Twenty Years in the Garden...Tomatoes, Marigolds, and Corn

The beds are all planted!

Tomatoes are good companions to marigolds; we always grow them together.

But before planting, the posts have to go in.

Getting those vines going....

Can't forget the marigolds!

A few French knots on the French marigolds, of course...

The tomatoes were made the same way the squash leaves were: silk that that had its edges burned in a candle flame.  This time I used tweezers to hold those tiny tomatoes, though.

Now for the corn....To get the leaves shaped the way I wanted, I ended up using a second needle with fine thread to help fold the wide flat leaf over, like corn leaves do...

Like this...

Worked pretty well!

After I got it done and showed Robert, he said that the corn was too short and looked stunted.  Indeed!
So I added some height and of course he was right!

So here it is, just starting to tassle.  ;-)

Now I just need to do the finish work, backing and binding the quilt, so I will go do that and post a final picture when it is all done.
Thanks for following along!

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The guidelines for the "Twenty" contest benefiting the Quilt Alliance are here.  Do enter!

"Home is Where the Quilt Is"...

Every year I am most happy to support the annual quilt contest and fundraiser held by the Alliance for American Quilts.  I am not eligible to win, being a board member--and the prizes are really great--but I love the design challenge and to join my fellow quilters in this effort.

This year's theme is "Home is Where the Quilt Is", and the quilt must be shaped like a simple house, in the set dimensions of 15" X 19 1/2".

Did I love making my quilt!  It was inspired by this part of the view out my sewing room window.

Especially that little barn.....

I did have to simplify everything of course...
Here are a few more details...

This tatting was given to me by Marie, who was in my last post. I just brushed it with some Tsukineko ink to turn it into the sun.

I can't leave out three dimensional flowers, can I?

It's been too long since I've played in the flowers!  Spring must be coming to the Washougal River Valley....

I have been collecting vintage quilt blocks for a long time and felt that they would help with the theme of this quilt.  I pieced those white and green flying geese using vintage fabrics oh...about...20 years ago!

The contest quilts will be displayed all over the country this summer, and then auctioned off on EBay in the fall, as in years past.  The income is critical for the Alliance for American Quilts which as a non-profit accomplishes so much on a very lean budget.  I hope you will make an entry too; find the information here.

There is a HandiQuilter out there for the winner, as well as many other prizes.  But most of all, you will be supporting a great cause and participating in a wonderful challenge, keeping our quilting tradition fresh and new!  The deadline is June 1, 2012, so you still have lots of time....

Love by the Moon...Finished!

There wasn't much more to do, really....I zigzagged the seams between the fused Hanna ribbons in the border, sewed down the moon as well...added some teeny tiny beads to the stars to fill them in just a little...put a serif of sorts on the "L"s.....and added a sun. Though it is pretty low key and not the main focus, it did need to be there.
I stretched it over foam core and put a nice finished back on it. I wrote an article on how to do this for CQMagOnline a few years ago...you can find that here.

So here we have it....

I hope Andy and his girl both like it...and that they enjoy plenty more love by the moon....;-)

Thanks for your encouragement and suggestions, too! Landscape quilts are so fun....

Love by the Moon...Day 4

Thanks for your very kind comments regarding this little piece! It's been a lot of fun to work on...

One of my quilt buddies actually called me long distance this morning to tell me how much she liked it....and that she hoped I wasn't going to put flowers all over it!
I thought that was so funny....

....but I am trying to figure out how to emphasize the "Live by the Sun" part of the equation...and had thought some growing things (yes, flowers) in the yellow border could do that. I'll just have to see.

Meanwhile, I got the lettering on. It will probably be jazzed up a little but for the most part it is done, using a beaded backstitch.

And I do want to add some more stars....

Love by the Moon...Day 3

The borders are on, and until they are filled in with their writing and other stitching, they look kind of strange.
Often, we must proceed on faith at this stage of the game....

The size is now 13'' X 16''.

Next comes the writing, done in beads along the wide borders. It is howling and freezing outside, so it is a good day to spend beading....

Little Felted Landscape...Finished

The fence was moved and a few flowers added to the foreground.
Thanks for your suggestions!

I wish I had given myself a little extra room at the bottom, because when I stretched the piece around a piece of Fast 2 Fuse Heavy Weight Interfacing, I had to cut off that little bit of green that showed where the trees were growing out of the ground.
Now the trees come straight up from the bottom of the picture which is slightly dorky looking...but next time I'll be aware of that.

One interesting discovery I made was that I could use the oil pastels directly on the felted wool fiber....then refelt it. This gave me a little shading along the edges of the hills that I liked.

I'm not sure what I'll take on next....maybe *gasp* some housework!

Little Felted Landscape...Continued

Adding the detail is always an interesting challenge when working at this tiny scale (the piece is about 10" X 10")...how to get everything to "read" right, when objects can't be rendered in their exact size?

But I guess that's why they call it "Folk Art"!

I'm not quite sure about that fence....I like the perspective it gives, but it seems kind of spindly compared to the thick leaves on the trees.
I might have to tear it out...which is much easier in stitches than for real!

Cottage CQ...Freddie

This quilt is about many things for me....the place I love best in the natural world, the cottage itself that houses so much of my family's history, my desire to push the envelope of what my crazy quilting can be.....but it is also about my brother, Freddie.

This picture of me and Freddie is from fifty years ago, taken several months before he died.
He drowned at Michillinda....

When a child dies, the cataclysms that result can go on and on in a family for decades. My family had its fair share of collateral devastation. Certainly my parents never recovered from this tragedy; their marriage ended two years later.

But many years have passed and the pain is gone now. Fortunately above all else, my sister was born before our parents divorced...

And the waves still lap the shore there, the sun still lights up the water and the woods, and we still find great joy on that porch, where such horrible news was delivered in July of 1958....that's part of the incredible blessing of a place like Michillinda. It absorbs all the drama of our little lives, it's unchanging beauty and rhythms give us a sense of perspective, and we have a polestar to refer to when all else is in flux....

So I had to write Freddie's name in the sand on the beach....

I can't tell you how wonderful it has felt for me to do this. Now the quilt is saying what it is meant to say in its entirety.

But as always with this quilt, there are technical problems!
When there are large sections of cloth and lots of embroidery, it is hard to keep everything flat...maybe I need a large quilting frame and could embroider the top as a whole on that, next time.
Anyway, some extra beading went onto the water section and it is now a bit puckery.

If you click on this, it will get bigger so you can see it better.
The grasses around Freddie's name aren't done yet. I've learned on this quilt that when I make a big change like this, I have to live with it for awhile before proceeding to refine it.
It will evolve, though...

I am hoping that when this is all done, when I re-interface the back I can pull it taught as I am fusing. That helps sometimes.

Thanks for all your kind comments on my last post....I've so appreciated the chance to share this long-haul project with you.
We're almost done!