Postcard Fun!

I saw a post on Facebook that Quilting Arts Magazine out of the states is celebrating their 10th birthday. 

 

So they are having a postcard party!  The call is out to send fibre postcards to them by 10/10/2010.  The postcards MUST prominently display the number ten.  Ooooh I couldn't resist!  My kids had a playdate at the zoo, to which we arrived an hour late.  I spent three hours on this!  The "ten" of course is the needle and threadspool.  : )

Cute hey!??  I love the border, and really enjoyed adding the glass beads and metaillic stitches.  The white fabric is rumpled cotton stitched down flat.  The spool is some faux suede that I machine appliqued.  The border is a decorative yarn that has been couched down with a decorative stitch and variegated thread.

I'm pretty proud of this needle & thread too.  : )  The needle was triple-straight stitched with my silver rayon thread.  The red thread on the post card is a metallic cord that I stitched through and then glued down. 

I had to get it out right away with the next postal truck since we only have 10 days to get it all the way to the states.  That's cutting it close, but I had to jump in.  

Then tonight, as I was tidying up my sewing mess, I came across this fabric from a castle wall I made for my oldest son's quilt.  And I got the funniest idea!  I couldn't resist.  I HAD to...

HA!  I'm still laughing.  lol  The X is the roman numeral for ten.  I made a stencil and then sponged on some red acrylic paint.  The bricks are stitched out with silver rayon.  hehehe!  That was made in 20 minutes and popped it into the neighborhood mail box.  lol  I'm STILL laughing about it!  : )  I was half way to the mailbox with my daughter when I realized I hadn't taken a photo!  So we ran back.  Whew - lots of exercise!  I even managed a run before anyone in the house had woken up.  Tomorrow - yoga outside. ; )  No more cardio!  lol

 ps- Call Sew & Home in Saskatoon to sign up for the Fabric Postcard Workshop, and you can try all these techniques out for yourself!  ; )

~Monika

September Blues & Textile Samplers

September is always so full and busy.  I just have a little sinking feeling that all my grand intentions to have entries submitted for mid October are simply not going to happen.  It will mean a lot of late nights.  But that's all right.  I think I am more creative when the house is quiet.  

But there's so much I want to do!!  Do you ever feel on the verge of creativity but completely scattered & unfocused? 

I stayed up past midnight lastnight cutting all these to have them ready for my Fabric Postcard Workshop at Sew and Home.  It's double sided fusible stiff poly-like stuff that comes on a roll.  These are essentially the blank postcards.

Some of these textile sample books are from Sew and Home, and some of these were gifted to our quilt guild members who then passed them on.  They are SO helpful for creating landscapes!!

It comes in so many shades and the all carry darker colors beneath the surface (like the shiny copper with the deep bronze within).  Gourgeous.  I used a bit of it in this fabric matting I made.  I like the wood-look it has.

I also have some faux suede in rich colors.  I plan to bring a bunch to the workshop for participants to use.

Suede, faux suede, and leather are really nice to stitch on.  Apparently leather embroidery is all the rage.  ; )

There's some blues in here that I can use to replicate yesterday's escape to the lake.  Look at this!  Ooh I love the rich color of that water.  Usually when it's windy, the rivers and lakes turn this oscar-the-grouch sea green.

But look at that blue!  SO deep and dark.  Oooh I can't wait to stitch that one!  It became really windy.  It must have been where the sun & clouds were.  It didn't look like this the day before!

These drapery samples have just the perfect prairie colors as well. 

Does anyone have any quick tips/tricks for removing that sticky hard paper off the backs?  I soaked these, and they are gooey and just a real mess to pick off.  There's not much fabric left if you cut the papered edge off.  Hmmm.

And last but not least, a wonderful woman I met phoned me today to asked if I could be a guest speaker at her guild meetings, and talk about my blog and my art!!  It won't be until after my next birthday, so I'm sure I can handle it by then.  : )  I am so honored.  Isn't that fantastic!?  If you aren't part of this guild, you should be!  You should see their biennial show!  Simply astounding.  PLUS they have the BEST sunsets shining into their meeting hall. 

Enjoy the lovely weather!

Quilt outdoors.

~Monika

My SWEET Prairie - more photos

Today after one child went to French School, one to English School, and one to German School, I headed out to the countryside.  My plan was to go to the Berry Barn Gift Shop to see what kinds of lovelies can be bought there.  I arrived at 9:55 am.  The store didn't open until 10.  So I and a handful of elderly people stood there waiting for the doors to open.  I think they were all there for breakfast topped with Saskatoon berry syrop.  I felt stupid standing there with two cameras.  !?

After snooping around and buying a stuffed Prairie Dog for my girl (or maybe for me?), I drove back full of motherly guilt.  Most fields along the way are cut.  In some, the farmers were working.  We saw them last night after sunset still driving those rows through the wheat fields.  Then I noticed one that was still uncut!  I pulled over to the side of the ditch, and crossed over the highway to the opposite ditch with camera in hand (just for you).

 

Our next big biennial Saskatchean quilt show is one year away.  The theme is waves.  I think wheat, not water.  Maybe I'll sew something along these lines.

You know, around here, "wheat" is a color.  : )  It is breathtaking.  Our land is considered "the breadbasket of the world".  At least that's what they told me in elementary school.

That is a lot of wheat (and a lot of grasshoppers).  It's LOUD here.  The breeze in the wheat and the chirping of crickets.  WOW.  It's like white noise.

It's amazing how many different photos I can take while standing in one spot.  : )

If you ever get the chance, you must go to the berry barn.  Aaaaah the smell of the autumn late bloomers was fantastic!  I ended up buying a dehydrated ear of corn-on-the-cob for my kids for $2.  You put it in the microwave for three minutes and then you clean out all the popcorn to eat.  It's a riot watching that cobb pop around doing back-flips in there.  We all laughed so hard.  

Tomorrow will be another HOT day.  I'm pulling the kids from school to spend another day at the lake.  This time I will bring my Bear's Paw quilt to work on.  : )

~Monika

who had a great night at the guild meeting - we have a great guild.

Sunday Snapshots - #5

I have so many photos to show you, it's unbelievable.  I'm trying to narrow it down, but GOSH it's pretty outside!  The leaves are changing color and sprinkling down to the ground this weekend.

This autumn seems to be especially colorful.  The first photo was from my back yard. This next one has some leaves on a park bench in the morning, just as the sun was melting the frost away for the day.

I love hot September days, especially when they fall on a weekend!  We met with a couple other families today at a beach to play and cook food over the fire.  We had the whole beach to ourselves.  It was amazing, and very relaxing.  And would you believe, I got to snap up more photos of quilts!?  These are my friend's beach blankets:

Isn't that pretty?  They didn't have traditional binding. I love the folded edge.  I need to try this sometime.

Both were white quilts.  The second has these great appliqued leaves.

She told me they were not handmade, and they were cheap, store-bought.  But I don't know... I like them still!  Very sweet.  I had been dreaming about a white beach quilt.  I think I will make one by the time next spring rolls around. 

My, it was hard not sew today!  I wanted to bring my bear's paw to finish the handquilting, but I chose to leave it at home.  I did bring some Quilting Arts magazines along to read though...  : )

I did some planning in my head around that article.

Time to go...  We pack up.  The wind stops.  Light clouds overcast.  And then I saw this as I was cleaning up the beach.  Is this sweet or what!?  They look like they are cuddling together as the sun goes down.  I left them undisturbed.

the last couple on the beach

This week is going to be so busy again.  I'm glad we had this last vacation, and with such great people too.

On the way home, there was a sprinkle of rain and then the most amazing sunset came out.  I turned around on the highway and drove west on a dirt road until I got to a rise in the road where we had a great view!  My husband hates when I do this.  : )  But my three kids in the back were all squealing with delight at the great show.

Isn't that gorgeous?  I love the sunshine on the prairie grasses.  One day when we are old, my husband will look back and thank me.  You don't need to rush anywhere when there's a good sunset.

Sweet Dreams of lovely things,

~Monika

Stitchin' It!

Yay!  I got the Courthouse Country all pinned.  Notice I added borders.  To my luck, it involved a lot of seam-ripping again.  !?

Then I started quilting it!  Don't you just love all the space?  It's so great.  I have 2 L-shaped desks back to back.

Pretty hey!?  I love it.  I say that a lot don't I?  ; )  I don't show you my disasters.  Maybe some day.  I have a couple doozies.  lol  

I really love these colors.  Look what I saw on my morning walk!  oooooooooooo, aaaaaaaaah!  It was so nice - the morning sun on my back, and a huge full setting white moon ahead of me.  Wow.

There will be more great pictures tomorrow.  It's unexpectedly HOT here, and we are spending the whole day at the beach, though the lake will be way too cold to swim in from the cold autumn nights.  We usually have our "Happy Autumn" turkey this weekend, but it looks like this year it will be hot dogs over the fire : ).

Enjoy that pretty moon!

~Monika

Late in the Summer (work in progress)

This is what I've done so far with this big landscape (wishing I was keeping everything small scale).  I'm happy with it, but I am unable to capture the correct color with my camera.  The greens are much deeper in color, and the canola field it brighter.  Oh well.  Here's the blue hills in the distance, the tree line on the horizon, and the field.

That was my laptop with the photo I'm working from.  I usually keep this much closer to me while working.  And yup, that is my Pippi Longstocking book.  : )

This was to be a mid-summer landscape, but all the pretty ochres I added speeds things forward and turns it into a late summer landscape.  This ribbon is just perfect for this field!  The tree line is the hand dyed wool.  I work from back to front.  Then I added the grasses toward the forefront.

You are looking at cotton thread, flannel, rayon thread, hand dyed wool, sheer ribbon, decorative yarn... hmmm, have I missed anything?  Crazy.  I couched and tacked it all down by using a grass stitch while set up for free motion quilting.  I love this effect.  

I added some more depth to the tree line & blue hills...

That's an enlarged image from a 2 inch square.  That just goes to show that the small works are loaded with detail too.  You certainly don't need size to impress with fibre arts.  Still, I encourage people to come in for a closer look.  : )  So here it is at the moment.  I will be stitching some birds in flight, and adding beads into the tall grasses.

I sprayed the bottom half of the landscape with this to help it last from people's fingers.  I don't want to put these under glass, and everyone immediately needs to touch & feel these.  There's so much texture in there.

Whew that brought back memories!  I grew up under the wing of a chalk-pastel landscape artist who used a lot of fixatif spray!  (cough cough).  Funny what smells bring you back to your childhood and memories of your mother.  hehe

Have a great day!

And happy Autumn everyone!

~Monika

Blue Sky Ahead!

Oh this is working out marvelously so far (knock on wood).  My Janome is giving me a serious headache.  I don't like the way the tech set the tensions, so I fiddled with them myself.  I can't believe I have to take it back again.  It's like cooking with a broken stir-spoon.  But here's what I have so far.  First, the painted sky - watered down acrylics on cotton.

I air dried it and then pressed it with a hot steamy iron.

So far so good.  Then I placed it on the buckrum canvas and stitched it horizontally through the blues, with blue thread.  

It still lacked some "pretty", so I covered the whole sky with sheer ribbon.  NICE!  So that was 505'd in place and then stitched around the edges.  

Looks good hey?

Now for the horizon!  Can't wait.  I just need to remember to practice before every step on a scrap piece to make sure this machine is set right.  Yikes.  I'll take the 7700 in later when this one is done.  I can't handle the withdrawal.  ; )  Anyone have a good back up machine for me to buy?  

~Monika

happy & relieved to be making a landscape again!!

And they're off!

I just donated two of my quilts to a silent auction!  I've done this before, and it feels great.  I sent off "Hugs and Kisses".  I also removed it from my Etsy store.

and the Summerland Peaches 9 patch!  ; )

The woman who picked up the quilts figures she's going to outbid everyone on that peach one  : )  I get so excited when people love my work.  She took my cards and bio and asked me for sewing lessons as well.  I'm pretty sure she's serious.

And on her way out, my daughter threw a fit because the indigo and while quilt "IS SO PRETTY!!  WHY ARE YOU LETTING HER TAKE IT!!?"  She's 4 yrs old and owns most of my quilts.  

I think the silent auction is tonight.  I hope it does a good job for them!  : )

I'm finishing the other silent auction quilt - Black & White & Red All Over, all done!  I am LOVING the white binding.  It secretly makes me look forward to our Canadian winters.

~Monika
a true prairie woman who loves each of the four seasons.

It's a Love / Hate Thing.

What a day.  Here's what happenned.  

I love quilting.  I hate ripping seams.  Often I do both.

I decided that the second yellow fabric that I used in the Courthouse quilt didn't work.  It was too drab.  So, out came my trusty seam ripper.  It was still warm from the last project.  And off came the drab...

If you've ever seam-ripped, you know it's slow and tedious.  It's somewhat sad since you are undoing a lot of work.  And POOF!  I got this great motivation to do a tutorial on replacing pieces in a quilt!  Great idea?  I thought so.  So examined the quilt top and decided that I needed some darker browns in one row of centres.  So away I went...

Slowly but surely.  I snapped photos along the way for my brilliant tutorial that perhaps would get published in my favorite magazine.  : )

Here I go... stitch by stitch - rip.  rip.  rip.  I cut about every fourth stitch.  I'm not doing all the centers, only a select number in one diagonal row of blocks.

And when I'm done, I flip over the quilt only to realize that I CUT OUT THE WRONG ONES!  lol

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I laughed.

I cried.

Mostly I cried.

I took a deep breath and went & had a big cup of coffee.  Can you believe this!?  lol  And I spent even more of the day just putting fabric back into my quilt top.  I added the new yellows.  I like it.  I took out the brown centers that I meant to in the first place, and replaced those with deeper darker browns.  I added a red border.  FINALLY it's done.  And it's right this time. 

And it was worth it.  I love it.  The binding will probably be a deeper red.  I haven't decided yet.  I lost all ability to make any more design decisions after all that!  lol

Crazy.  

~Monika

making it right.
probably NOT publishing it.  lol