Crooked Gulley Art Quilts

Long time, no blog.... Company, golf, gardening...  I WANT TO GO TO MY SEWING ROOM!!! And, I did. Here's my latest progress on Elizabeth's "Early Riser".  I did the leaf and vine free motion quilting around the border, and stitched details into the mountains. I was also able to get to my latest art quilt. I thought the trees needed more shadowing. I added charcoal oil pastel down the right sides. I also drew in more background trees and branches. I think I'm ready to look for the border fabric. Oh Goody! I get to go to a quilting store. What a wonderful was to spend a Saturday. Of course I also have to help Amber, my daughter find a pair of silver dress shoes for a wedding she's going to be in. I think she should just buy some metallic silver spray paint and cover a pair of shoes she already has. :-) Hey... Keep stitchin' for the ones you love! Hugs from Mary

We're making progress!! " Early Riser ", a pattern by Mckenna Ryan, is now past the fusing process. You can see Elizabeth doing the final steps for the little salmon swimming up stream. While Elizabeth was busy with the fusing, I was over at another work area doing my own creating. I have been wanting to do an art quilt that uses fussy cutting and drawing with oil pastel chalks, fabric markers and what ever else works. So here is my morning endeavor: This is from " The Art of Landscape Quilting " by Zieman and Sewell. The book has wonderful instructions and pictures. This is the first project they suggest. So, I can't believe it, but I'm actually following directions. How about that? The leaves are fussy cut, and I enhanced them with a yellow fabric marker. I shaded the tree trunks on the right sides with a black sharpee marker. I drew in additional smaller trunks in the background, and highlighted some of the background fabric with a red/orange oil p...

Here it is... A Mckenna Ryan pattern. Just the beginning...  I'm working on the free motion quilting, my friend, Elizabeth, is doing the intricate cutting and fusing. Next we add the spectacular fish! This is a beautiful, fun pattern. More to come...  Keep stitchin' for the ones you love! Hugs from Mary

This is just a post script to the floor cloth idea... I would love to make one to fit inside our "wooden" rug in the foyer. I originally proposed to my husband that we sand the center and paint/stencil it. I watched a grown man cry!! The vinyl floor cloth will be much easier on him. :-)  I also want to use a toilet rug as a pattern and make vinyl floor cloths to use around the toilets... so much easier to clean and I can get a tighter fit.  Just think how cute they could be in the kids' bathroom! Floor cloths are not just for the kitchen! Keep stitchin' for the ones you love! Hugs from Mary

This is the cute, sassy cell phone cover I  started making several years ago. It is my own pattern that I'm giving to you because everyone needs to pull a cell phone out of a Classy, Sassy Cover ! We're going to make this one today... You need:  1   crazy quilt piece that is 8.5" x 9".                                            1  8.5"x9" lining fabric in a contrasting color or print                                              1  8.5"x9" piece of fusible lining like Wonder Under                                  1.5" of hook and loop closure  such as Velcro  If you don't know how to crazy quilt , take a look at the blog entry just bel...

When I first started fooling around with quilting, about two years ago, I got on a Crazy Quilt phase. I practiced on 10" squares and then wondered what to do with the finished squares besides making quilts. Well... I came up with this classy little cell phone holder. Here's what they look like: Mine is the one on the left with the phone and the cute orange cat fabric. My blog tomorrow is going to explain how to put the cell phone covers together.  Today I'm going to explain how to make the crazy quilt piece  you're going to need to make the cover. So, here we go... First you need three 10" squares of fabric. When you're finished with all the steps you will actually have 3 crazy quilt pieces that will be enough to make three cell phone covers.  Stack the three squares so that all edges are aligned perfectly, and then using a rotary cutter, cut a diagonal line through the stack. You do not need a plan or a chalk line. Just place your straight edge on a ang...

I'm just thinking today about my mom and how lucky my sister and I were to have her. You see, she was a very talented Home Economics teacher at Bolsa Grande HS in Garden Grove, CA and she taught tailoring at CSU, Fullerton. All that talent had to rub off on us -- and it did. My sister, Georgia, is a first class seamstress and has the tedious skills necessary to do beautiful garments and quilts. I'm the younger sister who tagged along and sometimes paid attention to what was going on. Probably, because of that,  I am much more free spirit, spur of the moment, go where the fabric takes me,  and love the way fabrics can fit together in art quilts. What in the world brought on all this deep heavy thinking???  My daughter asked me to make a quilt... just a twin size quilt, but never the less a real quilt. OMG - I guess corners and points really do have to fit together. What's with that? Talk about confinement..(Mom... help, I should have listened.)  I had to follow...