I Like #40

Another week of things to like! 

1. I like getting things finished!  Sometimes I feel like that's not in the spirit of "I like" but it's a positive in my life.  Last weekend I finished my iris quilt, more of an abstract 3D fiber sculpture, and someday I hope to get together a series of posts on it, but for now here's a close up sneak peek.

2. Hand in hand with #1, I like starting new things.  My next project is another experimental-flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants project, I have no idea whether it will work, but the first step was painting and then cutting up this quilt which I never thought was very successful.  It was a bit scary, but I jumped right in.  Now it's been cut up into a ton of small triangles, so we'll see where it goes next!

3.  I like making small things.  I wear a lot of colorful dangly earrings, and this weekend took the opportunity of reworking some old silver earrings I didn't wear much and adding some happy green dangles to them.  I had a weird shortage of green earrings which has now been filled.  And while on that track I also made up a little knotted bracelet using some beads from my stash, it kind of reminds me of a slightly more grownup version of the ones we made as kids.

4.  I love my flowers!  I still haven't remembered to take a picture of my chrysanthemums, or a better picture of my sunflowers, but they're still going strong.  It might freeze this week, I'm not sure if I need to protect them somehow.  I did manage to get another picture of my work geranium, it keeps blooming but is horribly leggy.  I wish I knew how to make it fill out a bit instead of having these long stalks with one flower at the end.

I hope there are things happening in your week that provide some sparks of joy or happiness, and thanks to LeeAnna for keeping us linked up!

Guest Quilts: Kennel Quilts

My mom is an art quilter just like I am, but recently shared some fun charity quilts she made.  They're called kennel quilts, and its a great way to support efforts to care for displaced and needy pets after natural disasters.  You can find out more here:  http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/program/KennelQuilt/#Current

These small quilts are collected given to shelters and rescue organizations who are providing assistance with animals after hurricanes or floods or fires or other events.  They can be a great way to use up orphan blocks or other small projects that have been languishing in your studio!  Here are a few cute ones my mom made and sent off after the Houston flooding. 

This is a great organization that has helped out after a bunch of different natural disasters, so if you're a pet lover and have some free time, make up a few and send them off.  There are some basic guidelines at the bottom of the website as well as areas of current need.  

I Like #39

Well I'm too late for LeeAnna's link up this week, but I didn't want to miss a week of sharing.  This has been a crazy stressful week at work, so one of the main things I'm liking is that it's Friday!

1. I like flowers!  As I was walking to my car the other day I passed this flowering tree with the most interesting blooms/fruits/who knows what (if anyone knows what it is please let me know).  In spite of the fact that I've worked in this building for eleven years, I've never noticed this tree before and its really cool!  Also blooming this week are my new sunflowers!  These are totally serendipitous, the result of the [stupid] squirrel that dumped our birdfeeder almost every single day this week.  At first the stuff sprouting underneath it looked like weeds so Mike just mowed over it, but when he realized it was growing something that might be cool he left it to grow!  And now I have two new large blooms and sunflowers that are about two feet high!!  So cool!!

2. I love fall birds.  Every year in the fall we get this giant flocks of small black birds.  I have no idea what they are but they are so cool en masse.  You see them by the hundreds along power lines, traffic lights and rooftops.  Back when I used to have to park on the roof of the parking garage, it was simultaneously less cool (because of tons of car bird poop) and more cool because you'd walk or drive through and these huge huge crowds of them would just all rise up at once.  They lend such a fun halloween/fall/witchy air to things, especially in the evening with the colorful sunset....

3. I like getting to do new science.  A lot of my job (kind of like most people's probably) winds up involving paperwork and compliance and different types of busy work.  But I have a huge grant deadline coming up and while no one particularly likes writing grants, they are a really nice chance to dig deep into the scientific literature, think creatively about new experiments, and remember why we're scientists to begin with.  Unfortunately it also means very little sewing, but I'm thinking positive!!

Happy week everybody!

I like #38

Better late than never!  I feel quite behind right now, not in a bad way actually, just in the way that made me forget until just now that it was Thursday and time for another round of I Likes!

1.  I like going to hear live music!  Mike and I got to go out and hear a friend of ours (the awesome Camille Harp) play this weekend.  It was at a local BBQ place with a fabulous patio, and the weather was perfectly crisp and fall like.  Just a wonderful evening and something fun we like to do together.

2. I like making the occasional pieced quilt.  Over the weekend I made a baby quilt for a friend of mine and a couple of donation quilts and they were nice simple projects to finish and send out into the world.  I posted about them Monday, so take a look if you want to see pictures.

3.  This is a strange one, but I like that my car just passed 200,000 miles.  I love my happy little car, and this milestone has been (obviously) a long time coming.  I didn't catch 200,000 exactly, but managed to grab 200,002 which is even more fun since I'm always entertained by palindromes.  I hope it makes many many more miles as there are few things I hate more than buying and paying for a new car.

4. I like being busy at work.  There's a definite difference between being overwhelmed and productively busy, but it's so nice when I feel like I'm getting things done.  We're well into the semester now and things are proceeding quickly.  I'm so proud of my students, they're already showing so much improvement from the beginning of the semester and it makes me happy to see them doing so well.

Thanks to LeeAnna, and I hope you guys have a great week!

Pieced Quilts

I have a friend at work who is having a baby fairly soon, so this weekend I buckled down and made a baby quilt for her.  Baby and charity quilts are about the only piecing I ever do, so it was fun to do something a bit different.  I decided to make a large churn dash block after seeing Mary's really cute churn dash table runner.  My rule for things like this is that I can't buy new stuff- I have to use what's on hand, because I really have plenty.  It does mean I don't have much in the way of kid-type prints, but I think the colors are bright and fun enough for a baby.  And I backed it with this great fish print that I have several yards of (thanks Georgia!!).

While I was at it I decided to go ahead and finish up a couple charity quilts I'd pieced a long time ago and never quilted.   This first one used up a bunch of my favorite prints.  I decided to make it light weight, with no batting, but backed with minky so its very soft and snuggly.  I quilted it and then self bound it.  It finished about 70" x 45" so it's a good lap size.  Sorry the picture is so terrible!

This second one I belatedly realized was much larger pieces of prints, and I think I must have pieced it intending it to be the back of the other one.  At that point it was too late, and I didn't really want to quilt another something that big, so I cut the backing piece in half and used one piece as the top and one as the backing.  After quilting and binding it finished about 50" x 40" which is a good baby quilt size.  Both baby quilts are bound with some pretty turquoise blanket binding I found in my stash.  It was kind of a pain to work with since it can't be ironed very easily, but it gives such a silky finish.

I hope my friend and her new baby like the churn dash quilt, and I look forward to dropping off the other two at one of our local women's shelters.  It's always great to finish up things that have been languishing, especially if they have a useful purpose!

Goldwork Fox

A couple years ago I started reading Mary Corbet's Needle N Thread, which is the best embroidery blog I've ever found.  She works on great projects so there's lots of eye candy, has lots of great educational content about working on projects, the mechanics of stitching, how to approach planning and design, and everything else you might need for embroidery.  She also has some historical content as well, and its fun to learn a little about past embroidery.

In any case, while reading her blog I learned a little about goldwork, which I had previously seen but never knew anything about.  It's an embroidery technique where you use thread or floss to attach actual metallic bits to the surface of the embroidery.  As it turns out there are a lot of different goldwork techniques, but in general think of the sparkly bits on military uniforms or ecclesiastical vestments.   I thought it might be fun to try, but I wasn't super excited about buying a whole bunch of new stuff until I knew whether I'd like it or not, so when she did a giveaway for one of Becky Hogg's fabulous goldwork embroidery kits, I entered enthusiastically.  I didn't win the giveaway, but I asked for the goldwork fox kit as a Christmas present that year, and Mike got it for me.  

I don't ever make things from kits- mostly I have such strange ideas I'm pursuing that it wouldn't make sense, but you guys this kit was amazing.  It was beautifully put together, there was plenty of all the materials, the instructions were very clear and thorough, and it was a great way to try a bunch of different new techniques.  If you're at all interested in trying out goldwork, I'd strongly recommend one of Becky's kits.  

Anyway, I didn't have much time to work on the fox until the last six months or so, but recently I've been taking it to knit night and working on it there.  And then last weekend I got to work on it during a softball game for Mike's granddaughter and an OU football game, so it got finished!  It came with a cute hoop to finish it in (to hang on the wall), but I decided to turn it into a brooch instead.

The first step was to stitch down felt support padding, and then the first actual goldwork technique was couching down thin gold wire.  You can see all the loose ends in the second picture that had to be buried.  That was very tedious, as I'm sure you can imagine.

The next several techniques were less tedious, but I forgot to take step by step pictures.  All the rest of the techniques utilized different colors and sizes and textures of fine metallic springs.  These were either put on by couching over them and pulling the thread down between the coils of the spring so you can't see the thread (as in the outline of the face and tail), or by cutting pieces off the spring and sewing the thread through the center of it like a bead (as on the tail and ear fill).  These steps were easier than couching the wire, but it was difficult to get the rose gold springs cut the right length for filling the tail.  They were more uneven than I'd have liked, but I got better as I went along!  

To finish him after all the embroidery was done, I hand stitched the edge of the white fabric around then backed it with felt and sewed on a brooch pin. He's so very sparkly and shiny and reflective, it's so hard to get a good picture, but I really love the way he came out!!

I had such fun working on this, it was really very very slow work, but I love the effect, and may use some of these goldwork techniques in a future embroidery project.

Have you learned any new techniques lately?

Linking up with Nina-Marie!

I Like #37

It's been a strange week here, I've been feeling under the weather, and anxious and worried, but digging deep there are still some good things!

1.  I like being back at choir rehearsal.  I'm sad that sailing season is over but I am glad to be back at choir rehearsal.  I've been singing on Sunday mornings the last few weeks but kept feeling behind since I missed rehearsal.  Our church is under construction and our choir room flooded last year, so we're in a state of upheaval.  To compensate for the fact that a lot of the music was damaged and/or is currently inaccessible, we got new a new book of choir anthems we're singing out of this fall.  In typical fashion my first instinct is to not like them (because they're not my old favorites), and then after learning them realize how fun it is to learn new things and how nice they are.  Yes, I roll my eyes at myself.  After accidentally picking up someone else's book several times I decided to make a cover for mine which I was going to share today but I seem to have lost the pictures.  I'll have to take some more.

2. I like embroidery.  Lately I find that I have lots of quilt deadlines and they're causing me some anxiety which unfortunately translates to lack of enthusiasm/motivation, and I've been finding that what I enjoy most is my embroidery.  I finished my goldwork fox (I turned him into a brooch) and will have a full post up about him tomorrow, but here's a sneak peek.  My next project is an embroidered prayer book cover and I got that designed.  It'll be a very-long term project, but I'll share progress along the way.

3.  I like crocheting new things.  I haven't been doing much crochet work, as my time at knit night has been spent doing embroidery, but our knitting group decided we'd make booties for new babies in the parish, so I whipped up these.  The baby they're for is already three months old, but even so I think they're way too big, but they turned out cute anyway.  As usual, I struggle with things that need to be a certain size, but I'll get better!

3. I like the ceramics of Jennifer McCurdy.  Her work is absolutely gorgeous, and she captures in porcelain the airiness and grace I'm striving for (but not usually attaining) in my openwork quilts.

Thanks to Lee Anna as always for being such a great friend and motivator!

VLA Quilt: Finished!

Earlier in the week I started sharing about my new VLA quilt for our upcoming show called Life Along the Rio Grande. This is the call for entry: The wonderful variety of living things along the vitally important Rio Grande River. Work could explore historical or cultural themes, scientific or geological topics, or social and environmental issues relating to the flora, fauna, and people living on or near this historic river.

It will be quite interesting to see what people come up with.  In addition to the expected landscape or flora/fauna quilts, there's a lot of human history in this area, so its possible there will be quilts on, for example, ancient Anasazi culture or something.  The Rio Grande river forms part of our border with Mexico, so it's possible that we may see some quilts about immigration or other more political topics.

In any case, the show is being curated and organized by Betty Busby and has several venues secured already (thanks to hard work by my mom and others), and the first 35 quilts submitted that meet the requirements (this show has a specific size) will be included as part of the show.  So if you're a SAQA member in (or associated with) those regions, make a quilt!  I was excited to get to make the logo for the show, and later on I'll be doing the print materials as well.

When I left off, I mentioned I'd cut out the silhouettes of three telescope antennae in preparation for some openwork free motion embroidery.  I've done a fair amount of this (e.g. here and here and here), and my general approach is to pin a sheet of water soluble stabilizer underneath the opening and then just stitch away.  I started off that way on this quilt, beginning with the medium sized telescope, and boy was it a giant mess.  It got all puckered and pulled funny and was a general disaster.  Part of that was that my quilt sandwich was a bit thicker than usual, so it was difficult to get off the open/stabilizer part back onto the quilt.  However, two other factors played a much bigger role in the mess.  First, the openings were just very large.  Second, I ran out of my good water soluble stabilizer. Unfortunately, I don't know what brand the kind I liked was, but it was very fibrous, and though not thick, was not stretchy and held its shape very well.  When I ran out after my last project, I bought a roll of Sulky Super Solvy heavy duty water soluble stabilizer and it is terrible!  Its thin and plasticky and stretchy and sticky, and though it's sturdy in the sense that it didn't rip when sewing through it, it has absolutely no stabilizing ability due to its shiftiness and stretchiness.  After nearly ruining my quilt on the middle telescope, I wound up hooping with a large embroidery hoop for the other two.  To be fair, for the large telescope especially I probably would have had to do that even with my old stabilizer, but even with the hoop, free motion-ing on the large telescope with the sulky stuff was awful.  And of course the large telescope is large enough that it took five different hoopings to cover all of it, each with ~5-6 different thread changes.  Yuck.  I'll definitely plan differently next time!  Anyway, here's what the openwork telescopes look like after soaking the whole quilt in water to dissolve away the stabilizer.

There are always a few loose threads after soaking to remove the stabilizer, so here I am hand stitching a few.  The openwork didn't come out perfect; I definitely need a better way to stabilize, but I love the depth and texture the velvet gives.  I didn't have any problems with the velvet or stretch velour getting puckery (though I did stabilize the stretch velour), and it was way easier to work with than I was anticipating.

And here's the whole quilt.

Shannon Conley, VLA, c.2017, 48" x 32"

I Like #36

Welcome to another week of I likes!

This week has been a crazy one at work, but two more days of pushing and I should be through it to the other side.  Saturday is looming large right now!

1. I like getting to blog a bit about other things!  I haven't actually been blogging this week, but last week I wrote a couple of posts about one of my new quilts; the first post went live yesterday and the final quilt will post tomorrow, so come back and check it out!

2. I like the idea of cutting up pieces that aren't working.  This is something I never really got, but I think that was because until recently I liked all my pieces.  I didn't necessarily love them, but I liked them at least.  But my piece conformational change just never sat right with me.  It felt too literal (to me, everyone else for the most part had no idea what it was), and the colors have always felt all off. Then this week I saw Paula Kovarik's latest post (BTW she's one of my favorite fiber artists) and she was talking about cutting pieces up, which reminded me that it's probably a good thing to do with my conformational change piece.  Once I finish the piece I'm working on now, I'm going to jump in with that and see if I can't use it to make something I like better.

3. I like flowers!  The chrysanthemums from my Grandfather's funeral last year are blooming and i'm so pleased they survived the hot summer.  They randomly bloomed a little bit in the spring and I was worried their cycle would be all off.

4.  I like this pendant light!  I was in Home Depot the other day looking at bathtubs because unfortunately we have some tile damage in our bathroom and are going to have to replace our bathtub and tile surround. I'm not much for home decor/diy home stuff; my house is a builder-basic suburban house, whose main redeeming feature is that the walls are chock full of art, but in any case our dining room light is the most generic looking three bulb "chandelier".  I'm not sure I care enough to replace it, but this one really caught my eye as I was running past.

5.  I like Angela Clayton's blog.  She does historical costumery, and doesn't post really often, but when she does, the things she makes are gorgeous.  She talks a fair amount about making her patterning as historically accurate as is feasible and goes through her process in quite a bit of depth which I love.  As a sewist who's always like making ans wearing costumes, but never really had the patience to really dedicate to that as my art form, it's really fun to track someone who does.

6.  I like this John Muir quote!  What a perfect encapsulation of the glory of living in the mountains.  I found it via the Cabin Porn blog, which is a gorgeous collection of pictures of small isolated cabins all over the world in beautiful settings.

"We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,—a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal. Just now I can hardly conceive of any bodily condition dependent on food or breath any more than the ground or the sky."

John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (via Cabin Porn)

And with that I'll say that I hope you guys are having things you like this week!  I hope your area is experiencing nice fall weather (it's been raining here for days but i'm just so grateful we don't have anything worse than that).  Thanks to LeeAnna for gathering us up!

New Quilt: Life Along the Rio Grande

This fall the SAQA New Mexico region is doing a call for entry called Life Along the Rio Grande.  The Rio Grande river flows through Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico, and is a critical water source for the largely high desert region.  

I, of course, went science-y with my entry.  The Very Large Array is one of the coolest radio telescopes in the world and is in western New Mexico in the Rio Grande Basin.  It consists of 27 separate radio antennae that are each over 80 feet wide.  They can be moved around over several miles into a bunch of different configurations depending on what they're looking at.  It's such a powerful tool for studying our universe, for some examples, take a look at this and this and this.  If you're ever in the area, you can tour the site and its pretty awesome.

Anyway,  I decided to make my quilt out of velvet and crushed stretch velour since I was kindly given a bunch of different pieces of it (thanks Georgia!!).  The only problem is that the colors were very flat and uniform, so painting was the first order of business.  I didn't want too much paint buildup on the surface, so I did lots of thin layers, very very wet, and build up a dark blue gradient to simulate the night sky, brown gradient (with more layered on top later) for the foreground, and purple velvet with black and grey for the mountains.  The crushed stretch velvet sky started out very light blue.

How to do the stars and milky way was a big questions-  I considered beading (too much time), painting dots (too hard to get a random look), foiling (same problem).  I also considered cutting a silk screen and then either printing with paint or glue for foiling, but it's a big sky and making a screen that big wouldn't have been easy.  Finally my mom suggested flinging paint, and that totally worked!  It gave me enough control to make my milky way, but enough variation in size to look like a starry sky rather than polka dots.  I took the top out on my back porch and just sort of Jackson-Pollacked paint at it.  I used white and grey and gold and silver and maybe even a bit of metallic turquoise.  I love the way it turned out; the sky is my favorite part of the whole thing.  After letting it all dry, I quilted up the whole thing (that's the right picture below).

Next I cut out the telescope antennas so I could have some openwork free motion embroidery.  I've done a fair amount of openwork in the last few years, but this turned out to be trickier than I anticipated.  I'll be back to share more about it later in the week!