Changing Times, MCQ Challenge

I completed my Changing Winds: El Nino piece for the MCQ Challenge.

With my own challenge to use up all my scraps this is a scrap piece and when I brought it to Cavers I told them I have no idea what to use for the border.  I'm tired of using black every time I can't figure it out.  They suggested charcoal.  Someone said light charcoal and another said dark charcoal.  I had a piece that had both. It's only quilted in the lines of rows.

One down, several more other challenges to go.

Embroidery

It's been a super busy summer, 5 quilt bindings wore me out, and having a Tea Party for Sadia - my really, really soon to be niece-in-law.  This is a 12.5" block for my current boss at work.

 And it's been YEARS that I keep thinking I'm going to repair those embroidered pillowcases from Grandma Bernadette Ouradnik and I've finally gotten to it.  On the right side you can see the thread was almost gone.  I've embroidered on top of her stitches.

Postmark'dArt Fiber Postcard Trades

I can't believe we're on trade 17 at Postmark'dArt but I've finished my cards for the No Theme catagory.  They are Postcard Purses!  The zipper really works and opens to the pocket.

The zippers are all recycled from something...I don't remember what.  I'll take anyone's old zippers!

I made one with the zipper toggle showing, but then made the other 5 with the toggle tucked into it's own little pocket for mailing. (Upper right corner.)

What should I put in the pocket for mailing?

 

The Challenge "Abode"



Blue sky and grass blowing in the wind.
Knee high grass blowing in the wind on a sunny day is so beautiful it mesmerizes me.  This beautiful earth is my home.



Minnesota Contemporary Quilters "Abode Challenge". 

The piece on the left is for the challenge.   I think I must quilt a big circle in the sky as another representation of earth.
The piece on the right is for myself.  I have another idea that will result in a third piece, but I have other things to work on yet.  Maybe someday.

Back in the sewing room again!

mncontemporaryquilterS.net



The letter S for MCQ, approx 3" x 10", stitched embroidery floss and fiber by hand.

 "And it's about time!"
Minnesota Contemporary Quilters needs a banner.  Kathy Faust has designed a way for 26 of MCQ Members to each make a piece of that banner by creating a unique system that was inspired by the spectacular River Quilt made by the St Cloud Quilters (pictured farther down). 
At the last MCQ meeting Kathy arranged to draw the names of the hopeful participants (so it would be fair) for each person to come up and pick out the letter they wanted, mine included the blue fabric. 
S is for Svedberg.  Of course!
Kathy wants to sew the individual pieces together side by side, so the sides of my piece are actually unsewn and only basted for my picture. 
Easily undone with the pull of a thread.

The lighting in this picture is dreadful.  The 16 Quilters each got a 'pattern' with the width of the piece, the marks for where the river must start on the left side and marks for where it would end on the right side; and the rest of the sheet was blank!  Each quilter decided the height and where the river went within those boundaries. 
The different styles of interpretation were fascinating, the level of skill was impressive, and the variety of technique covered almost everything out there!  Each piece was numbered and had to go back in that order for the river to flow; and yet the cohesiveness was beautiful.
The only constant between them is the river, and even the river was interpreted with different techniques in each piece.
I'll update this post tomorrow with more credit towards the River Quilt.

Points of View

Points of View 35.5 x 21.125"

I had a tough time deciding which way it should hang.  Currently this is it, but I created the sleeve so I could attach another sleeve to any of the other sides.  I'll have to get the tripod up to take the picture straight, this is the best I could do. 

I don't know if "Points of View" should be the name. I'm also thinking of "One Point of View: Many Points of Perspective".  People have so many different points of view on any one subject. 

On the news this morning they showed yesterdays Minneapolis Gay Pride Parade, and the issue of gay marriage going forward in New York...that's a subject with a million different points of view!

If it only represented that one volatile subject, I would have made some of the buildings crumbling with decay.

And which side of the subject would the decayed buildings represent?  Well that would depend on your personal point of view, wouldn't it?

"Buildings" hanging at Minnesota Quilters Annual Show

It's done and hanging at the MQ show.

Finished binding a quilt for Theresa!

Theresa Halvorson and I are bartering my quilt binding services for her knitting socks services.

This is her quilt up on my design wall, it's almost too big for me to take a picture of!

And below shows the binding on the back.

Mardi Gras Challenge



Mardi Gras Postcard, Debra Svedberg 2011 ( < 4 x 6 )

At MCQ we have a monthly mini challenge and for February the theme was Mardi Gras.
I don't celebrate Mardi Gras so I tried focusing on the religious aspect of it, preparing for Lent and so on. 
I didn't get anywhere with that either so I decided to go with beads...which has nothing religious to do with Mardi Gras as far as I know, and I didn't research why beads came about for Mardi Gras.
I think of it as being along the same lines as Easter's mascot being a bunny.
That's typical for me, starting out with one idea and it never ends up that way.
At the last Cave Women, where there was wine, chocolate and an enormous amount of silliness, a joke got huge laughs:
The Husband Bunnie says to the Wife Bunnie:
"This won't take long, did it?"

Well...maybe you had to be there?

One thing at a time Sweet Jesus

Every one knows I have enough felted wool to cover the entire exterior of my house.  There's so much of it, it's not even stored at home, because there's no space. 
And what good is that?  Absolutely no good. 
I don't make anything out of it because I'd have to go some place else, dig through storage containers, and then when I dug out what I wanted, I'd have to put it all back so it's neat and space-saving.  How's that for dumping a bucket of ice cold water on your creativity?

I went to Sharon Englunds house to felt her wool for her (touching wet slimy wool gives her the heebie-geebies) and one creamy sweater over felted.  It's so dense you can't see daylight through it.  That won't work for the projects she's making, so she gave it to me.

Great.  Another felted wool sweater...I need that like I need another over-due bill in the mail.  Right?

Of course, I take it.

So what do I do?  I actually make something of it, aaaaaaand I finish it!  Can you believe it?  I can't!

Just sitting there looking at the sweater I thought the hem on the sweater would make a really great hem on mittens.  After figuring out a badly-planned pattern tracing around my hand I really got into it!  I needle-felted the green lines on the tops of the mittens.
I knew I wanted some leather for the palm, because wool is really slippery to hang on to anything.  But all my leather is at the wool storage...

So I do end up digging through my leather...but only one container...they're so crammed with leather that they are dern heavy.  I didn't want to lift the other container so I decided to make do with what was in the top container.  And I did dig through the top box of felted wool and brought home another sweater, but we'll see if I actually get to that one.

So it's evident that I might get something made from the wool if I only have a limited amount infront of me...too much of it overwhelms me.

But I did make something, and it's all Sharons fault.

Thank you Sharon!

Isaac is now 16 years old! Can you believe it?

I made this quilt for Isaacs 16th birthday.  Orange is one of his favorite colors, so that's the front, and the green/blue is the back.  I thought the dark would be the top, but now that I see a photograph, I turned them upside down.  I guess there's some psychological thing going on if I want the top to be light and the bottom to be dark as if earth and sky, and it's not good to have those two mixed up!  And something needs to be done with my terrible photography skills.
It's almost 60" wide and 80-something" long.

Sexy Dish Towels

I finished the dish towels for Roxie's graduation present.  She graduated last year, but on my part, a gift being a year late isn't actually that bad!  My average is much worse.  Sublime Stitching has really funny embroidery transfers that put the fun back into those sweet dishtowels our grandmothers made for us.

The middle one is suppose to say "Reform School Girl", but since Roxie is Catholic, I had to change that!

I still love listening to audio books while I create, so I know that the Rockabilly Angel took 6.5 hours, because I started it at the beginning of the book and finished the towel at the end of the book.  I guess I'm a slow embroiderer!

Blive færdig, Finito, Acabar, Sluta, Finish!

The rest of the Elephant Pantyliners (baby burp clothes).
Finished!
The protective travelling case for the Melange a trois.
Finished!
The rest of the Bird Seed Bags.
Finished!
Make Mothers Day card.
Finished!
I don't have the camera, so I'll take pictures tomorrow.

Melange a trois completed!

It's 9 pm and I just finished. It has two layers of timtex it in, so it can stand on it's own. It has labels and a sleeve, that you can't really see in this picture of black.

I did finished the edges by wrapping them in fabric with fusible on it.

Elephants Panty Liners...

Actually, they're baby burp cloths...about 20" long, soft knit on one side and terrycloth on the other side. Aunt Elsie had me make some for her years ago, she gives them as baby gifts. I don't remember hers looking so panty-liner-ish.

Last weekend my brother came over and he and my Dad rewired the entire 2nd floor of the old section of the house! It took them 7 hours. It all started because I have a bad outlet in my sewing room...turns out that cloth covered wiring from the 1920's doesn't last quite a century. That and they couldn't just stop after replacing only one line.

I had to clear out some shelving so they could reach this particular plug, and not that taking things off a shelf is hard, but sorting them to put them back is.

Of the many unfinished projects on the shelf, I've been keeping this soft knit since May of 2003 when Mom's best-friend, Sharon Faucette, asked me to take her daughters overly-loved baby blanket and make something memorable with it (her daughter has her own babies now). I made a pillow and had used these soft knits as part of it. I also made a little blanket to match.

In trying to get old projects done, I've listed several things I need to accomplish any given project so that I can get the items if they're on sale or whatever. For the baby burp cloths I wanted terry cloth. I got the regular stuff at JoAnns...and it shrunk an inch, but it's pretty soft compared to when it was on the bolt. So I spent quite a bit of time drawing up this shape only to figure out I'd drawn a huge pantyliner! Aunt Elsie sewed sweet little embroidery patches on them and I think I'll have to do that too....another item to add to the shopping list.

I wouldn't have made these if I'd just thrown away the soft knit years ago...but no, I had to keep it and eventually conjure up a project to make with it.

Foot In The Door

I've been adding more. I think I need to stop and trim it down. I wish I had taken more pictures during the progression because I'm pretty sure I liked it best about 10 steps back. This time I used better lighting when I took the photo.

Getting little projects done...

I've been sorting through that mess in my sewing room...too much stuff in there! If I come across something I can manage in a short time, I've been trying to take that on. I've got some pants hemmed...they've been waiting to be hemmed for so long that I don't even remember where I got them!

I was saving a shoebox to cover! It was a nice size and heavy cardboard, and I was just a few seconds from putting it in the recycle bin, but then I just started on it. It took me a couple hours, so it was no small thing. I used fusible to attach the fabric. I love that fabric, so it's pretty to me. It needed zest, so I put that orange inside. And I photographed it on those upholstery samples because I didn't think the box would show up well against white.

I made a plastic covered checkbook cover for Aunt Glenna. Seemed like that would be a simple project too, but...

First off, I thought I had some of a fusible plastic laminate product. It was with the fusible webbings and interfacings at JoAnns a long time ago and I thought I bought some just to try it out. But I've looked all over my sewing room and it looks like I didn't buy it, apparently I had thought so hard about buying it that I imagined the whole thing.

And I started this yesterday, and decided to run to JoAnns to get some. The Rosedale JoAnns is relocating so it isn't even worth it to go to that store, (last time I was there it was a mess) so I went to the Maplewood store. They didn't have any such thing.

Since I was all the way out at Maplewood, I decided to go to the MCQ Quilt Exhibit at the Mahtomedi Unitarian Universalist Church. Great show! And then since I was all the way out in Mahtomedi, I called my brothers house to see if I could see their new puppy...which leads to the post below.

Then I came home, went to the Textile Center for the Exhibit Opening there, where out of around 50 Exhibitors, I knew about 1/2 so it was a great night of socializing for me. The abundant creativity also made it exciting.

And that leads to today...using some of that clear plastic tablecloth cover to cover the fabric Aunt Glenna wanted for her checkbook cover.

I really can't figure out the format for adding pictures to a post and have them be on one side. When I'm typing this, the text is no where near the picture, and 'preview' doesn't seem to help me figure it out.

Outer Space wallhanging for Isaac

This is a cheater panel that I couldn't resist getting for my nephew Isaac. His bedroom is orange with a blue stripe and Star Wars stuff on the walls. When I bought this I didn't know he moved his room down to the basement...reminding me of when I was his age and I did the same thing. (Moving into the basement).

I added the yellow to orange gradation narrow border and blue border. I just finished sewing on the hanging sleeve. In daylight the sun in the lower left corner plays tricks on the eye, like it's really glowing; but there's glow-in-the-dark stuff on all the stars so it's even cool in the dark!