What I've been up to lately,,,,

Forgot to post this one from the finished Fracured Challenge....

This was so much fun and I love the bright colors.

My Little Hula Girl from Jill Smith's ArtDoll Quilt Challenge

12" X 12"

And a detail...commercial fabric, wool felt, silk and wool roving, wool yarns, angelina and rhinestones.

Applique wallhanging using EQ6 as a design tool.

It's my neighbor's birthday -- well, yesterday was. As usual, I'm a day behind...

I walk her dog, Buck during the week, so I decided to make her a little wall hanging of Buck, as a birthday gift. I actually remembered to document my process, so I'm blogging it, in case someone else can use these steps.

Hers's a photo I took of Buck -- dontcha' love that face? He's a Weimaraner and he just loves to talk and sing...he's very vocal!

I wanted to do Buck in 3 shades of fabric, so first I used photoshop to darken the shadows and midtones.

Then I opened EQ6 and started a new block in 'patchdraw,' and imported the new and less colorful Buck. Under 'options' in the Drawing board Set Up, I chose 'auto-fill when patch is closed.' That's not what they recommend, but it's the only way I can tell that my drawn patch is closed and exactly the right shape. I started with the very smallest pieces -- the pupils of his eyes. As each patch fills, it blocks out whatever is behind it, so keep that in mind when drawing. (do all the little bits first!)

Still in EQ -- all the patches are now drawn. There are several that you can't see behind his paw, eyes and ears.

Then I went to 'print templates' and got this. Now this is one of those annoying little things about EQ. Why does it spread all these little itty bitty pieces over so many pages and split-up over pages?? What a silly use of space... Luckily you can rotate and move the pieces. This started out on 6 pages and by the time I got rid of the 12 inch square template (duh) and moved the rest, it took only 3 pages to print. I'm doing raw edge applique, so I don't need those seam allowances either. If I had been thinking a little harder, I would have printed these on freezer paper...20-20 hindsight!

After printing, I cut everything out and sorted the pieces by the fabric they would go on.

EQ6 does print out this neat thing that's numbered along with the numbers it assigns your applique patches. It comes in real handy when you're trying to figure out what some of those weird little pieces are and where-the-hell-do-they-go!

After sorting, I traced everything onto freezer paper. Did I mention that I should have just printed on to freezer paper? Let me reiterate that... I ironed the freezer paper templates onto the right side of the fabric, then ironed the wrong side of the fabric to heat-n-bond lite. would have preferred Misty-fuse, but was all out.

Then cut out all the pieces...

And started laying out Buck on the background.

Here he is, all fused to the square. That's his left paw sticking out there, because when you tell him 'Southpaw' he gives you his left paw.

I put some stabilizer underneath to keep the fabric from puckering and then I machine stitched around the main pieces with a blanket stitch.

Stitched some more around the larger applique pieces and added Happy Dog in the corner

His nose is several layers of satin stitch -- reminds me of a teddy bear nose.

Laid out backing and batting and pinned. Did some free-motion stitching on the face and a stippled background. Jeez, I totally suck at stippling. Well, it's a little better with this different FM foot and my stitch size is getting more consistant...but I still suck at stippling.

I folded back the backing and rotary cut off the excess batting. I'm bringing the backing around to the front to use as the binding, tucking it under, pressing, and machine stitching with a small blanket stitch. Quick and easy.

Just a couple of little embellishments. Small pearls for the gleam in his eyes and some bleached coral for his little doggie claws.

I added a couple of loops to the back of the top and he's all ready to hang.

Ta-Da...

Moving right along... I've got my anti-chlor all set. This is the stuff I use when I add water to the Koi outside in out pseudo-pond. A half capful for 50 gallons. Don't think I need too much for this quart of water!

For happy healthy fish

And happy healthy fabric

Rinsed again, washed and dried. Oh, this is way too much fun. I just love this beautiful golden color!

This piece totally knocks my socks off. Well it would if it wasn't so cold -- down to 6 degrees now -- the socks are staying on!

Will definately play some more tomorrow, but now I'm heading for a huge pile of quilts and crawling under them! Oops, forgot one piece! When I read Liz Berg's tutorial, she suggested using a piece of fabric for clean-up. Here's my lovely clean -up strip...

Yeah!

SOST inspired...

Your Celebrity Boob Twin:

Lucy Lawless

Who's" Your Celebrity Boob Twin?

QuiltArt Fractured Challenge 2008

WooHoo!
Todays mail brought me a package, 4 pieces of Art from Tomme Fent, who organized the QA Fractured Challenge. I got pieces from Betsy True (UL), Joan Potter (UR), Elaine Stone-Arthur (LL), and Judy Whitehead (LR). I just love everyone's work. I especially like the woven fabric strips that Betsy used for her background.
Now what to do next? I'm thinking of add more to the bottom, maybe a mixed fabric background with a stem and leaves...

All lovely!!

Here's what I sent in -- I hope people are happy with mine too!