Free Motion Quilting: Doodle on the Wall?

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I was doodling on my shop's bathroom walls. Yep, totally giving it a bit of free motion design to liven it up.


The walls are the same boring brown as the rest of the shop. Or at least the same as the other walls were. Most of the walls in the building were painted a cheery, but soft color of yellow. It turned out fabulously, but the brown was dark enough that it took several coats to cover it up and there just wasn't time to paint the bathroom as well.


Of course, now that we're open 6 days a week and I want to have some sort of life away from the shop, there isn't time to paint it now.



You may remember some of my painted window escapades at our shop's original location. That doodling was an absolute blast and was just calling out for me to doodle on the wall. What's the worst that could happen? I have to actually paint over it?!


There's a big difference between doodling on glass with window markers and drawing on an actual wall that's not part of some graffiti encrusted urban area. I knew I didn't want to use the window paint as it was rather difficult to manipulate and get an even line of paint. Let's face it, writing "Go Team!" takes a different line than a curvy, graceful feather.

Paint pens are pretty easy to come by these days, and I figured I'd use them, but I was nervous about making mistakes and I'm fairly sensitive to paint fumes. So I put it on the back burner of my mind and let the idea percolate a bit.


We installed a large chalk board in the foyer of the shop and decided against using chalk markers to write on it after seeing that some of my chalkboard labels on bins in the shop were 'ghosting' when I wanted to remove the so-called chalk.


Bingo! The perfect use of those chalk markers was on my wall! It does wash off to some extent, and is available at most craft stores. I got mine at Michael's.

So I began drawing with a fairly fine pointed marker. Meh. The fine line blended in and didn't give me the bold graphic line I wanted. So I got a wide pointed chisel tip marker. I was leery of it at first as it had a similar tip to the window marker that had given me trouble. It worked like a champ.

What about making mistakes? Well, I realized that the earlier attempts with the fine tipped marker looked pretty sad next to the thicker lines and I was happy to report that I was able to wash it off. Now, the wall is painted with a fairly slick paint, maybe a semi-gloss, so I don't know that this will work on all paints, nor after a bunch of time passes. Try this at your own risk, but I am so happy with the results.

Bonus, I get my free motion quilting practice in as I doodle my favorite designs. I absolutely think frequent doodling is a great way to improve your quilting skills.

 What do you think? Am I crazy for drawing on my walls? I did think of getting some plexiglass on the wall first, but then decided to go for it. I'm glad I did!

You can see more pics of these walls as I go on my Instagram account. I'm a little more active on there these days, snapping a picture when I can. I take forever to write up a blog post. Follow me there.

Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman with a Sewing Machine, Revisited

You might remember this project from a post published last November. It's been needing a little something more and this weekend I finished it off. If you didn't see that post and I know there are a bunch of new readers here, go check it out and watch the two related videos, one is a speedy time-lapse number. We'll be here when you're done!

 The stitching was great but just not dense enough for the letters to pop out and be readable from a distance. Since this has been my battle-cry of sorts this past year, I wanted to see those words.

Using a technique I learned from Irena Bluhm several years ago (from her QNN videos), I used Dewent Inktense pencils and textile medium to carefully paint inside the stitching of the letters. It's kind of hard to get the shading just right without adding so much water that the color bleeds, but I really like the results.

I think it's a lot better now that the words are colored. This is hanging in my studio directly across from the front door, so I can see it often and if it serves as a little reminder to those coming in the house that I'm not just sitting around eating bon-bons, I'm OK with that.

I'm working on getting my newsletter ready to send out this week. If you haven't subscribed to it, there's time. Just enter your first and last name as well as your email address in the short form along the right sidebar.

Hope you've made some time for creativity in your life this weekend!

Zen Free Motion Quilting

I really wanted to do some fun free motion quilting today. I didn't want to work on the projects I wanted to do, just stitch for the fun of it. Martie Rowland of Purple Hat Fabrics posted a pic of a drawn Zentangle on Google+, wondering what it would look like as a quilt. I totally felt challenged to quilt it out.

"She thought she could, so she did." That's a quote I like to think of to keep me motivated on my quilty adventure.

It was the perfect design for using a longarm ruler. The 1/4 inch space around the foot made it easy to space the ending of the line. I marked a 10" square and divided into quarters, then again diagonally. Then around and around each triangle with straight lines that start from the end of the previous line and finish the line 1/4 " away where it intersects the line from the next side. (Clear as mud? It's easier than it sounds)

The big design forms from the repetition of the triangle shapes. I had to make sure I filled them in the right order to make sure the orientation was repeated. I bet there are variations of this design that are worth exploring.

It works great and I like the resulting design. I worked the design backwards from the original drawing, so the resulting psychedelic pinwheel rotates the opposite direction. That's perfectly OK.

Once I finished filling in two triangles, I shot a video.

This certainly isn't the first time someone's been inspired to use Zentangling in quilts. In fact, there's a lot of cross-over between free motion quilting and Zentangles.

Both Pat Ferguson and Susan McNeill have books out on using the meditative drawing process to inspire quilting stitches.

Martie Rowland might not be aware of it, but she lives very close to me. It's pretty neat to think of how we can "meet" someone online whom we might not know of otherwise and find they don't live to far away. It's also pretty neat to find I have readers all over the world (Hello Australia!) and I'm looking forward to visiting with my friend Robin, who is now a real-life-friend, during the Charlotte AQS show.

And in other news, my new business cards arrived! They turned out great. So much better than what I could do on my computer with those tear apart things.

I made my hubby run over to the neighbor's house to scan the QR code and make sure it worked. He tried to tell me it pulled up a naughty site, but I didn't buy it. The code went straight to the blog. Isn't that cool? They make me feel a little big for my britches, but it's a good thing I think to stretch myself a bit and lean into my work.

Finished Floral Postcard

I finished the edge of my little post card/wall quilt from last Friday. It's two layers of zig zag, followed with a straight stitch aligned with the edge of the zig zag. My Janome 6600 has left-aligned zig zag and straight stitch so it was pretty easy. And I used my ditch quilting foot to guide the edge for a nice, straight edge.

When I did the straight stitch, I placed a layer of card stock on the back so it can be used as a giant post card or to record a sentiment or something. It curled a little as shown in the above picture, but a little time in the slammer under a heavy book has straightened it up.

A closer shot of the edge, above. I think the straight stitch makes the line of stitching look smoother and neater.

Eleven people left a comment on last Friday's post for a giveaway of this card. Random.org decreed that number 8, "What Comes Next?" was the winner. If I can get an address, this will be tucked into an envelope and mailed to you asap.

This post is linked up with Free Motion Friday at Leah Day's site and Off the Wall Friday at Nina-Marie's.

Freed from the Creative Funk for Friday

So my last post was a bit cranky and I was feeling a bit out of sorts in a bit of a creative funk that seems to happen between major projects.

Today was a bit better and then I realized another week had past and I had nothing to post at either Free Motion Friday at Leah Day's blog nor at Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday.

But I decided I would get some free motion quilting in anyway. It was quiet time and the kids were being pretty good so I grabbed a piece of Peltex and a funky bit of batik that someone had given me in a stash purge. I decided I would make a large fabric post card/small wall quilt.

 I decided I would just doodle quilt a flower strategically over the blobs of color. It turned out pretty well and I'm glad because I decided that I wouldn't rip out any stitches. I wanted to stretch myself and curb my perfectionism; do it and have fun. Gave my inner critic the day off too. OK, I confess there was one tiny spot I had to rip.

 Since the ruler toe was still on my Janome Convertible Free Motion Quilting Foot Set and I hadn't done much ruler work on the Janome lately, I did some curved lines using Rhonda Beyers small Double S ruler. I really like doing ruler work on my sewing machine. It's one way of doing background work without getting too dense with a filler.

It ended up measuring about 6.75 x 8.75 inches. I still need to fuse a piece of cardstock to the back and finish the edges. It's far from perfect and there are some spots that really should have been redone but I enjoyed myself.

Leave me a comment and I will pick someone at random to mail it to! (In a manilla envelope)

More of my Robin Hood Tree Wall hanging

 I hope all you moms had a good Mothers' Day. It seems it's always a mixed bag for me since I apparently have higher expectations than my family. It didn't help that my hubby shaved all the curls off my little guy the night before. I thought he was just doing a trim! My baby disappeared with just a few strokes of the cutters.

I admit to having a bad attitude over it that lasted the first half of Mothers' Day, but then I took a nap and life was much better. I did some gardening on what seemed to be one of the prettiest days we've had in a while, plus a bit of stitching.

I am making good progress on my tree wall hanging. I added an extra layer of trapunto batting to the trunk of the tree and cut away a small portion of the interior of the tree canopy. If you look close enough, there's an owl sitting on one of the branches.

If the trimming of all that batting around the leaves looks tedious, it wasn't that bad. Around several portions, I was able to just gently rip the batting away. It leaves a soft edge around the tree.

I was stumped for a while about what background design would look just right on this piece and then it hit me! This is Sherwood Forest after all, so I started making more trees in the background. I am not too happy with the pine tree on the right, but I love the tree just to the left of it. The background trees need to be fairly dense or I will lose the dimensional effect of the trapunto.

I hope to have this finished up by Friday! Many thanks to all who have been checking out my free motion quilting adventures lately. I hope you have been able to quilt or do something creative this weekend.

Design Inspiration

It is quite popular to include elements from Zentangles into quilting, or vice versa these days. I love to doodle with my quilting, and Zentangles and similar doodling gives me a lot of inspiration.

Occasionally, I will use the Bing.com daily picture from their homepage to spark a little exploration of geography with my kids. Today's picture was of a New Zealand landscape. As part of the lesson, we watched a few traditional Maori dances. These guys are fierce! But I was also intrigued by their tattoos and one link lead to another.

These Maori tattoo designs are quite adaptible to quilting, I think! I envision some applique adaptations.
 

Video: Quilted Christmas Lights

I finally got the video uploaded and edited from my Quilted Christmas Lights project, which I blogged about last week. Hope you like it! As I mentioned in the post, it also features the voices of my children in the background along with me using my Super-Mommy voice.

Quilted Lights Made from Kids' Fingerprints

 I realize Christmas has come and gone a while ago, but I thought I'd share this simple table topper with you. I didn't actually get it done in time for Christmas, but the important thing is that this is a memory maker for us. The light bulbs are actually made from my children's thumb prints.

I fused some Wonder Under 805 to the back of some white cotton fabric and then used Pebeo Setacolor paints and also Lumiere metallic paint for the yellowish green 'light' (My daughter loves a little bling.) I carefully made thumbprints with each child and then when they dried, cut the 'bulbs' out and fused them onto the background fabric.

 

A little fun quilting in Superiors' thick #30/3 poly once called New Brytes and now renamed Sew Fine 30, to make the thumb prints into a string of lights and to quilt the year on to it. Then a little glitter to stitch the bulbs down and do a little quilting in the background. I tried to make it look like flashes of light around the bulbs.

I also used a decorative stitch around the edge since I used the pillowcase method to finish the edges instead of a binding.

I had forgotten I had made a video of  me doing some of the quilting and found it when I loaded these pics onto the blog. I'll see if I can't get it posted soon. The kids' quiet time finished up just as I was video taping, so there are some guest voices on it. [Edited to add: Video post here: Video: Quilted Christmas Lights]

Now, back to quilting!

Happy New Year and Quilting on a Tablet

My feather needs a little work.

I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas and New Year's. I seem to have gotten lost in my To-Do list and it's had very little to do with blogging and sewing. My hubby went way overboard and surprised me with a tablet computer. He really surprised me! As in, I almost snapped at him on Christmas Eve as I was certain he hadn't bothered to get me anything, not even the $6 paperback I had specifically asked for.

Trying some spikey shapes for my new art quilt.

I now have a new favorite way of drawing out my quilting designs for practice. The program makes the 'sketch' look so artistic. It's a free Android based app called "Draw Something". I have totally wasted too much time on this tablet, trying to figure it out, loading it with free books for myself and the kiddos. It feels great to just doodle with my finger on this thing! I can save the drawings, but I usually don't. Simple to start anew, just like the new year, and try, try again!

Clamshells

 

We've also spent much time rearranging the bedrooms and who sleeps in which room. My husband and I now have a bedroom/sewing room downstairs while my daughter is in our old room upstairs. We've done away with the playroom as such, and now my daughter has a better sized room upstairs. I think the arrangement will work nicely.

I had a special quilt project due to finish today. Not happening. The top's done, but I have yet to start the quilting. Not a good quilty start to the new year, but it will get done soon. I have grand plans for this year and I think it's going to be wonderful, even if it doesn't turn out as I plan it.

I hate to stipple and it shows, but on the tablet it's fun!

Gotta go.....

Practice Free Motion Quilting; A Follow-up to Speed is Relative

I'm being smashed between getting over being sick and Christmas preparations, plus working on an important quilting project so I haven't been posting like I wanted.

Practice, practice, practice also known as PPP is the best way to learn to balance hand speed with machine speed when free motion machine quilting.

My most common practice is actually done via pen and paper. Sometimes I use the kids' Magnadoodle so I don't waste paper. Sometimes I get artsy-fartsy and get out some watercolors and a gel pen.

I prefer to use pencil when drawing on paper, but I have found that using pencil for quilting practice results in having to stop and either sharpen the pencil or advance the lead on a mechanical pencil while in middle of doing a design. A pen works much better. Try to not get too tiny unless you like stitching very densely.

Believe me: Drawing designs out really helps. I ignored this advice when I first started. I wanted to stitch, not draw! But when I took up drawing the designs while at the doctor with my husband so much, I really improved. Can't draw, you say? Doesn't matter. I can stitch much better than I can draw. Some of the above doodles are quite rough.

The important part is just learning the design, making it more automatic and figuring out where to go next with your drawn line. You learn how to get from one area into another. It can help to draw basic quilt block shapes; square, triangles, etc. so you practice putting your design into them like a pieced shape.

How about you? Do you doodle your designs before you stitch them? I think it's fun! Try it and let me know if it helped you.

Free Motion Quilting as Surface Design

Most people think of  quilting the quilt as the utilitarian step that holds the quilt sandwich together. Many folks certainly use attractive designs to do this and enhance the overall appearance of their quilts. But me? I love the quilting itself! I've been getting a lot of inspiration from henna tattoo designs, Zentangles, doodles and illustrations on Pinterest.


I used some free motion quilting as decoration for a new purse. I just find of doodled the design on the fabric, batting, and interfacing sandwich before I cut the pieces out. First the black thread to define the main shapes, then the blue followed by the white thread. This is all Superior's 30/3 Sew Fine poly thread, also once sold as Brytes and New Brytes.

 I think it turned out quite well. At least the quilting did. I made up the purse design without a lot of planning and I'm not too happy with the handle and worse: I ran out of fabric!

 I had planned to bind the edges with bias binding cut from the same brown fabric. But as I ran out of fabric and time, I had to improvise. So I zigzagged the edges in the black and blue thread. Looks kinda cool from a distance, but not so great close up. Think I'll redo that finish either with a different fabric, or take it all apart and make it so the seam finishes inside the bag and bind it.

I made this purse to take to a quilt guild meeting (a first for me) and I admit it, I wanted to show off my FMQ skills. Nobody commented on it. That'll teach me!

I do like the size of the bag; perfect for my notebook computer, plenty of pockets and yet not too big. For years I have been lugging around a huge bag so I could be somewhat prepared for mishaps with my kiddos. Now that they can care for themselves better and tote some of their own stuff, it's time to lighten the load!

I'm thinking I'll bind it in black and add a black strip at the top and put straps at the top. The current handle is too flimsy and if I don't have my computer or book in it, the strap's attachment point causes the bag to fold inward.

I could blog more and get more quilting done, but I'd have to give up a lot of time with these three cuties. Especially that little guy there----see those blue eyes and curly hair? There's dimples too! One way or another, they take a lot of my time. It's worth it though in the long run!

But I do manage to quilt a bit. Gotta love quiet time! We all get a break of 2-3 hours nearly every day from each other. If we didn't, I'd go bonkers for sure, cute, sweet kids or not.

Leslie at MarveLes Art Studio has been experimenting with Derwent Inktense pencils, so I thought I'd post what I did with mine.

My daughter is convinced that this is a family portrait!

A little quilty doodling, apply some textile medium and start coloring, just like a coloring book. Fun!

It is my understanding that the textile medium might not be needed, but this is what I have done and it's been through the washer already with no fading.

I can't wait to see what Leslie comes up with!

Doodle Quilting

It was a good sermon I swear, but I had to draw the floral pattern on the blouse of the woman in front of me at church. I think I may have a slight addiction here, but my hands just itch when I see a pattern that would make a good quilting design.Then I just had to stitch it out. Here it is in progress. It's on a commercial batik/dyed fabric and it's on top of Peltex, destined to become a postcard to send to a new quilty friend. I'm trying to make some smaller works and I like the idea of postcard type quilts. It's great practice and practice is what builds those quilting skills. I haven't mailed any yet, and I will just have to put it in an envelope when I do. I'm scared to let something like this travel without protection.

How about you? Have you mailed quilted postcards? With or without envelopes? Have you been compelled to draw a design that's on someone's clothes? At least I've moved on from my crazy quilting obsession where I'd want to take scissors to someone's clothing!