Sunny days

I wanted to set out the process I followed in doing my sunflower wall art. And especially the mistakes I made so someone else who does a similar one can avoid it. The photo that inspired it has been in my collection for about two years now. Who would have guessed that even in a climate like that of England one could grow large sunflowers.

It seemed a pretty simple flower to do and yet I procrastinated using other projects as excuses. Finally I pushed myself to do it a month back. To keep the challenge to a minimum I cropped the picture, editing out the wall and most of the leaves. In hindsight I feel it took away something from my finished work. The flower now looks too big and oversized. So note to self. Next time keep more background!

After tracing the printed picture on to a white background, (a mistake I realised later) I used reverse applique to sew. I started out with simple short straight stitches and switched to narrow satin stitch as I found that on trimming the foreground cloth there was a risk of the straight stitch coming off.

This was after I had trimmed the foreground cloth on all the pieces! There were a lot of loose threads that constantly kept coming out in spite of constant trimming. And the white showing through was also bothering me.So I used a matching colour pencil to shade the white and let it merge. The next step was to use machine embroidery to add the brown color. Looking back it seems that plain yellow looked better. Maybe I should redo this keeping it just yellow.

Since my yellow was a bit anemic I machine embroidered that too with some glowing yellow silk thread. That left the bits in between the bricks. To keep it realistic I had to color it gray. Machine embroidery or fmq seemed a bit daunting. Especially when I had stone gray paint. It was a touch dark but once I add some white it was just right. I would have been better off strating with that grey as foreground cloth.
Then all I needed to do was sandwich the piece and do some fmq on the bricks to give some texture and add some to the flower too.

Since the gray was painted fmq on that was ruled out. After debating on whether the white frame was necessary or not I decided to trim it rather than keep it. Binding and beadwork for the centre and some sleeves to hang it and there it was finished! 

Well not quite! I don't think I did justice to the photo and perhaps will revisit it. Fused raw edge and more background perhaps? Just plain yellow. Freezer paper applique. So many options to explore.

OMG it is June!

Time to set myself another target again. I do have a runner to quilt and finish for a birthday coming up this month and my Splendid samplers to catch up with but those are not going to figure as my OMG. I find that the only way to do the ones on my to-do list is to put them on my OMG. That way it won't be years before I get to do them. So here is something I have been wanting to make - a passport holder. There are so many travellers in the family and I should be making them all one of these. But I will start with my mom who is also celebrating her 80 the birthday this month. And she is visiting my sister in UK right after that. So a passport holder would be great for her. ( And also a wallet to carry her meds but I don't want to get too ambitious)
So that is my OMG for June. Linking up with Red letter quilts OMG.
Oh and before I wrap this up here is a look at my ' Sunset in Africa ' all done!

Hanging in there

End of a month again and that is half the year gone. It is a year and a half then since I decided that if I really wanted to do art quilts then I would have to stop making bed quilts. The constant pressure of deadlines to finish was a real issue to start anything creative, anything that required one to stop and think and play with ideas. So this year I finally got around to saying 'no' to bed quilts but there was always other stuff coming in the way. If it was not the house getting painted it was tamarind to be harvested and processed, or a workshop to prepare for.
So I gave myself a deadline - not for a finish but for a start. So here is my work so far on a wall quilt. I have done the piecing after painting the fabrics in colours that seems right and have partly finished the quilting too. If I don't get distracted I should finish it in about three days. The theme is ' An African Sunset' and it is meant for my oldest sister who turned sixty in March and who celebrated it with a week in S.Africa. I could not take up her invite to join her but with this piece I hope to be part of the trip.

Linking this with OMG!

OMG it is May already!

And a week gone too. I have been dithering over my goal for the month! Imsaid yes to a friend who wants some painted fabrics and that takes away the mornings. With thunderstorms disrupting everything in the afternoons most nights we end up with no power. So do I even set up a goal!for the month let alone something that I have been dodging for months now?
Well if I don't pin myself down I will never get it done. So here I go - this month I want to make a start on a wall quilt meant for a special person. She has turned 60/ and celebrated it with a holiday in Africa. I could not join her but wanted to make myself part of it by making a quilt that will echo Africa for her. I have bought shades of red paints and fabric to be painted and will push myself to have a go at it!
That is my goal for the month!