Week in Review 2013 - 10/10

Detail from Express Your Love II

Tips, Thoughts and Techniques:

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I have been doing my utmost to make it a lemonade week. I had high hopes for starting work on ZenBlossoms when I tracked my thread shipment on Sunday and saw it had left Billings, MT and arrived at a shipping center just outside of Milwaukee, two hours from my home. For sure I would have my order by Monday, Tuesday at the latest. When it didn't arrive on Tuesday I checked the tracking again. The lemons rained down. The package was sent back to Billings, MT.  GRRRR! Not only don't I have my thread, but I have the added pleasure of having to explain the situation and seek a resolution from the vendor. The jury is still out on how this is going. So, where is the lemonade? I have spent the week working on Express Your Love II and trying out a few more free motion quilting motifs. I wouldn't have been nearly so far along with these projects, if I hadn't had the "bonus" days to work on them.


1) Finish a bobbin's worth of FMQ on each of my three studio days on ZenBlossoms - No thread yet, so this project remained on hold.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 



a) Foundation Piecing - Boy did I get a lot done on this. I finished piecing the red braided section and turned the edge(s) on all seven pieces in preparation for appliqué. It is just loosely positioned together on my photography backdrop to give you an idea of how the seven foundation pieced tresses will look together.

Tresses for Express Your Love II
are pieced and turned.

b) Free Motion Quilting - I experimented with three different free motion quilting motifs. Front and center is my own design that I am planning to fill the petals of ZenBlossoms with. It reminds me of undulating seaweed. Just below the seaweed is a horizontal version of Leah's Wiggly Maze. The tear drop shapes on the right is Leah's Fractured Paisley. All three motifs allowed me to practice my travel stitching and the Fractured Paisley is a great one for echo quilting practice.

The sampler using variegated polyester thread was a good
place to learn a few more free motion quilting motifs.

3) Visioning Project - Read and practice the next two Facebook tutorials. - I set up a Fan Page! I need to flesh it out more. I plan on updating my Fan Page weekly, just as I do my website and blog. 

I will be taking the next two weeks off from blogging. When I return I plan on: 

1) Finishing a bobbin's worth of FMQ on each of my three studio days on ZenBlossoms

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignments Leah comes up with next. 

a) Foundation Piecing

b) Free Motion Quilting

3) Visioning Project - Read and practice the next  Facebook tutorials. 


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.

Week in Review 2013 - 08/26

1) Companion Oysters (Deadline 9/01/2013)

Detail from the backside of Companion Oysters

Whatever was I thinking? Although the deadline is not officially here, I am officially opting to let it slip by without finishing Companion Oysters. I could obsessively work every waking hour and some sleeping hours to finish, but where is the joy in that? Instead I have learned (not for the first, second or perhaps tenth or twentieth time) that intense, detailed free motion quilting takes far more time than I ever book for it, but it is worth it. Companion Oysters is coming alive with the attention to detail that the quilting is giving it.

a) Finish quilting Companion Oysters. - Started.

Detail from the front side of Companion Oysters
The more intense quilting surrounding the seaweed
helps create a sense of depth when seen in person.
I opted to quilt a horizontal pattern to enhance the
feeling that the shells are on a beach.

b) Square up the quilt in preparation of facing it. - Not possible.

Another detail from further away of Companion Oysters.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments

Express Your Love II covered with a plastic orientation
sheet that helps with positioning where various pieces that
will eventually be appliquéd to the background will go.

It can be tempting when I am running behind on my exhibition pieces to skip the assignments that Leah doles out weekly. So, why don't I? The answer is simple. I find that her assignments sharpen my skills and give me new techniques to add to my tool box. I can honestly say that it is making my way through these assignments that has given me the confidence to make quilting as much a part of the design as the image when creating my work.


Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next. 

There were two assignments this week. The first was a new foundation style based on triangles and rods. I used it for the tress on the left in Express Your Love II.  I am really curious to see how Leah will recommend that we attached the seven pieced tresses to the quilt.

Detail from Express Your Love II. This week the "tress"
on the left was added. Note how triangles alternate with
rods versus the tress on the right which is primarily
skinny "wobbly" slivers.

The second assignment was a new free motion quilting motif Leah dubbed, Missing Pieces. This didn't grab me when I saw the demonstration video. However, I found it both very easy to stitch and I rather liked the pattern as part of the sampler of free motion quilting patterns I have been testing out recently. I even found it was not that difficult to fit around other motifs.

Practice sample of Missing Pieces.

3) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon." - Some day.

I suspect I won't finish quilting Companion Oysters next week. However I am willing to give it another shot. 



1) Companion Oysters 

a) Finish quilting Companion Oysters.

b) Square up the quilt in preparation of facing it.

2) Leah Day's weekly assignments


Do whatever assignment Leah comes up with next. 

3) Pictorial Painting - Face "Canyon."


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.