Go!Baby Play Day

Go! Baby Play Day
What's a Go!Baby? It's a die cutter for fabric. My friend, Karen Kay Buckley, gave me (yes, she sent it to me) one in December. She knew I was excited about it at Quilt Market. Well actually I was excited because it could cut Perfect Circles that I thought would team up "PERFECTLY" with HER Perfect Circles (TM).

Well I played and cut circles (because that's the only die I had). But then I began thinking creatively "couldn't I cut twice and get some other shapes? By repositioning a cut circle, I could cut marquis shapes and crescents.



And so I did and ended up with lots.

Well luckily I had a fusible on the back (which wasn't always a good idea because they stuck together). I experimented with a symmetrical design by creasing the fabric and adding the shapes...



Then I played with the leftovers in an asymmetrical design...Too much fun. Fused it down and now I have to figure out how I'll get those edge to stay put.

I'm hoping to add lots of dotZ to both projects. It'll be great to show in my NEW "DoodleZenDotZ" workshop - doodling exercises, bobbin embroidery of one design, and lots and lots of dotting techniques with paint.

Stay tuned to see what happens next....

DoddleZenDotZ

Way back last year (May 2009) my post was about some doodles I had done. After stitching out the design as bobbin embroidery with YLI Candlelight Yarn, I decided to fill it in the dotZ of paint. I had so much fun doing this.

So now I'm developing a new workshop called DoodleZenDotZ. First we'll explore LOTS of different techniques for creating doodle designs. One design will be enlarged and bobbin embroidered. Then we'll explore several different dotting techniques. And finally we'll add the dots of paint to the bobbin embroidered doodle. Everyone will leave with an original design.

I'm scheduled to teach this as a 2 Day workshop at Quilting in the Desert in Phoenix, AZ in January 2011 and then again in New Zealand at the Quilt Symposium. We will have 2 days of too much fun. It will also be available as a 1 Day workshop. I will also have a Design Only (no sewing) version of this workshop.

Working on a NEW quilt

DigiBobbETM is so much fun. It's digitized bobbin embroidery. I designed this quilt using Bernina embroidery software. The designs were sent to the embroidery machine and stitched out upside down with YLI Candlelight Yarn in the bobbin.

But I wanted to embellish it more so I painted in the areas with metallic gold DecoArt SoSoft Fabric Paint. Added some fuschia colored iron-on rhinestones. Ooooo....Does that look good.

But it still looked like it needed more. I decided to add some magenta foiling. I'm really liking in now.

The "Dotz" will be in a new workshop I'm developing - something like "Doodles N DotZ". Sound like fun?

I've Been Quilted - NUDE

Every now and then in life we do something crazy - I posed NUDE. Ferret mentioned she needed a "real" woman's figure to do as a quilt - so I volunteered. It took lots of guts to get the robe off, but once I did, I got comfortable. My daughter Heather took the photos - as an artist she knew what to look for. My only worry was sending nude photos via email. I made sure the photos went to Ferret's home computer - it would NOT have been funny had they landed on her work computer, ha, ha. Of course my girls tell me my nude photo is somewhere out in cyberspace - so much for "quilt porn", ha ha.

See the full quilt (in all my glory) on Ferret's blog
http://www.ferfab.co.uk/portfolio/quilts/ (about half way down the page)

The quilt was hung proudly next to the quilt she did of my daughter - from a photo which I had been trying to make into a quilt. Here's a link to the photo Ferret used for Carly's quilt.

http://bonniequilts.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-portrait.html

Ferret's quilts were displayed in her gallery space at the Birmingham Show in England. My quilt of my daughter still hangs on the wall unfinished.

Creativity Spark - Take an Internet Walk

I have just discovered an amazing way to really *Spark* a creative slump. I call it taking a walking on the internet. So here's how it goes:
1 - Go to Google and select the Image search
2 - Pick a design word to search - a couple of my favorites are Decorative, Floral, Swirls....
3 - This will display a bunch of images. I quickly scan to see if there's anything inspiring. When I see something that sparks something I click on it.
4 - Once I have a larger image, I right click the image and Save to a folder I set up called Inspirations.
5 - The go back to the search page, click next and see what else you find.
6 - When I get tired of this, maybe 30 pages in, I go take a look at my Inspiration folder. I print out a bunch and then go doodling using the printed designs ONLY as inspiration.

So where did this lead? On one of my searches on the word "Rosemaling" I found a bunch of images.
Here's a couple doodles I did. I decided to create some design elements that I could combine.

Then I enlarged the designs and played with them to create a full size design that I traced on a piece of Pellon Decor Bond. This was fused to the back of a black piece of fabric. The design was stitched out with Candlelight in the bobbin (like my DigiBobbETM).

Then I plan to paint in some of the spaces with DecoArt SoSoft Fabric Paints. This is like a class I teach called "Stitch N Glitz" (which BTW I'll be teaching in Vermont and Long Beach, CA).

So here a peek at a the stitched design I have in the works. Wait till you see what else I'm doing to it......

Sliding Design Wall

There's some talk about design walls on QuiltArt and I wanted to show you mine. You can see that I did not bother to neaten up before taking the photo.

The great thing is my 2 design walls are mounted IN FRONT of my sliding door closets that hold all of my fabric. The beauty of this is that the wall serves 2 purposes - fabric storage AND design wall. Keeping fabric behind closed doors helps prevent fading (if you can remember to close them that is).

Here's how I did it:
- Covered to sheets of insulation with felt.
- Mounted these to paneling the same size (this gives the sliding door wheels something to screw into
- Installed 2 sliding door kit rails to the ceiling (in a line to create the longest possible continuous rail)
- Hung the design walls on the rails

Pine Needles Technique

Someone on QuiltArt asked about a textural technique to create pine needles. I remember experimenting years ago - and I keep my experiments in a notebook (in plastic page protectors). So I dug this sample out to show. It's not the best colors - it's more about the technique - and it also looks a little messy, but you'll get the idea.

In this example the pine needles were added to a silk ribbon done with my "Twisted Branch" technique found in my "Fantasy Floral Quilts" book (which is out of print, but there a few copies left on our website).

1 - I used YLI Pearl Crown Rayon thread. I pulled off a couple long pieces (maybe 1-2 yards) and pulled them under a medium temp iron to remove the coiling. I wound the thread around a my hand to get a bunch of threads lined up. Tape the threads together temporarily until it's stitched down.

2 - Then cut the ends so the thread tails are free giving the look of pine needles. I'd love to see photos if you try this technique - bonnie@bonniemccaffery.com.