Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Handwork Wednesday

I finished Tiles of Lisbon!

 

 

The next ornament kit is Country Gardens. It's pink with gold and crystal geegaws. But tomorrow is April 1 so the cat comes back out for the month of April.

Baby Bird Watch

The Bluebirds have made a lot of progress in Box 3 and I expect we will have eggs in the next few days.

Box 1 is the big surprise. We have watched the Bluebirds and Tree Swallows fighting over this one and we expected to see a Tree Swallow nest. We were very surprised to find, what appears to be, a Carolina Chickadee nest. Maybe the Tree Swallows will nest in box 2 because there's nothing happening there at the moment.

Field Tripping the Web - Issue 97

 The Interpret This! group has unveiled their March challenge results.

 Eye Candy – Projects people have recently completed

• Connie's Circles 3 art quilt 
• Leah's Carpenter's Wheel baby quilt
• Anya's selvage wall hanging
• Jen's needle book
• Kathy's pencil cases
• Barbara's cell phone bag
• Jeanne's Happy Home art quilt
• Sarah Ann's Joshua quilt
• Gypsy Quilter's red and white quilt
• Mary's Stars and Pinwheel's quilt
• Allie's Granddaughter's Flower Garden crazy quilt
• Anne Ida's bear's paws quilt
• Crystal's Pinwheel's quilt
• Tracey's Blasting Off quilt
• Rita's Chaos quilt
• Sue's Geometric 3 art quilt
• Gerrie's kimono art quilt
• Liz'slaptop bag
• Kathleen's handbag
• Kheli's Best Buddies quilt

  Longarm –specific Eye Candy

• Ruthie's quilting on a shadow box quilt
• Beth's quilting on a row sampler quilt
• Judy's quilting on a customer quilt
• Judy's feathers on a customer quilt
• Randi's quilting on a double wedding ring

  Fiber and Other Art

• Shannon's journal cover
• Elizabeth's polymer clay buttons
• Jodie's fabric tea set
• Elizabeth's beaded bracelet
• Susan's embellished denim jacket
• Bunny's pinwoven tote bag

  Surfaces

• Kaizen's shibori ombre fabric 
• Chris' snow dyes in silk
• Kristin's discharge dyeing experiments
Françoise's monoprinted fabrics

  Garment Sewing

• Bunny's Vogue 8259 jacket
• Summerset's S1140 vintage dress
• Lindsay'sM5927 sheath dress
• Erica's V1159 Donna Karan dress
• Erica's M6083 jumpsuit
• Shannon's S2436 girl's dress
• Sharon's M6078 cowl top
• Erica's S2440 prom dress

   Tutorials and On-line Projects

• Randi's video tutorial for quilting feathers in a double wedding ring  
• Geta's card holder tutorial
• Shannon's tutorial for a girl's skirt from fat quarters
• Fannie's tutorial for making fabric beads
• Elizabeth's tutorial for creating flour batik prints
• Summerset has a multi-part bra construction tutorial
• Vickie's tablerunner tutorial
• Barbara converted a turtleneck sweater into a cardigan
• Liz's Leo baby quilt tutorial
• Vickie's tutorial for making fabric carrots

 Other Interesting Things

• Sharon B's blog roll - blogs beginning with the letter Q
• Vicky is having a blog drawing for a quilt kit, enter by April 1
• Lisa is celebrating her 5th blogiversary with a drawing for some great gifts, enter by April 5

 Found on Etsy

 It's very windy here today as I write this article. That prompted an Etsy search for "kite"

• Of course I have to start with kites, Kite Runner is a new Etsy shop with lots of great kite designs
• Winifred Studios has lots of great stationery products, like these Spring Kite notecards
• The Pink Monogram sells downloadable embroidery designs, this 3 Kites design is just one of them
• papercutdiecut offers very intricate papercut art, including this kite tree
• Harvest Moon by Hand offers several products but the ones that struck me today are these Waldorf Window Stars

Whistlestop Web Tour - Vol 42 - Regrouping

This week's WWT on MQResource is all about regrouping and getting back on track with your goals. I've also posted a companion article on the 3 Creative Studios blog about how I get myself back on track.

Fiberactions Challenge - Communications - the whole story

When I posted my Communication piece on March 15 I was dealing with my back problems and was not able to give you the whole story of the quilt. To be completely honest, it wasn't totally finished either. I had gotten the quilting done on Saturday, the 13th, then my back checked out Saturday night and I did not sew again until earlier this week. I had not finished the binding when I posted the photo on the 15th. This weekend was devoted to finishing and here it is.

(You can click on any photos in the post to see them larger.)

Communication

16 x 20

In my professional life I spend a lot of time in meetings. I often observe that no matter how often a group of people may meet, there’s always misunderstanding and miscommunication.  People come into meetings (or other communications) with different perspectives and different levels of attention. It’s always a challenge to get everyone on the same plane. My piece reflects the variety of levels of participation and perspective in meeting situations.

The Back.

The color patches are samples from each of 17 fabrics.

The kaleidoscope in Initiative is pieced. The kaleidoscopes in Communication are done with fusible applique. Every single piece is cut out and fused to the front of the quilt. In this detail shot the red flower, black chevron, blue wave and spike, pink point and gold/blue drape are all separate pieces.

Here's another detail shot. The center of the kaleidoscope is actually two pieces: the brown medallion and the yellow pieces fused on top.

Here are a couple of photos that will give you an idea of how I constructed this.

 

I added the kaleidoscopes as I constructed the quilt. This is what helps give the impression of the kaleidoscopes moving on different planes.

I built the kaleidoscopes on 45 degree wedges. I cut out on piece at a time and tried it on the wedge. I use hinged mirrors to see how the final design will look. Once I had something I liked, I glued the sample fabrics in place and then traced it onto template plastic.

Next I created a cartoon on parchment paper with an outline of the design into as many wedges as I needed. I fused Mistyfuse to the back of my fabrics before I cut out all of the tiny pieces. I would first fuse the kaleidoscope to this cartoon. It will not stick permanently to the parchment paper so I could peel the full kaleidoscope off the paper and then arrange it on the quilt top and then fuse it permanently in place. It was quite tedious so you know I loved it!

Now, it's time to change my focus to the Convergence quilt that is due in May.