Textile Corner - A productive day

The main "creative" event for me today has got to be the fact that I finally worked out how to thread paint with my Singer machine. Woohoo. :)

I must have missed the directions in my manual the last few times I've read through it but today it popped right out at me. So all I do is take off the presser foot , attach the feed dog cover, insert the hooped fabric (fiddly) and have at it. I don't have a feed dog cover but a piece of index card works up to a point.

It will take a while to become proficient but at least I can now do clumps of grass. Just in time for a couple of on-line landscape classes I am taking. That's not including the 4 season challenge.

I've signed up for a color wheel postcard experiment which will be every month for the rest of the year. I got my "Primary Colors" postcards made this morning and they are ready to mail out.

I also got some mini "quilties" finished up this morning. They just needed the edges done.

There been a discussion about old cutting mats on one of the groups I read. I had an AHA moment when one of the ladies said to use it under your sewing machine. I've been looking for something to put under mine because it sticks to the paint on my table. Works great :) Now I just have to work out a small extension for the side to hold my fabric when I'm sewing. (What can I say. We Scots can be cheap and if I can work out a way to use something I've got instead of dropping a bunch of money for an attachment that works fine for me !!!!)

Textile Corner - 4 Seasons challenge - step 3

The scene with the distant hills added, snow on the roof and a couple of variations for the dirt road.

The next steps will be to add the middle distance trees, foreground snow and shadows. Then I'll leave it for a day or two before attaching everything together. (That's my thinking at the moment. Knowing the way my brain works it may change somewhat :) )

One change I am thinking about making is to move the bridge slightly more off center and add a few more small trees to the right hand side.

Textile Corner - 4 Seasons Challenge - step 2

The initial layout with just the very basic shapes. When I was cutting out the main tree I realised that the back of the fabric would work well for the middle distance trees. The "cloudy" effect of the sky fabric makes the main tree "pop" out more than if I had used a plain fabric (I think).

I have some fabric in my box that has a crackly wood effect to it. I like it for the covered bridge even though it's not quite the color I was going for. I may darken it down a little bit with some colored pencils. I would like to add some lines in to make it look more like the wood boards in the original picture.

Round our part of the county a lot of the trees look very grey in the winter time but I've opted for a more brown look so that the picture will not look too anemic.

Textile Corner - "Beat the Winter Blues" 2&3

left #2 This is some of my favorite fabric from my fat quarter collection and it always makes me smile to look at it. It's going to Betty B. who signed up at the last minute. She's going to have to iron it flatter since it got somewhat "squished." I probably could have done more stitching on it and maybe left the planets off but I was thinking about sunrises at the time.

right #3 Is some fabric and a flower left over from a quilt I am making. It's for me :) My thinking behind it is that the blue section is the flowers hibernating and the red is the sun bringing the flowers into bloom. If you look close enough I've written asleep on the blue and awake on the red :)

K's "101" project up-date

We had to change the size of the quilt because the flowery

fabric was not wide enough. Kris loves how it has turned out and thinks her "babies" like their new look :) She wants the rest of her initials on the quilt. We will finish the pillow tomorrow and are discussing what to do about the drapes for the bed. Her "babies" already have a winter weight quilt and it fits nicely in the drawer below the bed. The 4 poster was a gift from her grandparents in Scotland and has a CRM kind of feel to it.

Textile Corner - 4 seasons challenge - step 1

(Well wouldn't you know it I can now do more than one picture per posting AND move them round on the page. Woohoo, my new blog learning moment for today!)

Some of us are participating in a 4 seasons challenge at LearningFA. Our wonderful teacher, Shirley, gave us some pictures to choose from.

After waaaaaay to much thinking about it I have opted for the covered bridge. So far I have trolled around the internet looking at other pictures, mainly in Canada, and surprise, surprise actually found one that looked fairly close to the painting. This was just to give me some color ideas though we are only supposed to go with the black and white one for reference. I've opted to go with the weather worn grey affect for the bridge.

Since I have never really done much in the way of thread painting before I re-read almost every piece of information Shirley had available plus a few other resources on the web. That gave me an AHA moment related to sketching, water color painting and thread sketching.

I decided to trace the basic elements of the picture so that I can determine what I really need to use fabric for and what areas I have to delve into for thread painting. We have been advised to simplify our pictures so a lot of the fiddly little tree branches will probably not show up in my finished pictures. Shirley suggested I take out the bridge "advertising" pieces.

I have some of my fabric picked out for the various seasons but came to the realisation that I am short of tree and covered bridge "types". Oh well that means a trip or two to the fabric stores and what quilter loves doing that (sigh).

I've decided to start with a winter scene and this week will spend my time cutting out the trees, bridge and try a variety of sky colors. I haven't decided how I'm going to do the snow shadows yet. Who knows, if the snow is deep enough, maybe a skiier will show up :)

Some orange fun for Pat Sloan :)

If you've been following Pat Sloan's OC challenge week-end then you'll probably enjoy this photo. I'm learning a lot from her and a number of other fabulous people at The Thread Society.

Kris and I were looking through all my fabrics on Saturday and we found this one. She immediately put it into her "I want this one" stack and requested PJ's. I think I will sneak some of it back into "my" pile and make a "squishee" :)

Anyhoo I thought with all the buzzing around that has been going on between blogs the past few days that these lovely ladies would have had a fabulous time investigating all the "eye candy" on offer.

Thanks Pat.