Pieced 2" Pinwheels

Two inch Pinwheels!!! Okay this is so outside my realm that I am surprised I had so much fun sewing them today. It all started yesterday, with my friend Patty, when she gave me some one inch half square triangles and encouraged me to try sewing some together into pinwheels for adding into the mug rugs that I sew using my hand painted fabrics.

 

The Pinwheels I made today using the 1" half square triangles.

A pinwheel with the alternating lights and darks is 2 1/2" and finishes to 2"

This part was so much fun to do. Deciding which of the scrap, half square triangles, would go together for a pinwheel. Even though there are only 8 colours I was imagining all sorts of combinations.

 There is quite an intersection of seams in the center and next week at our quilt group Patty will show me how to position the seams so they lay flat.

Chaining pairs together. I can't wait to get dye painting fabric to go with these delightful pinwheels.



In the meantime I thought I would use some pinwheels in the 'mini quilts' I am making for my Quilt Group Challenge. Do you see the paint chip? These are the colours I am to use in a block that has a name that shares the same first letter as my name, Eileen. The two blocks I came up with on the internet were Economy block or Evergreen block.

 

Drat, can you see that I have sewn the wrong white squares onto the sides of the tree trunk on the Evergreen block on the right? Oh well, it was pretty easy to sew another one.

 

Click here To Julie Cefalu's site The Crafty Quilter where I got the free directions for the tree portion of this block.

To make the 1/2 square triangles, I cut 2" blocks of the light and dark material. Then laying them right sides together, I sewed them a 1/4" on either side of the diagonal center line. After that they were pressed, I trimmed them to 1 1/2".

Here is three of the Pinwheels sewn together of an accent strip. I will bind the piece in the dark blue.

Okay, here I have sewn the center square into a Pinwheel that had the lights and darks opposite to the other two blocks. Well I certainly learnt something there. I didn't even realize that was possible. I am actually glad it happened as it allowed me to place the three squares into a more complicated and unexpected arrangement. I will bind the piece in the brighter green.

 Well thanks to my fellow quilter Patty. You have inspired me to try something outside of my typical freeform piecing. I can't wait to make some mug rugs using the pinwheel strips and some of my hand painted fabric but first I have to get painting some cotton fabric with some dyes.  

Faced with an Commission Challenge









If a purchaser of your work, likes it, they will often return for something else. Artists really like their repeat customers, as they get to built a relationship with them over time. It gives us a chance to learn what they might like.

Stitched Poppies on Hand Dyed Fabric

Thanks to the purchaser for sending this photo. Those colours do go well in the mug rug's new home!

This was the first mug rug a customer got in the summer and this fall the same customer asked if she could purchase another mug rug in similar colours. Well, I had the textile card below but as the motif was going for a man and he rather likes fishing, I decided those flowers wouldn't do.

Of the red, gold and light green fabric, I only had one piece left unstitched and I thought I would like to use it. But how, oh how was I going to make it into a fishing scene??? I looked at it often over a matter of weeks and finally an idea just came to me. Instead of making very realistic fish, I would stylize them swimming under water. Once I had the idea, what fun it was to stitch in one fish and then then another and then another... Before I knew it I was ready to add the pieced work. What do you think? Very different from the poppies but equally as nice I think.

Kootenay Lake Fish?

'Fox at the Farm' is off to a new home too.

Textile Art Travels

One of Three 'Mug Rugs' that were commissioned for Christmas Gifts.

The 4 photos below show auditioning fabrics to accompany the textile art. The textile art was created by first hand dyeing the fabric and then thread sketching details with a sewing machine.

Accompanying leaf print number one.

Accompanying leaf print number two. Yes, it better complements the artwork, I think.

The striped fabric was removed that I at first thought would be so good, but later realized looked washed out. The richly coloured brown print is pleasing.

Although I like the red strip, it was exchanged for a yellow strip to tie in the yellows in the art piece.

The complementary orange - blue colour combination on the left favors the blues in the strips of cloth. The one on the right is an analogous yellow, orange and red combination with the complementary blue showing up in the artwork of the sky only. The first one with the blue strips overwhelms the artwork so I chose the second combination with a change of one of the yellow strips to a less busy pattern for the final selection used in the completed piece below.

The shaded red (red with black) binding is chosen for the 'mug rug' I featured in the previous post 'Blog Hop Around the World', that you can see  here .

The customer purchasing the mug rug/mini quilts seemed pleased with the finished textile art pieces that were commissioned to be reminiscent of fall in our valley. These mug rugs are so easy to mail that they make perfect one of a kind gifts for sending away. These three are heading across the ocean!

 

Fish in Textile

How do you tackle a commissioned piece? The following is a description for creating a commissioned 'mini quilt' / 'beer mug rug'.

Things that are relevant for this commission:
1) include a trout as the free motion stitched image
2) the person it is being given to likes blues, greens and orange
3) this art piece is to be a reminder of his summer fishing on Kootenay lake

I found it helpful to first practice sketching several different fish profiles on paper. Having knowledge of the shape you are sewing really does help in avoiding stitches where you don't want them.



Textile Art by Eileen Gidman
'Autumn Waters of Kootenay Lake'

Sew and flip method: After sewing the first strip onto the textile art, turning and pressing, I am marking a line that I want the next strip to abut to. This keeps the strips perpendicular.

Be CAREFUL when trimming off the excess fabric to not clip into the backing fabric.

My friend Lorraine just made this thread catcher for me and I can not believe how MUCH TIME IT SAVES in not having to bend down each time searching for the trash bin on the floor. Thank you Lorraine+++.

The first three strips are sewn on and I know I want the last two strips in the end position so I am auditioning fabrics for in between. Trying two different blues here.

Remember the darks. This darker strip makes the printed strip stand out more.

Although I already selected what I thought would be the binding fabric before starting, so I could put a center strip of the same fabric down between the fish picture and the pieced strips, I still decided to try different fabrics to make sure the choice was right.

I narrowed the binding strip down to two choices. The complement of the this blue binding strip is the golden colour. There is a lot of the golden colour in this piece so I think the blue would be a good choice of binding.

My original choice with it's complementary red-orange. This also looks good with a bit more attention being drawn to the red. What cinches my choice is the pattern of the binding piece. It adds extra textural interest and it looks professional as it matches the center strip. Even though I go with my original choice, it doesn't hurt to have a second look.

A 2 1/4" full width strip of binding material is folded in half and pressed. Yes I know some people don't press here but I find it easier on these smaller quilted projects.

Sewing the binding onto the perimeter, mitering the corners and stopping where I started sewing on the binding.

The 'mini quilt' is folded in half, wrong sides together and the ends of the binding are joined. Hint: Sew really close but avoid catching any fabric between the binding.

Turn the binding to the back and pin in place from the front. I leave pinning the corners until the end. Miter them at the back and pin in place for top stitching.

Top stitch with coordinating thread.

OOPS, I forgot to include the label. A little 'unsewing' to do.

'Cool Waters of Kootenay Lake'
Textile Art by Eileen Gidman
Another choice for the commissioned 'mug rug'.

This sample was glued to a 8 1/2" X 11" folded piece of cardstock to create a card. I use a good quality glue stick otherwise the paper can buckle.

 If you have any additional hints about how you tackle a textile art commission feel free to leave a comment or a photo link. Thanks for stopping by.

Stitching onto Splashed Dots

Stitching onto dye painted fabric. Note these samples came from the created fabric that was shown in the last post.

 

Here is what I did with one of the 'splashed' piece of fabric I created. In case you try this dye technique yourself after splattering on dots of dye from a paint brush, I added some brush strokes of dye to the bottom. But most importantly I think, I enlarged some of the dots with brush strokes to create a compositional flow to each piece. This will be edged with a black stitched border for a textile card.

This is my first time adding only one piece of fabric to the painted fabric rather than piecing it. I love the modern look of the black and white fabric. Here is the 'mini quilt' alias 'mug rug' with a turquoise border.

Here is another 'Blueberry' mug rug with a black print border.

This 'Blueberry' mug rug is off to it's new home. Note the pieced quilt as you go side piece.

 Which style of 'Blueberry' mug rug do you like best?

I was thrilled to see one of the 'light house' panels I created for Quilt Canada 2012, (Halifax) being sewn and hand quilted into an amazing wall hanging by Lesley from Cape Breton Island. Check it out at 'The Cuddle Quilters' blog here . Wonderful Lesley!



Three Quilters take a Challenge

This is so exciting to show this post! Three quilters, myself included, were given a similar 5 X 7" piece of my hand dyed fabric and were challenged to create something with it. This was in February and now, here they are all completed!

Betty designed and created this wall hanging using pieced squares and strip borders. Take a look at the free motion stitching that extends right into the white background. Too exciting! What a great use of a small piece of hand painted fabric. I don't know if you had these fabrics in your stash Betty but are they ever great.

 

Joan created this piece with a theme in mind: 'Spring in the Desert'. For the background she used a muslin with speckles in it to emulate the desert sand. Note that the lines of the off white background are not quilting lines but rather narrow pieced strips!!! The texture of this and the different direction of the lines reminds us of the desert landscape.

Only Joan could make a 5 X 7 piece of fabric go so far into 5 triangles. These yellow and light green triangles depict the first greenery coming up in the desert after the hot summer and the dry winter.

This is my piece which I made into a 'mug rug'. Surprise, surprise as I can't seem to stop making lately. I free motion stitched the daffodils after ironing the hand painted 5 X 7" piece onto  interfacing. A narrow golden strip was added like the golden colour in the flower centers. The rest of the piece is from a green variegated fabric that I wish I had more of as it has been so versatile.

There you have it, three textile artists with their own interpretations using a similar piece of hand painted fabric.  What fun this was to see the great variety of quilted pieces that were created. I love it!

 

If you have a group of quilters you want to try this with, let me know and I can provide you with the hand painted fabric using colours of your choice. You can email me at egidman@kootenay.com



Adding a label to Quilted Works of Art



Adding labels to my hand painted quilted pieces this week seemed like such an accomplishment. I would recommend it for your own original quilted pieces. This allows people to know at a glance who created the work. The type of fabric was really important for printing on. I used a smooth cotton with a high thread count and wrote on it with a permanent pigma pen. The labels were heat set with an iron for 15 seconds. I would suggest writing before cutting it to size,  then pressing in the edges and folding in half length wise for insertion under the binding.

I am labeled!

Quilting a mug rug (small placemat for cup and a treat).

Adding the warm hues from the apple in pieced strips.

Poppy Orange completed. Some free motion details were added in black thread to the hand painted poppy fabric.



'The Red Fox', mug rug, art piece or whatever else you would like to use a little quilted piece of art for.

 
July 12, 2014 what is called a 'super' moon occurred. http://globalnews.ca/news/1448177/supermoon-lights-up-sky-during-close-passage-to-earth/

The 'super' moon rising over the Skimmerhorn mountains in Creston, BC last night, July 12, 2014.

The Skimmerhorn Mountains (in autumn) just so you have an idea how tall and vertical those mountains are and why it took so long for the moon to rise over them.

Waiting for the 'super' moon to rise in a pagoda on the edge of a lovely Japanese styled garden. We waited and waited and waited, while people would call out throughout the evening, "The moon is coming up, it's getting lighter on the top of the mountain." Well at 11:20 the 'super' moon final rose over the Skimmerhorn Mountains. My photo does not due it justice but I can tell you it was well worth the wait.