Where Did The Week Go?

Wow. It has been a BUSY week, and one that has flown by much too quickly.

Only one sketch to show you, from Wednesday. Yesterday I was busy working on a wall quilt (finally! More about that below) and on my Silly Sketch for Carla Sonheim's "Silly the Third" sketch class (which I'll post at a later date).

On Wednesday, I decided that I would sketch my beloved pooch, Maxine (based on the Sketchbook Challenge prompt, "Highly Prized"). She doesn't usually look this angry, but she occasionally gets quite miffed, so it's a fair representation of her, I think:

My other project this week has been a Fast Friday Fabric Challenge piece. This month's challenge was all about "color fields," which was both fascinating and frustrating. Here's the piece I came up with:

I call this "Border Crossings." Take a look at the FFFC blog for more information about this piece or about color fields, or to see other challenge pieces.

I hope you'll take a minute to leave a comment, and I hope you had a great week!

Catching Up, Continued

I’m having surgery tomorrow; the second in the past year, but I hope the last one for a long while. I could be in the hospital recovering for up to a week, so I’m busy getting ready for that (the most important tasks, of course, such as preparing and packing hand-stitching projects).

In the meantime, I submitted this piece for the March, 2010 Fast Friday Fabric Challenge (there’s more info about it on that blog):



I’ve also been finishing up my squares for my year-long journal quilting project, which technically ran from Feb. 21, 2009 (my 48th birthday) to Feb. 20, 2010. I did have a couple of 6x6” squares that I had to complete; this one was from Week #17, when I attended my 30th high school reunion:



This is from Week #51, just before Valentine’s Day, when I was experimenting with ruching fabric and painting with fabric dyes:



And this is from Week #52, when I celebrated my birthday (a day early) with my family at Pappasito’s:



I had originally thought I would sew my 6x6” weekly squares together in a 6x9 square configuration, but I want the finished piece to be more square, so I’m going to sew them together in a 7-squares wide by 8-squares long grid. That means I’ll need 4 additional squares (52 weeks + 4 squares=56); I’m going to hand-embroider those and place one in each corner. I’ll be working on those in the hospital (I hope, anyway, that I’ll feel well enough to work on them!).

Stay tuned to see the finished year-long journal quilt all put together . . . I hope to have it done sometime in (late) April!

Weekly Journal Square #49, and a Revision

My year of journal squares is almost up, and I'm getting excited about sewing all those little squares together into my "48th Year" quilt.

Here is last week's 6x6" journal square; it serves double-duty for my Fast Friday Fabric Challenge piece:

 

I started with a photo of a bird I painted on fabric a while back; I printed this onto fabric, cut it into wavy strips, and wove it together with an orangey/peach-colored hand-dyed fabric. I added white & orange to various peach squares, then recolored the bird with fabric markers and thread-painting.

I also "edited" my last Fast Friday Fabric Challenge piece. Here was the original piece:

It just felt unfinished to me, so I added some FM quilting to the background, and added a white napkin. Here is the revised piece:

That's better, don'tcha think?

FFFC #40: Milk—It Does a Quilter Good

December’s Fast Friday Fabric Challenge was really fun. The idea was to use product packaging, particularly the colors of the packaging, to influence a still-life-format quilt with a plant theme.

I knew right away that I wanted to use this milk carton, since I love the colors. It makes me happy every time I pull it out of the refrigerator (maybe that’s why I drink so much milk?):

The red, white, and blue colors were easy to work in, but I wasn’t sure how to work in the white & black of the cow “print.” Eventually, I decided I liked the idea of a bowl of ice cream (with fudge sauce, of course) to tie in to both the cow colors and the milk connection to the packaging. Anyway, here is the result:

I like the finished result, but my vertical and horizontal lines are off somewhat, I guess because of the stitching; I definitely learned something about when to use extra stabilizer. I may go back and do some quilting to the piece, especially on the red “tablecloth.”

I really love the challenges in the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge group and I’ve had fun with every one of the challenges so far. Take a look at some of the other members’ results; they are really creative!

The Eye of the Turtle

This month I’m a super-straggler in the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge group. Those darned Christmas stockings threw me behind :-)

November’s challenge theme was getting REALLY close-up and personal (microscopic, even) with the subject, and the technique was fabric painting. I started with a photo of a turtle I took at the Galveston aquarium, zoomed way in on the turtle’s eye, and painted it on fabric.

Then, I machine-quilted the piece like crazy. I lost the 3-d effect of the eye in the transition from the photo to the piece, and I don’t know that it’s recognizable as an eye, but I had a lot of fun doing it. Here is the finished piece:

Now, on to December’s challenge!

Full-Speed Ahead

The last several weeks have been quite challenging. First there was the week-long trip to Florida. Then, the realization that I only had two weeks left before I have to return to work (now down to less than a week—yikes!) from an 18-month medical leave (talk about scary; it’s like starting a new job!).

I have SO many projects I want to finish/start/work on before my time will once again be sucked up by my job. Plus, I’m still not completely recovered physically, so I’m trying to make sure I’m eating, resting, sleeping, and not pushing myself too hard (and with limited time and too many projects in the queue, that is REALLY difficult to do).

At any rate, I can check one item off the to-do list: this is my latest submission for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. I call it “After the Storm”:

You can read more about it on the Fast Friday blog.

Ok, now on to breakfast and another project . . . those minutes are ticking away!