Thursday, May 31, 2018

Another daily stitching started

Blogger has made some changes that have to do with the European Privacy issue and of course I have no idea what to do. I've always gotten an email when someone leaves a comment on the blog, I'm no longer getting them. I have to check the blog for comments and then answer on the blog which I find cumbersome, but I guess I'll just have to deal with it and stop complaining.

I did start a new daily stitching, number four in my series of 10 inch squares. This is how it looked before any stitching.


This is the back, with a 10 inch square of felt fused to it. I use felt to give it body so I don't have to use a hoop.

Here it is after the first 7 days.



2018 Weekly Leaf #22




I'm also making a small rug to go under the kitchen eating area table. The rug that is currently under the table is a rag rug and it's been there several years and is coming apart. I've shopped around a bit and haven't found anything that I really like that is the size I need. So I'm making a quilt to go under the table, my hubby thinks it's a strange idea but every rug we have is fiber of some sort. I'm also making it reversible .

So this is one side, a very simple design in browns.

This is the other side made with the leftovers. It's not completely pieced yet so the picture shows it laying on my cutting table.

I plan on doing very close horizontal lines of quilting. When it's done  I'll get a picture of it in use.

I'll be linking up with "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching".

Thursday, May 24, 2018

2018 Daily Stitching #1 done

This morning I finished the stitching on this years first daily stitching project.


I knew I would finish this morning so yesterday I painted the canvas that it will be attached too.


Then after stitching this morning I cut a piece of black fabric and sewed it to the stitched piece right sides together. Trimmed closely and carefully cut a slit in the black fabric and turned it right side out.
Here's the back after trimming, you can just barely make out the stitching line around the edge.


The finished piece  backed and ready to mount.


Placed on the canvas but not yet attached, that will happen later this afternoon.


Here it is with the two pieces that I did last year.


Now I have to get the next one ready to start tomorrow.

2018 Weekly Leaf #21




I have one more green gelli print to stitch and then it is back to botanical prints since there are now fresh leaves available.

I also got the last donation quilt finished this week.

I'll be linking up with "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching".

Thursday, May 17, 2018

Pulling Weeds and Planting

The title of my post pretty much sums up my week. I spent a whole lot of time pulling weeds, I will admit that it's my fault, if I hadn't put off doing it for a few years it wouldn't have been so bad. But now the backyard is looking much better and some of my garden has been planted.

My sewing machine has not been turned on in over a week, so nothing new to show.


2018 Weekly Leaf #20




2018 Daily Stitching
days 131-137
some background and a couple of fish

Just the one corner left to stitch!

I'll be linking up with "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching".

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Textiles in a small town High School

Earlier this week I drove north about 50 miles to the small town of Council, ID (pop. 850) to visit with Jodi Cook, the very dynamic textile teacher at the high school. She had asked me to come visit to help her make decisions about some of the donated fabric they've acquired. This is the only High School textile program that I'm aware of in the entire SW Idaho region. My jaw dropped when she took me into the classrooms, one room holds the three long arm quilting machines, another has stacks of fabric, and the main room has a row of Bernina machines, cutting matts, ironing boards and a very large variety of cutting tools.

The problem that she needs help with is that although she feels extremely blessed to have the abundance of fabrics that people have donated, a very large percentage of the fabrics are really not suitable for quilts, especially youngsters learning the craft. So my task is to help find places or people that could use them. There is a large selection of t-shirt knits and ribbing, lots of silky polyester fabrics and some very heavy knits. I was hoping to find a group that sews for children that are placed in protective services, but so far no luck. I'll be expanding my search to the Boise area, we are trying to keep it relatively local due to delivery issues.

While there I got to see some of the work the students have done and I was very impressed. She currently has 28 students and they average 3 quilts each per school year, some of course do several more. They also make quilts to donate locally, have used batting scraps to make pet beds for the local veterinary clinic, and bags for various projects. A very successful story when most school are doing away with any type of sewing program.

I finished piecing the donation quilt I started last week.

Then all the odd leftover scraps plus some larger pieces from my stash got pieced together for the back.

Now it just has to be quilted.

2018 Weekly Leaf #18




2018 Daily stitching days 125 -130

The bottom left corner is now done.



I'll be linking up with "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching", go check them out and see what lots of others are doing.

Friday, May 4, 2018

Cleaning is overrated

Studio B cleanup seems to have stalled, it's clean enough for me to use the table and the rest of the mess doesn't really bother me. Of course if I were to have someone come over and play then I would have to do a better job. This week I thought I would tackle the drafting table inside that is totally covered.

It still looks like that, instead of cleaning it, I started to play with some fabric and have been doing this instead.


It will probably be a donation quilt, but I'm enjoying playing with 'what if' ideas.

Yesterday I got to meet some of the SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) that are in this area. Carol Kimbel, the regional rep for the Idaho/Montana area was in the area for other reasons but emailed us all to meet for coffee. The other three that showed up were from the Boise area and we plan on getting together more often. I know that many of you are very active SAQA members and live in regions where there are regular group meetings and it was nice to discover a few other members that are interested in doing that. Our region is very large and has very few members.

2018 Weekly Leaf
Week #18
Gelli prints for a few weeks



2018 Daily Stitching
More background and french knots


I'll be linking up with "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching"