Sunday 3 February 2008

Sunday Morning Reflections

Last night I finally finished my Australian Autumn Quilt for the NSW Cancer Council fundraiser that Cecile at Unique Stitching is running. For some reason I can't upload photos from my camera this morning so this is just a scan which means the colours are accurate but it is missing the side edges! I am learning so much as a result of doing so many small art quilts at the same time. One big thing - I need to plan a bit more rather than just jump in and start - paper arts are a lot more forgiving than fabric in this regard and it is a lot easier (and cheaper) to throw away a cardstock experiment than a fabric one!! I completely under-estimated how long it would take me to do the random hand stitching/quilting (are they called seed stitches?) all around the leaves but it was quite a peaceful activity and allowed me time to ponder the details of other projects I need to start. So this quilt needs to get itself into an Express Post Bag tomorrow to get over to Cecile by Friday.

Quilting is definitely limiting how much I am getting done but here are a couple of other little in-between activities and experiments I have been working on this week- some experiments below with Lumiere painted and text stamped "Shrink Paper" (which I bought several years ago from Krafty Lady at a stamping downunder convention and which I now assume to be lightweight tyvek), some tissue covered felt that has been coloured, sealed and stitched ready to be made into tiny fairy slippers for Joanna (I posted a photo of hers to me a little while back) and also a little fabric ATC trade (above) for Anne L in France. This last one was an experiment in that I have used gel pens to accentuate the pattern on the fabric and I thrilled that they worked on fabric. I wasn't sure that they would especially as gel pens are notoriously temperamental.


Hoping to finish my copper mesh and fabric postcards this afternoon... Working on tearing up brown paper bags to make brown paper "fabric" for my February TIF challenge...Pondering ideas for my February Calendar Girl Postcard...Needing, as of this morning, to make a fibre ATC and postcard to trade with the wonderful Susan Lenz over at Cyber Fyber (what a huge thing she is creating over there and what a fabulous idea - if you haven't checked it out and you are into fibre arts, you really should!)...So I better go get on with it...(spell check won't work this morning so apologies if I have missed any misspellings!)

6 comments:

Myra said...

Your Australian Autumn quilt is gorgeous. I am particularly fond of orange right now. That is a LOT of seed stitches but they look wonderful and add so much texture.

Doreen G said...

You have done a wonderful Autumn quilt Debbi and all those seed stitches--you deserve a medal.

Purple Missus said...

Sometimes it is nice to make time to sit and handstitch and ponder on other projects - I just wish I could stop myself from stitching furiously when I'm coming to the end of thread :))

Michelle said...

Beautiful work all around, Debbi! I love the autumn piece. I don't know if it was your intention, but to me, it looks like a seed pod that has opened, spewed it's seeds, and it now falling back to earth, having done its duty. A perfect image for autumn. It's just gorgeous!

sharon young said...

Hi Debbi
I'm going to join everyone else in praise if your lovely Autumn quilt. The seed stitching is a beautiful foil to the leaves, and I agree with you it is really relaxing just doing something repetative like this as it seems to take you into a special calm place.

Jacky said...

Love your Australian Autumn quilt, the colours, the texture and your beautiful stitching.
The little atc using the gel pens looks great. Thanks for the tip...might have to try that one day.