IN WHICH APPLIQUE PAINTBOX BEGINS 

ITS THIRD YEAR OF BLOGGING

And here is what I have to show on this anniversary.  Progress on Nature's Notebook.  Veining on the leaves and petals, french knots, touches on the goldfinch, and some stems for wheat.  The petals were particularly troublesome.  I began with 60 wt sewing thread as recommended by the designer to detail the petal but I thought it was too coarse looking. I ended up (arggghh!) pulling out this detailing on 2 flowers and replacing it with a blue-gray 100 wt silk thread.  It was worth it.  

Here is helper kitten doing important quality control work.  She thinks her eyes look pretty next to the petals.  I included this photo as the petals are detailed in the 60 wt which you can see looks to heavy. (so hard to capture the correct colors).

May 1 will see the release of the new Aussie painted bird block (Yay!) and the appliqued color block.  2017 was without doubt the worst year of my life and for most the year my design wall was empty.  It is coming to life like the world in spring which makes me start happy dancing.

Three wonderful projects.  The gray and orange fabric is just an idea for developing the color scheme for the Imaginary Garden quilt by Yoko Saito. After the two BOMs, I will resume feathering the Goldfinch and planting the landscaping.

We have, of  course, had lots of Goldfinches at our feeder but my attempts to capture them on film is somewhat lame but you can see the pretty color. I like the texturing in this photo.

Practice has not made perfect yet but I keep working on it.  Here are some practice pieces from Angela Walters Free Motion Challenge Quilt Along on the exquisite new Tiara II.

And the next bit of practice on gridworking. Pinned and ready to stitch baste. It will be 50 and 60 wt for me.

One thing I have discovered is that I like finer wt thread.  I like denser quilting and finer thread has less build up.  I tried some 40 wt glide which worked really well but the look was to heavy for me. 

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From our walk on the wild side:

Mossy path thru the spring woods

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Lastly....your moment of Zen

The lovely flowered walkway in Hong Kong at the Un Chau Estates

HAPPY QUILTING UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN!

I am linking up with:

Slow Stitching Sunday, Bambi's Blog, Making Monday,  Em's Scrapbag, Esther's Wow, 
Let's Bee Social, Whoop Whoop, and Finish or Not!, Off the Wall Friday.

OH! THE JOY OF A NEW QUILTING MACHINE

A sixteen inch throat sit down quilter! She is so pretty and so much fun to use.  I have been quilting on a juki which is a very good quilter but I wanted some elbow room and room to maneuver.  The block I am quilting is my first outing with my Tiara.  This block is the third in the Helen Godden painted birds series "Feathered Friends".  Right now I am experimenting with different size needles to see what works as it is my understanding that long arm quilting machines generally call for heavier needles.  The above was done with a size 16 and I am going to try a 14 next on the more finely detailed quilting.  The 16 needle makes a big hole in the painted fabric.

Free motion quilting practice projects are now in my project list.  First is Angela Walters FMQ Along which has 9 lessons covering basics with great videos.  

https://quilting-is-my-therapy.myshopify.com/collections/free-motion-challenge-quilting-a

Second is this WOW fabric from Hoffman. 

 If you follow Margaret Solomon Gunn on her blog:

http://quiltsoflove.blogspot.com/2018/03/bitten, you will see what she has done this this panel.  You should look-it is pretty awesome! She outlines each petal and  quilts a different motif in each.   I have 2 of her books.   "Dense and Dainty" provides motifs for this panel.

And the third learning project is this panel is available from Spoonflower.com.  It was designed by Margaret to use with her classes on gridwork and to accompany her "Beautiful Backgrounds" Grid based fill book.   I much prefer free form sorts of designs but I ordered this book in error and thought I might as well make use of it.  This is a wonderful book also.

So, my friends, that is the GRAND PLAN.  You can see there is lots to work with here so my new Tiara and I will be good friends by the time I finish all this.

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Block number four of Morning Glory Designs BOM

Blue and yellow is one of my favorite combos and I love the graceful, swirly flowers.  They took forever to make and stitch down-all those little pieces.  These blocks might make a good quilt-as-you-go project.

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I wanted to show you some photos of my beautiful daughter in India.  Mary lives in Northern India in Rishikesh. 

These photos were taken late January, early February.  

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AND NOW..........YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN

These are photos from above looking down from a plane of terraced rice fields in China.  The first one especially is so abstract it is difficult to decide what you are looking at but how exquisite!

HAPPY QUILTING TO YOU UNTIL 

WE MEET AGAIN!  

I am linking up with:

Slow Stitching Sunday, Bambi's Blog, Making Monday,  Em's Scrapbag, Esther's Wow, 
Let's Bee Social, Whoop Whoop, and Finish or Not!, Off the Wall Friday.

IN WHICH I POP MY HEAD BACK 

INTO THE BLOGOSPHERE

I have been a busy little bun working on my projects and thought I would bring the world  up-to-date with my doings.  The Wren block from Sandra Leichner's Naturalist's Notebook is finished.

I am happy with the result. Batiks are difficult to capture with a camera but you can get a sense of the color variations in the fabric.  I searched for a long time to find some "perfect" background.  This is called Garden Splendor by R Kauffman.  The fabric is a pretty sharp white so I have tea dyed it to tone down its brilliance.  The writing is mostly french gibberish but the effect is perfect-writing in a naturalist's notebook.

I have begun work on block #2-The Goldfinch.

The bird and the leaves are already stitched down but the petals are basted as I am still reviewing them to see if their color is right.  This block has lots of background embroidery and detailing on the bird, leaves and flowers.  Here is a photo of the pattern so you can see what is going to happen.

Pretty challenging!

I have developed a bit of a rhythm over the past couple months for working on my projects.  I am participating in 2 BOM programs.  I talked about Helen Godden's  Feathered Friends quilt last post.  Each month she releases a new block depicting an Aussie bird to be painted and then quilted.  The other BOM looks like a rainbow of color!  There is some piecing so I have to concentrate on this part and the rest is applique.  The BOM is from Morning Glory Designs.  She releases a new pattern each month which is posted and available for download during that month.  Here is a drawing of the quilt :

and a link to the site:

https://www.morningglorydesigns.com/free-block-of-the-month.htm

Here are my versions of the first 3 blocks:

I love the color, the way the diamonds and squares form up, and the movement of the applique.

Helen Godden's new birdie block was released today tho I am on hold for now as the printer ran out of ink (what a racket!) and I ordered a couple new colors of paint.  Here is the finished Feb block:

And March block:

I just cannot say enough good about this project.  It is so fun to mess around with the paints and then do the quilting!  Helen has videos with instructions on the painting process and another on the quilting process.   I am learning about the paints which are Jacquard Luminere and about different FMQ stitches.  Link at:

http://shop.helengodden.com/index.php?route=common/home

So anyway, back to rhythm.......The BOM's come out the first of the month and both are completed in a week or so apiece which gives me then 2 weeks to work on the major and challenging Naturalist Notebook which is a very time consuming and intense project.  I am pretty happy with my project line up-there is lots of variety in materials, style, difficulty, and color.  I also do some FMQ practice during the month as this has morphed from being the terror of my creative life to being a favorite thing to do.

FROM OUR WALK ON THE WILD SIDE:

Signs and sings of spring in the Missouri woods:

AND NOW........YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN!

This artist makes temporary works of art out of natural objects.  His vision of the world is awesome.  If you want to see more of the beauty made out of our ordinary world, check out his webpage at:

http://www.jamesbruntartist.co.uk/

See the charming outer ring of rock people!

HAPPY QUILTING TO YOU UNTIL 

WE MEET AGAIN!  

PURPLE, BIRDS, AND FLOWERS ARE SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!

I am linking up with:

Slow Stitching Sunday, Bambi's Blog, Making Monday,  Em's Scrapbag, Esther's Wow, 
Let's Bee Social, Whoop Whoop, and Finish or Not!, Off the Wall Friday.