To Boston with Love

Posted on April 21, 2013 by TerryAske

The Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild is coordinating an effort to show support for Boston.  “To Boston With Love” is a collaborative effort of makers to bring peace and love from far and wide.  What’s being planned is a public exhibition of flags strung into banners that will be displayed in Boston – hopefully by early June 2013.  If you’d like to participate, the details are here and you can see others’ flags in this Flickr group.

I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to try Rose Hughes’ Fast-Piece Applique technique  again, but this time with the freezer paper on the back (rather than the front) of the fabrics.  I first used this technique for hearts on neutral linen, and I decided to use similar fabrics and designs for my Boston flags.

Here are my finished flags, from the front and the back.

Terry Aske - flags for Boston - front Terry Aske - flags for Boston - back

 

Putting the freezer paper on the back of the fabrics has 2 major advantages:

  1. It’s much easier to see how all the fabrics will work together before sewing the pieces together.
  2. The trimming of the seam allowance on the front does not require lifting up the freezer paper.

The disadvantage is that your subject will be reversed, but that didn’t matter with these hearts.

starting drawings freezer paper applied to back of fabrics

backs, after sewingI tried piecing the hearts two different ways.  With the green and pink hearts, I placed the hearts on top of the background fabrics when piecing them.  With the yellow and orange hearts, I positioned the background fabric on top of the hearts.  Here you can see the blocks from the back after they are sewn, and you can see the background seam allowances on green/pink block, and the heart seam allowances on the yellow/orange block.

front, after sewing & trimming, before zigzag stitchingFrom the front, it doesn’t seem to matter which seam allowances are trimmed, especially once the seam edges are covered with zigzag stitching.  Here they are before the zigzag stitching.

I decided to zigzag through both layers of the flags – to give some interest to the backs – and it meant I didn’t need to use stabilizer.

 

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On my design wall – 2013.04.17

Posted on April 17, 2013 by TerryAske

5226505647_475b61f2e6_m

Last June, the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild challenged members to make blocks with our guild colors.  I volunteered to piece the blocks into a guild quilt.

There are 11 blocks made by VMQG members in a variety of designs, using both solid and printed fabrics.  We also have 30 small solid squares with white embroidery designs, many of which were embroidered last June by visitors to the VMQG booth at the Vancouver Maker Faire.

VMQG color blocks    Embroidered blocks

After putting the blocks up on my design wall in a variety of configurations, I decide to place the larger blocks in the center and use the embroidered blocks as a border.  Here you can see the center blocks and two sides of the border pieced.  [Update: added a photo of the front completely pieced.]

        VMQG logo colors quilt - in progress    VMQG logo colors - pieced

I’ll finish piecing the border, then I have to make the back and quilt it.  We’ll be displaying this quilt at the VMQG booth at this year’s Vancouver Mini Maker Faire, which will be on June 1-2, 2013 at the PNE Forum.  Here are photos of our booth from last year, showing the fabric squares ready for embroidery, and some of our visitors participating in this fun activity.   

VMQG - fabric ready for embroidery  VMQG booth with embroiderers

 

As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday.  Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.

Quiltsy WiP    WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced  

 

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On my design wall – dog portrait finished – 2013.04.13

Posted on April 13, 2013 by TerryAske

My art quilt portrait of Courtenay is finished, except for the binding.  If you’d like to see the beginning steps of this project, check this post and this one.

Courtenay - all fusing completedI constructed the dog in units – head, paws, neck/collar, body – then fused them all together.  Then I decided on the background.  I really like the slanted lines of the deck she’s lying on, and I liked the teal-green color of the pillow behind her in the original photo, so I used that color for the deck.  Even more important than the color, was to find the right values.  The background is more subdued gray-blue.  Here is Courtenay’s portrait with all the fabrics fused.

The way I quilt my dog portraits is to do all the thread sketching on the dog before I layer the quilt batting and backing.  This has three advantages:

  1. I’m free motion quilting through fewer layers – which is good because I usually have several layers of fabric and fusible web to sew through.
  2. I don’t have to be concerned about any messy thread ends on the back of my work – so I can use my machine’s thread cutter button, and don’t have to bury the thread ends.
  3. It also gives a dimensional quality to the dog’s head – when I quilt the background after layering the batting and backing, the area surrounding the dog is flattened and the dog’s face and body are slightly raised.

I draw my thread sketching lines first to make sure they will give the correct impression of dog fur.  I used Picasa’s pencil sketch feature to get a good look at the direction of Courtenay’s fur.  I printed the pencil sketch image and drew my thread sketching lines in marker pen.  I referred to the drawing while stitching.

Courtenay-pencil sketch Courtenay - plan for thread sketching Courtenay - thread sketching

Then I layered the quilt with batting and backing and stitched the background.  I had lots of fun stitching the wood grain on the deck boards (which showed up nicely in the Picasa pencil sketch image).  The final step is to outline key areas of the dog’s head and body to add even more dimension.  Because of the many layers, I stitch these lines with my walking foot.  The blue lines on the photo below show my stitching plan, and the back of the quilt shows the stitching lines.

Courtenay - final stitching lines    Courtenay - back

And here’s the finished quilt.  It’s approximately 15 x 15 inches.  [Updated 2013.04.17 – added photo of quilt with binding.]

Courtenay - finished-001  Courtenay - with binding

 

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On my design wall – dog portrait continued – 2013.04.10

Posted on April 10, 2013 by TerryAske

 

Courtenay’s portrait is progressing.  I add fabrics, then take a photo in black and white to make sure the values are still working.  Just a few of the darkest fabrics to add and the collar, maybe a bit of fine tuning here and there, then I can think about the background.

DSCN0702   DSCN0702-001

As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday.  Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.

Quiltsy WiP    WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced  

 

Posted in Art quilts, On my design wall, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

On my design wall – dog portrait – 2013.04.07

Posted on April 7, 2013 by TerryAske

 

I’ve been working on a new dog portrait.   This is Courtenay, an Airedale Terrier.   Here’s the starting photo, and the fabrics I plan to use.

IMG_5910 DSCN0659

I used Picasa to crop the photo, then used the ‘posterize’ feature to reduce the number of colors.   I printed the posterized image and outlined the colors with a Sharpie marker pen.  The marker pen shows on the back of the paper which gives me a mirror image to use for tracing onto the fusible web.

Courtenay-cropped,posterized  Posterized photo with outlines  back of posterized photo

I took the posterized image to FedEx/Kinkos and enlarged the front and back to the actual size of the quilt.

I always start with the face, as that’s the most challenging part – once I’m happy with the fabrics for the face, the rest will be easy.  I usually start with the lightest fabrics first then layer the darker fabrics on top.  That way the darker fabrics don’t show through the lighter ones.  I constructed the face by fusing it to parchment paper then peeling it off when it was complete.  Here’s the face and one paw pinned to the full size posterized photo on my design wall.

DSCN0699

I’ll construct the other paw and rest of the body before I even think about what colors I’ll use for the background.

Check back in a day or two for more process photos.

Posted in Art quilts, On my design wall | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Class sample for freezer paper piecing workshop

Posted on April 6, 2013 by TerryAske

 

On April 27, I will be teaching a workshop for the Textile Arts Guild of Richmond on freezer paper piecing.   I will provide each participant with a full-size pattern (12 x 24 inches) of two Japanese maple leaves.  Here’s my class sample, with some photos of the techniques and tips I’ll be teaching.

Pattern is traced onto freezer paper (FP) and pinned to pattern on design wall; background and stem fabrics are pressed onto FP pattern pieces and pinned to pattern:

pattern traced onto freezer paper and some sections cut background fabrics pressed to freezer paper templates and pinned to pattern

FP pattern piece is marked with a directional line to ensure stripes are aligned correctly.  Press fabric to create a straight cutting line without a ruler:

pattern piece marked with directional line for stripes press fabric to create a straight cutting line straight cut without a ruler

 

Auditioning fabrics for leaves; all leaf fabrics ironed to FP pattern pieces and section O has been removed for stitching:

Background fabric selected, and auditioning leaf fabrics  Fabrics selected and section O removed for sewing

 

Section O ready to sew; section P ready to sew; sections P and O ready to join:Section O ready to sew Section P ready to sew Ready to join section O to section P

Sections O and P pinned together, and checking that edges are straight before sewing:Checking section edges are straight Checking section edges are straight 2

All sections are sewn together except 2 which are pinned.  Because this is a class sample, I’m not going to sew the last 2 sections or remove the freezer paper.

all sections pieced, 2 sections pinned not sewn, freezer paper still attached all sections pieced, 2 sections pinned not sewn, freezer paper still attached - back

 

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On my design wall – plans for April – 2013.04.03

Posted on April 3, 2013 by TerryAske

 

I have several projects in the works right now, all very different techniques.

I’ll be teaching a workshop on freezer paper piecing at the end of the month, and I’m working on a class sample.  I’m going to make bright red leaves on a light taupe background.

Japanese Maple leaves-001   DSCN0665-001

 

I’m starting a dog portrait of this Airedale Terrier.  Her name is Courtenay.

IMG_5910 DSCN0659

 

Last June the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild challenged members to make blocks with our guild colors.  I volunteered to piece the blocks into a guild quilt.

DSC02989 5226505647_475b61f2e6_m

 

On top of all that, there are four quilt shows with entry deadlines in April that I’d like to enter, and for at least one of them, I was thinking of starting a new quilt!

 

As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday.  Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.

Quiltsy WiP    WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced  

 

 

Posted in Art quilts, Modern quilts, On my design wall, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Quilt shows and publications – 2013.04.02

Posted on April 2, 2013 by TerryAske

 

Tonight I’ll be attending the opening reception of the 5th annual juried exhibition “Cherry Blossoms: A Textile Translation”.  The show runs to April 21st, at the Silk Purse Gallery in West Vancouver.  http://silkpurse.ca/exhibitions/    This is my entry in the show.

cherry blossom 2013 poster        Terry Aske_Cherry Blossom on Gold Background

 

TerryAske_GoodMorning_fullI’ve heard from several people that they’ve seen my Good Morning quilt in the April/May issue of Quilting Arts Magazine.  I glanced through the issue last weekend at the bookstore, and it looks like it’s full of great articles – but I’m still waiting to receive mine in the mail.

 

DSCN0094

I did buy the March/April issue of Cloth Paper Scissors which includes the Art Supply Doodle reader challenge results – and my little thread-painted piece can be found on page 85, along with many other fabulous doodles.

 

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Off my design wall – Finished projects – 2013.3.29

Posted on March 29, 2013 by TerryAske

I’m featured on the Janome Life blog this month – check it out.

My two entries for the Quilting Arts “Text Me!” reader challenge are finished and submitted.  They are each 8 x 8 inches, so I thought a really narrow binding would look best.  I cut a strip 7/8″ wide and fused a 1/2″ strip of Steam a Seam along one edge.  I sewed the binding to the front of the quilt with an 1/8″ seam, turned it to the back and fused it in place.  It worked really well.

TerryAske-RainyDayPeople4   TerryAske-Punctuation!

 

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On my design wall – 2013.03.27

Posted on March 27, 2013 by TerryAske

CC4E9F25-E5D6-46CE-89D8-462BF7DEC11B.pngAnother Quilting Arts magazine reader challenge has caught my fancy – “Text Me!”.  The challenge is to create an 8″ x 8″ inch quilt inspired by text.  That made me think of my original Rainy Day People, which I created last fall in my Houston hotel room, and used a newspaper as the background for the photo.  The newspaper text reminded me of rain.

So here comes Rainy Day People 4, with text as rain!   And I thought of another idea involving text and punctuation that I’m also going to submit.  They both have to be finished and images emailed by March 29th.

DSCN0634    DSCN0642

As always, I’m linking up with these blogs for WiP Wednesday.  Click on the buttons below to see all the people participating and check out their projects.

Quiltsy WiP    WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced  

Posted in Art quilts, On my design wall, WiP Wednesday | Tagged , , | 17 Comments