Laundry

This is one part of quilting that I really don't like. Washing and ironing all the fabrics before cutting. Since I am a bit stuck waiting until my backing and sky fabrics get here in the mail, I decided to get a head start on the washing. Above are the mermaid colors going into one wash, and below are all the wave colors getting washed together. One thing that is good is that if any of them release a bit of dye, being batiks no one will ever know.
I have reworked the cartoon twice since last night. I am really happy with the movements of the water now. They were a bit forced before. I can tell you that the drawing itself is of two mermaids swimming within a large, breaking wave. There is a lot of movement and depth. I hope I can pull it off with the colors I choose. My brain gets so ahead of my hands though. I can already see how it will be finished, the quilting, the beading, the contrasts and the many intricate patterns on the fabrics. One of my "things" is to use very busy fabrics, next to each other with the colors playing off each other. I am just loving some of my fabrics for this one. In the picture on top, I will be using a piece I bought over 5 years ago. It's the one with the seashells on it, and I will be using it for the tail of one of the mermaids. In the second picture, some of my favorites are the navy blue with the coral on it and there is a piece hiding a bit on the far right which is very intricately drawn with dots and teardrops. The later is a piece I recently found on line at Hancock's with a whole grouping of other "friends." I could literally spend a fortune on batik fabric.

Well, I need to put the first wash into the dryer now and get the second load going. A woman's work is never done!

Mermaids Begins

While I will be talking much about how this is going, these are the only pictures you will see of Mermaids until it is done and I know whether or not it is accepted in a show. I was just perusing my latest Fiberarts magazine when I found a call to entry for a show in Lowell, MA whose theme is the sea. Hmmmm........ I would have until June 15 to finish this one and get them an entry. I'm going to try, anyway. Above are my choices for lights, medium and dark tones for the water.
Violets, yellows and greens comprise the spectrum for the mermaids themselves.
...and here it all is sitting on my work table. I'm only missing one key piece. My sky. I just can't seem to find just the right mix of pale blue, pink, yellow, peach and gray. Still searching all my fabric haunts for that one key piece.

The cartoon was completed for this one a while ago, but I am tweeking some of the lines. I need for it to seem very fluid and not stiff at all. The size is so large that I need to put it sideways on my table and it's width exceeds the width of my work wall by about 18". Nevertheless, I am very excited about this being a challenge to finish in time for a show. We'll see how it goes. I am still hand stitching the wolf at night. Once he is done I will have to shift gears to "Mermaids" almost all of my spare time to get it done. Wish me luck!

As a post script to this post, I have found a wonderful backing fabric, 108" wide and I think I have found my sky. Thanks to Hancock's of Padukah and Seawatch Fabrics! I'll be watching my mailbox for the next few days.

Millions of pins!

Finally got some time in the studio. Pinning the beast was a beast! Some areas like the spiky neck hair was impossible to turn the muslin underneath, so I ended up cutting it away. I need to be careful with the satin stitching that it is tight enough to cover any white threads showing from the muslin.
Not only was the beast a beast, but the tree had it's issues too. It took a long time to get the pieces fitting into each other properly. The tree is now ironed down to the background up to the area where it starts branching out.
My next step is to hand baste all around the wolf so that he stays put when I start to stitch. I need to buy more safety pins to assure that the backing does not slip when I start stitching. I'll be stitching him in very soon!

Progress on Wolf

Just some quick pics before I go to work. Above, the stitching within the wolf is done.
I cut two layers of thin poly batting in the shape of the wolf.
Now I have to roll the muslin edges, iron them and pin the wolf to the background to sew it down. Some areas are impossible to roll the muslin, so I will cut it away before stitching, like the nostril area above. Wednesday I have a full day in the studio and I will be continuing this. Happy Valentine's Day to all.

Stitching Wolfie

New lithium batteries made such a difference in the speed of the shutter today. Not quite so much blur. Above is a shot of the wolf's face before I started stitching.
I decided on a palate of golds, rusts, reds and teals for the thread colors. I used a gold to outline the snout/eye socket. Some of the other colors are laying on top of the wolf.
I pulled a real good one with the inner parts of the ears today. Apparently the wool in this area is a wool/silk blend and it did not like the setting of my iron. I burnt the left ear; had to take the piece out (of course, after it had been stitched in by the rust thread) and replace it with another, restitching the rust line and making it fatter to catch the ear fabric. Every quilt just seems to have some kind of issue. It's never totally smooth sailing!
I got a lot done today. There are only a few areas left to stitch. Then I'll be cutting some batting to fit under it and working the edges to hide the 1/4" of muslin. In some areas I will have to cut it, others I can fold it under, iron and satin stitch over it. This will help to give the edge some substance making for a thick satin seam.

I might be able to work a few stitches in the next three days as I am working day shifts and home between 5:30 and 6:30pm. But I don't have another whole day until Sunday. I'm really feeling energetic and full of creative juices with this quilt. Wish I had more time to work on it.

There is a Wolf

With the sample wolf cut, I felt OK about setting out to cut the full sized wolf. Every quilt I do has it's similarities in how I put it all together, but there are always a few problems to solve in how to get from point A to point B. I want the wolf to have some extra padding, to give him a little 3D, jump right out of the quilt, feel. Stitching each piece to the backing would not allow me to do this. So I decided to stitch the wolf to a piece of muslin first so that I could cut some padding to go under the whole wolf. I will then stitch around the edges to sew the wolf to the backing. Hand or machine quilting will then define areas of the wolf.
I started yesterday before going to work with the navy wool. I drew patterns as I usually do from tissue to cut the three pieces out. Fusing large blocks of fabric with Wonder Under makes cutting easier to control with the paper backing still on. I was pleased with the accuracy of the cut pieces. Yesterday I also got the muslin cut and the pattern pieces all drawn on the tissue.
OK, these aren't the best photos I have ever taken. My little digital camera uses lithium batteries. They don't last long and obviously I need some new ones. All the pieces for the wolf got cut today and I fused them to the muslin. Once the inner stitching is done I will cut the muslin to the outside edges of the wool to prepare to stitch the whole to the backing. After fusing, I couldn't resist the urge to see how it looked on the backing with the tree in place. I pinned it to the quilt on the work wall and took a whole lot of pictures, which came out awful - thanks to my waning batteries. Above and below are the best of those photos.
Generally I am pleased with the progress. Tomorrow, another day off work, I will be experimenting with thread color on my sample. I am thinking that I will be choosing bright colors to liven up the dullness of the wools. I like the lines of the wolf a lot and I have some fun ideas of how to use those lines to create some excitement with wolfie. I'm going to buy some new lithiums tomorrow morning so I will be taking more shots tomorrow night.

Tree Piecing

Started working on the colors for the tree running through Peter and the Wolf. Above are the first cuttings for the tree pinned to the background colors. Below is a detail of the tree. It shows the patterning well but the colors are not accurate at all. I love piecing trees. They are so much fun and so beautiful.


The tree will be stitched on top of the wolf as it cuts through the wolf. Actually the wolf is circling the tree hunting down the bird, just out of it's reach. So my next project is to take my sample of the wolf, decide for certain on the fabrics and start to cut them. They will be stitched on a piece of muslin so that I can pad the wolf, making him stick out a bit in relief.
Above is the final shot of the tree, all the colors are as I want them. They are just pinned in place but the wonder under is on the back of each one. Once the wolf is fleshed out, stitched and ready to place on the background, I can iron down the tree and stitch it in.

My next three days are 8 hour days at work so I won't get to sew much until next week. Well unless we get another storm with a foot or more of snow. As much as I hate the snow right about now, another snow day in the studio would be fun.