How to Deal with a Layer Cake...

Not the edible kind- I know what to do with those munch, munch). This layer cake is the kind that is made from 10" fabric squares in assorted prints from the same fabric line. The set I bought had these assorted blues, and I'm unable to recall the name of the fabric line. But the quilt pattern is one by CrazyOldLadies quilts titled "Liliana". I've named my version "Blue Hibiscus." The rick rack isn't really as wobbly as it looks in the photo, and the quilt also lies a little flatter than it appears. Someday my picture taking skills will improve, but meantime here we are. *sigh*

The pattern calls for a stack-slash-shuffle approach with the 10" squares, rejoining them into an overall random scrappy design. It was quite easy as there are few seams to align. Figuring out the best way to attach the rick rack was the challenge. I finally settled on free-motion stitching, following the zigs and zags. The fabrics produce a bit of a tropical feel I think.

I wish you could see "my" ring up close- it's a Superbowl ring (size- extra large)! It's just stunning. Husband Jack and I attended an open house at a horse facility nearby over the weekend, and happened to meet Fred Stokes, retired NFL player for the Washington Redskins. "Big Play Stokes" was part of the 1992 Superbowl XXVI team. He and his family now live near Orlando where he runs a food enterprise and travels as a motivational speaker. Fred's mission (as stated on his website and autobiography) is to "positively enhance the life of every person who comes across his path" with his "down to earth personality and his uncanny ability to connect with people". He fulfills it, and we really enjoyed meeting him and his wife Regina. To think we went to see the horses, and wound up sporting that ring. By the way, Fred notes there is a time limit measured in seconds for how long people get to wear the ring!

Ahead of the Game...

Happy New Year! Wanting to continue to explore new avenues of art, I signed up for Lenna's Creative Swap for 2016. This swap is closed now, but you can see the details there along with links for her many previous swaps. This is the first swap Lenna has conducted after a break, and she chose collage as our focus. Thirty of so of us will make three 5" collages on watercolor paper Lenna sent us, and using bits she included combined with our own supplies. They aren't due till the end of January, but look- I completed mine already! It was such an absorbing endeavor that I just kept pawing though all the paper and ephemera, grouping the pieces and letting ideas "percolate". I challenged myself to use only black and white for one of the small collages, and this is the result. It includes the out-of-control, swirling playing cards image plus security envelope, lace, fabric elements, shell, and of course the quote about our "plans," which can also swirl out of control at times!

Next, these "old world" images kind of came together. I love the vintage look. I also tried to incorporate some texture and dimension in each collage by using fabric, flowers, or beads. Doing these became an exercise in building collage confidence. I'm not experienced at it, so it's a good stretch.

Between fabric scraps and bits of paper I just can't toss, my sewing room gets wild and wooly at times. It's a lot like those swirling playing cards above. Maybe that's why I was drawn to that image. The Williston Peanuts is from their business card and I've held onto it for awhile just because I like the font, the color, the graphic. Apparently it was just waiting to be combined with images and papers to create this piece.

I was having so much fun (and had so many bits and pieces strewn around) that I decided to make a fourth collage for Lenna as hostess of the swap. I learned a bit about adhesives in making these. Attaching the citrus mesh over top of this collage took some ingenuity, but it's pretty secure. Glossy accents, Uhu Gluestick, and my small Xyron that turns paper into stickers all came in handy! I'll mail these off in the coming week and look forward to seeing what others have come up with.

And to All a Good Night...

This rather dark photo (sorry, poor lighting) is of the "Rodeo Dream Quilt" which has now been completed and presented to our pastor and his wife. He is also a rodeo announcer, so giving it a bunkhouse look and finding the pictorial elements to go with it made the project really fun. Not sure how well you can see, but there are boots, horses, horseshoes, a hat, a cowboy with a rope, and the triple crosses which are a symbol of the Cowboy Church we attend. I just finished it in time to give it for their Christmas gift, or I'd have taken a better photo! It didn't even make it to the guild show-and-tell. You can see it's start in this post.

I also rounded up this crew for a photo before taking them to their Christmas destinations. The women in the crafting program at the women's prison where I volunteer completed all these dolls and toys in time for a delivery to the local Domestic Violence Shelter and Salvation Army shelter.

There's even a lovely mermaid among them!

Frogs, kitties, robots and more- the ladies express creativity in their work, and make such good use of their donated materials. And they so enjoy the feeling of "giving back" to the community in productive ways. They also finished more than a dozen teddy bears which were presented to residents in a memory care facility. So there has been lots of running around leading up to the holidays, but all in the best way possible. To all who celebrate, Merry Christmas!

It's a FAB Thing...

Isn’t this cat quite the party girl? She is one of the prayer flags I received in a swap at our holiday meeting of the Fiber Art Bee (FAB). We each made several flags, and then traded at our event. I just love the saucy personality and snappy outfit she’s wearing.

It’s fascinating how every quilter came up with such different ideas. This “Grow” flag is made with gold lame (and I can’t put in the accent mark) and gold cord for the roots.

This one has delicate coloring and dimensional flowers with tiny beaded centers. The detail is so pretty, and the message is right on target.

The peach color and song bird make this flag a cheerful one! Somehow I neglected to take photos of the flags I made, and now they are gone to new homes. Oh, well. Not only did we have the prayer flag swap, but we also displayed our “selfie” journal quilts. This is me, with some creative license thrown in.  And a bunch of techniques thrown in as well. Looking rather peachy, too.

I used three large flowers I’d hand drawn on painted fabric, along with an embroidered and fusible appliqued face. The background is stamped, and the whole thing is machine quilted and edged with my favorite fabric twine edging. It was both fun, and a challenge to complete.

Always intrigued by something new, I saw some examples of photos turned watercolor images on Cheryl Lynch’s blog. She noted the phone app which is Waterlogue. I got it and then spent a fun hour or so giving some pics a new look. Doesn’t Lily look lovely in a portrait? And my desk looks positively artisitic instead of just messy- which of course it was.

And below is downtown Ocala, FL, lit up for Christmas. This is a fun app that costs a few dollars, but will provide lots of entertainment and some lovely notecards or other prints eventually.

I Could Write a Book…

Or maybe I’ll just make one. This fun journal is the result of taking Carolyn Dube’s free online class titled “Permission to Play.” It’s full of mixed media techniques and layers of paint, stamps, stencils and more.



The journal begins with ripping up and sizing pieces from a cardboard box that would otherwise go in the trash. So with material that is free and expendable, it’s easy to just experiment with art supplies and media in a no-holds barred approach. A peek through the layers in the pages above reveal some collage, stamping, stenciling, and paint applications with things like a hotel card key or the eraser end of the pencil. Very freeing.

Carolyn provided a series of lessons, unlocked one at a time, in which she demonstrated working with the various layers. She also offered several free printable “Sparks of Artspiration” which are color images of her own collage and mixed media work. We students were free to use them throughout our journals as well. You can see some of them in the pages above in the colorful stripes and shapes.


She encourages students to just keep going, even if the results are unexpected or unintended. Additions and corrections can be just a creative idea away. One thing I really enjoyed was the concept that the journal did not have to be “finished” before binding. More can be done to the pages as we fill the journals. The round white moon shape in the photo at right is a case in point. I love the vintage car image, and the little orange circles. And have no idea what’s to go in the moon shape. No problem. The book got bound anyway, and the solution will reveal itself in time.

The books are sturdy, stand up on their own, and are just fun to look at and admire. And students can admire each other's journals in a private Facebook page. I’m sure I’ll make another. After all, the next journal is just a pile of scrap cardboard away from happening!




I also want to share this wonderful collection of hand-printed fabric squares. They were the prize in Deborah Boschert’s drawing a few months ago at The Printed Fabric Bee, and I was the lucky winner. Created around the theme of architecture, the following textile artists each provided one of their designs, in addition to Deborah: Jane Davila, Susan Purney Mark, Lisa Chin, Julie B Booth, Gerrie Congdon, Lynda Heines, Carol Eaton, and Jacqueline Lams. Inspiring to be sure. I’m not yet sure where they’ll be used, but there’s a home in one of my projects for them. One is already in a prayer flag. Between fabric, quilts, and paper, I never run out of fun things to do!

Somebody Stop Me…

Because I’m just getting started! Making these small zip bags is so easy and so much fun that I can’t stop. Plus I was housebound for about a week as my husband and I both caught whatever cold is going around, and it really slowed me down. I saw the pouches first on Robbie’s Paw Prints and Creatology blogs. Both offered the link for the Shabby Fabrics how-to video. They make a perfect little gift for pretty much anyone as they can store sewing notions, pens and markers, art supplies, make up- you name it. And you can personalize them by using theme fabrics. I’ve got my eye on several more prints that I might want to use. One quilting friend and her husband raise Thoroughbred race horses, so the scenic fabric of horses coming down the stretch suits her. The other two are just lively colorful prints I thought would look good.





I found a source for zippers that I really like- the price is right, and the color choices are wide ranging. Zipit is an Etsy shop and along with my order of ten 14” zippers, they sent this cute little attachable zipper pull as a freebie. I might need more of these.  As you can see in the photo below, I’ve still got plenty of zippers to choose from. The hard part was selecting colors. I like how the top-stitch foot for the Bernina helps with a neat edge along the zipper tape. But I do have some things to learn still about boxing corners in these little bags. A couple were not as straight as they should have been. I’ll have more opportunities to practice though! 

Curiouser and Curiouser…

You might be wondering just what this might be. It’s a Curious Bundle, a fabric journal of sorts taught by Susie Lafond in her online class. As it turns out, I’ll sew just about anything I can get my hands on. So when I discovered Susie’s class, I had to sign up!




Making the bundle involves so many things I love- journal making, fabric scraps and selvages, sewing, and gathering bits and pieces together. Many of Susie’s projects make use of recycled jeans. I didn’t have any to part with so I purchased denim fabric instead. I also used many of the fabric scraps I got from Julie Sefton at Me and My Quilts. And a big bag of selvages also provided fodder. The rest of Julie's generous assortment is going into a string-rag quilt. I’ve always wanted to make one of those. How come other people’s scraps are always more interesting than my own? But I digress.




The bundle is long, so it’s hard to get a photo of it unrolled and open. But it unfolds along stitched spine lines to reveal “pages”, each with a sewn on pocket.  Part of the fun was to distress the denim to add interesting texture. You can slice, rip, tear, shred, and abrade your way through this step.  And once distressed, the denim is washed to get a delightful frayed look. The strings that came through with the wash were truly a tangle, but the results are worth it.



This one has a window cut out. Susie does a lot of “loose page journaling” so the pockets make good storage for those. I tend to make a lot of elements for journals, like doodled flowers, mandalas, and folded paper pieces. That’s what I’ll plan to keep in my Curious Bundle. Those elements are not easy to store and often get lost in the shuffle, so having them in one place will make handy when the time is right.





The inside of the bundle also has pockets, so there’s ample storage. I’m guessing it will be quite chunky by the time I fill it with papers and pages. I had bits and pieces of fabrics I’d printed, painted or drawn and they seemed like a good choice for the colorful interior. I must get on to stuffing those pockets! What’s even more fun is that Susie included has three projects in her online class, and this is just the first one. So there’s more stitching happiness to come and I’ve got plenty of scraps for it!