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!