A creative explosion

Until I sat down to write this post I did not realize that I had done a lot of playing over the last few weeks. I even completed a project! Some of this may turn into nothing, but I think I’ve got the start of some pretty cool projects.

First, my completion. I may or may not be in a jean jacket embellishment phase… I started here…

with some gorgeous wool hand-dyed by Linda Waddle. For this type of work, the more mottled and strong the colors, the better. This piece had both qualities in spades. I created the design, free motion quilted it to the jacket and then began the cutwork.

But something was not right. All the color was concentrated in that center corridor and there was a big ‘ole honkin’ yellow stripe on my butt. No. Just no.

I added hand-dyed rick-rack around the edge to soften the color and took off the two “wings” from the yoke. That rick-rack is an early-century purchase from my local guild’s show. Hey, you never know when you will need and use your stash! I was happy with the outcome.

But what about the front? It looked naked without a little something:

Just adding a stacked trim on the seamline was all that was needed.

I haven’t applied it yet (but this is still close enough to qualify as a “finish”!) but I definitely prefer the stack on the left. That is what I’ll go with. Working with a ready-made jean jacket is so much fun! The possibilities are endless. I must explore this more. I love Target jackets – $25 and well made.

I have been playing with all sorts of other things too. If you follow me on IG or Facebook, some of this may look familiar but I’m banking on the idea that you forgot:-)

I really do love garment making but don’t have time to construct from scratch, so here is another great project that uses a ready-made garment:

I am a Tim Gunn/Project Runway fan and TODAY launches the next season! I ordered this shirt some time ago, 3 sizes too big on purpose. I used Pamela’s Patterns T Shirt Makeover to create a shirt that fit me like a woman, with curved side seams and a cuved hem. It’s very subtle but you can look fabulous in a regular t-shirt!

I had fun making postcards for Pokey Bolton’s Craft Napa fundraiser for The Marine Mammal Center, an ocean conservation organization. You too can make a postcard for the Seas the Day fundraiser! I do think some of the postcards are more effective than the others.

In a magical moment at Houston I met Iris White, an influencial quilter, teacher and product designer from Taiwan. She brought this set of her rulers along just to give to me; I was flattered and stunned! The rulers are very easy to use, easy to hold and thoughtfully designed.

I played with every one and this is just an example of my playtime. I am not a hard-core ruler girl but I do love to use a well-designed ruler. She has a scan code on the back of each ruler package that takes you directly to a well-done video of how to use that ruler, all without words so that there is no language barrier. It’s pretty slick. These are not available in the US.

I have wanted to do this for such a long time: combine trapunto with words using my own cursive plus a cool border. This was a fun romp. I’ve done several of these so far and hope to develop this into a class.

This is the seed of an idea…. I am in a traputo phase too, can you tell? Oh I love how those circles pop – trapunto is awesome!

And yet another trapunto project – a 78″ long panel made by a Malaysian batik artist and sourced by Turtle Hand Batik. I entered it into my local guild’s show – that means I actually have to finish it! I love the panel and the trapunto really makes the flowers and leaves pop. I’m working with Turtle Hand to create custom panels that I will offer to my students in a future class.

This has been on my design wall forever and today it asked to come out to play. I want to make an entire quilt with quilted newspaper. But I will need to do research about any copyright issues and if there are, I’ll just have to come up with Plan B. One of my thoughts is to use material that might otherwise be discarded so I’d like to stick with the newspaper. The back of this has an article on Harvey Weinstein – ewwww!

That’s my play, hope you enjoyed it! I do enjoy having an occassionl break from teaching – see what happens? I’ll post to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday.