fused binding and was done… sorry David, your hand applique is beautiful, mine not so much, at least not that day!
Sharon Malec has been enjoying working with wool roving recently. She has brought wonderful felted pictures and 3-dimensional creations to Divas so it was a delight to have her give us a needle felting demo and then to have a chance to play ourselves. I made a tortoise/turtle type creature…
He reminds me of the guinea pig we had at home years ago… color-wise at least. I must admit I didn’t take the project too seriously. Does it show?
When we were in Cincinatti I picked up a packet from Artistic Artifacts for Power Suit: an Art Quilt Challenge. It took me a while to find my inspiration but eventually I had an idea and I got to work. My piece is now finished apart from the label. I am very happy with it. We are not supposed to expose our pieces to the world before they go on display in October so here is a teaser picture of just one corner.
I went back to my new favorite quilt supplies store for the washers. Ace doesn’t keep them at a specially suitable height for me but I stretched and managed to reach them without bringing the whole display down.
Having established that I like to fuse, it was time for my quarterly fusing class at Pieceful Heart Fabrics. This time we opened it up to any fused pattern so we had some very different projects.
Some people had to piece their backgrounds,
but everyone had to trace their shapes,
before fusing them to their fabrics and cutting them out carefully,
and then assembling them on an applique pressing sheet.
There was a still a way to go for most people but we had fun and enjoyed the journey once again!
Meanwhile, I have been working on a series of African Folklore Embroidery designs. I bought them from Leora back in January and had put them to one side after I had finished the embroidery part. Last week I got the silk ribbons, charms, beads and crystals out and had at them!
Here is Under the Sea. I finished the individual quiltlets and put them on a a background of colorful fabric from New Moon Textiles in Pasadena. (another January purchase)
Here are close ups of the individual designs…
and even closer up to the Angel fish and sea horse.
I bought the fish buttons from Artistic Artifacts. They were perfect with the embroidery. I used two whole strings of crystals that i found in my bead drawer. I must have been in a good mood the day I went shopping for those… I have several strings left!
I am looking forward to seeing Leora at the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach next week. There are several more embroidery designs I want to get my fingers on. I really do enjoy taking the fairly simple outlines and making them my own. Too much fun!!
