Happy Birthday to Me

This is the flower image (thanks to my neighbor Debra for her beautiful garden) that I'll by using for my June spiritual quilt "God Sends Me Flowers for My Birthday". The title is from one of those chain e-mails that people send around, but I smiled at the little saying, "God loves you so much he sends you flowers every spring," and I thought it would make a fitting spiritual quilt for this month. I hesitate to do a floral fused applique, because there are so many out there, but the title makes me happy and so do the beautiful flowers. Happy Day.

Week 3 and 4 Journal Quilts for June

This Week Three Journal quilt is called Aurora B. Week Four (below) is A. Borealis. I've never seen the Aurora Borealis, but these are the colors I always see in pictures and movies. I've done the same things I did with White Stars and White Sky, fusing circles, backing fabric, quilting, binding, then beading, but this time I wanted to see what happened when there was less contrast between the colors.

I love these little guys, and though it takes me about six hours to finish them, at least yesterday I had plenty of time sitting at the Camp Birch boy scout camp for then hours making sure the only kids who started fires were ones who had their fire chips.

I didn't have to worry about whether the beading was heavier in one part because I'll be stretching these quilts like I do all my weekly quilts. That gave me a lot of design freedom. I'm seed stitching the background of my bobbin drawn Queen Anne's Lace and yesterday I wondered if I should have seed stitched the background of these as well, but the month's almost over and the first two are already stretched, so maybe next time.

I've already designed next month's challenge quilts because I want them to be connected across the frames. I'll have to dye some more fabric, so I'll start out the month behind since I'm at Camp Catoctin cooking next week, but at least I'll have the design completed.

May Weekly Journal #2

I'm alone in the house this week, and I thought it would give me a chance to catch up on the May challenges that I got so behind on. This little 6x6 baby took about eight hours to stitch. It's part of my 'Round the House series for May. I took photographs of household objects (round ones of course) and then printed them on Printed Treasures. Then I fused heavyweight interfacing to the back of them and started stitching, setting my zig-zag stitch almost to 2.

For this one, I left the open areas (my floor in this case) and quilted those areas. The quilting took up the extra fabric that all the heavy stitch work created. I know that the last one was pretty abstract. If you haven't guessed, the first May Weekly Journal quit is from a photograph of tart pans. I love to bake, so I have a great collection of baking stuff. But this journal began as a photograph of something you probably use everyday.

I adapted this technique from an article in the May/June Quilting Arts.

June Weekly Quilt, Week 2

This quilt is the companion quilt to "White Nights." I've shown the detail first, and it should be obvious how my work for the miniatures show inspired these weekly quilts.

I wasn't able to use interfacing on "White Nights," and that made it more difficult to work with. For this quilt, I fused heavy interfacing to the back of the fabric to create a firmer surface for the beading.

I also completed the entire quilt--fusing, quilting, trimming, and sewing on the binding (but not sewing it down in the back)--before I began beading. I didn't do this with "God Answers to Many Names" and beads and needles broke as I sewed the binding on.

White Stars
6x6 inches

June Weekly Quilt: , Week 1

White Nights
6x6 inches

I had so much fund beading the miniatures for the miniatures show, I didn't want it to end, so this month, I'm playing with beading on quilts. I have a bit more freedom with how I bead since these quilts will be mounted on wooden frames.

For the first two weeks, I've played with high contrast; the second week is white on black.

I'm using purple and teal in the same tone for the third and fourth weeks, so it will be interesting to see if that makes the beading pop more.

I still haven't been able to take photographs I like of the beading work, but I think that's more a matter of my equipment; I don't have off the post flash, and I think that I need lights from the sides to make the beads really stand out.

I've included a detail. This time I used a bead reamer to put a hole through the middle of the computer key, and it worked just fine and saved me a trip to the wood shop out back.

May Spiritual Quilt

God Answers to Many Names
12x12 inches

This quilt was inspired by my own spiritual practice and by a conversation one night about the spiritual revelations we've had. One of my friends said that God told her it was okay to call God a female. I thought it was such an interesting revelation. This woman went to a traditional protestant church, but she was looking for a way to make her relationship with God more meaningful and personal.

I attend Quaker meeting and consider myself a Quaker, but I also practice Buddhist meditation at home and at the Dharma Center in Yellow Springs. I have friends who are Wiccans, Moslems, Jews, and Fundamentalist Christians. What we all share is a desire to know God and an awareness that humans are spiritual beings as well as physical and emotional beings.

I bought the shell that serves as the light in the quilt and that's what led to the quilt. Often, for me, a title will come first, and that will help direct how the quilt develops, but this quilt grew from the great light in the void and the title emerged along with the many hours of stitching and beading that it took to complete it.

The quilting exercises by Robbi Joy Eklow in The Quilting Arts Book served as inspiration for some of the machine quilting. The fabric is my own hand-dyed fabric.

Bobbin Sketching

Okay, I know it's supposed to be called bobbin drawing (as in drawing thread from the bobbin), but the heavy rayon thread made this look so much like a sketch, I couldn't resist.

I traced the original on tracing paper and then just followed the lines from the back. Turning it over was a little bit of magic. I like to be able to see what I'm doing, so this was a great practice in deepening my faith. Okay, so I peeked once or twice to make sure it was working. The sketch was of Queen Anne's Lace seen from below, but a number of people have said it resembles a dandelion.

I used regular cotton thread to make the interior lines a bit softer than the outline. This was so much fun, I'm sketching some larger banners using this same technique. I think I'll also add a layer of organza on top to get more shimmer and dimensionality. News on those later. I'd love to hear what you think.

May Weekly Journal #1

My weekly challenges in May were titled "Round the House." Yes, I'm still working on circles, but last month, I took photographs of round items from the house (kitchen, mostly), printed them on treated fabric, and then thread painted them heavily. I build up the stitches layer after layer, so they were quite time consuming, and I'm still finishing up (I know it's the middle of June, that's what I get for bragging about being almost caught up).

Meanwhile, I have been doing my June weekly quilts, and I'll post the first two in the next couple of days.

I've missed posting on my blog, but I planted a new, huge bed in our front yard and I had to get the veggies in before it was too late. Now I only have 5 cu.yards of mulch to spread and the big work is done for now. It's good to be back.