Hello All,

In addition to fabric and paint, I like to play with glass.  About 10 years ago I made a bird of paradise stained glass piece from a Tiffany pattern I simplified to 3 leaves and 2 flowers.

More recently I've taken classes at Phoenix Studio in Portland, Maine.  I have completed a calla lily and am working on a daffodil.  I used the same glass for the border and the inner background pieces.  The leaves and stem of the daffodil and the stem of the calla lily are the same opaque green glass.

I have a book on historical stained glass and there is a piece with 3 white lilies arranged like a fleur de lis.  I really like it and would like to work up a simple pattern to make a third piece with those colors.

The book was published in 1976.

It's full of the history of stained glass from ancient times to contemporary times.

Hello All,

Starting tomorrow I'm taking a Strathmore on-line class from Jane La Fazio.  It's for watercolor art cards.  I haven't painted in quite a while so this morning I got out my paints and made an art journal page.

I started with a yellow background and added the purple.  There are a couple layers of paint.  The yellow in the center suggested a hand so I went with it.  The squares on the left are from a  photoshop experiment from at least 10 years ago.  I printed them on tracing paper.  One edge of the paper got crumpled in the printer but I liked the translucent effect so I've kept the page.  The roses at the bottom of the hand are printed from a scan of a painting I did.  I tore them from the page and used gel medium to adhere them.  I love the purple diamonds, too.  I used a lead pencil container as the stamp. (I really liked the shape of the container so when it was empty I couldn't throw it away!)  The infinity sign and the heart are meant to convey infinite love.

Best of all, I had fun creating it.  Painting with acrylics is so immediate, instant gratification.

Hope you all take time to have fun!

Hello All,

I've finished the baby quilt, yeah!

 I've also done some free motion quilting practice white on muslin.  I really love muslin.

In this bottom photo I've practiced stitching my name.  It's hard to see but I want to be able to stitch my labels so practice is in order.  I would of, course, use contrasting thread so it's readable.

I'm linking up with Leah Day's Free Motion Quilt Project.  Let's go see what everybody else has been doing.

Hello All,

I've finished the wall quilt.  After taking the binding off twice, I finally got it right.  It looks good.

Originally I wanted to us a small black and white gingham check but I couldn't find it where I was shopping so I bought this small polka dot.  I think it was a better choice.

Here's a peek of the back.  All that's left to do is make a label.

Linking up with Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project.  Now, on to the binding for the baby quilt.

Hello Everybody,

I'm laughing at myself.  I'm doing the binding on my little wall quilt and I thought everything was going great.  I logged on to http://www.canoeridgecreations.com/2013/02/double-fold-binding-tutorial-part-one.html to refresh my memory as to the final step.  That's when I realized I had done my corners wrong!  (I was doing it from memory.)

Not sure you can tell from the picture but I flipped the fabric in the wrong direction then stitched the miter down and now I can't fold the binding to the back!  Good thing I know how to use my seam ripper!  I think I'll remember this for a while.

Good night all.  Happy Quilting!

Good Morning,

Last night when I told myself I would work on the binding I was instead inspired to do this.

  

I had another practice piece from my class on the back of the couch just calling out to me.  It said my feathers are lonely.  There is so much empty space.  So this is what it looks like now.

It's still a work in progress.  I think the spirals take away from the feathers (and I still have more background to fill.)  I was thinking I could practice micro stippling in white and it would make the red the focal.  Anything to keep me from actually binding my pieces!

Hello All,

Happy Friday!  I managed to get some practice doing Leah Day's pearled feather design.  My squares are bigger and it was hard to keep the feathers going in the right direction.  Even though it's very imperfect I still like the effect.

I did some background quilting on one of the practice pieces from the class I took with Linda Hall.

I think I'm going to learn from Gwyned Trefethen to set goals for the coming week.  My goal is to actually bind the wall hanging and the baby quilt.  I'll start with the wall hanging just to get some practice.  It's been quite a while since I've done anything like that.

I'm linking up with Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project.  Happy 4th Anniversary, Leah!  I really appreciate all that you do.  Let's go see what everyone else has been doing.