Small quilt

I belong to a couple of online groups and one of them is Learning Fibre Arts or learningfa. Miriam, a quilter from Ireland who was here in Ontario last fall to give a workshop, kindly did an online workshop for those of us who were interested. The workshop was called Irish Landcape and here's my completed quilt.

The whole quilt is raw edged applique. You were encouraged to place the fabrics of your choice randomly. Different weights of fabrics could be used - silk, satin, corduroy, cotton, laces, threads, etc. It was all to be done very freely. I had some netting that I scrunched up and I also took a bunch of threads and encased them under some netting in the lower right. It was a lot of fun and I may just do another one in the future. Right now I am a bit pressed for time.


Note: Miriam is the same lady who designed the Emma's Trees as it is named for her daughter.

Pixel

Well, it's almost spring and it seems that a lot of pets have been visiting their vets. My little Pixel is my long haired kitty. She and her sister Digit are now 13 years old.


My little sleeping Pixel. As you can see, she does have quite a long coat on her. She may look big but when you pick her up you realize just how little she weighs.

This is my favourite picture of Pixel because I actually got her little tongue in the shot as she was lapping up her milk. Digit doesn't drink milk and, sometimes, Pixel refuses to have any, even though she will sit beside the fridge and wait until I put some milk in a dish. I don't know if it's the type of milk she doesn't like after she sniffs it or if she is just fickle. Over the past few months we noticed that her coat was getting quite matted. Since she doesn't like to be brushed, I tried to cut some of the mats off her. Some of them were quite close to her skin and when we brought her in to see the vet to get her check-up, the vet suggested we bring her to a groomer. Now, not all dog groomers do cats but after trying one a bit farther away from us, we brought her in to the one just down the street from us. That groomer is the same one that trimmed Baxter last year. My son Eric brought Pixel in one afternoon when all the dogs were gone and this is how she came home looking.

 Please don't laugh.

 It is called a lion cut and I do think that Pixel likes it. She did seem a bit strange to Digit and Baxter at first.

 They have now gotten used to her new "do" and so have we.

New bag

The pattern for the bag I just made, Vogue 8466, had four different versions. I made the hardest one and here's the easiest. I wanted to try out the pattern since all it was was a rectangle. Altogether, with cutting the fabric out and sewing it, I think it took me two and a half hours. You can't beat that. I really meant to take a photo before it left my house last Saturday but, of course, I forgot. So I asked Maili, the recipient of the bag, to take some photos for me so I could post it on the blog and here they are.

This bag has no lining, no zipper and no inner pockets but it is sooo roomy.

 Now that she has had it for a week, Maili said that the bag has really come in handy.

I plan on making one or two more out of different fabrics. Although the pattern mentioned a lighter-weight fabric, I used a cotton twill and will stick with the heavier fabric. The only problem is that the last bit of stitching to do on the bag is to gather up the top of the strap and you end up having to sew through so many layers of fabric that the thinner it is, the easier it would be to sew but I will still use a more substantial fabric.

Craft night

On Friday we had craft night again. This time Maili's friend Tanya, her son Michael and Casey joined us. On the menu we had paper, paint, pens, glue, and a whole lot of imagination. Inchies were made and also a painting.

 

These are Maili's veggies. I love them and wished I had found them in the magazine before she got to them. Oh well, I guess I'll just keep on looking for interesting things to cut up. Maili said she wanted to make magnets out of them.

Here's Casey's. I think he was going for puzzle tiles...

These are mine. I didn't seem to accomplish all that many but then again, I was the one cutting all the one inch pieces of cardboard. I may just continue to make more on my own. They can become a bit addictive. You start to look at things with an eye to scale to see if they would fit in an inchie. I'd also like to make twinchies (those, of course, would be two inch pieces of art) or work on a 1 1/2 inch scale. Sometimes inchies can be very limiting if you find a nice image.

  

These are Tanya's. The one in the lower left is a 3-D spiral. One of the inchies even has coloured stones on it. Another one is covered with glitter and still another one has painted tissue paper for texture - very creative. When she wanted to mount them, I suggested she buy a canvas and glue them on and that way they can stick out from the wall a little.

I just loved the colours.

Here's Michael with the canvas that he helped Maili with. You may remember this painting from a previous post. He was involved in it also. This painting was done at the same time as the rest of us slaved away doing our inchies and after, Maili managed to get some inchies done as well. She sure does work quickly.

And lastly, a group shot. 

How can you tell tax time is coming? - Papers, papers everywhere... 

Quilt guild meeting

Addendum: See below at the last photo.

Last week at the East Toronto Quilters' Guild, we had a wonderful speaker. Cheryl Smith is a quilter and doll maker and brought some of her work. Below is a small sampling. The photos were all taken by a member of the guild, Rosemary Hamlin and early on in the evening I asked if she would be kind enough to send me the photos so I could post them on my blog. I, of course, am still not in the habit of bringing my camera with me wherever I go.

 

These were some of her dolls. I have a pattern for the one on the right left (mixing these up is one of my quirks along with east and west.) It's on my 'to do' list. There is so much embellishment on them. Click the photo so you can see them better.

The Ancient Mariner

 

Toucan Talk

 

Spirit Dance

"Aquarius" made with 10 thousand one-inch squares.

Solitaire

"Hue Drops" which can be hung vertically or horizontally. I love the colours and simplicity of design. Sorry that it's a bit blurry but visit Cheryl's web site to see it up close and personal.

I forgot to mention that Cheryl loves beadwork and this is what she is currently working on. I don't think it has a name. Cheryl said that she is obsessed with beading.

Her latest cloth doll. (That's me to the left, in the background.)

 

Here I am with Cheryl and that's our president, Dale Tomlinson on the right. 

Cheryl has a website called  Magpie Artworks    http://www.magpieartworks.com/    and she also has a blog    http://magpieartworks.blogspot.com/    so go over and visit. Both sites have many more photos of her work.

Many thanks to both Cheryl Smith and Rosemary Hamlin for allowing me to do this post - and many thanks to all of my readers.

*****I totally forgot to show this photo. Click to see the doll close up. Her face is beaded and Cheryl did it at a workshop.