Starting a Commissioned Art Quilt

I have finally finished my other large projects and now have begun work on a commissioned art quilt. I sent my clients some photos of landscapes I had taken over the years in order to choose a scene they'd like me to make out of fabric.  They have seen some of my other work and have an idea of what it will look like when it's done.

This is the photo that was chosen.

 My process is to do a watercolour painting of the photo in which I try to highlight a focal point and bring out some of the colours I see. In this photo the line where the water meets the far shore is crooked (because of the angle of the camera) so the first adjustment would be to straighten that. The rocks do not have sun shining on them but I might try to give them more light and vary the colours in them for more interest.

These are the first washes of colour.

I have just positioned the trees, shrubs, rock and grasses. I've put a little yellow into the sky and also some pinks. The rocks have a light pink/peach colour on them. I don't like to paint my rocks grey. When I study them, I see pinks, purples, greens and blues in them and that is much more interesting than grey.

Here the colours are "punched" up a bit.

Today I worked on darkening the colours as I continue to look for the focal point I want to stress. I've made the far shore a little bluer which pushes it into the distance. You can see that this version is already more interesting than the photo. I will continue to work on the colours and create some nice contrasts in the sky as well.

Once the painting is done, I'll make a tracing of it and take it to Staples to enlarge to the size I want it. From the enlargement, I will plot out my sewing plan marking my colour scheme and fabric choices. That is the most time consuming part of the whole process but the most important.

Work Begun on Fabric Cards Quilt

For years, I have been making fabric greeting cards, they're actually more like postcards. At one point I let everyone know that if they did not want to keep them, instead of throwing them out, they could send them back to me and I would put them together, making an art quilt out of them. I have received many of them back and have pinned them to my design board to see how I could put them together.

Here I grouped the cards by colour with the
orientation both landscape and portrait (sideways
and up and down)

Here, I lined them up in colour rows
with all the landscape oriented ones
together.

The final art quilt will be in the format above. I've taken the portrait oriented cards out and will make another quilt from them when I have enough. I decided that I would attach the cards in rows of six.

This is the top row all put together

I pondered long on how to put them together as I wanted to have all the edges showing as opposed to sewing them together and having the edges in the seams. I got around that problem by using pop can tabs on the backs of the cards.

You can see how the tabs were sewn onto the backs of the cards
to keep them together. I also added the names of the recipients,
the occasion it was made for and the Month and year it was given.

I was able to get two rows put together and then I ran out of pop can tabs. I don't drink pop, but if some of my local followers do, could you save them for me?  Each card will have four tabs, two to attach the cards in a row and two to attach each row together. It is pretty time consuming as they are sewn on by hand. It's a job I do while I watch TV.

I love how they all look together. Each one is unique but assembling them by colour gives them something in common and from a distance the colour changes in the quilt really look nice.

The Month of Love and the Spotlight Auction Entrance

Wow, it's February already! This is the Month of Love and I just realized that the piece I'm making for the Spotlight Auction in Nebraska has a love theme. I've finally finished my piece which I titled, "Spread LOVE Around". We, in the Americas, think that we are very tolerant of others and their differences. But what we hear on the news these days tells a different story. We hear of terrorism, mass shootings, bullying, and travel bans. When I was planning this auction piece I wanted to give a positive message. We just need more love for others in this world. When we show love to someone, it can set off a chain of loving action. We should infuse love into everything we do.

In my piece, "Spread LOVE Around" I placed a heart in the upper left corner and spreading from it are many "fingers" as if they are throwing love into the air, hoping it is contagious and people will "catch" it and "come down" with a serious case of LOVE. If only it worked that way. Nevertheless, I really believe that when we show love to another the relationship we have with each other changes for the better.

This was my starting plan. I developed it in a
very intuitive way instead of having a plan
in the beginning that I would follow.

I embellished it with beads to depict little
bits flying through the air, destined
to hit someone and "infect" them with love.

Inspired by Being a Grandmother

When I became a grandmother almost 6 years ago, I decided to make little journals for each of my grandchildren. It seemed like an easy task. The journals would commemorate special days and events in the lives of each grandchild. When there were only a few, it was fairly doable to keep up to date. There are now 7 grandchildren and I'm finding it difficult to record everything that is happening in their lives. Every once in a while I have to catch them up. I usually write a list of the events I want to place in their journals so I don't forget them and when I feel like I'm getting too far behind I drop everything else and get working on the journals.

For the last several weeks I have been trying to catch up the year 2016. Below are a few pages out of those journals.

Each child has a family tree in the beginning of their journal.

Each birthday is also celebrated.

Religious events are very special.

Trips and large moves are also remembered. 

Holiday trips with Opa and Oma are included.

First baby teeth and first adult teeth are also celebrated.

I also make the journal interesting by including fold out pages, pockets. windows and I have a plan to try some pop-up pages. If you have another cool idea that you've seen, let me know what it is. I love trying new things. I want my grandchildren to love looking through their special book and treasure it knowing their Oma really, really loved them.