Good Bye

Today I had to part from a longtime companion in my life, the last of my pets my late husband and I shared. Baby the cat isn't here anymore. She was 18 and a half year old, was never ill and now had develloped a fast growing lung cancer. She was a wonderful little cat and loved our dogs. Farewell! You'll never be forgotten.

She had a very personal definiton of cozy places

A Wedding Quilt

It's been a while but I was busy. There was the class with Jane LaFazio "Designs from Life", the heat outside with something about 40° C and just a few other things. BUT now the new video of Jane came out "Wet Felting Essentials". Watched it with itchy fingers, collected my felting stuff (plus some new tools) and got started. That was fun!!!
This is what it looked like after it was dry and before I started embellishing:

And then I got creative and wild:

I haven't decided yet wether I add a background fabric or leave it like this. It has a story anyway. Working on it I thought of  the ancestors I found when I did some research. There are some that are 6 generations back. They got married March 10 in 1744 in Tüllingen and some years ago I had the chance to look into the parish register when I was doing some family search. The picture I took of the matrimonial record was printed on fabric and then added in pieces to the felt and I stitched their names on the top right side of the piece. So here is the post-mortem wedding quilt.
Closeups:

FI-NA-LLY!!

My long term babyquilt for my partner's grandson (his mother calls me Grandma #3 :-)) is finally ready to be given away. There are some minor details that would'nt win any prices but counting in the fact that my sewing studio is still under construction, I did have my Bernina but on a narrow table that started to jump every time I sewed to fast plus that chair I sat on was way too low it's an achievement and I'm satisfied with it.

Now I can finish the next one - those little birds. They have to be quilted and a binding added.

Plus I'm working on a small piece with design motives from the new lesson "From the Sea" (Jane LaFazio). This was my page:

The motive of the snail shell on the left side made a little design on fabric on its own, I made stamps and stencils from all of them and I'm pretty curious what the result will be in the end.

I had some trouble with the lesson before "From the mountain" with my drawing of a beech nut that was absolutely ugly. But with the help and inspiration of Jane all turned out well and now I can look at the page with content :-) Here is before and after:

Beechnut in center too dark

What a difference a cone makes ...

This was the  second try on the pod theme:

There are lots of ideas and designs I'll keep from this class to use and to devellop further.

The last three

All birds are decorated. Only number 19 waits for its legs, they will reach onto the binding. Now the little quilt needs to be finished off - if I can get around to it as it's really hot at the  moment and my sewing machin is way up under the roof ... By the way, that green something at the top is a grasshopper under construction, I wonder what it will look like when it's done.

This is my arrangement for lesson 3 "from the factory/garage" with Jane LaFazio. Very different from drawing tomatoes but lots of fun!

Number 17 and 18, tomatoes and garden life

Needless to mention that it's raining again. But before that I managed to plant some vegetables in my garden on Friday, started lesson 2 of  "Designs from Life" and finished two more birds.
Here are some impressions from the garden:

These are finished number 17 and 18:

Last but not least this is my tomato page:

I will doodle with the shapes for design some more to carve more stamps once my supply arrives ...

Stitching, sketching versus garden ...

Due to the changing weather I do have to set priorities and that's for today to earth up my potatoes and come back for number 17 later. There are also flowers I want to draw before the next lesson starts tomorrow. Sounds like stress? Not really, I'm still having fun - except for the snails who were the first ones to discover the ripe strawberries. But I got most of it!! That's the delicious time of the year.

Number 15

Number 16

Five more to go.

Here's the second flower attempt, I have to do some more doodling for getting design elements from it. Going from realistic to abstract is really difficult for me.

Number 14 - bling, bling

Number 14 is obviously vain. So his name will be bling-bling.

Yesterday my new class with Jane LaFazio started, "Designs from Life". That's a good opportunity to finish those peonies I started in April. I missed big open flowers though because it rained and all the beauty was gone when it stopped. But I added the seeds or what will be the seeds when they are dry. They look pretty interesting but usually I cut them off because they take to much energy from the plants.

And this is the first attempt on lesson 1 - from my flower garden. I chose an aquilegia or colombine to draw (not the very complicated ones that look like prima ballerinas) - just a plain one. Here's what I came up with.

I got confused with perspective at the top ones, the inside look led to carving a stamp and I just played around with some details and had fun!

Number 13

And again some relatively undefined shape turns into a proud bird. I didn't know first what colors to choose because of the surrounding ones so I settled for black and yellow/gold. Now this Mister blends in harmonious with the others around him. The panel is gaining weight!

It's a girl!

Funny how these birds choose their personality. Number 12 is a girl. Maybe it's a question of lace and eye makeup.
I didn't have time to do one yesterday - we went for a three hour ride on the new motorbike (BMW R nine T), me on the pillion seat. Second time ever, we had fun and me a very hard time to get of the bike when we returned home. Felt like a hundred years old ....

Good use for weather that's not so nice

I'll raincoat and hat for my walks with the dogs today - but this morning I created bird number 11. The stitch I used for his "hair" is a little unusual and I don't know if it really exists. It's something like standup bullion knot with one cast on loop in the end. Not very resilient but fun looking.
This is the little guy:

Guess I should take care of some laundry now, clean the house and think about what for supper .....

Number 9 and 10

So here come the next two - I got really fancy with the wing of number 9. Something I learned in Sharon Boggon's Sumptuous Surfaces class and adding it on this small spot seemed really appealing because it's very time consuming.

Here's a detailed version of the wing:

Eleven more to go!!

And one more

Here's number eight and now I think I'll just sink on the sofa and watch tv :-)

Pink Lady

Number 7 is done - not sure if I like the edge around the neck like it is. But the next bird is already cooking :-)

used stitches: buttonhole wheels plus beaded buttonhole wheels, palestrina stitch, pekinese stitch, stem stitch, cast on stitch, fly stitch, boullion stitch, french knots, beaded feather stitch

Birds on the run

The weather was just for stitching (raining cats and dogs all day) so I did. Here are three more of the birds. To explain what the whole thing is about - it's a panel of woolen fabric with (in my case) 21 appliqued birds. That was homework befor class started. Now comes the fun part - using stitches in a creative manner to create one of a kind birds. Of course we didn't finish it in those two days but Sue Spargo was explaining and helping and just a wonderful person to be with.
So here's what the panel looks like:

In my version there's a bird running against the grain

The unembellished birds look rather dull and boring was my impression when I had appliqued them down. But this changes the moment they get their stitched personality. That's the fun thing about it.
When all have come to life I'll think about what to do for a border and quilting it.

These two are from yesterday and the rest of Saturday:

And here comes my Dandy:

I'm having so much fun with them!

Bird Play

Just had two wonderful days in company of ladies who like stitching and quilting like myself - the class with Sue Spargo "Bird Play". Now I'm rather tired and exhausted after seven hours of stitching but I want to share the three little birds that are done.

Spring in bloom

Here's a short one - I'm still busy sketching, gardening (potatoes are in the ground) mostly picking weed :-( , and fighting with that baby quilt. Friday and Saturday I attend a workshop with Sue Spargo "Bird Play" which obviously will be great fun.
So these are my front yard tulips with a touch of muscaries, right now the "models" I work with are my tree peonies from bud to flower before the next class with Jane starts.

Update

Once again I'm very busy - baby quilt on the edge of finished and I started a new class with Jane LaFazio "Sketching and Watercolor in a Mixed Media Journal". I just love it. Here are some arrangements from our previous lessons.

Something from Nature

Everyday Objects (1)

Everyday Objects (2)

Eight Objects Eight Ways (1)

second attempt to the same techniques

 This way it doesn't really matter much that the weather is still cold and very unsetteled as long as I have paper, pencil, PIT Artist pen and my waterbrush (quite an invention!!).