Off the wall and off on an adventure!

Hanging 

Coffee bag

Laptop sleeve

I went over to Karen's house yesterday for coffee and knitting.  She had Peaceful Woods hanging up near her spinning wheel.  Her husband is a woodworker and was able to find a branch that works for the hanging device.  It was very pleasing to me to see that she loved it enough to make sure to hang it right away.  

I had made a cool knitting project bag for her as a holiday gift.  I upcycled a burlap coffee bag that my green coffee beans come in.  Of course, I didn't make a photograph of the finished project bag.  So you will have to be satisfied with a photograph of a yet to be upcycled burlap coffee bag.

We are leaving on a trip and I wanted to make a sleeve for my new laptop.  Ran out of time.  I got the 2 pieces of fabric cut.  Oh well. I will just wrap it up in a knitted shawl like I have been doing for the past couple of months.

So that is my Off the Wall post for the week.  Next week I will only have inspirational photographs from the Arizona Desert.  I am bringing my knitting bag, so maybe some knitting will appear here as well.

Happy Holidays to all!

12-12-12

"Peaceful Woods"

Close up of paws

Aspen and pine

A couple of weeks ago Karen Musgrave put out a call for a 12-12-12 challenge.  Perfect, that is the date of my friend Karen E's birthday!  I will make a 12"x 12" art quilt for her birthday!  I wanted to do something that is meaningful to her and not go with the number 12 for inspiration.

My first thought was to do a collage.  Something with a forest theme.  So I pulled all kinds of brown and green fabrics.

The palette

Then I started to build the piece.  Somehow it turned into a landscape instead of a collage.

Building the foreground

Trees trunks in place

I was so involved in the process that I spaced out taking more in progress photos.   Once I had the background in place I did some quilting along with stitching down the foreground.

Little bits of fabrics for the pines and aspens

I knew that I wanted to use little bits to make the pine needles and the Aspen leaves.  To keep it all in place I put a layer of netting over it.  Then I quilted to define the pines and aspen leaves.

A layer of netting

I ran into an issue.  The netting wasn't secured down in most of the places and something seemed to be missing from the details.  I did some loose quilting in the backgrounds to hold down the netting.  On a whim, I used some black thread and went around the details such as the rocks and tree trunks.  I also did some gold thread in the aspen leaves to give the illusion of "quaking".   Much better.

Ready to trim

I had started with a larger piece thinking it would shrink down more.  I had to cut off some of the trees on either side.

I used a piece of fabric that looked like wood grain for the binding.  And then I added some dragonfly charms.  Karen uses dragonflies on her business cards and logo.  

I delivered the gift to her this morning.  She loved it.  She had tears in her eyes.  I knew that I got it right.  The 3 paw prints in the piece represent her 3 beautiful German Shepherd dogs.  Two of them passed away this year, one just 2 weeks ago.  I knew that she had a yours and mine family and wasn't sure of how many kids there were.  I had intended on adding 6 dragonfly charms and somehow ended up with 7.  Which is how many children they raised together. And the woods is to represent the forest just up the mountain from where we both live.  With pine, Aspen, wildflowers and rocks everywhere. I used some gold thread in the background to represent the shimmer in the woods on a sunny day.

My finished photo didn't quite turn out as well as I would have liked.  Karen is going to try and take a better photograph tomorrow.

This is my Off the Wall post for this week.  Check out what everyone else is doing at Nina-Marie's blog. And also my TGIFF!

On my Wall this Monday

Design Wall

Project I want to focus on

More wrapped cord for a bowl

Prototype Wine Bag

For my Design Wall Monday post I pulled some more blocks out of the Sandi Cummings class bag.  It makes me wonder what happened (or didn't?) to the guy on the bottom right hand side.  It looks like he didn't get a full spa treatment during the class. I will pull out the book and reread what we did in class (it was in 2005 or so)  I really like the blocks.  I am looking forward to playing with them this week.  Check out what is on everyone else's wall at Judy's blog.

I was able to get more cording wrapped for another bowl.  One of the bowls I made last week sold.  I am also trying to get wine bottle gift bags made.  I sewed a prototype and it needs some tweaking.  I also made a pouch which I filled with a bunch of goodies for the Quilters Blog Hop Party!  Over 150 blogs are hosting giveaways!  My giveaway is in this post.

Sewing day Friday

I think this is the layout I want!

Mini Mystery

Back pieced from the leftovers.

One

Two

And three bowls finished!

I feel like I got a lot done this week, but not as much as I wanted to.  I was able to get some bowls made, wrapping cord one evening and sewing the next day.  I also realized that I had never posted the finished Mini Mystery that I designed for my local quilt group.  I like the way it turned out.  I used up the leftovers for a backing. The gals in the group enjoyed the project.

I finished up the blocks after the demo for the other group.  I had been playing with them all week on the wall. I took a photo of the final arrangement and then sewed them together this afternoon.  I didn't get a photo of the completed top, but it is just like the arrangement! :)

I still didn't get to my 12 by 12 for the 12-12-12 challenge.  But I have all weekend that I can work on that.

So I had some FO's for the Thank goodness it's finished Friday TGIFF
And also this is my Off the wall post, check out what everyone else is up to at Nina-Marie's blog.