Quilting For Your Borders

What do we really see?  If we're paying attention, the great outdoors is a plethora of quilting designs such as the following photo of a gold butterfly enjoying my hot pink zinnias.  For a quilting design, simply trace the outline of the butterfly image & zinnia & you have a quilting outline for your quilt borders.  So how do you connect each design?  This is where you implement a meandering design of your choice.  So how do you know which design to implement?  You simply have to just try a design.  Practice with pencil & paper first then move on to practice on a small quilt sandwhich if you're apprehensive about trying it.  The point is to just do it.  Get over the hurdle of, "I can't".   Try something out of the ordinary for yourself.  If you make a mistake, no one will know.  If one new skill doesn't work for you, simply move on to a different skill.  Imagine learning a new technique & enjoying the process.......

Quilting Designs From The Garden?

Yes! You can find quilting lines/designs in your garden or anywhere outdoors.  You just have to pay attention to what you see.  Do we really look at what we see?  Not always.  While in my backyard weeding, I stumbled upon a very intricate, interesting design that would look great on a quilt.  A spider web.  I spotted this very small spider right by my climbing mandeville, waiting for lunch to be lured into it's web.  Inspiration is everywhere, you just have to look at what you see....

This spider must have caught lunch because it's no longer there.  Spiders are not my favorite part of a garden but they do make a contribution by existing.  I know many quilters who have quilted spider webs into their quilts & they make for gorgeous artful quilting. 

Standing Tall

These are delphiniums that I had in my Georgia garden.  They do not like the heat & you have to really nurture these flowers.  They are actually high maintenance.....sort of like Divas of a Garden.  Actually quite worth the trouble because of the beauty that they bring to a garden.  They bring height & almost purple blue color that not many flowers have. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Sometime before I got to plant these flowers, I made a sketch of delphiniums & the following 26"wide x 23" length wall hanging was born.  This way I could have them to look at during anytime of the year.  I'm planning on making this one into a pattern but, I need to make some of the shapes a little larger so it's easier for handling. 



Below are some closeups of very small butterflies & the quilting.  All inspired by the garden.

Wish I could just magically snap my fingers & create one but, like all other quilting it takes time......



From Tuscany to Texas Hill Country

This photo was taken during the spring when my husband & I traveled to the hill country here in Texas. Since I haven't lived in Texas for years, I was pleasantly surprised to find red poppies blooming in the hill country.



                               


This red poppy quilt was made a few years ago, inspired by a trip to Italy.

Earlier this year I decided that this flower need more depth & highlights & shading.  It was already quilted & if I ruined it by fusing on top of it, I would not be too concerned.  I'd take this as a learning experience & make another poppy quilt if I needed to.  I fused more fabric to it & quilted these pieces down.  It worked out just fine. 

Sometimes you simply have to live with a quilt for a while before you develop of sense of how it should be completed.  This happens thru developing your skills & wanting to challenge yourself to improve your techniques.  It's exciting when this happens.  I recently did a demo for one of my minigroups with a much smaller poppy by demonstrating how to take a drawing......

   and creating a thread painted image.........

This little 5" x 7" image is nothing more than a white muslin fabric, spray starched several times to avoid hooping, & then simply thread painting.  Thread painting is simply filling in the shape with several shades of thread.  It's a lot of fun to do.  This little piece is not quilted & I haven't decided if I will quilt it.  I may just mount on painted canvas. 

Inspiration from Nature...

 The photograph below is from my mother-in-law's bougainvilla bush from a few years ago.  I decided it should become a quilt when we relocated to Mexico City, Mexico & found a home on a street named Bougainvilla Street (Paseo de Bugambilias).  I drew a pattern by looking at this photo. After several changes & additions, my drawing turned out the exact size of my quilt.  This was a really good exercise in drawing from a photo.  I added an additional butterfly due to the fabric I had. 



Bougainvilla Brilliance 2007 MSB Designs





Get Inspired! Go On A Field Trip With Friends...

 Ever feel like you're in a rut?  You can't seem to get into a sewing mood?  Recently, I got together with my mini-group & we went shop hopping.  I forgot to take pictures at our first two stops but, our last stop was at Fabric Fanatics, home to nothing but batiks.  It was fabric heaven as you can see below.  I pulled out my camera & began to take photos.   It was like being inside a box of crayons.  We had such a great fun day.  We will be doing this again sometime soon.   



Ready to go home to sew.



We were grinning from ear to ear.



Stretching Your Skills.....

How do you begin?  You might get started with a photo that just begs to be made into a quilt.  It may be the colors that inspire you or possibly the shapes.  The point of stretching your skills is not only to learn & improve but, to keep your quilt making exciting.  This photo of pansies was the inspiration photo for the drawing that follows.

I decided to make these pansies with mainly white since I had already made a quilt of purple pansies.  So now for the drawing.

I've colored in the drawing to see if it comes to life a bit before the fabric.

The other idea was to use the fabric in my stash....oops!  I meant to say fabric collection. Saying fabric collection sounds a little better.  Because I didn't have the above colors exactly, I used other colors that worked out nicely.  Some of the shading is done with fabric & the flower's centers have a small amount of purple & yellow paint where needed to help blend the colors.   Quilt size: 36"w x 41 & 1/2" l.

Copyright MSB Designs

Hand Applique & Quilting Is Alive & Thriving!

I run into more people (non-quilters) who tell me that hand quilting is a lost art, once I've told them that I am a quilter.  I gently educate them by saying that it is indeed thriving.  Quilting is all over & yet there is a great population who do not have any idea that it is still quite popular.  In any case, I am proud to have finished my hand applique quilt that took me five years to complete.  It began with a Cockscomb & Currants pattern from my EQ5 software.  The original plan looked like this picture below.

I started the hand applique process in 2005, during my once per quarter trips back to US, from Mexico City, Mexico, to visit family.  By Dec. 2007,  I felt encouraged to have a center that was stitched together.    I had only printed the EQ5 single block pattern at this point so, now what to do next?  The originally planned pattern was not a challenge for me.

I decided to sew half square triangles around the center block.  Then I decided the border had to be a vine that went all the way around.  Not so simple to just magically draw because I would have to measure, draw a preliminary draft then, adjustments then, the templates.  Long story short, I finally brought it together.  Another couple of years later, I finally hand quilted it & showed it at my local guild.  I haven't been able to part with it. I worked so hard on it that I don't want to release it from my sight.  I thought that I would share it here on my blog instead, at least for now.  Below are photos of the finished quilt.  As you can see, it turned out differently from the original EQ5 quilt that I planned initially.

I appliqued quite a few butterflies & what seemed like many, many, many berries.  I also outlined the butterflies with black embroidery thread & embroidered  small sections of some of the butterflies.  This made them stand out so much better.  I'm so glad I did this.



Sigh........Guess what?  I have another one started.   I have to remind myself about enjoying the process with this type of project.