2013 Visual Diary

I've started a new sketchbook or visual diary for this year. It needed a cover, of course! I painted these flowers with Derwent Inkentense blocks. I've even made a title page.

My original photograph was not the best, too much shadow, but I love the flowers.





I applied the colour in three different ways. The red anthuriums were painted by directly applying the block to the fabric and then going over it with a wet paintbrush. It's a good way to get a intense colour on larger areas. For the pale blue background, I wanted more of a soft wash. I scraped a few little crumbs of the block into my paint palette and added a lot of water. I wanted more control and blending for the orange daylilies. For them I wet my brush and then picked up colour directly off the block. Sometimes I blended the colour on the fabric just by putting the two colours together and adding water. Other times I blended directly on the block or the paint palette. I've quilted around the anthruiums only in black thread.

This is the back, quilted in feathers. The macro function on my camera changes the colour considerably!

Now I just have to fill it with exciting ideas! I'm following Heather Thomas making art every day. She is challenging herself to produce a small piece of art every day. I think if I can put something into my sketchbook every day, that will be enough of a challenge for me. But I'm finding Heather's work very inspiring. One of my current projects that is just at the thinking stage is to produce a fabric book. I think some of Heather's techniques will make it into my book, via my sketchbook of course.

I'm off to Kerikeri  this weekend to see their quilt show and catch up with friends, hopefully meet some new friends. I'm stopping off at Waipu on the way up. I'm going to see the Waipu Grand Pageant, a performance telling the story of the migration of Scottish Highlanders to Waipu following the Highland clearances in the 19th century. I'm looking forward to it. It includes horses, carriages, bullocks and I'm sure I read somewhere that there is even a burning croft!

Quilt within a quilt

This is my first quilt finish for 2013. Maybe I should only make little quilts! I painted the daisies with the art group (with no name), cut them up into the little quilts (they're quilts as they are quilted and bound!) and then put them on this batik quilt that I quilted with crochet cotton in the bobbin.

I thought I hadn't done much in 2012. I moved house three times so that made it hard to finish things but when I look at my posts, I've actually achieved a lot. I made a few of these painted quilts. More table mat sized quilts! I seem to work best in in this size!

I also made three bags.

Then I made the purple/black/white quilt for a challenge (12" by 12"), finished a community quilt (yeah! a full size quilt!) and completed a couple of projects with the art group. I've really enjoyed some of the things we've done in this group. I'm looking forward to more creative stuff this year.

I started a lot of projects last year so I should manage quite a few finishes this year. I may even get on to remaking my Onehunga quilts, the painted quilt I made in 2011. I've got a series of three quilts planned and never even started them last year. I'm staying put at this house so maybe I'll actually manage to start them.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year and may it be a good one.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

It's time for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival. So many quilts to look at and new quilters to follow - and possible new friends too. Click on the link above or the button at the bottom of this post for the festival.

My entry is the first painted quilt I did using LuAnn Kessi's technique. This is my nephew, my daughter and her husband. I love this little quilt!

Things I learnt while making this piece:

• less is definitely more. Stop when you still think you have more to add and it will look just right.
• Curls don't need to be painted. An impression of curly hair is enough
• lips are only dark in the corners
• in fact, the main thing I learnt was to really look at the photograph and see where to apply highlights and shadows
• let your paint dry before adding the shadows. It makes it less muddy looking.
• Blonde hair that has darkened to a fair brown is really difficult to replicate!
• The flange border (the cream bit) makes a good frame but remember to allow for seam allowance and the depth of the flange when trimming the painting square.

This is the original photo after I had manipulated it in FastStone. It printed out a little lighter than this. I think I would have preferred it darker and I have tried darker prints since then with interesting results. They look a little freaky before painting!
I print on to a piece of fabric ironed to the back of an A4 sheet of freezer paper. My printer only goes up to A4 which limits the size. I have access to an A3 printer so I may do some bigger ones soon.

As you can see, I only really quilted the background and the border. I outlined the main shapes with coloured thread.

Have a look at the festival by clicking on the button below.

Colour Palette Challenge

Way back in January when I thought I had time, I decided to have a go at Vicki Welsh's colour challenge. Vicki is putting up a new palette each month but I've only just finished January's challenge!

Her palette made me think of a dark shiny eggplant on a blue gingham tablecloth so I bought an eggplant, photographed it on various fabrics, printed and painted a manipulated photo and then I ate it. The eggplant, that is, not the quilt! I love eggplant! Recipe below but let's look at my quilt first.

Comparing Vicki's colour palette with mine - not a bad match. I created mine by taking the photo of the painting into Paint, drawing some boxes underneath and then using the colour picker to pick out colours and fill the boxes.


Vegetarian Moussaka

Tomato Sauce:
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 onion
2 sticks celery
2 cloves garlic
4 medium size flat mushrooms
tin tomatoes
herbs and seasoning to taste

Souffle top:
2 tablespoons butter
flour
milk
3 eggs separated
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese to taste

you also need:
3 medium size baking potatoes
1 large eggplant
olive oil
200g mozzarella

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
• Slice the eggplant lengthways and brush with olive oil. Bake on an oven sheet/cookie tray until slightly coloured and soft. (about the time it takes to make the tomato and white sauces)
• Scrub the potatoes (I don't peel new season potatoes) and par-cook in the microwave for 4 minutes. Turn the potatoes over and cook for another 4 minutes. Slice into rounds about the same thickness as the eggplant.
• To make the tomato sauce, saute the finely sliced onion and celery in oil until soft. Add the garlic (crushed or sliced thinly) and mushrooms and saute for another minute or two before adding the tin of tomatoes. Season with salt, pepper and herbs. I used the Italian herbs in a tube that you can buy in the veg section at the supermarket. I think I also added cumin. A touch of cinnamon would be authentic.
• Make a thick white sauce for the souffle top. (I didn't record my measurements. I just eyeball it but I started with about two heaped tablespoons of butter.) Let the white sauce cool a little before adding the egg yolks. Beat the egg white to a soft peak then fold in white sauce.
• Assemble the moussaka in a deep baking dish, starting with half the tomato mixture. Then a layer of eggplant and potato. Dot the top with slices of mozzarella. Spread the remaining tomato sauce over the top and then spread the souffle mix on top of that. Add a layer of finely grated parmesan and put in the oven to bake for about 35-40 minutes. Turn the temp down if the top is getting too brown.
• Serves 6, 320 cals per serving and a whopping 48% fat but it tastes great and if you have it with a green salad (lettuce, cucumber and celery), I guarantee you won't be hungry for ages!

My Artists

I've shown you three little quilt paintings now. This is the painting I did of the three artists.

Left to right: Jamie, Becky and Josh

Becky painted the flamingos; my nephew, Jamie, painted the Kune Kune pig; and Josh painted the rhinos.


This is how the painting looked before quilting. I've printed out the photo with quite a light grey but it was enough to put all the detail into the faces. I really thinned down the paint with a lot of Aloe Vera gel to keep it transparent so that the detail showed through and then I've gone over areas that are shaded with a second coat of paint. No skill involved!

I wanted to leave the faces unquilted and I was going to leave the background unquilted too but by the time I did the border, the background was puffing up too much. I've quilted small leaves at the bottom since I had painted small oak-like leaves on the left side but then I made them bigger at the top, just enough to control the puff. It helped make the background recede so I think it was a lucky improvement.

The back, showing the quilting.

Zoo pictures - flamingoes

These little quilts are so much fun to make. This one was painted by my daughter, Becky. I think the colours are really pretty.

The original photo with white flamingoes

Becky decided that they were pink and in the water

The back of the quilt

I used a variation on Eyeballs in the border of this quilt.

Quilting detail

Mitred corners on the satin stitch

I have a basic mechanical sewing machine, the Bernina 1080. I used to have a fancy Janome embroidery machine but I like to be able to adjust the stitch width smoothly so I can do things like mitred satin stitch. Digital machines don't have small enough increments - or didn't when I bought my machine.  You can see a step in the stitch width with a digital machine. With a mechanical machine, I can turn the stitch width dial and sew at the same time. By sewing slowly and giving it a gentle tug, I can keep the edge of my stitching in a straight line as I do the mitre. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes not. I'm very proud of the the top left corner of the first one!

I had a store owner argue with me about my need for a mechanical machine! She wanted to sell me a digital and when I explained what I wanted it for, she said that in all her years for teaching quilting, she had never had a need for such precision. Naturally, she did not make a sale! I went to Bernina where the machines are more expensive but store owner listened to me.

More zoo pictures - rhino

This one was painted by my new son-in-law.

Before quilting and the original photo

The great thing about these little projects is that you can indulge in some quilting. I've quilted Swirling Petals on the painted area and feathers on the green border. I'm still trying to perfect my feathers in free motion quilting. I don't seem to be able to keep making graceful tear-drop shapes. Stubby sausages are a better description of my feathers.

For the rest of the quilt, I took my inspiration from the batik and quilted a four petal flower all over. I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep the size and spacing consistent so I deliberately went for a more wonky look. Honest, it was deliberate! My feeling is that if you are going to hand guide a design it shouldn't look like a computer did it!


I decided to hang on to my sewing machine until the end of the holidays and just talk nicely to it when it makes clunky sounds. It really needs a good overhaul. I was worried about my boredom levels, now that I'm without my TV. The Sky guy is due today but it is now 2pm and not a word from him yet! On the plus side, I've found out that TVonDemand from TVNZ is actual very watchable, even on my little netbook. So I didn't miss the second episode of Falling Skies. I'm not hooked yet but I love sci-fi and will pretty well watch anything. I watched the whole of the series V and it was dreadful!

I'm off to finish the flamingo painting now.

Kunekune pig

LuAnn Kessi's blog is one of my favourite reads. Her quilt of her dog features on the Quilting Arts calendar. He's Mr February. LuAnn uses some lovely looking pencils and crayons to colour in black and white prints she prints on to fabric. I didn't get a set of Derwent Inktense blocks from Santa (he mustn't have got my letter) so I thought I would try it with fabric paint. So we went to the zoo, took lots of photos and then I printed them on to very expensive paper backed fabric. (I'm going to try out a cheaper option next). Then I thought, why not share the love. LuAnn does this as a workshop for cancer patients. They all seem to really enjoy it so I thought I would do it with my family on Christmas day. Beats watching the telly any day!

This is what my nephew produced. He called her Betsy.

And this was the process.

Kunekune pig at Auckland Zoo

Manipulated in FastStone and printed on fabric

Paint-by-numbers (without the numbers)

Details added with free motion quilting in black

I have some more that haven't been turned into quilts yet, including the most adorable meercat! Watch this space!