My Dumptruck Pantograph

A local fabric store was selling these cute little panels and I was asked by two quilters to quilt one for each of them. They were excited when I said I could quilt trucks on them, so with two to do, I invested the time to create a pantograph of dump trucks.

When I create my own pantographs, I use a very basic method. I draw my design element out, outline it in a fine black line with a Sharpie, then I print multiple photocopies of the image. I cut the excess white background away from around the edges of the image and then lay them out on paper I cut from a roll. Once I am happy with the layout, I tape the individual images down and add marker lines to create a continuous line of quilting.

This is a fairly antiquated way to create pantos, considering I could be creating digitized ones on my computer if I had the right software, but I actually enjoy this process. I am able to enlarge or reduce my designs and I can flip them and reverse them. And it allows me time to study how pantos are designed and how to best create a flow for the stitching line to follow. 

As well, I sometimes enlist the use of my opaque projector, or even my overhead projector when I want to enlarge a design and adjust it to the size I find best suits the quilt top I am working on. My opaque projector was one of the first tools I purchased when I started out in the sign business and even this many years later, I still find lots of uses for it.

Both clients provided me with Fireside for the backing and 80/20 cotton batting. 

Covering journals

I like my journals covered, and it turns out there was a simple way to achieve that without taking a huge chunk of time. These days it takes a while for the lightbulb to pop on inside my head and I would like to think it is simply because I am so busy that the obvious just isn’t obvious. But, really I believe that little voice of reason and sensible solutions has been silenced and left me to figure this stuff out on my own.

While working on something else and pondering how I could make some covers, I glanced at a stack of discharged and batiked fabric on my shelf and suddenly was struck by the idea that perhaps the fabric in itself was enough.

Turns out I was right.

The small journal is covered in a piece of black cotton discharged with bleach which I squirted out of a repurposed mustard bottle. The other was covered with fabric made with a black cotton base on which I freehanded leaves with soy wax and then painted with multiple colors of opaque fabric paint. Once dried I removed the wax to reveal the black outline. This requires a fair amount of elbow grease as the wax is well covered in paint. This results in a fabric with a fair amount of weight which is exactly what I wanted - a fabric with the substance of a suede or leather. I also used some red had dyed fabric for the inner pockets.

Done and done!

Some more stamping

I have been doing a bit more stamp carving. I have discovered if you put your phone on mute during work conference calls, and if you turn the volume of the phone up, carving and printing is lovely quiet work that helps ease the boredom of the call.

For ease of execution, I turned the page of my moleskin and used another little painting for inspiration. I love berries, especially raspberries, so this was especially fun. 

I used a couple of colors on this stamp, trying to be sort of vague in my application of paint. My tools of the trade are basic, once you have the carving material and the Speedball lino cutter. I covered an odd tile with some scraps of batt and cotton and taped the sides with duct tape to use as a printing pad. I use inexpensive sponge brushes to apply paint and I keep them in sealed ziplock bags in between uses - that saves washing them out. I use clean foam trays to steady the stamps while I apply paint and to place my brayer on when not in use, just in case it somehow got some paint on it. I keep all this in a sturdy plastic shopping bag. 

I always seem to neglect putting down a drop cloth to cover my table or work area. I always forget my apron, too, it seems. Just dropping or spilling some paint will put an end to both those bad habits. 

Stamping out those urges to clean!

I feel like my house is falling in ruins around me. I have piles of my “stuff”, my creative play tools and materials, everywhere. I have to be careful when I let this happen because eventually it eats at me and then I run in circles tidying and not accomplishing anything creative at all. I purposely refused to schedule any more paying work this week, just to let myself have some creative time. This is also the time when popcorn can be an entree.....

Although I am biting at the bit to finish a quilt on my longarm, I have been doing anything but. I have managed to fill my hallway with piles and piles and tubs and tubs of fabric, all in a feeble attempt to organize, or perhaps integrate the new fabric purchases. I like to mix my fabrics up. That way the newer is not playing so much on my conscience if I don’t see a stack of new stuff shining bright as a new penny (remember those? I loved pennies!). Maybe that is why I always rush to pre-wash my new pieces. Makes me feel like they have been here longer. For whatever reasons, I am organizing. Well, sort of. It should be organized when I am done. I hope.

I have sewn some bindings on so that I have some handwork, if I should happen to remember how to turn my TV on. Don’t ask. I am not technically savvy.

I also started some blocks that I have been wanting to try since my Mom gave me a lovely quilt book last summer. I have some 30’s prints and I love 30’s designs, so it seems I should get myself in gear. My biggest problem is that I am not so great at making repeat blocks. Case in point? I made one and stopped. BUT, I am planning on making more. Just not today.

I have also been sketching. I am a summer sketcher. Maybe it is the light. Maybe it is easier to sketch when you aren’t wearing 3 sweaters and gloves. Anyway, I am doing some of that. And when I was cruisin’ through my moleskin, I apparently was “drawn” to a little flower sketch I did two summers ago. Without really thinking about the process, I replicated it on a piece of Soft Kut and made a stamp. All of a sudden the morning had passed and I have a nice little stack of stamped bits and pieces.

I refined the stamp as I made prints until I was happy with my design. I decided to not carve the centre but will pop some little stamens in with paint later on. I know I drew this from a flower on my deck but it has a Hawaiian feel  to it to me. 

I also decided to try some other stamps that I had been carving in spare minutes. Good thing I did because sometimes I have a tendency to over carve my design and I had been considering taking the knife to them again. I learned I am happy with them just as they are. Well, for now at least.

Reminds me of a cartwheel. Must have been all that Americana influence on the weekend. And the one on the left is blurry because I overprinted it. The gold I used first was too light so I mixed some Green in and printed again. 

I really like using metallic fabric paints for stamping, especially on my hand dyed fabric. I tend to use two colors on each stamp although the ones above are just one. I used two with the odd star design.

I almost didn’t try this stamp, dismissing it as too simple. Ah, sometimes I need to step back and remind myself of that great creative advice: Simplify, Exaggerate, Repeat.....

Check out The Needle and Thread Network with me and see what’s up with Canadian fibre folk.

Gabe’s Wall Hanging is Finished!

This project has been a labour of love. I am really enjoying bringing the artwork to life and experimenting with the best way to do that. The fact that the artwork is my son’s is a bonus.

The procedure was labour intensive. Gabe sent me the drawing, I enlarged it via my opaque projector, then outlined and filled it in with Sharpie markers. Then I traced it on Steam a Seam 2, numbered and coded all the pieces, cut them out roughly, ironed them onto the backside of the fabrics, and then carefully cut them out.

Then I made a pounce pattern of my original enlarged copy, pounced the pattern on the background, placed all those little pieces and pressed them on. The background we chose was a double dip black cotton I found at http://www.hamelsfabrics.com/. The black is wonderfully deep, but boy, is it hard to get anything to stick to it for long. I assume all that dye and processing is responsible for that.

After that I sewed each individual piece to the background, bringing all the thread ends to the back and tying them off.

Using black batting and a great black/grey/white fabric I found at Connecting Threads for the backing, I loaded in onto my longarm and quilted horizontal lines every 1.5 inches.

Then I spent approximately 15 hours burying threads.

I sewed an invisible binding and two sleeves (one at the top for the hanger and another smaller one at the bottom to house a weight to help it hangs's straight) and now it is packed and ready to be mailed to Gabe who lives in Toronto. He has a place of honor all ready for it to reside in his lovely downtown apartment and I can’t wait to see it hung!

May-be it’s not summer yet...

Our May 2-4 weekend, as I grew up knowing it, was not the best weather wise though we certainly faired better than the Tornado Belt in the US. Historically Oklahoma sure has taken a beating and you wonder about the strength it takes to live in an area that repeatedly suffers so extensively. As well, some of our neighbours in Newfoundland had a record 58 cms of fresh, wet snow fall on them. Ouch! So, I can’t really complain about a bit of snowy rain and cooler temps, especially when we still managed to eat one meal on our deck and enjoyed another lunch of freshly caught trout from the brook nearby.

In-between walks and getting some odd jobs out of the way, I made some headway on a project I am working on with my son. As I work, I am trying to maintain the integrity of his artwork without completing copying it, though to the naked eye it would look as if I have simply copied it. Enlarging a drawing always means some adjustments might be made and interpreting it in fabric means there will certainly be adjustments made.

In this process I have enlarged Gabe's drawing using my opaque projector, redrawn and filled in the lines with black marker, traced the design on Steam-a-Seam Lite, pressed it on the back of my fabric, cut out the individual shapes, placed and pressed them on the background fabric. Now it is off to my sewing machine!

I have also been spending some time on the longarm and completed quilting a few more tops that are eventually destined for various local charities. The tops were pieced by a local group of quilters who meet specifically to work on this project. 

The really fun part of quilting these tops for me is that I can play with my freehand designs or practice using a pantograph pattern I might be interested in using again.

A family interlude

We had absolutely lovely weather the majority of this week and with my son home, we couldn’t have asked for better! With a temperature of 28 degrees on Wednesday, we made a trip to Parlee Beach in Shediac. Although it wasn’t quite as warm there as it was in town, we relaxed on the hot sand on the side of the dunes with our toes and spirits wiggling free.

It felt great to breathe in salt air and hear the soft rush of the waves along the shore. Being a beach babe through and through, when I am near the ocean my heart settles into a lovely slow rhythm and I melt into the moment. Lying under those incredible blue skies makes me feel such peace; I search out sky photo opportunities wherever I am.

There were quite a few people with the same idea as us, coming to the beach to experience their first feel of summer after a long harsh winter. Some were already splashing around trying out the water, some were in their bathing suits soaking up the sun, and others were like us, just there to see for ourselves that summer would come again.

The boys also got a little fishing trip in, there were some movies watched and some sports followed. We had some great meals, some interesting chats, lots of relaxation and quiet time and an incredibly funny Skype session with our daughter who had to stay at school multi tasking like no one’s business as she prepares for exams, meets deadlines, organizes interviews, plans her future!

Though her career choice is Physiotherapy, Simone is a Drama Diva through and through and like the best comedians, she pokes fun at herself and keeps us howling. Her facial expressions and stories had me crying! It felt good to laugh that hard!

Simone in the midst of explaining the hardships of being almost an 25 year old wearing braces who looks 14 at best.....

While Gabe was home, we made time for some creativity. He and I collaborated on some artwork for his office walls. I printed his drawings on Jacquard fabric sheets, ironed some fusible interfacing to the back and then added fabric borders. We had picked up some inexpensive stretched canvases beforehand and these were our base. We stretched the fabric over and around the canvases, using a staple gun to hold the fabric in place. We were both pretty pleased with the outcome!