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.