Air

Here is my second ever art quilt. It's actually unfinished in this picture - too lazy to finish binding it before taking the picture.


The theme is air and I've been thinking about it since I made my first art quilt, which was more of a forest-y earth theme. I've also got a water themed quilt in mind.

Things I liked about this quilt:
1. The idea was stuck in my mind and it was starting to bug me, so I'm glad I finally got it out.
2. I used a piece of felt instead of batting, and that made it easier to work with.
3. I think the freehand embroidery turned out pretty well.

The thing I don't so much like about it:
1. I rushed it, I was really impatient to get it out and got kind of sloppy. I do that a lot.
2. It was super hard to sew the feather down without just mashing it down, so that wasn't so awesome.

Overall, I like playing with my fabrics, I like embellishing, and I like doing little projects just for me. So I'm going to keep exploring the idea of art quilts... and next time dedicate a bit more time to it, so I can be happier with the quality of it.

Quilts in progress

I'm really happy with how much quitling I've been doing since I've been back. I've finished five quilts in nine months. Not bad... and I've got a few more on deck.

1. Mystery quilt #1: It's almost finished, I just need to add the binding. I hate binding. =( But I love love LOVE this quilt, and it's another one I almost don't want to give away.


2. Mystery quilt #2: Just getting started, I've cut out a few of the pieces, I don't think it'll take too long to finish up though.

3. Rubies: It's well underway, I've done about half the quilting. If I just sat and did it, I could easily finish it up in a week... but see projects 1 & 2 above for why I haven't.

4. & 5. Flying Geese & Stripes: Both tops are done, and both need to be backed, quilted & finished up. I'm seriously considering sending the flying geese one out to be professionally quilted, I just need to find a professional quilter & get an estimate of cost. I'm hoping to find someone who will just take it as is and not ask me to pin or baste it first.


The striped one should be pretty easy, I'm not planning on doing anything fancy with the quilting. My goal is to have it done by Christmas to give to my niece.

6. Well, if I'm gonna give a quilt to my niece, I need to make one for my nephew as well. I've got an idea... but that's it. I should probably get workin' on it!

7. Gaaaaah! This thing was supposed to be a flower basket quilt for my niece... and when I started it she was young enough to like a flowery girly quilt like this but now that she's a 'Tween... not gonna cut it. I don't particularly want a flower basket quilt and on top of that, I made some design changes between cutting out the blocks and starting to sew them together. If I keep going as is, there's gonna have to be math. I hate math. =( So I may just cut my losses here and re-appropriate the fabrics for another cause.

8. I really want to make more 'art quilts' for lack of a better word. Really I just want to play with fabric & embellishments on a small scale. I have some ideas and am excited to try them out.

So that's what's going on in my quilting world. I hope to have all of these finished up before the end of the year. Which may be a bit unrealistic when I start taking classes again. But it's good to have goals. =)

Playtime!

I've been putting a fair bit of work on gift quilts and really needed some time to play. There was an inspiring article in one my old copies of Quilting Arts Magazine (February/March 2008) about collage quilts, basically embellishing quilted panels with a variety of objects. It's like the perfect play-time project to do with some of the scrap fabric I've been collecting. I designated Tuesday night as play-time and I can't tell you how excited I was about it.

On my way home from work I collected all of these goodies.

Then I sewed up some of my favorite green batik scraps, aiming for a 3" x 5" postcard quilt size.

I added the found objects using a kind of animal/vegetable/mineral concept. You can't hardly see the 'animal' component - it's the wool yarn tying the rock down. Then I embellished it with some embroidery threads.

I got most of it done on Tuesday... but finished up some of the embroidery and the binding tonight. Verdict = SUPER FUN! And I think I can call this my first official "art quilt" - whatever that means. ;) I already have some ideas for the next couple I want projects I want to do.