Take It Further...January, Day 4

I am using Joan Waldman's book brought out by the American Quilter's Society, Quilt Savvy Embroidery Stitches, to inspire my seam treatments. These are very traditional and based on lots of research into old crazy quilts. It just seemed like a good fit for this project, something formal.

It is sloooowwww going for me, though. I find myself using single strand floss for some of the seam elements, ME, the queen of the fast and chunky!

So far I like the look a lot, but I am going to have to address the fact that the border is going to overwhelm the letter....if I don't embellish the letter too. I kind of planned on doing that, but now I know I have to.

There is a seam treatment on here that Pam Kellogg graciously charted out for us, too. Thanks, Pam!....

A close up shot. I want my stitching to show up, but not be too contrasty either.



Sharon picked out a really nice palette for us.
I am not staying slavishly with it, however, but using it as a jumping off point. There have to be a few sparks flying, after all. For me that has meant veering into the reddish side of purple.

Oh....and thanks for all the pizaa suggestions, too! ;-)

Take It Further...January, Day 3

I finished piecing the other two sides of the border then constructed my little wall-hanging (for that is what this will be). It is currently 16" X 16".
Those inner white borders are not perfect and the corners are not mitered. My Bad. But they will be covered by lace and stitching so I figured I could get away with it.

As piecing frenzies go, this was all too short-lived. But I do plan on doing another take on this using a different letter when this one is done. The concept has definite potential.

But there is another concept I am trying to refine and work with too, and many variations are in my future, esp. since I've been cranking on my bread machine A LOT over the holidays and want to keep on with it:

Turkey pepperoni, roasted garlic cloves, onion, green pepper, olives, mushrooms...cheddar, mozarella, and parmesan cheeses, all yummy enough...it is the crust that needs work. It tasted too olive-oily, had not enough salt, and I really need better pans.
The quest for the perfect pizza is part of my own personal Take It Further challenge!

Take It Further...January, Day 2

Yay, I FINALLY got a great print the very first time around on my fabric for my N!
I used:
*PPFD (prepared for dyeing) cotton sateen from Dharma Trading, pre-soaked in Bubble Jet Set, then ironed onto a full page label. The label paper guarantees smooth passage of my fabric through the printer.
*My new (used) Epson R1800 printer, set to Best Photo, Ultra Matte Presentation.

Even though you don't need to pre-treat fabric when printing with pigment based inks, such as the Epson uses, it helps to and here is why...the chemical coats the fiber molecules just a little bit, so that keeps the ink from dispersing quite as much as it normally would; hence the crisper image. I think the colors end up more vibrant as well.

The design challenges are about how to showcase the flowered letter without competing with it. The controlled palette helps, and also keeping a lid on abrupt changes in value within the frame, shading the darker patches toward the outside edges.
What kind of stitching to use will of course be the next big question.

It is so great to be working with green again! The "H" quilt had almost no green at all in it.

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And now for those who Make My Day when it comes time to reading blogs. I have thought a lot about this, and I must say that I love the friendship aspect of blogging most of all. The artistic inspiration I see and read about is a close second, but matters of the heart count first every time.
Soooo...
Debra, Rian, Barbara C, Marty, Judith, Judy, Fran, Kay, JoWynn, Sharon, Pam, Julie, Susan, Vicki, Vero, Rengin, Robin, Sonji, Pat, and now my other Barbara B ...you all are incredibly dear to me, and You All Make My Day.
There are other new friendships forming too as a natural development of our widening web of connections. If I forgot anyone it is because I am an airhead and not because I don't think the world of you, too!

Thank you so much for adding such richness to my life!!!

Take It Further...January, Part 1

"The Letter 'N' "...I well remember that song from Sesame Street about a million years ago.

I started my January TIF by printing up a paper copy of my N so that I could do a little design sketching before getting started on the sewing. Yes, this kind of planning was part of my goal for this challenge. Can't totally wing it every the time, can I?

I've used some "trash paper", as we called it in college, to overlay my first design idea. Essentially, I am framing the letter.

A second try. This time the lines are taking off from the pattern in the lace background. But they are too dominant, design wise.

This could work. The squiggly border is supposed to indicate lace.

Ah, the fun part...pulling fabrics! Nice how my letter here follows the color palette Sharon gave as an option for this first month's challenge. Greens and purples are showing up all over the web, it is so cool.

I was thinking I might couch some cording as a border somewhere in this piece, so here are the threads I will use to make my cording, also from Sharon's palette. They will end up in seam treatments as well.

Here are the threads wound onto their bobbins. I am using the Diva Cord Maker
that I bought in Houston last fall. It functions like the Japanese Kumihimo cord maker that Vicki Welsh wrote about here. It comes in three sizes and you can even use strips of fabric in the larger bobbins and make large funky cord out of that. Some people use a string of seed beads wound around one of the bobbins, and that line of beads adds great glimmer and texture to the cord as it is woven in. The possibilities are endless.
My friend Barbara Blankenship used the Cord Maker to create the tree she has on the beautiful crazy quilt she made for her son. See it here on her brand new blog; do click on the picture...and leave a comment to welcome her to blogging, too!

So here is my cord, made while watching Emeril AND 30 Minute Meals this morning on the Food Channel. Baked apples even now are cooling on my kitchen counter, thanks to Rachel Ray. (I am hoping that watching cooking shows as I sew will rub off on my culinary abilities. I keep the sound off, though.)
So tomorrow I will piece the background, print up the N on silk, and get to work here. Of course, I won't be stretching out this project over the whole month. All in one go, that is me.

Sharon B and Vero were very kind and picked me for one of their Make My Day blogging awards. Thanks so much, ladies! I am thinking about the ten blogs I am in turn supposed to pick...how am I going to choose from the 30 or so I stop in on regularly? Tomorrow I will let you know.

UFOs

I loved how Sharon B bit the bullet and posted her UFOs (that's Unfinished Objects, in case you don't know.) With the impetus of New Year's to propel me into the same kind of reckoning....I will post mine, too.
If you don't count unquilted sane tops, of which I have about 5 from many years ago, I only have two UFOs from my current stitching life as a crazy quilter. This is because I am a dogged one-tracked mind type of person, Taurus the bull forging ahead with blinders on. I do one thing at a time, start to finish. Period.
Except for these two items...

This was a warm-up waste canvas project before doing the lettering on my H quilt. I counted wrong somewhere in the center of the rose and put it away in mild disgust. But now that I look at it, who cares? I should finish this and piece it into a crazy quilt.

This was started at my Point Bonita quilt retreat two years ago. My brother Ben had sent me this image of the Holy Mother, which I really love; Debra Spincic did the image transfer for me.
I'm not sure why I stopped work on this, except I didn't like stitching through the batting. (I had tried building my piece directly onto batting instead of muslin, which was a mistake.)
But I would like to come back to Her I think.

But I will start in on my Take It Further challenge for January first. There is someone I very much admire for her courage....I won't invade her privacy by giving her name, but it does begin with.....

.......the letter "N".

Welcome, 2008!!!

Are these years flying by or what?

January has come in with lots of cold, wind, rain, and snow on the hills out the window...a proper beginning to this new year it is!

I have been feverishly working on my H quilt over the holidays, trying my best to reach my goal of its completion by today....I came very, very close, as you shall see, but not quite.
Between that consuming goal and holiday happenings and visitors, I have been incommunicado with my friends, not emailing or reading too many blogs either. But I plan on easing back into my beloved online life over the next few days.

Here is a detail of the binding. Imagine four separate "passes" going around the whole quilt: first the black silk binding was hand appliqued on; next the orange rick rack was attached with those #8 cherry colored beads; then came approximately 32 yards' worth of red 4mm silk ribbon in those lazy daisies (involving one repeat trip to the store, as 20 yards was nowhere near enough); finally, the sandalwood beads went on.
I was really starting to feel hostage to this quilt!

You can get an idea of the overall effect. I still need to fold the black binding to the back and and sew it down...and add the hanging sleeve. But then this puppy is done.
Which is a good thing, because I got some books for Christmas that have me all inspired and wanting to try new things!

Quilt Savvy is a collection of stitch diagrams, rather like Carole Sample's book, A Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches. The ones in here have a nice clean look to them which I like, and don't use a whole lot of esoteric stitches...just the basic ones combined in some fresh (to me) ways.
A-Z Thread Painting is just that. I would like to try my hand at this for sure.
The two volume Margaret Fuller bio, recommended by JoWynn, is more for broadening my inner perspective--as biographies are meant to do. But I am hoping that will be conveyed in more fearless choices in my needlework.

I bagged some big game in the book department this Christmas, too....

Yes, the Holy Grail of the crazy quilt world, long out of print and hard to come by...I am now the proud owner of a mint condition copy of Crazy Quilts, by Penny McMorris.
YES!!!!!
(Powell's Books, as of last week, has another copy, only it is in hardback and is selling for $150.)

May the new year bring us all lots of adventures in stitching....I can't wait to share mine with you all.
And from my family to yours, Happy New Year!!!