Vintage: Pretty Posies

 Coming up with an idea to use for vintage took me awhile. I ran through a gamut of ideas, none of which seemed to feel right. In the end, I pulled out vintage fabrics and just played around a bit. 

All of the fabrics used in this little quilt are vintage, dating back a couple of decades or more, with the exception of the backing. 

The background fabric is part of a sleeve from an old (and well loved) denim shirt of my husband's. I decided to leave it in the "sleeve shape" because I thought it added a fun twist to the quilt, and it reminded me of a window view for some reason. 

The "table" is a piece of fabric that I remember as a dress for my mom. It is a little sheer with little nubs of thread throughout. I'm not sure what type of fabric it is. 

The vase is from my stash of my grandmother's fabrics. It is cut in a hexie shape, although it is a very wonky hexie, as you can see. I'm not sure who cut the shape, that is the shape I found it in. 

The crocheted lace was made by my grandmother. I've been looking for a chance to use that in one of my quilts, so I'm glad it worked in this little piece! 

The posies, or flowers, are cut from a vintage handkerchief that came from either my grandmother, my great aunts, or my mother. I cut around the flowers and then machine stitched them to the quilt. 

I attached each little piece by raw edge applique with my sewing machine. The trickiest part was stitching around the flowers, and getting them overlapping the lace just so. It all worked out well and went together quickly. 

I kept the quilting very simple and subtle. I stitched straight lines 2 inches apart, then added a serpentine stitch in between. I used Aurifil 50 wt thread in Dove Grey (#2600) for the quilting. 

For the backing, I had this piece on my shelf. I bought this fabric a few years ago for a specific purpose. Since I can no longer recall what that specific purpose was (can you relate??), it has been used for backings. 

I finished the little quilt by binding it with more of the denim shirt fabric. The fabric is so well worn, it was very soft and easy to stitch through. 

So that's what I came up with for the vintage challenge - using vintage fabrics in my stash! I look forward to seeing everyone else's challenge pieces! 

Wendy

The Sea: Sea Spray

Since I live in Minnesota, no where near the coasts, I rarely get to see the sea. My favorite "sea" here is Lake Superior, and I go there as often as I can. I enjoy watching the waves crash over the basalt rocks, making them a deep gray. Lake Superior is a moody lake, particularly in November. My Sea Spray quilt is a nod to my favorite body of water. 

The finished quilt measures 16" x 20".  I started with a background fabric of grey ombre for the sky, blue for the water, and layered the clouds and rocks, freehand. Once I was happy with the arrangement, I stitched the clouds and rocks down by straight stitching along the curves and angles. 

With the clouds and rocks done, I got to work on the waves. I had added in two strips of blue faux cork fabric, thinking that would give the feeling of the light on the breakers as they rolled in. To soften the edges of the strips, I tried adding some sea foam by using a little free motion thread painting. I had never done this before, so it was a challenge to get it to look realistic. 

After that was done, I used white embroidery thread and began to add seed stitches to create the spray. That ended up being more work than I expected, with having to continue to add stitches to create the right combination of dense and loose stitches. 

Then I added binding, and it was done. I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge. It is one of my favorite quilts that I've made for this group! 

I have more information about the construction of this quilt on my blog today, if you are interested in reading a bit more about my process. 

Wendy

A "Pieceful" Trellis

The package I got in the mail was from Wendy Tuma, and it was a vintage handkerchief, with a cute print of daisies arranged around the borders.

It sparked me to create a garden scene, blending pieced strips, fused applique, free-motion quilting, yo-yos, whitework, beads, and ribbons.  Step through this trellis into a garden that never needs watering or weeding, and none of the critters eat the flowers!

"Pieceful Trellis". Wendy's daisies are at bottom left.

Yo-yo morning glories.

A butterfly cut from an old linen pillowcase.

A caterpillar of beads.

I wrote more about how I made this piece on my blog Deep in the Heart of Textiles.

While I was working on the hand stitching, I was watching lots of videos from The Frick Collection, two series called "Cocktails with a Curator," and "Travels with a Curator." They are delightful videos, about 20 to 30 minutes each, explaining a work of art or offering a glimpse of a museum somewhere around the world. I felt like my little quilt was absorbing their air of leisure and culture, and those associations have added to my affection for this piece.  I love it, not so much for what it looks like, as for the atmosphere it evokes for me.  I am interested in it more for the process of hand-stitching and embellishing, than for finishing a product, and I would like to keep adding flowers, leaves, and insects to it.

I thought I had more handkerchiefs than anyone could ever need, but I can tell I will be hunting for more, to find "families" that are related in scale and style!

Dandelion Wishes

When I pondered the theme of "wishes" it reminded me of those days at the end of summer, when the heat was high, the grass was getting dry and crispy, and the sky was cloudless and blue. My friends and I would lay in the sun, pick dandelions that had lost their bloom, and blow on them to release the seeds.

I decided to try to make a quilt using that idea. Not having experimented much with mixed media and three dimensional items in a quilt, I thought I'd play a bit. My husband is the tea drinker in the family, so I decided to recycle some used tea bags. I let them dry out, then opened them and tossed the tea.

Once the tea papers were fully dry, I fan-folded them and tied them with string, making two large and two tiny pom-poms. Remember how we used to do that? It was easy to do, thanks to Wonder clips that held the fan-folded paper for me while I tied the string. I forgot to take pictures though!

Next up, was to make that clear blue sky and green grass. I did some improv work with some green scraps for the grass.

Then I attached a bright blue Moda Grunge to the green improv for the sky and added some wavy quilting to create some gentle breezes. Next up, a new thing for me - a little bit of thread painting. For someone who doesn't really free motion, I was a bit nervous, but I just had fun with it. What's to lose, right? I added two stems and two smaller ones.

Now it was time to add the dandelions. I did this by leaving long thread tails to the blossoms, then pulling each thread through to the back of the finished quilt and tying it off.

My dandelions look a bit like peonies, do they not? I even tried snipping them to create a more stringy look to the blossom, but couldn't quite get the effect. The little puffs above are the seeds that have been blown off one of the blossoms.

All in all, it was a fun experiment.

This little quilt measures approximately 15" x 18" and was made using scraps from my stash.

There are a few things I wish I would have done differently, but isn't that a bit what wishes are made of?

Thanks for the fun challenge!

Wendy

Dream A Little

I had to dream a little when it came to this challenge. I think I had two other ideas for the quilt before I settled on this one. How to interpret the theme dreams - should it be dreams in my sleep, or dreams I have - like what I hope for? Since my sleeping dreams are fairly fractured and rarely make any sense after I've woken up, I decided to go with the other.

It is interesting to me how things often come together at the right time. As I was pondering this challenge theme, I began reading and working through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. My reading has made me ponder how I dream. Well, actually, why I don't. I've come to realize that through the years I've been so busy with family stuff and helping my husband - supporting their dreams, if you will, that I've quit dreaming. Don't misunderstand, I have enjoyed helping them and all that goes with that. I was just surprised to realize that when it comes to dreams, I have a difficult time naming any.

I have this sign above my closet in our bedroom that says "Dream a Little". Obviously, placed there, it refers to sleep dreams. I decided I should use those words in a mini quilt for my quilt room, to be placed on my wall of mini quilts, to remind me that it's okay for me to dream a little.

I used something new to me for the lettering, Crayola fabric markers. The gray was just the color I was looking for, and it didn't bleed at all, not even when I set the color. I'm not sure how it will wash up and may not ever know since this is a wall quilt and may not get washed; at least not often.

For the borders, I had some left over improv scraps from another project, so I stitched them together, cut them into blocks, and sewed them back together. The plan was to use them for another small mini. Then I realized I could rip the two rows apart again, cut the two rows of three in half the long way, and have a border for this mini. Perfect!

But what to do with all that gray space around the lettering? I pulled out a Sue Spargo book of creative stitches, thinking I'd come up with some stitching to use on the lettering. I was thinking maybe it needed something. Then I realized it might be fun to do pick stitching, or seed stitching, around the letters. It all came together when I realized I had a Valdani variegated thread that complimented the border fabrics. A little binge watching while stitching and, voila! What fun!

I'm pretty happy with the way the stitches make the wording pop a little better.

I had this leaf backing in my stash, and the colors coordinated. I used a lime green thread for the straight line quilting in the border. The binding is the same blue Grunge fabric that's in the border.

It's a good reminder for me. What a fun challenge this was. I can't wait for the next!

Wendy

A Walk in the Park

I put off thinking about this challenge theme too long. There was no reason for that, other than too many other projects that needed getting done. When I finally got around to thinking of this theme, I had no idea what to do. Should I approach it literally, and create a scene from my walk in fabric? Since I don't usually walk in parks, that would be a challenge. Should I take it as making something that comes to me easily?

In the end, I chose to make a quilt of what I like to see when I do walk in a park. I'm not a gardener, but I do enjoy seeing gardens full of lovely flowers. I had a quilted piece left from last month's challenge, so I used that as the backdrop. (I thought it was fitting given how much rain we've had this season.) So my flowers have rain falling in the background.

I had a piece of Kaffe Fassett fabric in my stash, and it was just what I was looking for. Cutting those flowers out was a bit of a chore, I'll admit.

Once I settled on a layout, I pulled out my embroidery threads and got to work. No fancy stitching, just long and short stitches wherever I thought it worked. I had all the right colors of threads, which is always a bonus.

I'm not quite finished with this yet. No binding, since I'm still debating whether to bind or face the quilt. I may add a few more details, like a dragonfly if I can find one to stitch on.

It's been a good challenge piece to work on in the evenings!

Wendy

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

As soon as I saw the theme for this quarter, the song came into my head. It wouldn't leave. I really wanted to divert myself from making a quilt based on the song. So I spent some time thinking about the phrase "raindrops keep falling on my head" and what that meant to me.

While processing that, I was thinking about the quilt and what I wanted it to look like. The final version I'm showing you today is about three versions beyond the original. I hope I'm not alone in doing that.

Just when I had settled on a design and had actually completed part of it, I happened to watch a series of classes by Joe Cunningham on Bluprint. In one class, he mentioned bias tape and how he used it, and a new, final, version of this quilt came to be.

The blues and gray bias tape represent raindrops. The direction the tape falls is supposed to mimic the way rain sometimes falls against windows - every which way.

As a kid, I used to love rain. I enjoyed being out in it and putting my face up to it, letting the drops fall on my head. As an adult and having more life experiences behind me, rain took on a new, less happy meaning. I realized during this process that with the rain in my life, there also is hope. So in my little quilt, the colored bias strips are there to remind me of hope.

The background fabric is a light gray Grunge. Some of the bias tape is made from solids or batiks. The quilt backing is a batik I had in my stash, and it just seemed perfect for this quilt.

This was a fun challenge; it definitely had me thinking!

Wendy