Pink Nosed Reindeer

Pups in the snow.  Seeing them so happy warms my heart and gives me inspiration to make it through the week.  And look how pink Sammy's nose is looking!  Like a little pink nosed reindeer!

Happy mid-week and may your journey to the weekend be easy and quick!

Shadow and Timber at the Park {done}

Presenting to you... Shadow and Timber at the Park!  These adorable labs are having a fabulous play date at the park with their lunch and frisbee.  Adorable, no?

I am so happy with how this piece turned out!!  You can see it's beginnings here.

I love the addition of the picnic basket and quilt.  And the multi colored french knots field of flowers.

A close up of the puppy faces, noses, ears, and smiles!!

Sometimes a piece takes a little longer than expected...

...but when it finally comes out .... it's love at first sight!

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I hope you are experiencing your own finishing moments as we are all frantically wrapping up creative things before the stroke of midnight on Christmas eve.  Only two more quilts to go... wish me luck!

Friday Night Sewing {results}

Had a great night sewing and made a lot more progress on the NY-NY binding -- almost done, cleaned off my desk and workspace nicely, loaded a few bobbins, watched the movie 300, and made some serious progress on this confetti quilting piece of Shadow and Timber.

Here is Shadow and Timber in progress...

The confetti was laid out to create the grass and sky.

A close up of all the tiny scraps.

The meshing is overlaid and then pinned down.

Start to sew and secure the pieces in place as you go.

A look as some of the colors that are going in.

Most of the pieces are secured and textured at this point.

I start pulling fabrics for the details of the dogs, red frisbee, trees in the background, and picnic blanket.  I also cut out the pups Shadow and Timber from a print out to get a template for their bodies.

Shadow was cut out of black fabric and Timber out of white.  I still have the paper templates laid on top and everything is pinned in place to get a feel for the placements.

And a close up view.  

I'm really excited with how this piece is turning out!  I still need to sew all the pieces in place, finish planning the trees and sky, decide if I like how the picnic blanket is rumpled, make a picnic basket and then it's off to finishing details like the dogs eyes and nose, the dogs collars, and maybe some flowers.

Hope your sew-in was a huge success!! 

Can't wait to peak around and see what everyone else did.  You can see the other participants here!

WIP: Sassy Sewing Saves Sanity

I was a little held back from sewing by the whole power outage and snow thing last week, but over the last few nights I have had my sewing machine humming beautifully, much to my delight!

--NEW--

Solids-Only Tote Challenge!

Here is the latest thing I am trying my hand at.  It's a month long challenge (details can be found here) that asks participants to create a tote or bag using only solid fabric.  The extra twist is that we must use either applique, reverse applique, or patchwork to adorn the tote.  Sounds like fun, right?

I am just starting to sketch out my ideas and design.  But I'll let you in that it has to do with Dragons!!  This is going to be a great mental break for me from all the other quilts I have rolling this month and a chance to get a dragon design that has been lingering in my head all summer, out!

Color Wheel Charm Swap

I have my charms cut and ready to be mailed for the latest round of the Charm Swap hosted by the lovely Kati  From The Blue Chair. 

My color this round was Blue-Violet in a dark and light fabric.  Tough color, but fun to look at so many designs.  And I am really looking forward to having a big stack of charms (5x5 inch squares) to play with!!

--IN PROGRESS--
NY-NY

This quilt just feels so right. 

It's flying along, of course it's also about the half the size I normally work at, which is pretty nice for a change.  I have the front and back ready to go.  Here is the back.  It's a yard of cool NYC-esque fabric with a healthy border of that cream minky around it.

And the front you saw here, and I have added a border of dark blue linen around it.  I couldn't be happier with how it's looking!

I sandwiched it last night and my next step is to quilt it.  I am going to add the major roads and highways in the state.  Can't wait!!  And there is also one final touch I am going to keep secret.  Hoping to finish this one by the end of the weekend so I can show you a finish next week!

Winter Birds
This is a mostly top secret project that will result in a birthday/Christmas gift.  Yes, Mom (hi!!!) this one is for you <3

Shadow and Timber: confetti style

Hi Terri!!  I am excited to have gotten a healthy start on this art quilt!  I am working from this picture of two adorable labs, Shadow and Timber, playing frizbee.  Terri contacted me about turning this picture into a confetti style art quilt and together we devised a plan.

Here are most of the pieces prepped and ready to go.  And yes, I am going to make you wait one more day to hear more of the details and see how it's going.  But, I promise, it will be worth the wait!!

--ON PAUSE--

 

Laughing Leaves with Frieda Anderson

More the project can be seen here. 

Can't wait to roll up my sleeves and dig back in!  You can also check out what I learned about using fusible in an art quilt!

Star Struck

Star quilt-a-long by Melissa at Happy Quilting.  I am still standing at one block.

{Insert Name Here}: Bottled Rainbows {ticker tape quilt-along}

I'm glad I had no deadline for myself on this one, but I am sure it will be an awesome winter project and just the right thing to pick up after all this crazy holiday sewing!

This Week's Work in Progress (WiP) Stats:

Last WiP Wednesday Total: 6
New Projects: 1

Finished Projects: 0
Total WiP's: 7

Smiles for Sewing

--IN PROGRESS--
Confetti: Dog Path in the Woods

I showed you the start of this piece here and have to admit that I put it down again for a week or so mostly due to focusing all my efforts on finishing my X Marks the Spot Quilt.

Well, I recently hit an ahh-ha moment and went back to work on this and I can't be happier with how it's progressing. 

I still want to bring out the ferns in the forest floor, add detail to the dogs, and possibly incorporate beading for tree leaves, but it's just all blooming right in front of me. 

I can definetly see starting another one of these... probably bigger and fall colors are going to be a must!

 

Crewel Spring Flowers

The yellow flowers are done and I am moving on to the bleeding heart.  I forgot to take a new picture, but it's coming along nicely and I so enjoy the quiet stitching!!

 

--ON PAUSE--

 

Big Blue

Still waiting for one last sashing row to be cut out and attached. 

This one is up next and I'd like to have it finished off in the next week or so. 

 

 

Star Struck
Star quilt-a-long by Melissa at Happy Quilting.  I am still standing at one block.

{Insert Name Here}: Bottled Rainbows {ticker tape quilt-along}

I am looking froward to getting back to this one, and almost picked it back up yesterday, but need to be disciplined and finish up some of the other things I have oh so close to done. 

 

You Can Sew-a-thon!!

You haven't heard of it??... check it out here or read about our first project (Strawberry Pincushion).

This Week's Work in Progress (WiP) Stats:

Last WiP Wednesday Total: 7
New Projects: 0 (nadda, well sorta, but let's say nadda)

Finished Projects: 1 (X Marks the Spot is done!)
Total WiP's: 6 (same as last week)

Confetti: Dog Path in the Woods {part I}

You may remember my small art quilt titled Confetti? 

Well, it recently re-inspired me to search (and I don't always know where I'm headed) through the internet.  Searching the words 'confetti' and 'quilt'... and then later 'thread painting'... well, I'm still not sure of the path I took, but I landed on this incredible video featuring Noriko Endo on an episode of Simply Quilts.  Noriko is an amazing thread painting artist and quilt maker.  Seriously ahh-mazing!

Go watch her youtube video... there are actually three of them; here are links to the second and third ones, and then come back and tell me that you aren't incredibly inspired.

I was so inspired that I ran out for tulle asap and dug right into my first project.  I started by picking my photo...which I will show in a minute...and then picking corresponding scraps in the colors of the photo.

Since this technique uses fabric 'confetti' I started to make my own little palette piles.  Noriko shows using a rotary cutter... I simply used scissors to get the toothpick shaped pieces.

I assembled a backing and batting which would be my 'canvas.'  So giddy at this point!!!

Here is the picture I am trying to translate to fiber.  Any surprise that it's the woods and the pups? 

I didn't think so.  Since I practically live there in those woods and spend every free moment with those pups.

So here, we go.  Time to strategically sprinkle those confetti bits onto the canvas to create fiber magic!  I admit, I started out a bit careful and hesitant. 

It took a bit to relax, but when I did, I found myself not only having a lot of fun, but also that the colors were nicely placed.  Somehow the chaos was translating into something meaningful.

Aside: are you noticing a theme in my art lately?  Chaos seems to have firm control --- and I like it !!

I took another glance at my arrangement next to the picture.  Hmm... messy and mostly not recognizable.  Scary, but I kept pushing through before I could mentally bailout.

The next step is to cover the confetti arrangement with tulle.  Noriko recommends black tulle.  Of course I couldn't find black tulle, so took a chance with this light gray. 

It also took everything I had not to drape this on Sammy as a wedding veil.  Although, I still might at some point.

Ok, tulle is on and pinned in place.

I began my free motion quilting or thread painting.  I blocked out the bigger shapes like rocks and tree trunks and also did a line around the outer edge to hold in all those little scraps in an off white thread.  That was a good move as it allowed me to remove all the pins.

Then it was color time.  Lots of greens.

I'm not sure if you can see the difference, but I made swirls of green in all the forest and moss areas.

Here is the doodle after I added a lot of brown for the dirt/rocky/mossy/leafy path and some tree trunks.

Ok.  I admit I got to this point about two weeks ago and stopped.  Normal creating dislike sunk in.  I found it silly and bad.  I had thoughts of throwing it out.  It was my cue to myself to put the piece aside and let it simmer in my brain a few days.

And, thank goodness for simmering.... I'm in love again.  Renewed vigor!!  I have since done a bit more coloring... and I felt like it was time to start adding the pups.  I have cut them out of a textured white fabric and am pretty excited to add them on and keep on rolling.

Looking forward to sharing part II of this journey shortly!!  Oh, and I have to laugh... I have already picked out the next picture I want to stitch and decided that it will be even bigger.

Happy smiling and stitching!

{Dog Path quick update!}
{Dog Path in the Woods Completed!}

Happy Moments #1

Happiness is all about "moments"  Don't you agree?

I'm starting a new Friday thing on the 'ole happy blog. 

Calling it... wait for it... Happy Moments.  Bet you didn't see that coming. 

Here's how it works.  I post a picture, you give it a happy caption.

Ready?  Go!

Happy Moment #1

Hope you are having a happy Friday and ease your way nicely into the weekend!

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”

~Omar Khayyam