I DID IT!

Hi all. Today I did it. I sat down and actually used some of my art supplies. I copied a bunch of tulips from a book of flower drawings. The author says you learn how to draw (or how to draw again) by drawing. And I've decided to go with it.

It was supposed to rain, but instead the sun came out. I decided to go to CVS to buy a couple of things I needed since I had a 20% off coupon. I looked over at their art supplies (not much) to see if they had drawing pencils since what I thought were pencils turned out to be charcoal pencils. They didn't have any so I went to Hobby Lobby. Got the shock of my life when one of the two handicapped spaces was empty. I ended up doing both stores with carts and not with my walker. I'll admit when I got home I was dead tired.

So I bought a bunch of drawing pencils in a package which I have not opened yet, and found the Kindle copy of a book on DRAWING FOR THE ABSOLUTE BEGINNER, and my intention is to spend a small amount of time every day learning to draw again.

I'm also taking a Craftsy Class on Colored Pencils. And now that I've got the materials for that too, I'm going to start the exercises she shows in Lesson 2 that are intended to teach you how to use the pencils. I'm going to be doing some exercises with the drawing pencils as well. The idea is to learn how pencils of all kinds work.

Take care all.

What I am up to, August 26, 2012

I generally manage two or three quilting sessions a week, rarely one a day. It isn't a lack of time. It is a lack of energy. I've been working on something to do when I don't quite have the energy to actually play on the sewing machine.

Months ago, possibly last year, I bought a Craftsy class called Thread Art. It basically was a class on how to use colored pencils in an art quilt along with free motion quilting to make pictorial quilts. I knew I didn't want to do the class project. And I didn't have the free motion quilting skills at the time to actually do the technique. These days I do.

I had bought the colored pencils back then, but just put them away. I took them out again last week and decided to try the technique out. There was also an article in the newest Quilting Arts Magazine, which was a similar, but not identical technique. I had bought the brand of pencils from the Craftsy class and the brand used in the magazine were different. Still, I decided to try both techniques.

The Craftsy class technique was to use the pencils dry on a surface where the free motion quilting had been done, and then paint on fabric medium to make the project permanent.

This photo shows my first two attempts to do that.
I used the practice piece I have for the Coins quilt I am currently quilting. This area has very light beige thread on white.

I liked the way this came out. I liked that I could blend in the colors, using the blending pencil, as much or as little as I wanted to. And that the more I colored the more intense the colors turned out to be. I used 2 or 3 shades of each color in this sample.

This second sample was different. This time I used the technique from the magazine. The fabric medium was painted on first, so I was working wet. The advantage was the almost instant intensity of the colors. The disadvantage was that blending the shades into one another wasn't as easy or as controllable. And I ended up with strokes I could see in the final product.

The final sample was in an area where I was using the darker beige thread I'm using on Coins. I went back to the Craftsy class technique, but in a larger area.

Again this is 2 or 3 pencils and several layers of pencil work, followed by the blending pencil and fabric medium. And I love how this looks.

I have an apple penciled out in a blank area of the practice piece. I'm going to quilt it and then color is. The area of the apple is a lot larger than anything I've done before. But I'll still just be practicing, although if this turns out, I might just cut it out of the practice piece and finish it so it can be hung. I've got ideas for several real projects. I'm going to work small for a bunch of reasons. I like the look of the smaller pieces and I know that having small projects means they get made and they get finished. With my current energy issues, that is important.

Meanwhile, most of the second inside strip on Coins has been quilted. Yes, there are those leaves again, without color this time.

Since coins is made from a tone on tone white, there will be no coloring going on in that quilt.I have not decided what I will do in the outer borders. The top and bottom borders are quite narrow. I think one of Leah Day's designs that I've used several times before would look good in both of them. The side borders are wider. Maybe feathers. We will see.

Take care all.

Free Motion Again

I've been working on my Coins quilt the last few days. I got it sandwiched, and I've been ditching it using a walking foot. I've taken a bunch of classes on Craftsy on quilting by machine. Some of the teachers teach using a walking foot, some teach ditching as you go using free motion. This particular quilt has lots of long straight lines and doesn't have blocks. I think the walking foot was the way to go here.

I decided to use thread that would show. I was a little worried about the ditching, but in the photo you almost can't tell it is there. The background fabric is white on white. I'm using a color that is darker than the darkest shade in the fabric, and I think it works pretty well.

I started with a pattern I'm pretty comfortable with, a version of leaves. My intention is to have the patterns run into one another. I did that with one ring on a practice piece I was doing recently, and really liked the look. So the next pattern will be a smaller pattern to fill in around the leaves and then will give way to another larger fill pattern. Not sure what yet.

I've tried multiple ways to control the quilt as I am moving it around the machine. The latest one is this ring called a Halo. I find that I like it a lot. I tended to get my hands hung up under the machine when I used Ann Petersen's quilt movers. Those were pieces of shelf lining. Basically it worked pretty good, but I like the Halo better. I hated quilting gloves. They were always in the way when I needed to do something delicate.

Take care all.