LATE JULY ALREADY????

Well, it's been a while since I've written, and much else has happened. I am nearly finished with my June page..... it still needs some yellow beads in the center, but the white daisy is done... it was fun to create textures on each petal. I spent much of the month working on the photos from my friend's wedding, so it is appropriate that it is a white wedding flower!

I decided to use photos of flowers that I had printed on fabric run through my own ink jet printer. The fabric that I buy is already adhered to a piece of paper which I leave on as stabilizer. I am really pleased with the process. Since I'm working so large, it's harder to get my hand around the paper, but it smooshes up pretty well.
The center of a daisy already looks like it's beaded, so that has me somewhat stumped. I think I am going to use beads in a star shape and then fill in, using graduated sizes. We'll see what the beads tell me to do!
And my July page is more than half done..... it's also a flower, but this time it's an iris. The center was pretty difficult and I used 15's so it went pretty slowly. But now I am doing the petals and using 10's and 8's so it is filling in faster. I am really pleased with the look so far.
My idea for the "finished product" is to make a wall quilt of these flowers. We'll see.... they may need to be in an album for a while, but eventually, they will probably be in a wall quilt.
Can't figure out how to move photos around in this blog, so they are all at the top.... sorry.
K

To Decide

So now I really have to decide.... I have been toying with many ideas for about three weeks now. I don't know which to do. Since I am a quilter first, I had thought I would do a crazy quilt kind of thing, but then I felt that was too ordinary. Next I thought I would use some of my favorite fabrics and bead solidly on them, but that's not exactly my style either. Than I considered using my sunprints to bead around. Those would be unique, but LARGE if I used my current collection of prints. Now I am looking at using my photos of flowers printed onto fabric through my inkjet printer. I would bead them to enhance certain portions of the flower. Since the paper comes pre-stuck to paper, I could use it as is as my stabilizer. I'm thinking of using close-ups of my flowers.... this blurs them a bit, but as long as I define the lines with beads, it will be ok......
SO, my format size will need to be a little larger than most I've been hearing about in this project. I am thinking in the range of 6"x6" or even larger..... some of the photos are vertical, some horizontal.... that would be interesting to have a combination, but the same measurement! Once I commit, I think that I will enjoy the process. AND I can move on to other floral designs if I want to and not stick exclusively to my own photos, although I like that idea.

Working on Projects

In my first blog, I added two photos, but didn't fully describe them, so I am going to describe them in this blog. The first photo is a photo quilt of the bed and breakfast where we stayed in Scotland. The name of the B&B is Barrachandronan. It was a fabulous old farmhouse and dairy farm that had been converted to a Bed and Breakfast. There was a beautiful dry stone wall in front of the house where they had parked a white and turquoise fiberglass boat on a trailer. Thanks to the magic of digital photos, I was able to clone the stones and grass to remove it. I was also able to delete the electic lines that came across the whole scene. That allowed the photo to look at least a decade older than it is.
When I had printed the photo onto fabric, my quilting project began. I placed it onto my design wall, and began adding elements that extended the landscape into a larger picture. It was really fun and challenging to continue the driveway, the fence and the mountains. Finding just the right fabrics was a challenge, and when the RIGHT fabric wasn't available, I used something close and added elements using my colored pencils. After turning the edges and sewing down all the elements, I was able to begin the quilting and embroidery. It was an interesting process to quilt in a way that enhanced and even drew attention to itself. Usually the quilting is meant to just enhance but not draw attention to itself, but in this situation, I felt that sometimes it was appropriate to over-quilt in an embroidery-type way. I really enjoyed enhancing this piece.

My first Blog!

Good morning! I am just experimenting with this process. I am a little intimited by writing out my thoughts for lots of folks to read. I am a quilter first, and have loved to bead for many years. My quilts are done in a variety of styles. Mostly I have used traditional patterns and worked with color and combinations to make them more original. More recently, I have been working with photos on fabric. I have been using photos printed on fabric as a focal point, then creating the "rest" of the scene using fabric, painting, embroidery, and quilting.

I have yet to add beads to any of these pieces, but I see that in my future.
I am also involved with dyeing and sunprinting. I have used beads to embellish and accentuate those pieces.
I am just beginning my first bead journal piece. I have yet to put needle to cloth, but I have been rolling ideas around in my head, and am thinking I am just about there. I am really liking what I am thinking about... but won't share just yet. Not until I actually commit!