Week 51

Saw this on Quilting Arts TV show. Painted cotton batting. When dry it feels like heavy felt. I cut two balls at the same time and then fused to stabilizer. Then satin stitched. OK for wall hanging. Would not be good to wash it. Very easy and fun but kind of time consuming if you factor in the time waiting for the paint to dry.

Journal block 51

Appliqued without using fusible web, it is much easier to stitch when it is fused. Guess this is a what not to do journal block.

Week 50

The pattern was drawn on paper and then pieced from the back. Not as easy as I thought but fun.

Week 49

The word for this month is STAR. I fused lame onto micro suede and topstitched.

Journal block 50

Word of the month Star. Batting on bottom, jersey on top.

Journal block 49

After seeing Connie's fun block with the twin needles I just had to try it also. I used light blue fabric, dark blue thread and a 4.0/100 twin needle. The picture with the dark blue stitches is the reverse side, the stitches are not great but I rather like the look. May need to research this to find out how to make them look better, that is if I decide to do this again.

Week 48

Using a twin needle. Not sure the size, but it was the largest I could find when I purchased it. Red thread on cream fabric. Interesting effect. Looks much better in person.

Journal block 48

I saw this while I was looking for inspiration and thought it would be easy, it wasn't, it is called interlocking squares.

Journal block 47

Used up bits and pieces of material I found while cleaning my sewing area, all is fused.

Journal block 46

I used oil pastels to color the apples and basket, then did free motion to outline and stipple the background.

Week 47

Three little pears all standing in a row. I made a paper pattern of a pear. Split it down the middle. Taped the two pieces on a piece of paper with .5" space down cut center. Cut three pears with this pattern. Stacked and Cut all three down middle. Sewed and fused adding stem. Zigzagged on fabric backed with cotton batting.

Week 46

My version of bugs in a jar. Rather than pieced, this is appliqued using novelty fabric. Cotton batting. Free motion quilted.

Week 45

Word of the month is FRUIT.
I am trying my hand at airbrushing. The red apple was the first I painted. I am learning with each attempt.

Journal block 45 Word of the month Fruit

I used crayons to color the cherries, then backed with a piece of flannel and did free motion around them.

Week 44

I have wanted to try this method for a while. The wall hanging I have seen have several long strips sewn together then cut in strips. Then stiched similar to the pattern here. This was an easy way for me to try the pattern. This is fleece with stripes. I cut the fleece, moving them down or up one color and zigzaged. Not as easy as I thought because the fleece stretches. Also, the second strip from the left was moved down one color too many. Anyway, the effect is the same. May try this for real one day. This sample is certainly not my best work but glad I tried it.

Journal block 44

This is a paper cut out of a butterfly fused on black fabric which was cut a bit bigger than the paper and fused on off white fabric. Layered with flannel backing fabric and shadow stitched.

Journal block 43

Four 3 1/4 inch squares with ribbon tied in a knot and sewn to the edges. An after thought was that it probably look better sewn across the two of corners of each block on the diagonal.

Journal block 42

Black fabric cut out and fused on blue background fabric.

Journal block 41

Word of the month, Fall, black fabric sprayed with bleach then the leaves were fused on.

Journal block 40

Oops on making yo-yo's turned into a flower.

Journal block 39. Two squares of fabric, the back piece is 3 " the top is 5 1/2 ", the larger square is folded in the middle on each side to fit the smaller square.

Week 43

The center is the remnants of a project that just didn't work for me in the past. The borders are upholstery fabric left over from cushions on my kitchen chairs. Is this recycling??

Week 42

This is novelty fabric stitched on fleece type batting using various hem stitches.Love the happy colors. Happy Halloween!!

Week 41

The word for the month of Oct. is FALL.
I used two leaves I picked up on vacation last year. I placed the leaves on black cotton blend fabric and misted with bleach. I left the solution on the fabric for approximately 5 minutes then removed the leaves and rinsed. The gold leaf is one of the originals and the other is fused. I did not stitch the fabric as this was more of test in relief dying than sewing.

Week 40

The pinwheel was made from triangles sewed on paper Triangles on a Roll. This is good stuff. You can sew many triangles in very little time. I would hate to go back to the old way of making triangles.
The center is a yoyo. Note, cut the circle about twice as big as you want the finished yoyo.

Week 39

Free motion outline on novelty fabric.

Week 38

The brown bison is fused on black then cutting the black close to the brown, leaving just enough to make an outline. Then fused on background fabric. This would be good when appliqueing busy fabrics.
Free motion echo quilting using two layers of flannel and the batting.

Week 37

I was on vacation during most of last month so am way behind on my weekly journal blocks.  The word of the month for Sept was TREE and since I was in Wyoming and Montana it was the perfect word for me.  This picture is one I took in Yellowstone Park. I printed it on 100% cotton treated with bubble jet. There are special considerations to printing on fabric. This was fused on freezer paper and printed on an HP bottom load printer. Took a couple of tries to keep the paper from jamming.  I free motion quilted with invisible thread using flannel for the batting. 





The picture of the dog is from a previous journal using the same process.  The picture of the two women (my mother and her sister) was printed on poly chiffon. I did not want to quilt on the faces as the chiffon shifts and I was concerned with distortion. A do over would be to start the quilting closer to the middle and work out as there was some puckering in the center.  Notice the pink streaks on the picture. I think this was caused by steam from the iron. So if ironing the printed fabric it would be a good idea to use a dry iron.

Journaling with My Sister

When my sister first told me about the journal blocks, sewing was not the first thing that came to mind. My sewing experience has more need to than want to. But I must say it has been a fun experience using a variety of mediums, learning new skills, doing our word journals which is always very interesting and the best part of it is the common interest we now share.

Journaling with my sister

I started sewing when I was a teen. I sewed all the years my children were growing up, mainly out of necessity. In the past ten years I have been sewing mostly for my own pleasure. Mostly fabric art quilts and some home dec.In Dec 2007 I was talking to my sister about an article I saw in Quilting Arts magazine about journal sqares. We decided we would each make a journal square each week. We started out with a  6"x8" but abandoned that size and settled on any size that would fit in a sheet protector. Anyway....this was an oppurtunity to try different techniques on a small scale without committing to a project that would take months to finish or not finish. We started the project the first week of 2008.  On the first full week of each month we take turning selecting a word and that is the theme we both use that week. This has been so much fun. I have learned methods that I love,that I hate and that I will try again with a different twist.The best thing is working with my sister. We are very different and very similar. She has always been the detail oriented artistic  one.  It has been interesting to see how we each take the same word and come up with different approaches. We agree most of the time and agree to disagree with understanding the rest of the times. We have a bond that only siblings understand.
The idea of the blog is to post pictures of our weekly journals with comments.