Wednesday's Wanderings #29 & #30 - Slow Down and Smell the Coffee

Slow down and smell the coffee.

That's what I decided to do this week.

1.  I've made time to meet with some non-quilting friends for coffee. 

2.  I'm trying to learn to like to drink coffee, starting with it in the iced form,

so that I can meet my friends for a cup.

3.  Hand stitching slows me down and lowers my blood pressure.

I have an admission to make.  I often have issues with contrast.  It has happened again with this block.  The choice of the polka dot background, although potentially interesting, detracts from the hand stitching.  It is a lesson that I learn over and over, but I keep experimenting because sometimes  I end up with something fun and exciting. 

So I did take a "mulligan" (as my golfing friend has taught me) and redo this block. 

 

If you'd like to try it, here's the pattern I designed.

Crayola Washable Markers

Recently a friend sent me to www.appliqueandpatches.blogspot.com.  I read about a tip for using Crayola washable markers for marking fabric with quilting lines. I thought i f you could use these markers for quilting lines, why couldn't they be used to mark an embroidery design?  I couldn't wait to try it.  I'm quite a skeptic, but I so hoped it worked.  I love the blue marker that is made to wash out of fabric, but they have gotten pretty expensive and you can't see it on a blue or dark fabric.  Actually I paid the same amount for an entire package as I have for one blue marker.  And the chalk markers rub off after a short time.

Before I spent several days stitching, I marked a piece of the fabric that I was planning on using.  I highly recommend doing this any time a different fabric is used.  I found that I needed a little bit of liquid soap and a bit of a soak, but ALL of the ink rinsed out!

So this is what my project looked like.  First I drew a design on paper and then using a lightbox, I tansferred it to the hand dyed fabric using the green washable marker.

I stitched using a variety of stitches including the backstitch, lazy daisy and french knots. I like to embroider with some thin batting behind the design.  When I do this, the fabric doesn't pucker and an embroidery hoop isn't necessary.

Thanks for the great tip.  I love blogs.

Free Folk Art Sampler Pattern

To celebrate the publication of "Willoway" in Fons & Porter's magazine, Love of Quilting (see previous post) and it's soon to be visit to the PA National Quilt Extravaganza, I am offering a free folk art pattern. I used to offer this as a class when I taught at The Country Quilt Shop in Montgomeryville, PA.

CLICK HERE FOR FREE PATTERN AND DIRECTIONS

I have a split personality. I love contemporary art quilts and I also love primitive folk art. This is clearly my primitive side. Click on the photo either here or in the sidebar for the directions and pattern.

My Folk Art Farm

I am so excited and thrilled that my quilt, "Willoway - A Folk Art Farm" is in the current issue of Fons & Porter's magazine - For The love of Quilting. It is in a feature titled Art of Quilting - American Farms. The quilt was inspired by the stone houses doting the landscape near where I live in Pennsylvania.

After stitching the landscape, I added the houses and then the pond. All of the applique up to this point was done by turning under the edges and topstitching it down. The rest of the applique is fused, raw edge. The weeping willow tree branches and leaves were done with hand embroidery. The leaves on the other trees are 3-dimensional and attached by machine stitching down the middle of the leaf. The cows' tails were done with hand embroidery as were the sunflowers and the vegetable garden. The 2 black dogs were our family pets that are no longer with us. The top and bottom borders are machine pieced. The entire quilt was machine quilted.

"Willoway" and another quilt of my mine - "A Shrine For Planet Earth" will be at the PA Mancuso Show, Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza, which starts Sept 17th. They have moved from Harrisburg to a new location, closer to Philly. Yippeeee. I will be there on Thursday, white gloving for my quilt guild and then seeing the show and shopping (of course). I'd love to meet you if you're planning on attending.

I have a pattern for a primitive sampler along the lines of "Willoway"that I designed while I was teaching in our local quilt shop. I am working on trying to figure out how to offer it as a free down loadable pattern on this blog. Check back in a few days and hopefully it will be here.