The Magical Tree Unveiled.

On Sunday I mentioned that I would have big news for you this week.  But then our national postal service workers went on strike.  So...  you'll have to wait!  I have other news.  Mandy's wall hanging is done.  Want to see it from beginning to end?  It all began with a bag of baby carriers and slings and wraps that Mandy carried her boys in.  It included blue, gold, beige, more beige, some green, and WHOLE LOT of this rainbow fabric!

baby wrap

Mandy wanted someone to make her a tree, and I was recommended.  I got the bag, stared at it for days and thought, "a tree???".  This little sketch came with the fabric.

Mandy's sketch

Okay... I had to meet with this lady.  I had questions.  So I met Mandy for the first time over at the house of our mutual friend Michelle.  Here's what I threw together on Michelle's bed.  It was good to talk together and find out what she wanted.

photographed from the side.

This was how I arranged the colors.  The rainbow was to be sky, the beige & brown would become tree parts, the blue up in the night, the platinum colored silk would become a moon, and the booties would be stars to represent the 2 boys.  I would add green to the bottom for the earth.  Mandy wanted beads and sparkles on the quilt, and I said no - unless it becomes a wallhanging.  So a wallhanging it became because Mandy wanted embellishments.  Now before you think, "what?  that sky is pretty LOUD.  Are you sure?", you have to know that Mandy is one of those people who left Saskatchewan and had to come back because of homesickness.  So I figured she could appreciate the sky.  It's just the way it is here.

one night from my window

one morning from my deck

Slowly, here's how it came together.

little boy booties, worn by both kids

carefully made into 2 stars

placement... work in progress with bad late-night lighting

lots and lots and lots of free motion stitching in a variety of colors and curls

many many hand made leaves to be added after quilting

placing the leaves

sun & earth - both in progress.  I added much more...

I love the pillowcase finished edge so much, and the quilting, and the beading!

more clipping, stitching, layering the bark...

lots of French Knots and many beads added by hand to the boughs

champagne colored glass beading around the honey colored silk moon

knotted hole in front of the three trunk, sun beads in back

backing hand stitched in place, hanging sleeve being attached

salvaged & on back, I saved Mandy's stitching from her wrap

DONE!

And would you believe it?  The very moment I decided I was done this quilt (began a half a year ago!!), I got a phone call from a special woman in Calgary asking if she could drop off fabric for a memory quilt.

It is uncanny how this was meant to be.  I am so proud of this one.  It was a huge challenge at times.  I can't wait to tell you about the next one.

~Monika

Works in Progress Wednesday

What do mustache trimmers and door stoppers have in common?  You will have to go back to yesterday's post and read the comments to find out!  Wow.  I learned a lot from all you great Tips on Tuesdays participants!  Thank you all.

Okay, down to business!  What have I been working on?  Believe it or not, I feel like I"m not accomplishing much, though I've been working working working since last Thursday.  I finished 'Deep Summer" for the Spring Show & Sale at the end of the month.  This piece is based on a photo I took last summer.

I finished the binding on the wonky owl quilt (the one with the tornado quilting).

I actually finished the piece for Kate!!  The art is done, I still have to make a border and put a backing on it.  I had a great time doing this one yesterday!  I used a seamstress' french curve to mark the lines I stitched for the power lines.  Here is a third of it, minus the beads for insulators.  The piece measures about 24 x 36 so far.  It's also based on a photo I took last year.

I have nearly all the embellishing complete on Mandy's wallhanging!!!  I said I wouldn't do this, but here is a look-see...  detail of the tree boughs.

It's full of french knots in a variety of greens, extended out to look like buds & small branches.  There are big glass beads stitched on too.  I spent hours and hours stitching lots and lots to pretty it up like she was dreaming about.

Jesica, if you are reading this, I haven't put a stitch on your quilt.  :(  But it's all waiting in my head.  I'll phone you soon.  : )

And I worked a bit on this one... it is based on a photo I took last year as well.  It's 6x8" and is for the Spring Art Show and Sale as well.  There is some marking where the poles will be stitched.  SO far, so good!  I love it, though I was surprised to have 6 shades of grey, and not the right one for this piece.  !?  I made it work.

Is there more?  Nope... I think that's it.  Pretty good hey?  If anyone is interested in joining a quilted postcard swap group, we would love some 'new life'.  You can click on the PostCardCottage link in the left sidebar for more information.  (I adopted the yahoo group from the former moderator.)

Head on over to Lee's at Freshly Pieced to see what other quilters in blogland are up to!  : )

Have a great day!
~Monika

Meanderings

It's Monday, it's guild night!  And oh, I forgot to post this!

I'm meandering... not as stitch, but is in 'moving here & there' with projects.  Gosh.  I have two and a half weeks to prepare for a the group exhibit on May 29th.  I'm okay with that.  They are all small works which have all been started.  The frames and matting are all ready to go.  That's half the work right there!  I'm focusing on these pieces now also with extra care and attention because I'll be submitting images of these to A Needle Pulling Thread for the Spring 2012 Featured Artist article.  Gotta be perfect!   I didn't finish Mandy's wall hanging, but did put hours and hours of beading and hand stitching.  It's completing itself really well.

I'm not letting Mandy see until I bring it to her home.

Just before the weekend, the wonky owl quilt was finished and labeled and is now in the hands of the new owner's mother.

The polka dots were perfect with all the circular quilting.

I hope the next couple of days are equally productive!

See you tomorrow for Tips on Tuesdays, and remember you are all welcome to chime right in!
~Monika

Works in Progress Wednesday

Okay... I said I was taking a week off, and I took a day off.  Can you blame me?  I'm addicted.  So here's what's up this week.  With Mother's day coming up quick, I'm working to complete that tree.  I had Mandy come over this morning and she and I planned an arrangement of beading and chunky french knots.  I want her getting this soon.  So I have a lot of hand stitching to do know which I will thoroughly enjoy!!  I am so in the mood for that.

I haven't worked on Kate's highway poles, but that will come soon enough.  Their possession date for a new home away from the prairies has not yet arrived, so I'm not feeling panic.

Jesica's stitching will be planned out, but not complete to until after the end of the month.  I have an art exhibit to produce by the end of this month, and (yikes) who am I kidding!?  Deadlines press.

I took off to a sewing retreat on Sunday.  I spent the whole day in a vaulted cedar room overlooking a lake with the windows open.  (See last post for details.)  It was awesome!  I specifically took no existing projects with me.  I figured the art was too messy with all the yards & beads & threads.  I didn't have a plan for a quilt, so I just took along all the solid precuts I had in my stash and made a big quilt top.  I even did all the piecing with Fiona (my Kenmore ogre who is really a princess).  She did a marvelous job!

I also put together some single log cabin blocks for a baby quilt top.  It has five shades of pink if you look really close.

But wait!  There's more.  Remember the wonky owl quilt?  It looked like an earthquake.  I wasn't happy with the quilting and i didn't show you because it was too much.  Well I decided ripping out the stitches would take about 5 days... so I jsut kept going.  It looks like a dozen tornadoes.  It's a natural disaster quilt.  lol  I kept thinking, 'it's okay.  Anno is very unconventional.  She'll like it!  She'll laugh.  Laughing is good.'  She saw it last night and loved it.  So all I have left to do it hand stitch the binding before our six children go on a playdate tomorrow.  : )  Then she heads home which is out of province.

spirals upon intersecting circles...  tornadoes!

Finally - I'm threadpainting and handstitching some postcards for the spring swap at PostCard Cottage.  Join if you like!  The link is on the sidebar.  I can't show you a lot, but I'll give you this, which is turning out pretty and quite enjoyable to do.

All righty then!  Head over to Lee's at Freshly Pieced to see what other quilters are up to!  : )

~Monika

Works in Progress Wednesday

Hello!  The birthday give-aways are only half through, but I'm taking today to catch up on posting what I'm working on.  Well I have to show you some more details to Mandy's Magical Tree.  Come look at the sparkle in the sky!

Those little beads are all stitched on, in a SWOOSH behind the two stars that were made from the tops of her boys' booties.  ; )  I also fished the edges of this wall hanging in a pillow-case finish.  I like it because it didn't add more bling to this piece.

I LIKE IT!  : )

I put the border on Jesica's quilt and it's awating some stitches.  I have yet to think about what I'm doing with that.  hmmm.  Maybe some hand embroidery.

I made the binding for the wonky owl quilt.  I actually finished quilting it about half way, and I realize that I've completely ruined the look of it.  Now what?  I had better sharpen that seam ripper.  It's bad.  I mean it's horrible.  The stitches are great and smooth and even, but it just overpowers the clean lines of the quilt.  Ugh.  Good thing Anno isn't due until November!!  :(

And I put in all the little fence posts onto Kate's piece.  Now I'm planning for the poles to be couched on.

The FUNNY thing is, a woman at guild asked me about my Telephone Poles piece.  She said, "There are no telephone poles along Highway 7.  Those are power lines."  HAHA  (Ooops!)  I smiled and told her, "Then I'll have to change the name of that piece like I did with The Wheat Field.  I renamed that one, The Oat Field".  Hehehe!  That generated some laughter!  To my defense, my parents weren't farmers.  We only had chickens, vegetables, raspberries, and a half acre of wild gophers.  I thought all golden fields were wheat.  Oh well.  You live and you learn, right?  So with my summer study of skies, I will also study fields and learn to identify rye, oats, barley, wheat, etc... 

Well there you have it.  Thanks for stopping by.  Head on over to Lee's at Freshly Pieced to see what other quilt bloggers are up to.  Check out all my posts for the week!  Draws for all the give-aways will be posted on Saturday.  More to come! 

Have a great week,
~Monika

I Can't Believe My Ears!

Oh what a fabulous day!!  It's really spring.  We can finally leave all the windows open and hear the huge variety of birds singing outside in the trees.  I don't know about you, but hearing birds chirp puts me in such good spirits!  Speaking of trees, I will now show you the whole front of Mandy's wall hanging.  I really think the tree is done.  I have just started a very pretty splash of dark seed beads up in that sky and it's like throwing magic into the air.  (Beads not in the photo yet...)

holding my breath... Mandy hasn't seen a full shot of this yet!

In case you are confused about the images, the setting sun represents father (fabric from a wrap), the silk moon is mother (from a mei tei carrier), and the two stars are the boys (from a pair or woven booties).  The sky is made of two baby carries.  The lightest leaves are also from a stretchy wrap.  It's been SLOOOOW going on my part, but I think it's turning out really good.  This one had a lot of contemplation time.   

I really made some progress on Kate's wall hanging yesterday.  It has a lot of detailing that I'm so very happy with.  I like to pull viewers in.  So here is the large remake of "Telephone Poles on Highway 7", minus the telephone poles.  ; )

original on the wall, photo on the laptop, commission on the table

after hours of stitching... work in progress.

the details

And as I'm working away, I had a great idea for Jesica's quilt.  The centre is a gradation of colored half square triangles alternating with white ones.  The lower left is black, which moves like a rainbow until the top right corner is white.  It will be bordered with wide white.  Then I'll do another border of a single row of HSTs so that the color scheme is reversed.  This way it will balance the whole look of the quilt.  In the wide white border, I'll free motion stitch some symbols that remind Jesica of her grandmother.  I may just do that in white.  But that's a ways off right now.  I have time to think about it. 

And to all you who comment/follow on my blog... PROMISE me you'll come back on Sunday.  I have a very special surprise for YOU.  : )

~Monika
still listening to the birds sing.

Late Night With Jesica's Grandma

I burned the midnight oil last night.  I got 4 hours of uninterrupted sewing room time!  In a family of five that's very rare.  I worked on the ground of Mandy's Magical Tree, and stitched on all the leaves!

What's left?  Just some embellishment!  I do wish the tree was dark, but I had specific fabrics to work with:  beige, sage green, dark blue, and rainbow.  Still, I think I made it come together pretty well!  Then I can put on a binding and a hanging sleeve.  (Want to learn more?  I have a tutorial for each now over on the sidebar.)

I also started on my next commission.  Jesica has been waiting a LONG time for this.  ; )  Last year she asked if I could take her late grandmother's fabric stash and make a bit white quilt full of triangles.  I've had this bag some time now, but only opened it up last night.  WOW what a range!  hehehe  Jesica wasn't kidding.

There is everything from PJ's to curtains were in there. Most fabrics are very thin polyesters, but everything needs to be in this quilt.  Some things I'll reinforce with thin interfacing I think.  (Any ideas here?)  I got it all pressed and sliced into 2.5 inch strips.

I learned a lot about Grandma and her time.  As I steam pressed all of the fabrics, the room filled with the smell of soap.  Everything stored in all those old bread bags were washed and folded.

There were odd shapes from sections of blouses and dresses, and lots of long long 6 inch strips.  Everything was kept.  Everything was important and everything was reusable.  In this day and age, quilters are SO spoiled to load all this strong new designer fabric onto credit cards and toss big scraps in the trash, hey!??

Did you know:  I watched a popular quilting show on TV the other day and saw how they laughed and threw huge pieces in the garbage, chuckling, 'We'll just never use this again!  So we don't keep.  Into the trash it goes!".  My jaw hit the floor.  I have yet to write into that show and offer those women that I will pay shipping if they send me all their 'garbage'.  gag.  I have yet to do that, and I WILL.  And I will let you know what becomes of it.  GOSH.  They could at least donate it to charity.

WHEW!  Off my high horse...

I also did manage to cut all the white strips I will need too!  These are the repurposed choir gowns from my stash.  I thought using second hand all around would make sense.  No, I don't use recycled everything, but this fabric is excellent quality and was very well maintained.  I only needed two gowns for the whole quilt.  These gowns are gigantic!

So check this out!  I came across some of Grandma's precut diamonds.  Sweet fabric, hey?!!  Her template was there - something else that was recycled / repurposed.

fabulous fabric!  and an ink-stained cardboard template she kept

And then I flipped the waxy, worn cardboard over to reveal it's origin.  Check it out!  It was the side of a milk carton...

Isn't that great!?  If you cannot make it all out, it reads:

Doctors prescribe Milk
for children: 1 quart
for adults: one pint a day
Drink lots of milk
BUT safe milk
(Only pastuerized milk is safe milk)
Sanitation, Saskatchewan Dept of Public Health

Blast from the past!  Thanks for the lesson Grandma.  ; )  Now back to my 1200 half square triangles!  At least that's how many I calculated I will need for Jesica's Memory Quilt.

~Monika