Clamnation - Construction

I had a blast taking my second class from Karen K. Stone in Houston this year.  It was called Shellfire and Clamnation.  It was such fun learning how she creates clam shells and appliques them together.  

I started out with a pack of Island Batik 10 inch squares called Pressed Petals.  I made these fun clam shell starters.

Then she taught us to add a 1/4" flange on the clam shells.  In my infinite wisdom (or not) I went down to the show floor in Houston and bought a bunch of silk to use as the flanges and some for the background too.  When in Houston after all...

Later at home I started playing with different arrangements for my clam shells.  I wanted to do a modern take on clam shells.

The silk is a dark, dark blue.  So luscious.  I sprayed LOTS of starch on it to keep it stiff for working with.

It's getting assembled.

Here's me and Karen in class.

 

And my final top before basting.  It's a bit sunny in this picture so the colors are a bit brighter than the actual quilt.

Come back soon to see the quilting!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Appliquik and Silk...an Experiment

I've been a little slacking on blogging lately.  Blame the end of school and the chaos that always brings with end of the year events, recitals, graduations, etc.  Plus, I am moving school (same district, different building and grade) and that entails LOTS of packing.  I am at 34 boxes so far....and there is so much more.  I'm hoping it'll be under 80?!  AND the week after school gets out I am teaching three full days of classes at the Minnesota Quilters Show.  It's going to be a blast, but it's a lot of prep work.  I will be glad when school is OVER.  So....my actual quilting has gotten waylaid.  And the one thing I'm really working on I can't share yet.  However....here's something fun!

I've been playing with (and loving) the Apliquick system for turning pieces.  One day I got a question stuck in my head.  What would happen with silk?  I ironed the interfacing to a gorgeous silk I bought from Frieda Anderson.  It was a dyed red with a lot of subtle variation.  I made a BUNCH of circles.  It worked fabulously.  Here you can see a test layout.

Then I decided to glue them down to my white background.  OOPS.  Even though I used a REALLY think micro tip on my Elmers glue, some of the glue came through.  Will it come out with washing?  Sure.  SO not the the end of the world....if the fabric doesn't bleed...hmm.  

Since the circles all have a variation, I decided the threads to stitch them down should too.  So I went through my collection of red and pink Glide threads and had a blast picking colors.

What was supposed to happen with this?  I twas supposed to have these lacy leather and sequin leaves on top.  I didn't like the effect, so the leaves went on something else.  Stay tuned to see what how I quilted it!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Peculiar Posies Part 3 and a Tip!

Today it's time to show you what happened when I started stitching around my Peculiar Posies.  It's fun to see what happened with the velvet when I stitched around it with thread.  It's fun to see the contrast between the velvet and the straight lines.  The velvet was very stiff, but when I fluffed it up it got better.

This was a lot of fun to stitch too.  The bottom pink piece was hard to pick a color  of thread to use.

I decided this flower needed more color so I added some more color by stitching straight lines up the dark blue piece.  These are embroidery, not quilting lines as I haven't started quilting yet.

Sometimes stitching on leather can catch the presser foot and you don't move as smoothly as you want.  I've been working on how to combat this.  Sometimes I use a teflon presser foot, and sometimes I don't.  It's something I'm working on.  I'd love any advice you might have!

This was really fun to do.  I stuck the piece through the other one.  This is something I definitely want to do more of.  It's really fun.

I like leaving holes in piece too.  It's surprising and adds interest.

Here's a tip:  when your fabric is really large, roll it up and pin it before you do your stitching.  It makes it easier to manipulate under the machine.

I use a stabilizer on the back to help keep my stitches even and provide stabilization for silks and chambray.  I then rip off the extra area and only leave it under the applique pieces.  It adds a little puff to the finished quilt.

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Peculiar Posies Part 2

Here are the other three flowers in my Peculiar Posies.  This top flower includes a really fun silk that had gold threads woven into it.  Pink leather of two varieties, dark purple velvet and dupioni silk and some blue silk I bought in Houston from Burma.  The green leaves are also a fun leather.

This flower also features dupioni silk and velvet, but the really fun part is the big blue piece which is made from fish leather.  Yes, you read that right.  They were a vendor at our local show last year and I just had to try it.  It's magnificent to work with because it's nice and thin.

Here are all the flowers appliqued.  Now to figure out a fabric for the pot!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Futuristic Flowers Part 3

The next step in the process is picking the threads for the blanket stitching.  I use Glide thread for this because it's so shiny!

Here you can see that I've done my stitching around the circle.  I decided to match the paint color on the inside instead of the purple fabric.

Here is that flower with the velvet stitched down.  It's the red fabric.  I used a larger size blanket stitch so that it would go a little deeper into the fabric.

And the flowers are all blanket stitched!

This orange ring is leather, I also used a larger size blanket stitch for this flower.  I love the diamond weave to the silk. 

This flower is dupioni silk with peach and purple pain in the oval and circle.  The ring is leather.

The stems and ovals on the stems are leather.  The bottom leaves are velvet.  The top leaves are dupioni silk with purple pain underneath.

More coming soon!  Wait until you see the vase they go in!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy