I love the quilt on the cover of this book!

I love the quilt on this cover so much. The colours are just so striking and the beading looks great.

I got this book a few weeks ago and I've enjoyed reading it. The first section covers the basics, so its a good book for beginners.

The next section covers projects. It covers projects from beginners to more advanced including the quilt from the front cover. I like coming up with my own ideas so I don't like just doing projects and creating a replica of the project piece. Although I am tempted with that cover quilt design. Anyway, I'm finding lots of interesting ideas and beading ideas that I can use to inspire my own creations.

The last section is a gallery of some amazing beaded quilts by various artists and has lots of great eye candy. One of the artists is Susan Sorrell. I have done a few of Susan's online Joggles classes. Her classes are wonderful and her art quilts amazing. I'll have to look up some of the other artists up on the internet and see more of there work.

In the book I think there are a few too many projects with just basic beading and although some of the projects are more advanced I would have liked to see a really heavily beaded quilt with detailed instructions on doing the beading. Apart from that its a great book and any how I just love it for its cover.

August TIF Challenge - Abit more

A little bit more done today. Rosette chain around the outside of the orange paisley design and blanket stitch around the outside of the pink one.

Update on August TIF Challenge

I managed to do some more of my challenge piece this weekend. In this photo I have used some paisley designs as a pattern so I could get my outside shape. The designs on these look great, but I'm going to come up with my own design for the inside. It's a chance for me to explore some new embroidery stitches or do some known ones in a different way. Once I do the Shisha mirrors, I'll be filling in the rest of the paisley shape with embroidery.



In my last post I mentioned that I was going to do some paisley designs as a different interpretation of the ying/yang symbol. I know you are probably thinking that this doesn't look exactly like the ying/yang symbol, but the ying/yang symbol is expressing perfect balance. With this piece I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to express the image of their being a balance in managing to juggle endless priorities and being able to do 10 things at once and even though the balance may not be perfection - maybe it doesn't have to be and it is still okay.

I'll keep you updated on my progress....shisha mirrors should arrive this week, so I should have more to show next weekend.

August TIF Challenge

I've skipped the July TIF Challenge for the moment but I know what I want to do. Hopefully I'll finish August quickly and go back to do July.

The August TIF challenge is about balance. Initially lots of thoughts went through my mind such as juggling, a see saw, tightrope walker, the ying and yang symbol, etc.

I decided that I wanted to do some Shisha embroidery (using those little indian mirrors) which I haven't done before. This lead me to think of using a paisley design as a different version of the ying/yang symbol. I wanted to express balance emerging out of a busy life with competing priorities.

The picture above is my August piece so far. I used a bottom layer of black cotton fabric. On top of that I have a layer of blue and purple wool fibres and difference pieces of wool yarn. On top of that the third layer is blue netting. I did free motion embroidery over the top of this. I then did creton, herringbone and chain embroidery using different shades of blue. I will probably do more background blue embroidery once the main images are done.

I'm ready to start the paisley designs. I haven't been able to buy any Shisha mirrors locally so I had to order some online. I'm waiting very patiently for them to arrive. I'm going to do the paisley designs in bright colours. I should be able to do the embroidery for the outlines of the designs while I'm waiting for the mirrors. I'm thinking that I might also include some beads in the background and on the designs. I'll have to see as I go along.

I like how the background has a painted look to it.

June TIF Challenge Finished

"Endless Possibilities"

The June TIF Challenge was about stories that our stash tells and stories that are waiting to be told. The art quilt I created is called "Endless Possibilities".

My background is made up of little pieces of material from my stash which represents the materials used to create my stories or art quilts. Once my ideas are formed in my head, my hands transform the ideas into reality. The flower represents an idea emerging, blossoming, transforming and releasing its beauty.

I free motion stitched the background pieces down. I used hand embroidery on the hand and flower. I used beads to emphasise the flower and define the edges.

It feels so much more personal using my own handprint on a quilt. I really like how this turned out and enjoyed making it.

Now onto the July TIF. I've also been working on some ideas for the August TIF.