The Wall

The wall is done except for cleaning up some smudges. I'll do that in the morning and it will be ready to greet the congregation on Sunday morning.

Whew! Now I can get back to the Sewing Dungeon ;)

Busy! I've been busy!

I have spent a lot of time in the Sewing Dungeon, but I can't show you what I've been working on. It is for a swap and is to be a surprise for someone.  I don't know who I have been creating for, so I am unable to share in case they read my blog...

I've also been doing some other things. I made a sunhat as I'll be sitting on the beach a bit toward the end of the month and I'm not a fan of lots of sun.

I grabbed some fabrics I had laying around and made up a sunhat, modifying it somewhat from the Sunny Side Up Sunhat pattern. I had to make it a smidge bigger, I treated the band/bow a bit differently and shaved a bit off the brim as it was so floppy (even using decor weight fabric and heavy interfacing) that it was hard to see out from under the brim. The Boybarian took the picture and was only giving me one shot, so excuse any photographic flaws.


I have also been painting a wall at our church. There was a HUGE wall just begging for something of interest, so here is the beginning of taking the blankness away:

I've got a bit more done, but my photo was not very good, so I'll take another one when I have finished it up to share.

BTW, yes, I'm aware that there is a letter missing.

Design Wall Monday - Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July! Here in the US we will be celebrating with lots of parades and Fireworks and tons of food (what is a celebration without food?). I will be celebrating in my Sewing Dungeon as I have no other responsibilities today. Our town parade was on Saturday and the fireworks are after dark...so lots of time is available for sewing and quilting!

On my design wall this week: 

I've got Bento blocks (and bits - the uneven four patches), two more blocks for my Winding Ways quilt and some random blocks to figure out a quilt pattern.

Aren't these Bento blocks fun? I *love* batiks and just participated in a swap where I got more of them to pet and create with...thus these blocks are on my wall. I've got more cut and ready to sew together :)

Speaking of batiks, I just love, love, love how these Winding Ways blocks look together! I might even get this one done as I am now using the pieces as leaders/enders while working on the Bento blocks :)

Check out more design wall goodness at Patchwork Times.

What I was working on earlier this week :)

I did a personal swap with someone who fell in love with the Moonlit Garden Postcard I made for a quilted postcard swap. She wanted a bit larger quilt, one to hang on a wall.

I started off by layering a batik tree between water dissolving stabilizer and then thread painting the tree bark over the batik. I used black, brown and a King Tut variegated thread to make the bark. Then I cut away most of the wash away stabilizer and soaked the rest away by hand.

I cut my ground/bushes and prepped the moon - cutting it from a sheet of Angelina Fibers that I had made for the postcard moons. Good thing I made too much! I laid them out on the black background (which has a subtle sparkle that doesn't show up in the picture) and marked the edges with chalk.

I then proceeded to quilt the background. I was inspired by Vincent VanGogh's Starry Starry Night and put in swirls. I swirled around where the moon was going to go.

Following the quilting of the background, I placed the moon, ground/bushes and the tree on the background and scribbled over the edges to apply them to the background. Here I show the back of the quilted/scribbled piece when it was just two layers - front and batting. I covered this all up with a fabric backing before binding.

This is an in between step, where I just quilted around the tree and across the horizon line to attach the front/batt to the backing fabric.

I added a fringe to make grass in the foreground and bound the quilt. Here it is by it's inspiration piece:

Somehow, making it bigger made it a lot more work :) But worth it in the end!