Truck Quilt Finished and DAFA March Show

I feel like dancing around and singing "I did it, I did it" like Dora the Explorer (okay, you can tell I have grandkids), the Truck Quilt is complete as of this morning!
I love the surface technique of painting over the background fabric to calm it down, show the quilting of the windmill and barn and make the truck pop out.
To make sure I didn't get paint on the truck, I taped it off before I painted the background. I learned this technique from "The Painted Quilt" by Linda and Laura Kemshall. The Kemshall's also demo'd this technique on one of the Quilting Arts TV Series 200 Episodes. I can't wait to use this technique again.

The Dallas Area Fiber Artists are having their annual show at The Pointe ~ C.C. Young the month of March. Tonight is our monthly meeting and tomorrow I will hang the show. This year we are honored to also show the SAQA-Texas Mini-Quilt Exhibit from the 2010 International Quilt Festival in Houston. If you are in the Dallas area, join us for our "Meet the Artists" night on March 8th, 6:30pm - 7:30pm. If you can't make it then, make time to go my The Pointe and see the exhibit. Kathy Mayhew and I will be presenting a program on SAQA and the Mini-Quilts at the DAFA April program.

In the Meantime.....

Well, I ran out of thread while quilting the truck quilt.... I've quilted and picked out so much I've burned through an entire spool of thread. I've ordered more and am waiting on it's arrival. So, in the meantime I'm working on the patterns for my next 4 quilts. I was inspired by the watercolors I did during my workshop with Katie PM at the International Quilt Festival in Houston last year. I'm taking three of the selections I made from one of the watercolor exercises and I'm going to make a triptych out of them. I've drawn them out on clear velum, copied them and then had them enlarged to roughly 18" x 24".






I would show you pictures of the patterns I have drawn out, but my camera is on the fritz and I need to take it to the camera doctor.
Here is another one I'm working on. It was painted with acrylics during the same workshop. It looks like a flag to me.



Okay, blog time over, time to get back to my patterns!

Oooops

I've had a good day, really, until a few minutes ago... I was quilting away on the truck quilt, listening to "Crossroads" by Fern Michaels, and wondering if I have enough thread to complete my quilting, when I decided to stand back and take a look at the section between the barn and the windmill.....that's when I realized I was quilting at an angle and not horizontal....grrr. So, I guess while I'm watching TV tonight I'll be picking out this section of quilting and tomorrow I'll quilt as long as I can before I run out of thread.

At least I walked 4 miles today at lunch and Mr. Wonderful is on his way home from work. Time to go start dinner and enjoy a glass of red wine. Even though there is a hiccup in the progress, I'm determined to find a bright spot, or two.

Hugs and Kisses Mixed Media Art Quilt

Just finished this great little art quilt! My thanks go to my friend Kathy Mayhew who let me use one of her screen prints to start this project. Really, I started this back in August when I had my birthday "Dye Party". Kathy taught us how to screen print and this is on the pieces I started. After I screened it, I soaked it in a bath of turquoise dye. I then accent painted it, added some mixed media items, hand wrote some phrases, hand quilted it and then had stitched the binding. This week I hand painted a canvas to mount it on and I'm really pleased with the way it came out!
So, if you really love this piece, it's for sale in my Etsy shop, StudioJulesArt.

Early Happy Valentines!

50% Off Sale Hand Dyed Handkerchiefs

I decided to get ahead of the curve and put my hand dyed handkerchiefs on sale 50% off. Get them now before Mother's Day, allergy season and for Teacher gifts!
StudioJules on ArtFire
StudioJulesArt on Etsy

Let the Quilting (and Thread Painting) Begin!

Okay, today is the day come rain, sleet or snow....and that is exactly what we got this morning! I've got the windmill and barn drawn out on the quilt top, the quilt is pinned and I'm ready to start.
Have a great day ya'll!

Testing Truck Quilt Background Quilting

The other day I started working on testing out the quilting for the "Truck Quilt". Today I completed my test and feel really good about what I quilted. I'll start with the "Truck Quilt" as it is at this moment. As you may remember from previous posts, this precious truck is from a picture of my fraternal grandfather's truck, we called my grandfather "Foxey" because his favorite cartoon when he was growing up was "Grandpa Foxey". Anyway, the truck was a 1956 Ford, and he drove it around the pasture and from the house to his fishing tanks. I think all but one of us 7 grandkids learned how to drive in this truck, so you see, it's special. But I just had to put a twist on the "Truck Quilt" and make it my own. It's turquoise instead of baby blue and I added long horns to the front (with several Univ. of TX Longhorns in the family, I felt it was appropriate, plus I'm a true cowgirl at heart).



Now for the quilt testing. With the hand dyed background being so intense, it needed to be knocked down a bit so the truck can stand out. So I decided the background was going to be quilted so I could paint the background white to tone it down. Now Foxey had a barn, several infact, and a windmill on the property. So I decided to quilt in a barn and a windmill behind the truck along with the clouds.

Now the bright fabric you see at the bottom left, well I left that bright because that is where the truck will be in front of the barn.



This next picture gives you a little closer look at the barn detail and how it lays with where the it will be with the truck.



The following picture is a close up on the windmill and the different cloud designs I quilted today. I usually do the swirlly clouds, but I tried the horizontal horizon lines and then also following the movement of the fabric. The movement of the fabric just isn't tight enough and I really think the swirlly clouds are too busy. The horizontal horizon lines help push the background back and help the truck pop.



Okay, couldn't resist. Had to cut out the bright area and pin it up on the wall with the truck quilt. WOW! I love the results! The white paint really tones down the background. The windmill is going to be over to the left above the bed of the truck.



This week I've got a fairly clean slate, so Lord willing, this baby will be quilted and thread painted this week. Yes, I still have to do the thread painting on the truck. Okay, feedback please!!!!!

Watercolor Sketches

Well, I held to my guns and sketched with my watercolors today. The challenge with the Sketchbook Challenge this month is "Opposites". Hmmmm, several came to mind, but since I was sitting in the kitchen, Salt and Pepper shakers were handy, so here is my watercolor sketch.



The next thing that came to my mind, since I was looking at my watercolors, was the color wheel...complementary colors! Here is that one!



The artist I admire the most is Georgia O'Keefe. We have a print of her "Orange Poppy" in our family room. So here is my watercolor of it. Needless to say, I have a long way to go before I can accomplish what Georgia did, but hey, we have to start somewhere right?



So that is it for today, time to start dinner. Jeff is driving home in the cold and ice from the office. Maybe if I start cooking the kitchen will warm up. Tomorrow the snow dyed fabrics get washed!

Oh, I added a link to on the right hand bar to the Collection I curated on ArtFire!

ArtFire Collection - Hand Dyed Fabrics and Fibers

Well, it is so cold outside and the utility companies are doing rolling blackouts, so I decided to help out the utility company and keep the thermostat down low in the studio and work downstairs today. So, the truck quilt isn't being worked on...
I did decide to try something new though...I created a collection on ArtFire! It is called "Hand Dyed Fabrics and Fibers". I wanted to pull out some of the hand dyed fibers and fabrics and put them in a collection. Take a look and let me know what you think?

More Snow!

Well, I didn't think we would get any snow this year in North Texas by the weatherman's report a few months ago, but Mother Nature has proved them wrong and we are having our second snow for the season. So, this morning I set up to dye fabric (with the help of Mr. Wonderful) in the garage. I'm so glad he is a HVAC dude and has a HVAC unit on "his side of the garage" (aka the workshop, when it gets built out). Heat was on while I was mixing dyes, yum! There are 4 yards, 4 fat quarters and a couple of fat quarters that I did surface dyeing on this past Saturday.



Now for the snow....... this is the drift outside our garage.



Jeff took the shovel and just piled on the snow on the fabric for me.



In this picture you can see my little roll cart in the background. It holds my dyes and dye utensils. It's great for rolling from "my side of the garage" over to workshop sink area (and the heater).



This is my huge fabric snow cone. Colors of Midnight Blue, Chartreuse, Golden Yellow, Hot Pink, Robin's Egg Blue, Turquoise, Fuchsia, Purple, and Light Red. Yes, I like lots of color!



This next picture shows a small container. It has a couple of pieces in it that I surface dyed on Saturday. I just wanted to dye them Robin's Egg Blue, so we will see how the snow dyed technique works with it.



So that is my work for the morning. This afternoon I am going to iron the fabrics I parfait dyed on Saturday. Show and Tell for those fabrics tomorrow!

Stay warm Ya'll!