Forced Break...

I've been working on a monochromatic piece for our next GOE challenge and I'm at the machine quilting stage.  I went down to the kitchen to get a coffee, which I had planned to sip on while quilting, but when I returned to the studio I saw that Arbour, our cat, had other ideas. Obviously I couldn't quilt with her there, and I hated to disturb the spoiled brat... so I enjoyed a bit of a coffee break, checked my email, and just relaxed for a while before getting back to my quilting.  I did have to move her though because if left alone she would have likely slept there all day.

Arbour seems to have 'new bed' radar.  Any time there is anything new, whether it's in my studio or else where in the house (i.e., a freshly washed towel that hasn't been put away yet, or a new shirt my husband bought and left on the newel post to remind him to take it upstairs, etc.), if she perceives it to be comfortable  it becomes her new favourite sleeping place until it is moved or something newer shows up to replace it!

My husband Bill has been recently pointing out just how close the words pets and pest are...  (see my final comment in this previous post LOL)

Now all I need is an iPad...

A couple of my friends asked me to make some iPad covers a while back, so that's what I've been doing for the last few days on my sewing machine.

I've used mostly batiks, and some of my own hand dyed and or surface designed fabric and a whole lot of fun free motion quilting.  I really like how the black thread pops on those bright colours.


You'll also notice I've added one of my faux tie-dye circles to the closure flap on each of the covers.

Too bad I don't have an iPad...sigh...

Spring Blossoms Finally Finished

Several weeks ago, while making background papers for some journaling, I posted about the beginnings of these little art quilts. 

I cut very simple shapes to represent the flowers and leaves and used a background of neutral scraps.












Black thread sketching at the machine further defined the flowers, leaves and stems.  This is the stage at which these pieces sat for many weeks as I worked on other projects.  I obviously took these pictures under very different lighting conditions.  The newest photos, showing the finished pieces (below) show the accurate colours.  

I finally got around to quilting the neutral areas and I decided I would mount the pieces onto another simple quilted background.  I started auditioning some backgrounds for these pieces using some of my hand-dyed fabrics and I settled on four different colours. 

Although the photos don't show it well, there are two fairly different blues, as well as the green and the purple. 

Playing With Shadows

Today I spent some time in the studio playing around with shadows.  I love adding that layer of black under shapes to give the illusion of the shapes floating above the piece.  The colours in this were inspired by Vicki Welsh's colour palette from the colour palette challenge.

The background was pieced and the rest has been fused.  The next step will be the quilting.  I love this part because it just seems to bring the piece to life.  I'll post again once it's done so you can see where I take it.

Thanks for visiting today.  Have an artfully wonderful day!