Fused

The last ten days have been all about fusing. Some fabric I fused in squares and then used them to create the summer palette for my A River Runs Through quilt. I soon found that although I like the look of a wide variety of fabric brings to the quilt - it was just taking too long and I am on a deadline.

 

Luckily for the fall version of the quilt I had several fabrics which have a wide variety of fall colors in just one piece and I was able to use bigger pieces and it moved along much faster.

I still need to add a row of trees as the very bottom of the fall quilt and then on to machine quilting. I had thought that I would slice these two apart and sew them together before I quilted but I am now thinking that I need to be able to see both color pallets and designs to be able to get the quilting right.

That means I will spend the next week quilting and then take a rotary cutter to each and cut them into 2 1/2" strips to sew alternating summer and fall strips. I hope I am brave enough to do that!

Linking to Off the Wall Fridays with Nina Marie Sayre. 

*This project is funded as a cooperative venture of Alleghany Arts Council, Ashe County Arts Council, Watauga Arts Council, and Wilkes Art Gallery with support from a Regional Artist Project Grant of the North Carolina Arts Council, a Division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resource.

Working Title: A River Runs Through

I've been working on my quilt for the Ashe County Arts Council exhibit Anything Goes! and made good progress today. The quilt will be three dimensional and will actually be made of two tops pieced together before they are quilted. The general drawing for the piece has been made:

and I started pulling fabrics for the first on the two tops. I plan on using summer colors for one and fall colors for the other.

The quilt is going to be an impressionistic view of the New River that runs through Ashe County.  The New River is thought to be the second oldest river in the world and runs just down the road from our farm.

*This project is funded as a cooperative venture of Alleghany Arts Council, Ashe County Arts Council, Watauga Arts Council, and Wilkes Art Gallery with support from a Regional Artist Project Grant of the North Carolina Arts Council, a Division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resource.

Diaboleite on the Needles

What a surprise - we once again are struggling through bad weather. This snow/sleet/ice storm is not as bad as we had earlier this winter season, but it made for interesting morning chores on the farm. It was quite an effort to get up the hill to our alpaca barn as for every step I took up, I slid about a half a step back down!

I am taking a slight break from quilting - until I get the studio straight after a crazy fall/holiday season (I can see two out of the four main tables now) and it is a bit warmer. So knitting is taking the front row for a while.

Depending upon when and where I am knitting, I like to have different projects to work on. Lately I have been working on my Time Turner Shawl using our hand dyed sock yarn in the colorway Diaboleite. We currently have only DK and Bulky in that colorway on our Etsy store, but hope to dye more sock yarn soon.

Cast on Wednesday, January 9, 2019

As of Sunday, January 13, 2019

I have done most of the knitting while watching Wallander but I am now up to the lace part of the pattern, so I will switch it out for my Viajante shawl so I can watch the show and not my knitting. I will probably be knitting Viajante forever as it is 1600 yards of fingering weight yarn and I think I am only about a third of the way through the yarn. 

Project Finished!

I finally finished the pillow shams for the raffle quilt that will drawn for tomorrow!

I was able to get quite a bit of practice in using my ruler and ruler foot. I am fairly good a free motion quilting but really liked to ability to get straight lines in any direction. I can't wait to play with the others that I purchased.

*This project is funded as a cooperative venture of Alleghany Arts Council, Ashe County Arts Council, Watauga Arts Council, and Wilkes Art Gallery with support from a Regional Artist Project Grant of the North Carolina Arts Council, a Division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resource.

A New Year and Working a New Skill

2019 started with a little more farm work than I had planned. We had two roosters who decided on New Years Day that they didn't like each other any more and it was all out war. One of them has been relocated to our alpaca barn and is settling in nicely with the big boys. But setting up his new home and acclimatizing everyone has taken some time.

But I have been slowly working on the pillow shams for the drawing that will be held next Thursday. They are layered, the stitch-in-the-ditch work is done and today I started working with my ruler foot for the first time since early last year.

I purchased the ruler foot for my Bernina in January 2018 and did a little with it but never really had time to play. I am doing a simple linear ocean wave pattern in the log cabin blocks and finished about a third of each sham today. I plan on changing to a lighter color thread to finish the rest of the blocks.

I am using one of the Angela Walters rulers (Slim) that I was able purchase with my grant from the Ashe County Arts Council.* It was easy to use than the other ruler I have and I am excited to spend more time improving my new skill and use it on one of my art quilts.

*This project is funded as a cooperative venture of Alleghany Arts Council, Ashe County Arts Council, Watauga Arts Council, and Wilkes Art Gallery with support from a Regional Artist Project Grant of the North Carolina Arts Council, a Division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resource.

Good Fortune for 2019

First of all I would like to wish all a Happy New Year and Good Fortune for 2019!

This is the earliest I have finished (at least worked on) a Good Fortune clue this year. I only did two sheets worth - but until the reveal and I decide how to use the pieces I have made - I did not want to make a lot of strips.  Although I think they could be used in other quilts.

I have enjoyed the past month of working in my studio and restarting my blog. Having to write something every day has forced me to make time to work in the studio on quilting (for the most part) and not let the farm continue to take over my life.

2019 - Balance.

Not only work but play.
Not only fiber but fabric.
Not only stress but peace.

Day 24 of the of the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - the last I will link to. In 2019 my goal is to write between 2 and 3 times a week. I will be curious to look back in December next year and see how I did.

Pieced!

A very productive day in the studio - the pillow shams are finally pieced and ready to be quilted!

I plan on quilting them on New Year's Day, for what every you do on New Year's Day is what the year will bring. And I would like the 2019 to be a year of much quilting.  I have new rulers that I purchase as part of a grant I was awarded from our local arts council and have not yet been able to work with them.  I acquired a ruler foot for my Bernina in January and it has seen very little use, so hopefully this small project will get me going.  

Day 23 of the of the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge - again I missed a few days but December is a hard month the try a daily challenge. That being said, I am enjoying documenting my progress in my studio and hope to continue - if not daily, several times a week next year.