Journaling the 30's

Weekly journal quilts are all about using up the leftovers. My DD gave me a lot of Thirty FQ's. I think she may have moved on to urban chic and I have the leftovers. I divided them up and the 'also rans' are in the leftover bins. Here I am again playing with the not so great while the best of the best awaits.

I think mug rugs are cute but maybe too small to get thru my larger piles, so these are little 12" place mats for the mug and the cookie plate! I've cut 12 backs, 13 inches square and I'll do some improvisational piecing on the front. With the plan for the next few weeks in place maybe I can even get to the good stuff!

After the portage, the journey continues.

Journal Quilts

Week 8:

I had a lot to do before I had slipped away for a little retreat. Then in the flurry of catch up I got *caught up* in a blizzard of Kleenexes as I had and still have, the worst cold. This little quiltlet represents my try at Nina's patterns and my frustration with these necessary Kleenexes. I tore strips to sew down and then felt my strength waning so I did some programmed stitches and then I just grabbed the Kleenex and went off to bed in a huff. But now being behind made me finish it up and move on.

Week 9:

I have two tops made for the bunk beds and had considered adding some circles. During the Workshop in Progress day a concern was raised that the busyness of the background and the patterning in the motifs, may cause the circles not to be seen. I did want to try my new MistyFuse so I cut out a few of the smaller circles to see. I'm kinda liking the effect. This was a *useful* journal quilt.

Week 10:

3CS also has a colour palette challenge. Nice colours but not something that I am hankering to make very big. It did remind me of an old fabric I have and I definitely see the pointy leaves of the iris. My word this year is FIND and I definitely find that part of my style is using many fabrics of one colour so that is why there seems to be a repeating theme of pieced backgrounds. I encountered a few logistic problems and the size grew a bit but that is what seemed most pleasing, a bit bigger than 12" x 12". I'm not sure I can explain all the mid course corrections but it is all done by machine.

Child's play

I may have to change my name to my friend's blog, Naptime Quilter. But being a grandma rather than a mum means I'll not be quilting during nap time but joining the bed and blankie brigade. The good news is that 30 minutes does it well enough for me. lol

Journal quilt number 6 is the crayon drawing I made.

Now Josh seems to like the back the best. ???

We had spread an eye spy quilt I made way way back when I first met Cheryl out on the hallway floor. (see first photo) We had all shared novelty prints that represented the 26 letters of the alphabet and then I hand appliqued lower case letters on mine. I had lots of time as grandchildren didn't arrive till some years later. But when Josh saw the crayons on the back of my quiltlet he went over and studied the eye spy quilt which has C for crayon and yup, it is the same fabric. (It is gonna be hard to fool this little guy!) LOL

Needless to say I am a bit behind on the colour palette placemats and I need to be sewing while the little guy snores. SHHHHH!

Can this trash be saved?

These Journal quilts are full of surprises! My theme was garbage, anything we'd be throwing away. I had scraps left from a quilt project. I had a flimsy piece of white fabric. I had some phone books to throw away. I have been seeing lots of projects with selvages lately. I'm not sure I'm for saving all my selvages but I can come up with a few rather than throw them away. I have some paints that need to be used before I feel like I really did just throw my money away.

So, here is the process and reclamation from the garbage.

I used a gel medium to glue down bits of paper from the yellow pages of the phone book. I chose the sewer section which had a lot of non fabric advertisements. lol

I learned in my research that the first colours should be the opposite of your final plan. I tried to use a light hand over the papers even though it is a transparent paint. My 'oh' was kinda hesitant. :0 I also want to add a strip of green mulberry paper to separate my fabric strip.

I'm getting ready to add the finishing colour.

I'm sorry I was so dismayed at the arrival of 'midnight' I forgot to take a photo. But this is also where I got really nervous as things were getting out of hand. The Setacolours were ordered after a class I took a number of years ago. With basic colours you can mix everything you need. Uhm, works in theory but I am thinking I'd rather have smaller bottles and lots of options. yikes! Where is the garbage?

Thank goodness I got some Shimmer Pearl. (I shoulda got white as well.) So I covered a whole lot over and slapped another piece of of the yellow pages on top. Trust me, this was my trying to redeem my mess and it looked quite bad. So I shimmered a whole lot more!

well, that worked and I was off again. I'm wanting yellow and blue. I was so intent on not making garbage I forgot photos and focused on process.

I'm not unhappy but it certainly wasn't quite what I had in mind. Except for the heavy breathing and the heart palpitations, it is kinda fun and as my learning curve flattens out I'm sure it will totally be fun!

So here is my garbage!

This is probably a truer representation than the mellow photo I posted at the beginning.But I'll be posting the mellow version to the 3CS Journal Quilts flicker group!

When life gives you scraps...

Very busy week with the kids visiting.

My DD#2 worked on a baby quilt using the Thirties Fabrics that DD#1 collected. It is for a mutual friend so I'm sure it'll all work out. ;^)

Now we have to evaluate to see if it needs a border and what kind.

The next challenge for Common Threads is 'garbage'; anything you would be normally throwing away. Now there is far too much usable fabric to throw away but I do want to be using up scraps and leftovers for these journal quilts so I was evaluating the left over strata from the rail fence blocks.

These are also meant to be somewhat in the manner of art quilts so I did a lot of ripping and rearranging to make something along a bargello effect.

This is Week 4's little journal quilt. I'll have to try again for the garbage theme next week.

Thursday I was at the Bernina Sewing Club. The project was a great tote and then we practiced using a wonderful couching foot. The pot holder at the very beginning of the post was my try. I had seen this foot before and it is not available for my older machines. I REALLY like this foot and I have been evaluating my needs, wants and desires. Should I put all my eggs in one basket and trade in the two old machines for the new machine? I took them in for evaluation and I'm left with my even older Bernina Minimatic to keep up with the art journals. Here's hoping!

Friday finish

Week Three Journal Quilt, pant, pant.

The weather is bitter cold but that doesn't stop my company and I'm set for a full house all weekend. This was third on my cross off list of five things. Two to go!

Oh, the quiltlet is fused scraps. I made myself stay in the scrap bin. I found Misty Fuse in my sewing dealer's shop and I'm trying it. So far so good. I must remember that an overlay of tulle dulls the colour so I need to spice things up a bit or get over my obsession about raw edges. I did some machine quilting then applied the backing. I can see this is going to be a great learning experience as I do these weekly quilts.

The Quilting Journey/Journals

3 Creative Studios has issued a Journal Quilt Challenge

Each Friday I am invited to post a page sized quilt. This was quite popular a few years ago.

The local quilt group, Common Threads, is in its second year for page sized quilt challenges and they were our most popular display during our annual quilt show last year. We are wanting to encourage new quilters but also challenge our traditions.

I am happy to do these because I see them as a useful tool/vehicle to grow as an art quilter.

Week one :

This is also a Common Threads challenge to use thread.

Week 2:

Common Threads challenge to use a zipper.

I am now caught up with those challenges so next week is going to be whatever my little heart desires. I had originally thought I'd do place mats but having seen some of the wonderful little quiltlets I must seriously raise the bar with my art quilts. Hmm, maybe a few parameters are indeed a good thing. Perhaps I'll use up my scraps in a creative way. But I definitely want to be posting a journal art quilt every Friday.