Looking Back at 2014 Handspun FO's!

 I just realized that my knitting needles probably had put on several miles of knitting and might be worn out!   I always find an excuse to get new needles.  I love the square wood ones!
This shawl is called Age of Brass and steam, its over on Ravelry.com.
Fiber is BFL which came dyed from Three Waters Farm, and it spun up like a champ, the colors are amazing. Super soft, I love it.

 I love HeartBeat colorway! Its so vintage and this Rouched scarf kit up so cute in it.  This is so light weight and delicate even with all the squished edges.  I think this was also dyed by Three Waters Farm.
I spin pretty fine and like a fingering weight type feel.  Some fibers are more KD, some are more lace.   I often don't use a gauge for my pattern unless I get really picky.  Sometimes it doesn't work, so for 2015 I will do a swatch!

 I LOVE this shawl.  Its called Nirmulintu and knits on the diagonal.  This is a polwarth and tussah silk blend which was dyed by Corgi Hill Farms in a color way called Mango Martini.  I love graduated hand spun yarns.  You can't find that in a store!

 This is probably one of my most used scarves.  Its called an infinity scarf only I didn't want to make it connect, but be long and draping.  LOVE.    Its another polwarth tussah silk blend fiber dyed by CorgiHillFarms and the colorway is called Manits Shrimp.  Their names are so fun, and I wear my shrimp well.

 Opportunity Rocks is a BFL wool, and I spun it as it came off the braid and it did this color changing between sections on its very own, nothing planned out.  This is Age of Brass and Steam again, and it was gifted to a friend.  Again this is a CorgiHillFarm dyed fiber. 

Tuscan Sunset roving also another CorgiHillFarm delight in a interesting merino and black dyed tussah silk.    The black tussah silk gave the yarn such an antique feel, the golds became so rich and these images just don't do justice to the knitted items.   The edging I used on this was part of another pattern which worked nice for this.





As 2014 comes to a close this blog will change over to spinning and knitting for 2015.  Many of my handspuns will be offered on Etsy, it won't be a huge amount as spinning is not a race to the finish, but slow and methodical, a work in progress from start to finish.  A zen experience.   I will still be working on a limited amount of quilted wall art and personal pieces.  See ya all next year.

Message in a Bottle

 Spin on!  Don't you just love how the colors in the fiber just move so gradually into eachother.  This shawl pattern is called Beithe  over on Ravelry.  I was not sure how I was going to like casting on over 400 stitches to start this as it goes from the bottom up!  Once that was done it was a very fast knit and I just LOVE it.  Love the drape of the Polwarth and silk blend of this fiber, the lightness and drape.  I spun almost 600 yards out of my 5 ounce braid of fiber.  The color way is Message in a Bottle and dyed by CorgiHillFarms on etsy.    The biggest challenge was blocking it! 

I have a few patterns in my ravelry library that are just crying out for some handspun yarns.  If you visit ravelry and want to friend me I am timelessdog over there. 

Spinning Delights

 I might as well change this quilting section to just knitting and spinning. I am unable to quit playing with fiber, I confess I am just addicted to spinning and knitting up the hand spun yarn.  I know knitters will understand how much fun it is to knit with special yarns and hand spun yarns.

This fiber blend is a polworth and silk blend dyed up by CorgiHillFarm over on Etsy.  I love their fibers and colorways.  This is called Tidal Froth.  I spun it up lightly, and gave it a two ply in about a fingering /dk weight and sat on it till I found a

 pattern that spoke to me.

The pattern here is a little cowl that only took about 180 yards is called Pei and you can find it on Ravelry.  It was so easy to knit up and was done in two days.  I blocked it and its so light and like a feather weight it will be an amazing little accessory for spring going into summer.  

I am spinning on a Sonata Kromski wheel.  Its great to have my wheel close at hand because when I have knit my hands into arthritic revolt, I can go spin which leads to more ideas for knitting...and the cycle continues!

Seed Packets in Quilting

 To start off the new year I have decided to tackle one of my favorite vintage seed packets as an art quilt.   This idea has played in my head for months and finally I think I might have figured out some ways to bring it to life.

There is some fabric called Stonehedge that will be perfect for the background and the little torn paper look and the writing might be worked out with some printed silk fabric.  I will have to just play with this and hope that it doesn't get frogged to the pond.

I will try and update this as I go along, I have so many other works on the table all of a sudden that when no creativity happens I get overwhelmed with all the things waiting in que,.  I think that is a good thing?

I have some fabric postcards in que, I have blocks from the Naturalist Notebook in que and some beast blocks that are almost ready for quilting . Well lets not forget spinning and knitting!

Hope to show off some fun progress here in the next months.

Happy Holidays!

On the Fence Post

Sitting on the fence post is my last big peice this year and it was a real challenge.  I wanted to add the little barb wire and feeling of an old weathered post in the woods or pasture.   The fines and leaves were the most fun, which is unusual for me, but they were actually the most interesting as they climb their way up the wood.

Its a larger size 21x37 inches so it needs a big space to really show off.  I used quite a few cotton fabrics on this and some batiks fused and quilted in raw edge applique.  Thread painted some light areas on the wood and leaves.  I love this woodsy feel.  Find it over on Etsy!

We made it to The Quilt Show Quilt of the Day

Really fun to see my work featured on Ricky Tim's and Alex Anderson's Quilting blog.
The Clemantis who's work I have written about in an earlier post has now been seen my thousands of people.  How special that makes me feel!  Thanks TQS!

http://www.thequiltshow.com/os/quilt_featured.php

Chickadee on Fence Post

 I call this Twilight Chickadee.  It was finished in October but never made it to the blog.  I truly am lazy when it comes to updating my blog.

This very cool and last bit of my graduated blue fabric became the background for the little chickadee on the fence post with the climbing flowers and vine.

The wood was a bit challenging and now I need to be watchful for fabric that can minic wood because I have ideas for more using fence posts and birds.  I can't get away from the bird thing, bu they are so happy, cheerful and very fun to play with in my quilting,.

 I used lots of rayon and interesting threads to give a light thread painting effect to the flower centers and leaves.  It was a nice touch to give the fabic extra detail in such a busy arrangement.

Currently this is offered on Etsy at my studio.

The Open Field

 The Open Field, 18x30 inches.  Quail and Poppies

Once again this piece has a whole cloth background but with a little print this time.  I added 3 squares of color for some bokeh.  The little quail is in the field and watches over his shoulder in the stand of poppys.

The technique I use is raw edge applique.  The images are fused in place and machine stitched with decorative threads.  The background is randomly quilted and this particular work has a heavy layer of batting to give extra depth and weight to the hanging.  I used an interesting fabric to frame it with a border that is about 2 inches wide in a range of shadowy earth tones.

My fabrics of choice are batik's.  This is currently available on Etsy at the Timeless Dog Studio.

Celmatis Wall Hanging

 Leaves, vines, stems and trellis.  Its a real hectic layout with all the intertwined stems.  I have had this great piece of fabric with music sheets printed on it and thought it might work as a nice backdrop for the Clematis flowers.  The light gold print and the plan soft field act as a bit of sunlight that might filter through and be seen almost as backlit.  That's the plan of course, but we will see how it progresses.   I love raw edge applique, its a freedom to go beyond and experiment, no rules, and no boundary.

 My Baby Lock is getting a workout sewing down all these fused stems and leaves.  I have some super great Sulky threads that come in variegated colors and they really help to add depth and texture to the batik and other fabrics I use here.

 I didn't do a color correction on this shot, it looks very dull and lifeless.  Right now I have finally finished with stitching the vines and leaves, and have fused on the flowers and given them decorative stitching too with more of that great Sulky thread.

 Now that its quilted it really took on some life, it just sings SUMMER and life in the garden.  The flowers have an extra layer of fabric under them which gives them more puffiness making for a 3D type effect.  I use this process quite a bit on my main focus flowers.  I call my effect a faux trapunto. 

I used  meandering quilting  for the wall hanging and took this side shot to try and let you see the dimension of this piece.  It measures 21x27 inches and its a great size for a wall, almost like a window you are looking through to the outside flowers on a trellis.   Its available on Etsy. too!  Etsy:  TimelessDog  

Hope you enjoyed the walk through the process.

From the Scrap Heap to Beauty

 Yep, its the scrap heap currently residing on my work space.  Its been my ambition to resize it to zilch so there can be more fabric and more fresh new scraps.  Yet as i rummage through this pile there are plenty new scraps.  How did they get there!

Oh well, this is just a little documentary on the construction of the Morning Glory Hummingbird.

I do have a line drawing I am working from for my bird and for my flowers.  Its not really important to show that but from those I cut my pieces for my raw edge applique which gets fused onto the crazy backgrounds of scraps!

 I have my background sewn here and placed a light weight muslin material under it, and then proceeded to sew the decorative metalic threads over my bird.  This shows the back side and its just cotton thread, but the top side is lovely metalics in golds and copper colors.

 This is the front side with the bird done in the metalic threads and the morning glory and leaves .  Both the flowers and bird have the muslin underneath so that when it is sandwiched with the batting and the back fabric it creates a fake or faux trapunto effect where the bird and flowers are slightly lifted up from the background.  Its a marvelous effect!

 Here are two images taken one on a tile floor in natural light and the other on the wood floor in natural light.  You can see how the colors seem to change the way you might think it would look on your wall.

The wire decor is just laying on the floor and the art laying on top, these are not hung and the hanger is on loan and just for photo prop photography, so its not part of this finished work.

Thought you might like a quick walk through from scrap to beauty.   ~ Enjoy!

Garden Jewel

 Oh boy, this was so much fun to work on.  I wanted something bold like the hot summer colors we are having now in the wild flowers and the quick appearance of the hummingbird residence.  I always hear them before I ever see any, but this year I have only about 2 or 3 coming to my feeder.  Very sad and yet it did inspire me to work on tihs little bird.

The size is 15x20 1/2 inches which is a great size for some of the fancy little art quilt hangers you can find almost anywhere these days.  This was on loan from a friend for the photos and this image was taken outside on the concrete in mottled light.   I don't think the colors can do justice as its much prettier in person.

As with most all my raw edge applique this has its background created just for the image which is then fused in place and quilted with a muslin fabric under just the bird. 

The quilting on the bird is metalic threads, lots of fun and interest here to catch the light.  Once that is quilted I cut away the excess fabric and quilt the whole sandwich and border it.

Garden Jewel is on Etsy now looking for a new garden to brighten. 

Its A New Day

 I am ousted my old blog to make way for a new beginning, a fresh look a new day for ideas and color. 

Seriously! We have chickens!  6 hens, hummm one might be a rooster!  I think they are the funniest things ever and I am pretty sure you will be seeing quite a bit of fowl work from me in the future.

In the past I have worked on quite of bit of long skinny panels which I called Slice of Life on whole cloth.  I love those long skinny works that can find almost any wall to fit onto nicely.  But now I am wanting more color, more of a scrappy look for my background, more of a crazy quilt background. 

 Also as in the past I have documented quite a bit of my "how I did that" in my blog and I will continue to do that.  

In this fun creature I call Randy, you can see my template behind the fused bird.  I never know how these guys will take on their expression or name, or even background fabrics until the bird is finished.

Once I have the background sewn together I fuse the bird to it and then quilt the bird onto the background with raw edge applique in multi colored threads.   Under this is a single layer of muslin which will give the finished work a bit of lift in a faux trapunto effect.

The last two steps are quilting the background which I do on my BabyLock domestic machine and then add a border. 

There are so many ways to display these wall hangings.  Rods with clips and circles, decorative wire with wooden dowels and clips.   I think one thing I will watch for in the future are the different ways I have seen them displayed and post it here.  

Randy is 151/5 inches x 17.25 inches and found on Etsy at Timeless Dog Studio.