The title of this piece is "Tidepool", and it's approximately 12"x15". I layered the quilt sandwich and free-motion quilted the background before attaching the center. I used the patterning of the Batik as a guide for my quilting. 

I layered two dyed, used dryer sheets and some eyelash yarn between water soluble stabilizer sheets and stitched with invisible thread. Soaking briefly in water removes the stabilizer and once it had dried, I added handmade and seed beads.  The center was also attached with invisible thread.

I'll be adding a how-to section to my blog in the near future and will include information about lots of ways to recycle used dryer sheets to use in your fiber art projects, so stay tuned.

It's a gloomy, end of winter day and I'm getting organized to teach this week at the Fox Valley Technical College Sewing and Quilting Expo.  

Whenever I teach, people ask me if I have a book or a web site or a blog.  So, in lieu of a book or web site, I'm resurrecting my old blog, long dormant since Facebook seemed so much easier at the time.  Hopefully, I'll be able to post ideas, photos and videos.....once I get past the learning curve....of projects that might help get your creative mojo going like they do mine.  

I love working with unusual and recycled materials and bits and pieces of things that usually get thrown away.  So stay tuned and as soon as I dust off those mental cobwebs we'll be off and running.

 

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Stars and Shadows Class

Wow! What a nice group of women attended my class last week at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo. Everyone was friendly and enthusiastic, which always makes it so much more fun to teach.

At the beginning of class we sorted through all the beautiful hand-dyed fabric that I had brought. ..140 yards of it!! A big thanks to my friend Barb Raisbeck (Quiltsbybarb.com) for helping me with that!

Everyone chose their own fabric for the projec,t which helped to make each piece totally unique. I'm always so amazed by the choices that people make. Fabrics that I never would have thought of putting together turn out beautifully. It really is a learning experience for me too.

For those of you who took the class, I'll be posting some other ideas for using my pattern that we didn't have time to cover in class, like table runners and toppers. Hopefully, I can get to that later this week!

Broken Paths

I so hate to waste fabric...almost to a ridiculous degree.

A friend was here for the weekend and showed me a technique for sewing curves. I ended up with two rectangular pieces, and it just seemed a shame not to do something with them. So...I cut them up, joined them back together with colorful scraps, and bound them with something funky. They've got some decorative stitching too, and look great hanging in my kitchen.

Each one is approximately 6"x18".

Crow and Trumpet

This monoprint was used for promotional
materials for a musical event in Rockford, Illinois.
I cropped the little crow out for my profile photo, as you can see.

I use a material called Mastercarve for most of my prints. Various size blocks are available and it's very dense and rubbery. It carves easily with little Speeball lineoleum tools like they had in high school art class. Watch those fingers though, or you'll get a nasty cut! Then I either roll on printing ink with a brayer, or if my print is small, use a dye ink pad like they use for rubber stamping.

Making rubber stamps is fun and easy too. Lineoleum cutters are available at places like Michael's and Hobby Lobby at very low cost. Flat, white erasers are small, easy to carve, and also low in price. My personal favorite is Magic Rub, which comes in a three-pack for under $2. It's a great way to add personalization for folks who make cards and do scrapbooking too.

Oops!

62"x35"
2008


Okay, so I admit, I'm not very good with written directions. Not all written directions, just ones that include numbers or any kind of math or measurements. Not good for a quilter. That's probably why I like to make up my own projects...if there's no pattern, then I can't make a mistake.

This was supposed to be a quilt from Karla Alexander's book "Stack a New Deck"...well, I guess it still kind of is. The directions were to cut a certain number of squares, stack them in a certain number of "decks", and cut each deck randomly into three pieces. The pieces are then shuffled and reassembled into blocks.

When I got the quilt top done it didn't look like the photo in the book. I reread the instructions only to realize I had done each of the two instructions incorrectly. Wow, was that a weird moment. But the good news is that I actually like my quilt better. So I figured out what I had done wrong, wrote it down, and have made a couple of these, one of which I have yet to quilt.

Jellyfish

8 1/4"x10 3/4"
2007

This little piece was just for fun. It's a single piece of fabric, and the jellyfish, bubbles, etc., are "drawn" on with machine free-motion quilting. To free-motion quilt, the fabric is moved around under the needle as it stitches.

Dinwoody and Dinwoody Too

Ink-jet printing on fabric is a great way to add unusual imagery to a quilt-art piece. It takes a little practice, but basically, any image that can be put into digital form on your PC can be printed on fabric. I don't like the iron-on transfer method, so I use a product called "Bubble Jet Set 2000". Cotton fabric is soaked for 5 minutes in the solution, dried, and then cut to a size that will fit an ink-jet printer (8 1/2" x11" or smaller). Iron the fabric onto the shiny side of a same-size piece of freezer paper and then just run it through the printer. Getting it to feed through smoothly is probably the trickiest part, but it's really pretty easy.

The title Dinwoody refers to a Plains Indian rock art tradition found in a very small region of northwest Wyoming. Dinwoody figures are generally very fantastic looking...human-like, but with strange spirit or animal-like features, and very, very lively looking.

My friend Robin, also a quilter, works in the Anthropology Department at the University of Iowa. I made these two pieces as a birthday gift for her. A couple months later I was at her house and beaded them together. Her husband found a nice, small branch, and we hung the whole piece from that.

Churn Dash

For me, this quilt was an experiment with color and pattern. I took about 18 different fabrics and alternately mixed ones that really looked nice together with ones that didn't match well. Some of the blocks I just didn't like, but when the whole thing got put together, it ended up looking very lively. It's also a king-size quilt.

Autumn Rectangles

I love making small quilt projects and used to wonder if I actually had the patience to make a bed-sized quilt. This is the first one I ever made, and as you can see, I stuck to a pretty easy pattern. It's king-size and I really like the way the fabrics work together. It looks nice on the bed in fall and winter too.

Stars and Shadows Pattern

Here are a few samples from my original pattern, Stars and Shadows, or in the case of the tree, Pines and Shadows. The pattern was created for a small project at Barb Raisbeck's annual quilt retreat last fall (Quiltsbybarb.com). I've been selling the patterns at a couple of local shops and will teach it as a class for three days at the 2009 Wisconsin Quilt Expo in September.

It's been fun seeing how many different looks everyone has given to the finished piece, and a great learning experience for me too.

Lewis's Quilt

The pattern for this quilt is called "Stone Cottage", from Judy Martin's "Log Cabin Quilt Book". I started it at a quilt retreat last fall (see quiltsbybarb.com for more information), and finished it in time for Christmas. The blocks were super simple...only 3 pieces... and I used batik or batik-like fabrics. It turned out very masculine looking, which is what I was going for. Barb Raisbeck (of quiltsbybarb.com) quilted it in a pebble pattern, much like one of the fabrics, and it turned out beautifully. I gave it to my father-in-law, Lewis Hyatt, who is pictured here.

Ali and Jerod's Book

This accordion-fold book was an engagement keepsake for our niece Ali and her now-husband Jerod. It has several of their engagement photos and small cards and tags with sayings about love and marriage.

Luke's Book

This is a small book I made for our nephew Luke. The pages have images, short phrases and quotes. I gave it to him to encourage him with his own art.

Jace's Quilt

Jace's Quilt
2007


This is a quilt I made for our grand-nephew, Jace. And yes, that's him driving a matching red firetruck.

The center section is a really cute cheater panel, so the quilt went together in a flash. Little did I know he had a matching fire truck!

Train Bridge

4" x 6"

I took a photograph of an old train bridge near Stillman Valley, Illinois, and thought the image would be perfect for a monoprint.

Jazz

4 1/2"x 4 1/2"

My husband has played in a jazz group for many years (deanmjazz.com), and I made this print for them to use for a demo CD.

My Winter Window

4"x6"

This is the view from my first workplace/studio in a beautiful old bungalow we used to live in. It was a small upstairs room...very warm and cozy...and it really was the beginning of something wonderful for me. Everyone needs a place of their own to do the things they love to do...even if it's just a tiny little space.

My Winter Window

My Winter Window
26"x26"
2008 Wisconsin Quilt Expo entry

I used one of my small block prints as the focal point of this piece. It was machine quilted and embellished with paint, decorative stitching and used dryer sheet fiber.