CHALLENGE: Frost

The first challenge for my 12x12 group for 2013 was "Frost".

The Frost challenge began smoothly.  I took hand-dyed fabric (ice blue) and layered hand-dyed organza (sage colored) on top.  I painted white snowflakes over the surface.  I then cut the piece into 3" x 3" squares (3.5" x 3.5" with seam allowances).  I sewed them together haphazardly and couched a thin silver braid around the snowflake edges.  I then sewed a inner and outer borders around the snowflakes using a silver rayon thread.  This is what the final background looks like...

I love the look of the background, but it needed something more and here is where my snag came.  I have hit many dead-end trials and ideas.  One of my trials was to add a cardinal bird sitting on a branch; here is my cardinal....

I really like the cardinal, but felt its style did not match the style of the snowflake background.  So, the cardinal "flew the coup".

I finished the piece by adding a butterfly, and here it is.....

Enjoy!  Kathy

CHALLENGE: Whimsical

One of the challenges for my 12X12 group earlier this year was "Whimsical."
I was so excited about the Whimsical Challenge and immediately began three months ago what I thought would be a brilliant idea.  I worked on the piece for bit-by-bit, but it seemed to never come together, soooooooooo finally last week, I ditched it and came up with the piece below.

I like that it is a happy and colorful piece. Besides the binding, the quilt began with all white fabric. You also may notice that I varnished the quilt- I just felt it needed the shine; I am glad I did.  I am not quite done with it yet; besides removing the painter's tape on the back holding the binding down on the back :-|, I would like to add a few beads on it.

CHALLENGE: Celestial

The latest challenge for our 12 x 12 group was "Celestial". For my celestial piece, started with white fabric and dyed it a soft blue. I selected  four different colors of Jacquard Dye-Na-Flow for each color, I ironed creases into fabric to form a star-like impression.

I loaded up a paint brush with Dye-Na-Flow and lightly moved it along the top of the creases until the paint had been used. I repeated the process for each of the four stars.

After the dyeing process, I machine echoed stitched around the stars.

Lastly, I hand embroidered each of the stars with a contrasting colored embroidery thread.

Enjoy! Kathy

DESIGN: Spoonflower and Embroidery

The latest challenge for our 12 x 12 group is 'Magnification'; take our cameras and zoooooom in.  At first, I thought this was just terrific, but as time passed, none of the close-up photos I took inspired me to action.

Finally, thirty days prior to the challenge's deadline, I knew I needed to jump into action.  Ah-ha!  I just planted flowers that day.  I grabbed my camera and took photos that did inspire me.  Here is the photo that was used for my piece:

After a little rotate and crop, I uploaded the image to spoonflower.com to have it printed on fabric.  If you have you have not tried Spoonflower, you should give it a try- it is easy to use, your fabric arrives in about 5-10 days, and the quality is wonderful!  I have printed on fabric with my inkjet printer, but Spoonflower lets you get a larger piece of fabric with much, much better quality.  This is picture of the fat quarter sized fabric printed with my flower:

The next steps went quite quickly...I stitched my heart out. I machine quilted, hand-embroidered , and added hand-dyed velvet for the border and flower center.  AND this is my final piece: