Weekly Report 2013 - 12/13

Remember Express Your Love II? Now you can see what
all that work with hexagons was for. It's not done yet, but
I am on the home stretch.

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

Brrrrr! It has been bitter cold where I live this past week. How cold was it? I would wake up to subzero single digit temperatures. That is Fahrenheit without taking into account windchill factors. It sounds even worse in Celsius with morning temperatures at -20. We are out of the deep freeze next week, but can look forward to a week of snow flurries. What does a fiber artist do when it snows? Use the snow to dye fabric of course. Actually, I rarely dye fabric, but I have tried this technique and it produces fascinating results. If you don't have snow you can use ice. Here are a few links each with a slightly different take on how to dye with snow or ice:

• Pro Chemical & Dye - Snow Dyeing 
• Dharma Trading Company Learn How to Ice Dye
• Tie Dye - Ice Dye Technique

Personally, I use cold weather as an excuse to hunker down in my studio. Here is what I managed to accomplish this past week.

Free motion quilting is started on Trio. It will finish
at approximately 30" H x 40" W. I am very pleased by
how building up thread helps draw attention to the
individual floor boards. 

1) Trio - finish quilting the background - Well that was a little ambitious of a goal. However, I did make a great start.

Two years of practicing free motion quilting is really paying
off. I am able to travel stitch nearly invisibly and can
navigate on the fly. This is a detail from Trio.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments:

a) Foundation Piecing  

Close up of the goddess's face in Express Your Love II.
The pattern is Leah Day's. The fabric choices are Gwyned's.

i) Finish piecing the 43 hexagons required for the goddess's face. - Done!

ii) Remove the paper foundations from the hexagons. - Done!

iii) Mold the hexagons to the face foundation. - Done!

iv) Place and baste the face to the quilt. - I placed but did not baste the face to the quilt.

v) Bonus - I started basting the next 90 hexagons necessary to make up the body of the goddess.

b) Free Motion Quilting - I opted to postpone this practice motif since it was very similar to other motifs AND I was getting lots of FMQ in working on Trio.

3) Visioning Project - Do the next two assignments from my Photoshop Elements class. - Done!

How will I keep myself occupied next week? Here is my game plan:

1) Trio - finish quilting the background

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments:

a) Foundation Piecing - 

i) Baste the face to the quilt.
ii) Start piecing the goddess's body "fabric" with the basted hexagons.

b) Free Motion Quilting

3) Visioning Project - Do the next two assignments from my Photoshop Elements class.


I am now linking up to two blogs on Friday's. The first is Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project and the second is Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.