by the C 4 u

Saturday, January 18, 2020

T-shirt quilt finished, plus more

Got this finished in early August but haven't had a chance to post about it.
84 squares, 42 per side.
It worked really well in the van during our trip from Aug 13-Oct 26.

From another angle:

The other side:

Since we got home I've been thinking about bead embroidery on photos printed on fabric.
To warm up, I dabbled with some of the beads I brought on the trip but never used, and some silk I'd ice-dyed a year or two ago.

Now working on using the heron from this image which I took on vacation on blue and white silk:

I had to zoom way in on the original image but the effect is interesting.
I drew the heron freehand on the silk(which came out ok!), then embroidered the edges and started filling in with beads. Will post finished piece when it is done.
Also have one more piece of dyed silk I'd like to try embroidering onto it a woodland scene.

Sunday, February 3, 2019

Starting again

Finally dug out the T-shirt quilt and fixed my mistake (somehow a 3" strip got mixed in causing a huge offset) and attached the 3 completed rows together:

To the left is the 'rag' side.

On the right is the other side.

Funny how a project can go 'stagnant' because of a relatively small problem. And just a little nudge (this time from a YouTube channel I like to watch) can get you going again... thanks Jo!
Attaching the third row was slightly unwieldy. I've got 4 more rows. I think I'll assemble them into two-row chunks and then assemble with 3 more long seams. Adding each row will just make it more and more difficult to handle. I should probably move the machine to a wide open space for those last seams.

In the photo above it already nearly covers a queen sized bed! This thing will be huge. It is going in the van:

Things that got in my way of starting this last week included, hemming the sleeves of my new bathrobe which were ridiculously long, and making this cute thing:

It is a hanging set of bins that uses velcro to attach to the curtain rod. The thing is I used fabric samples and hardly cut anything. It was great to use a bunch of the samples. I used this tutorial which was lots of fun. Kind of a magical mystery while assembling and finally, voila! I'll be making more of these.
Also found a video to make these cute flowers(the flower part is at about 13:30;hmm, was supposed to fold the fabric strip in half to make loops... next time!):

I used a strip of an old bed sheet and a pair of rescued rhinestone earrings and practiced my glue-gun skills which are somewhat lacking. In the background is a square from the t-shirt quilt, a shirt from an aerobic dance class I took circa 1981. The shirt was hopelessly small, I had to add strips to the sides to make it big enough.
Here are more squares waiting to get into the quilt:

oops, and a peek at how overcrowded my 'studio' is. Too many shells, too much fabric, not enough time to create. Only 7 months until I retire and can play more!
I'm also covering some cardboard boxes with fabric. Many tutorials out there including the one with the flower linked above. I'll post the ones I tried and the results soon.
Today off to breakfast with a friend and then off to a fabric sale. I'm going to try to be good. Last year I only spend $10.

PS spent $30 but $20 on yarn and $10 on fabric, not bad. Time to find a good knitting pattern....