Just Quilting Stuff and Random Art Play

Just doing a couple small quilt projects. 

Another Guy Block. 

And a pink thing. 

Now I'm working on a random scrap thing. 

I haven't felt very artistically motivated lately but I have been practicing some pattern making and playing with new art materials. 

This little book has lots of ideas from patterns in nature. 

I've been sketching some patterns from examples in the book. I see this as filling my internal database with patterns and memorizing them by drawing them. Internalizing art techniques is very different than studying a new programming language or memorizing science facts. 

And I found this fun bleeding tissue paper. I'm not sure exactly what I will do with It but I see some possibilities. 

These colored pages are screaming for more artwork. 

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen

The Guy Block

I haven't done too much in the past couple weeks. Distracted by springtime, gardening, video's and some new craft supplies I guess. But I did reorganize one of my fabric cabinets while I was straightening up my craft room and pulled out this assortment of rocks, wood and nature themed fabrics. 

I don't remember having a specific purpose for these pieces but they are an interesting addition to my fabric collection. And I have to admit I 'collect' fabric like someone else might collect salt and pepper shakers or teapots. I don't just buy fabric for projects, specific or imagined. I often buy a piece of fabric because it is beautiful, unique, a color I love, or a theme I'm attracted to. Lately I've been picking up colorful geometric patterns and anything map related.

 I may or may not use them in a project anytime soon or ever but I enjoy having them, looking at them and may just pulled them out and use them in an out-of-the-blue project one day just like I did with the pile of stone, bricks, rocks and wood prints. 

I call it the The Guy Block because it's seems manly and I made it for a guy. No pink colors or flowers. Just rocks, bricks, wood, and well, ferns. 

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen

Choosing Colors for Projects

I'm working on defining a color scheme to match the Villeroy & Boch Design Naif porcelain. 

It took me many years, piece by piece, to collect a full set of this design.  

Snapshot of some of the images on the dishes in this collection.

The goal is have a color guide to pick fabric to make matching placemats or other dinning room accessories. 

I use an app called ArtRage on my iPad to pick these colors.  I import a photo of one of the dishes in the collection and use a feature in the app to select and match the color with a color picker.  Then I digitally paint these colors to create a sample file I can print out to use as a guide to match against when looking through fabric choices. 

This sample was made using the paint brush tool in ArtRage. 

The pastel crayon tool. 

The wax rayon tool color. 

The paint roller tool. 

The ink pen tool. 

I used multiple different tools to paint the colors because even though the colors are all the same, the tool used gives a different appearance.  

I'm considering these basic colors to work with. 

Once I decide on the colors I wish to accentuate, I may design companion fabric in a simple geometric pattern to make other kitchen and dinning room accessories. For example color coordinated dish towels or napkins. I could also design a tablecloth pattern and have it printed at Spoonflower. 

These are all just ideas and possibilities but I plan to simply start with finding matching fabric in these general colors to make a table runner and placemats. 

Thanks for reading.

Aileen

A Bunch of Little Quilts

I've been sewing up a small storm of small quilt projects.  First I used up all the leftover fabric from the St. Patrick's Day placemats project that I showed in my last post.  Then I used up some random pastel squares and triangles I had from other projects with some old Easter egg fabric to make a couple Easter themed placemats. 

The completed green mini quilts:

Random scraps.

Tiny one inch squares.

Some leftover two inch squares.

More random leftover pieces.

This Easter egg fabric I've had for several years. I made a quilt square as a table centerpiece with it several years ago and I look at it now and wonder what was I thinking.  It's so bright!

I used fabric colors that matched the bright colors in the print and they really really stand out. When I decided to do something more with this fabric I choose matching pastel fabric and less of the Easter egg print to tone down the overall effect and these Easter placemats are much calmer. 

There are leftover pieces from at least seven different projects in this block.

But the backs of these quilts are bold. 

Besides doing holiday themed placemats, I also put together a quick one that my son would like from this neat matrix like fabric. No patchwork here, just neat prints. 

Thanks for reading.

Aileen Biser

Green Spring Quilts

I ended up making several projects from the St. Paddy's Stonehenge 2 fabric I mentioned in a previous post. I began with eleven fat quarters which amounts to 2 and 3/4 yards of fabric.

My initial goal was four St. Patrick's Day themed placemats. 

One.

Two. 

Three. 

Four. 

Five. 

I ended up with five 14" x 20" quilted placemats.

But I still had leftover fabric and several odd size scraps of fabric. 

So I decided to see what else I could get out of the remaining fabric.

I ended up with four more scrappy patchwork pieces.

But I still have a pile of tiny scraps, and I have an idea for how to use them, 

but that will include some watercolor paper, paint, random stencils and maybe some collage papers. Not sure at all what this will turn out to be.

I wonder how many projects I can squeeze out of this one bundle of fat quarters?

Thanks for Reading.

Aileen

Faux Rock Painting

Two weeks ago I started a project to paint a basement wall. It's basically a 6' by 6' space that will be used as a desk alcove. One wall will be covered with panelling and the concrete block walls are to be painted. I've had this idea to paint rocks on a wall but never had a wall to test my idea. Idea meet perfect opportunity.

The basement alcove.

The faux rock wall painting steps.

The floor painting steps.

The Before and After photos.

A little GIF of the project can be seen here https://youtu.be/MCBza48n0nk.

Thanks for Reading.

Aileen

St. Patrick's Day Placemats

The St. Paddy's Stonehenge 2 fabric placemats are coming along nicely. I drew up several design options but initially settled on a couple clover patchwork designs. I searched my design encyclopedias and found nothing that looked like a clover so I sketched out an idea for a very simple to construct clover block.

After making several of the smaller clover blocks I found some heart patchwork patterns and realized they could be adapted to a clover layout and made this simple but larger clover block. 

After making several of the smaller clover blocks I began sketching different layout options and I decided on this simple plan for a 14" x 20" placemat. 

The larger clover block is also set in a 14" x 20" layout with side checkerboard blocks. 

I have two more placemats to piece and at this point I think I may try to scale the larger clover block pattern down in size and make a third clover block pattern. I also have some ideas for Celtic ribbon patterns that I am may piece last. These are a little trickier to piece and look best with a directional fabric.

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen