Crooked Gulley Art Quilts

This blog entry has nothing to do with quilting, or maybe it does... You  decide after you read the "How To".  I got this idea from a friend who has a very clever sister. I'm going to show you how simple it is to make a floor cloth. You're probably thinking the Colonial floor cloths that were labor intensive made with heavy canvas and required numerous steps, creativity, patience, hemming... Well just stick with me and I'll show you what my problem was and how I solved it. I had this area, and wanted to protect the wood floor, because the kitchen is always a major traffic area, especially when it leads to the laundry room. Plus it was an irregular shape with the sink and stove top cabinets extending out more that the other cabinets. So, I used this...  Yep, that's just cheap vinyl flooring! And accomplished this by flipping the vinyl over and painting the other side! Ha! You don't believe me?... You want proof?  Well, check it out... (Just so you...

Look at the autumn leaf on my blog name just above. It is part of a wall hanging designed by Nina Stevens, nsdesigns@q.com called Autumn Oak, as pictured. Do you see how the leaves seem to float on the quilt? This is not the technique Nina suggested, but it is a technique I want to share with you today. It is not an original idea, rather one of those things you see or hear about and then tweak it to meet your needs. And, you won't believe how simple it is to do. All you need is a light weight fusible interfacing and the fabric for the shape you want to emphasize. Here is how you do it... First look at the interfacing and think of the side with the fusing as the right side (it will feel bumpy). The side without the fusing is the wrong side (it will feel smooth). Draw the shape you want on the wrong (Smooth) side of the interfacing remembering to include a quarter inch seam allowance . If, while you are drawing the shape, the pen feels like it is drawing on a bumpy surface -...

My dear friend, Alice, broke her ankle a few years back. She went through several surgeries that didn't do the trick. Then, she gave it one more try and found a wonderful surgeon. However, Alice had to keep all weight off the foot and was literally bolted into a huge titanium frame called a fixator for six months! Well, it wasn't pretty. Her foot was swollen, red, blue... it all looked pretty yucky with metal pins going into the ends of each toe. Not at all a nice thing to see. So, my quilting brain started thinking about making a stylish cover for the contraption. Sweet Alice had been tying a pillowcase around her leg... I had to accomplish something better than that. I knew Alice loved beige and wore it often. I found a darling floral print and began to design the cover. It had to be rigid and able to wrap aro und the frame and velcro in the front. I found a stiff pellon with a double sided iron on bonding much like Wonder Under. It would h old its shape and stand up ...

I did it! I accomplished a pieced quilt! I know, I know... the pieces are big. A girl's got to start somewhere. Maybe learning the intricate ways of putting together a pieced quilt is best started with large cuts of fabric. At any rate, it looks balanced... meaning the squares seem to fit together nicely and flatter each other. I was not following an actual purchased pattern, which was probably not the best way to go. I did research on line of the various types of old pattern styles and decided a log cabin variation would be a good place to start because of the colonial flags, which were cut from a fat quarter. There were six usable flags, so that dictated the number and size of the squares. I cut 1.5" strips to go around the flags a total of two times. From there I began to "play" with my remaining fabrics to come up with another design. I kept it simple with three fabrics and used a crazy quilt cutting method. I want to talk a little about free-motion quil...

First read the entry below the picture and then come back up here for the "rest of the story" Okay... here's what really happened. I am surrounded by water birds, and really wanted to capture them in fabric. That's a novel thought, but I had never done anything like that before, although I have been sewing for years. Not to worry, I'm a quick learner. I visited Thimble Pleasures in Chapel Hill, NC. Boy, can you get inspired there! I saw a finished quilt with the basic size and shape I wanted. I bought some batiks that represented the colors of the salt marsh during winter and set out to make the background of the quilt. It didn't turn out too badly, in fact, I was pleased. Of course I had to go back to the sewing store for a walking presser foot, pins, needles... well, lots of stuff. Next, I searched the web for heron pictures from which I could make patterns. I used the Wonder-under and then satin stitched the heron to the background. The grasses on the quil...

This is an article about how I designed my first art quilt. I picked a design. I looked at fabric. The fabric gave me inspiration that changed my design. With the changed design I had to choose new fabric. Once I bought the fabric I took it home and started cutting it. Realized I didn't have enough fabric and went back to the fabric store for more. Found new fabric that created a different inspiration and had to start all over again. I think I finally have enough fabric. So I'm cutting it out again. Wait, maybe I need one more piece or an extra 1/4 yard of this one. NO! Control those fabric buying instincts. I will use what I have. I have now cut out all my pieces and WonderUndered the hell out of it. Let's start stitching. At first I sucked at Free Motion quilting. My herons were electric blue. And I don't know when to stop and just keep adding more and more stitching. I practiced first on the quilt my daughter spent days making. I ruined it in learni...