Finishing up some and working on new piece

Well I’m busy and seem to have flowers on the brain. I’ve finished three small pieces with blue flowers, now I am starting a red lily. It is a fused piece with appliqué stems. Next up is to cut the batting and backing, then baste and ready to quilt!
Here’s the last blue flowered on and then the red lily.

You can see more creative work at Off the Wall Fridays

Olde UFO and newer work

I looked into my UFO box to see what I had and came up with cut triangles and four blocks, so I made more to create a runner for my sideboard. Problem with that is I don’t have any fabric for the binding.

I also have a new WIP that I like quite a bit - that blue!

You can see other work at Off the Wall Fridays

Iris wall hanging

This week I made a small wall hanging of an iris quilt. I fused the iris and the leaves and then made a sandwich and proceeded to be puzzled by what type of quilting to do on it. Eventually i got a brainstorm and quilted it from the back following the pattern of the motifs there. I’m pretty happy with how it looks.

You can see more creative work at Off the Wall Fridays

A Lily

This week I made a lily that has thread painting in the center and some fabric paint to highlight the center making it a bit darker than the original color of the fabric. I seem to be making something once a week and drawing the work out so I can do it in the mornings.

There are more creative pieces to see at Off the Wall Fridays

Bloodroot

I thought I would make a small bloodroot quilt/wall hanging. It is fused then quilted all over with various quilting in the different areas. I have a little bit of hesitation in making work with raw edges but I think I’ll get over it, maybe 😂

You can see other nice work at Off the Wall Fridays

Down on the farm

several years ago I stayed at a B&B in Connecticut. This was a scene from my window and I’ve always loved it. It’s a small piece 10 x 10 or so. I fused the buildings, thread painted the tree and did some felted and embroidery for the sheep 

There are more interesting and fun pieces at Off the Wall Fridays

Thread painting a tree

This week I started a new thread painting of a tree and it’s roots. I’m working on the forest floor right now and only have my second layer finished. I will move onto several other colors to complete it and will probably be finished in a couple of days. Working on things like this keeps me happy and fulfills my creative muse.

You can see more great work at Off The Wall Fridays
There’s the tree with the forest floor finished, well, not quite finished. I did work on it a bit more and added a couple of more colors to the floor, added some leaves to the tree that’s behind and the small one to the right.

Finished!

So I finished the quilting and put a green binding on it. Now I’m at a loss as to what to do. Should I make another of the same type, start a thread painting garden scene, work on some rock wall and garden stuff. Ive got other ideas but none are what I want to do. Just whining. So here’s the finished little quilted wall hanging.

Starting the quilting

So now I’ve been quilting it! I’ve used a variegated thread on the flower petals and color coordinated on the parts I’ve quilted so far. I started using a foot for quilting but ended up taking the foot off and following the brown design that way. It’s a little different but I got used to it.

You can see many creative quilts/work at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/ off the wall Friday’s

Home bound

During this time it leaves plenty of day to work on various projects. I started this piece with a completely different thought process. It evolved to doing hand work on the flowers and I didn’t want it to look like Dresden plate, but it does. So now I’m at the quilting stage and some of the areas allude me as to what to do there. I will continue working on it until it is done, then probably post it again.

Bonsai thread painting finished

Well I had the moss and pot to finish yesterday and here it is!

I did some sewing around the top of the pot but used a piece of fabric fused on for the body of the pot. Now onto my next tree, choosing which design, hmmmm.

Check out these other great blogs at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Art and creativity evolves

It’s been 4 years and I have entered another phase of making art. I found this book and it had an intriguing way of using the sewing machine to create. Ive been working this way for the past year and enjoy the challenge. It’s called machine embroidered designs. So I’m not using any computer controlled machine it is done with a hoop and colored thread and some would call it thread painting.

This is the one I’m working on today. I’m enjoying this one. It will be about 3 - 4 inches tall when done.

Comfort Quilt

After a long hiatus from actually having fun and not getting anything done, I finally finished my Comfort Quilt challenge with the Material Mavens.
So here it is................

It was an interesting word to work on and I did find it hard to find anything, except for all the regular ideas about comfort.

It is made with Inktense pencils and Dye-na-flow inks. I really had fun doing it too.

Handbags and Hatboxes and Stiff Neck - Oh My!

Yesterday morning, stiff neck ignored (bad idea, by the way) I sent off my Bohemian Waxwing to NY for the exhibit. That is a milestone for me - never sent any of my work away except to the jewelry publisher - but that doesn't count. This is for a real genuine exhibit and I hope I sell it too!

I finished my hatbox I was working on for my red feather hat I had made for the wedding. Now it has a home.







I have also been working on another handbag which is my own design - I call it Squares and Sticks. It is in a fairly vibrant color scheme. I will do the next one in the orangy/greeny/browny colors of the squares and sticks - 'cause I like it. This bag is smaller than the others I have been making. I was getting the feeling that I had been making suitcases (LOL!) not really, but being a small person, I usually like smaller sized/scaled things, so here you have it.

I also have a black and tan/gold one, a multi-color one, another purple one, brown and teal and blue. I don't think I have enough time though.

Today I plan on getting out some silk scarves and dyeing them. We will see how the dye fairies think of me being so absent :)

ACCEPTED!

One of my bird pieces, 'Bohemian Waxwing," has been accepted into the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Exhibit, Birds in Stitches!


This piece was inspired by a photograph of this beautiful bird. It was hand appliqued, bird, branches and berries, hand embroidered, machine "thread painted" and machine quilted.


All in all it is a successful piece and I am quite proud of it.








Here's the shows announcement!

Quilt show outing

A friend and I went to a World Quilt Show in Manchester yesterday - it runs for the next two days too!
Had a blast meeting up with friends for lunch, then on to the show and vendors. Spent all my money on things to make other things with. :)
Have piles of things all over my studio now. That should make the not so organized people in my life happy.............I'm not organized! But it is such a happy mess!
I have photos of some of the quilts from the show, but won't post them here as not to offend the makers in any way - copyright stuff and all. I do have favorites though and will send them onto those who want them.

Jury Day!

All is in readiness. I just finished photographing the finished pieces and posting them on my gallery page.I have a few more photos to put up of something else, but that will be tomorrow morning.

I have one scarf that just won't cooperate and I have overdyed it twice and it just won't! (scratches head has puzzled look on face.) I may never figure it out, but I am planning on just stamping and printing on it now, not really what I intended, but I'm sure it will be fine :)

Nervous? Not yet.

This one is ready to fly!

Blue Bird, process shot

So, after a bit of procrastination and a small argument with my sewing machine, I finally finished the Blue Bird. He still has his basting, but I usually put the piece on the wall and take a photo so that I can see on the computer what the camera sees. It's pretty amazing how differently we vs. the camera sees things.
I came to the conclusion that this one is done.
Now I start framing/hanging the pieces in readiness to show Monday afternoon. They actually don't hang, just have to be ready to hang = finished work.

To those of you that don't know how an art jury works, I will run you through the process...............
(This pertains to my upcoming jury.)
First off, you have to apply to the organization for whatever you want to jury. This application is like any other application, ie: requires statements from you, photos of your work, things like that.
Then you are contacted by the Chairman of Jury. A date and time is set for you to come into the headquarters.
Once you arrive, you tell the receptionist that you are here. All this is easy, right? So while you wait, you get to admire the latest exhibit.
The Jury Chairman comes to get you and escorts you to the jury room. You are introduced to your jurors and present you work. You discuss your work with the jurors. Then the hard part..........you are asked to leave while your work is discussed and decided upon.
You are then asked to return to the jury room. Your work is then discussed with you and the decision is presented to you. (conditionally accepted, deferred, or rejected) All work is subjected to a set of standards for that particular medium. These standards are a guideline for the jurors and for you to go by.
Some work is more emotional than other work. By that I mean, I have more of "me" in my fabric work than I do in my other work. I express myself openly and freely with fabric and really enjoy it.
So, now you see where the scarry part comes in........opening oneself to criticism and judgement.
I have a lot of confidence in my work, but that fails me when I am up against a situation like this.
I will take heart though..........one of my pieces sold as soon as it was seen by another artist I know and respect.........so it must be pretty good :)

Design Wall - Monday

I finally made it! After a couple of weeks of doing lots, but nothing to show for it...............well this week, I have my Evening Grosbeak. He is all stitched and there is more to do in the trees and background, but I think he came out pretty good.

(and I fixed the right hand corner.....drooping too much)

I also have a new smaller piece, Snow Drop. I saw one a week ago and thought it so sweet, so I got my books out  and here it is:)

They are coming along as well as two others............heading towards the fabric stitchery jury, so trying to finish up and put it all together.

The clock that went backwards and other oddities :)

So, it took a minute or two, but that mystery is solved! The battery started to go bad and so the clock was trying to tell me. What? Does that not sound normal? Ok, so maybe a little strange, but I changed the battery and Voila! Works fine again.

I did a lot of sewing on a new project. Finished that up yesterday morning then changed it's shape about four times...it is still drying. some of you know what I mean, others will have to wait for the final outcome, sorry. May 9th is the big day and I don't want the cat out of the bag until then.

FISH! He needs an extension on his tail! I keep trying to stretch him, but it isn't working - never will, so I just need to sew on a small piece (small PITA is really what it is.)
I have a new piece to put on my design wall on Monday. I have been really bad about that and any blogging for a while.

New order of stuff came in from Blick - love new stuff, but I need this for the jury day.