Save My UFO! : Save my UFO!

Green Grape Vine

AnnieSky — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:37:57 GMT

I sun-dyed the center panel, hand embroidered the veins, and added the log cabin border. I'm at an impass as to how to quilt the central panel. Free motion grape leaves? How do I embelish it further, or is more embelishment needed? (The safety pins are NOT an embelishment - I am using them to stabelize the the batting & back, for quilting, but can always take them out.)

Birds of Paradise

ses4 — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:39:03 GMT

This was the result of a design class with Jane Sassman. I love the bold colors in the piece but my concerns are:

1. Is the work balanced or do I need more at the bottom?

2. Does it need more applique in the background or on the right hand side, or is the diagonal composition satisfactory?

3. What sort of quilting should be done in the background and inside the applique pieces?

4. What type of binding would enhance the piece?

Ash in Autumn

Suzanne Riggio — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:58:29 GMT

Ash in Autumn

By Suzanne Riggio

When I was recovering from surgery one October, I lay in bed looking out the window. The view was this breathtaking ash tree clad in glorious yellow. After I found a wonderful quote about “Autumne” by Spenser, I decided to depict the scene in an art quilt.

I found a blue reminiscent of the fall sky and proceeded to use painted fusibles, beads, ribbons, yarns, cords, painted netting, and lots of embroidery stitches to render a crazy version of the overwhelming yellow. I made 2 “windows” in black yardage to lay over the yellow pieces and proceeded to paint lace in that same yellow hue. I overlaid the lace on lamé letters to quote Spenser and sewed them down.

Then I put the project away among a stack of fabrics on a table. Much later, when I needed a small chunk of black for something else I was working on, I reached into this stack and unknowingly whacked off a corner of my Ash in Autumn quilt top.

How can I save this quilt?

Needs support system

Lisa Quintana — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:12:10 GMT

This is a free form piece I designed and started working on in Sept. 2008. It's call "The Eye of the Storm" and was inspired by Hurricane Ike's visit to SW Ohio. The center is open and will have a glass bead (large lozenge) suspended in it. The "arms" (or more speciifically the bands) are made from batiks alternating with double layers of organza fused together with Heat-n-bond (or Wonder-under, I forget which). I chose the heavier type of fusible rather than Mistyfuse in order to give it more body. The batik arms are filled with Peltex and backed with another layer of batik whip-stitched closed over the edges.

My problem is one of support for the organza. It's too floppy and I can't figure out what to do to make the arms stay flat.... People have suggested sewing the plastic cording from weed-eaters onto it, but that doesn't work. I've not found a wire which is stiff enough to hold it but maleable enough to make the curves and small enough to be satin stitched over to make it less noticeable. I am going to visit some more hardware stores to see if I can't find something.

If anyone can provide me suggestions on making this stiff enough to be hung I'd appreciate it. The technical end of this is what has hung me up. :(

Thanks. Lisa

emergence

denise giardullo — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:38:00 GMT

After being ill for a year and a half I am emerging into active living. I made this art quilt utilizing brighter colors than the muted colors I have used in the past and freeform rotary cutting, fitting together the parts until it seemed to be done.

I seem to see figures reaching upward,and feel movement, but am not sure where to go with this. I keep hanging it up on the design wall and then I take it down. Is it ready to be quilted? Does it need embellishment, painting?

Gelatin Printed Grasses and Maple Leaves

SueAndrus — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:55:52 GMT

This piece was started after I played with gelatin printing for the first time. It was going to be a Fast Friday Fabric Challenge piece where we were to work with only one fabric. I thought I would add beading to the grasses as I had done for a piece I made for a grab bag challenge, but wasn't sure if that idea would work or not for this one. (the grab bag piece I made used the center panel that is the "sister" to this one- link to that finished one) The size is 20"hX16"w, and is 3 layers with FMQ done with gold metallic thread for the grasses, and other threads elsewhere. The butterflies and hummingbird are outlined in a pink variegated thread, but I think they need paint or something else to "fix" them. I used paint in the "other" quilt.

The original plan was to have this end up the size it is, but it really hasn't let me know what it needs.... It just says HELP!

Hundertwasser Wannabe?

Cay Denise — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:09:12 GMT

I loved how some colorful silk flower petals (yellow and orange) and fake turkey feathers (in a tiger-like print) looked when tossed on to a beautiful batiked fabric whose focus color was hot pink/orange. So, I started this project which is now a UFO on my studio wall.

Process involved:

1. Sewed the petals/feathers down (after covering them with black netting) - they've been stitched down in an informal grid pattern.

2.. Sewed on the black fabric framing material by satin stitch, and added the three wholle turkey feathers by sewing a single seam down the center of each of them.

3. Embellished the informal grid stitching by heavily over-sitching the grid in black and adding rounded boxes within the resulting rectangles.

Now I've gotten to the point of not knowing what to do with this. Has it been overworked? One group I'm in suggested cutting it up , but I don't want to. There is something I really like about it. Even my mistakes are ones that I know can be worked into something quite unique. In any case, one idea is to use a roller and paint over the grid pattern to see what effect it might have. Another idea is to add orange or hot pink rectangles to the whole turkey feathers in a random gradation of sizes either ascending or descending over each.

I'm open to any ideas you might have to suggest!

Needle-felt opportunity

annieskeepsakes — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:19:36 GMT

I call mistakes "design opportunities!" I was working on a sample purse made from a thrift store sweater for a needle-felt class I was teaching the next day; I had almost finished needle-felting my design (all by machine, love the way the hand-dyed silk velvet needle-felts into wool!) and noticed a rather large hole just to the left of one of my yarn "tendrils". I was so dismayed, as the design had turned out so pretty, the colors gorgeous, but I couldn't teach a class with a big hole in my sample! What to do?...Then I remembered, I'd saved my dryer lint when I'd felted my wool sweater in the washer/dryer. I took a quarter-sized piece of the purple wool dryer lint and needle-felted it to the wrong side of the sweater-bag, in effect, "patching" the hole. then I took some lavender curly wool fibers and needle-felted little "blossoms" to the end of each of the 3 tendrils on the left, and voila! No hole in sight, and I liked the design even better. I'll upload a photo of the finished purse in a separate message, couldn't get 2 to upload here, thanks!

Vickie Clontz

Email: annieskeepsakes@carolina.rr.com

Web-site: http://www.annieskeepsakes.com

Ph: (704) 279-7714

Kimono offcuts with sinusoidal quilting

honeybeensweetpea — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:18:50 GMT

Six years ago my good friend bought me a little bag of Kimono offcuts from a quilting store in Japan. I have always adored Asian style fabrics and this was a wonderful gift, but I never had the confidence that I could do the fabric any justice, and the pieces were all different shapes, sizes, materials, textures and thicknesses.

At that time I was just starting out in traditional quilting, following patterns and mainly working with kits. The little bag both puzzled and delighted me.

But over time I have built my skills and confidence, and discovered that mixing textures can provide wonderful results, and that piecing doesn't have to be 'perfect' to be beautiful. In fact I have come to really love freehand piecing and machine quilting.

So, it was finally time to get out the treasured fabric. I started by randomly sewing pieces together. When their shape, size and composition pleased me I cut them into 3.5" strips, which I then re-pieced into long strips. I then arranged these strips to form the quilt top.

I am now (slowly, in between everything else) quilting the top in a freehand, sinusoidal pattern 'across' the strip pattern, in colours of maroon, pink, dark blue and green, with little hints of gold and silver. Each colour has a slightly different sinusoidal pattern (varying width, height and style).

I think this quilt represents the ying and the yang of me and my journey into art quilting. I am an electronics engineer by career, and with no formal training in sewing or the arts, I am totally self taught. The rigid nature of engineering informs my art, but I am also trying to break free and be more creative - strips and straight lines are the engineer, random peicing and wobbly seams are the artist, sinusoids for the engineer, many colours for the artist.

I originally intended turning this piece into a bag, but now I think perhaps it would be better left as an art piece in its own right. I am yet to complete the quilting, which I think will be quite dense in the end.

I'd love to hear some thoughts and suggestions as to how I could finish this off! (It's only my fourth art quilt!)

Thank you

Felicity

Color gone wild

Skb2000 — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:54:21 GMT

This was my first ever attempt at an art quilt... have no clue what I was thinking... It is pretty bad. It has been sitting in the closet because I did not have the heart to toss it out. It needs lots of help. I tried to do things there were way beyond my ability at the time. Now I just think it is downright ugly.

Winter Woods

Margaret McCarthy Hunt — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:55:28 GMT

OK now where to go with this...really like it as as but it needs borders? I was thinking of adding writing... a block of writing that you cant really read done with a sepia pen. And then quilting it? What to do with that? I also had wanted to add a cardinal on the branch but thinking it might detract...so its sitting till it talks to me.

It is approximately 18" square done with a sepia pitt pen and Portfolio oil pastels that have been wet and allowed to run.