Beautiful work!

CC, My background is mostly in clothing construction. I have a degree in Clothing and Textiles, and I also took a couple of art classes along with it. I was never taught anything about quilting or applique. I came up with what I do on my own. I have yet to make a bedquilt. That is why I joined the board.

Finding the beads was fun! I check all the clearance belts and costume jewelry when I shop at Walmart. I have taken them apart for beads or whatnot. I scavenged my own jewelry box, have picked up things at yard sales, and those little jewelry/hair accessory places for young girls at the malls usually have some things on clearance for just a pittance that makes its way onto my work. The small granular wooden beads that look somewhat like coarse coffee grounds on some of the pieces came from a couple of chokers that cost me 50 cents each. I do like to buy glass beads and usually pick up a package when I do my weekly grocery shopping.

Grambi, there is sort of a little trick to it, (besides being a little obsessive/compulsive! :oops: :-D :-D ) When you use machine straight stitching around your objects, and you sew carefully, you have a straight line to follow. I use that straight line to then hand embroider upon. Kitty

Kitty, Fantastic tip!!!! Thanks, Bambi

Amazing, each picture was even better then the one before, I am in complete ahhhh you do amazing work. i have always admired bead work but never tried it.

Very, very creative - I likey!!!

Wow...I am always in awe of the wonderful work I see on this site..

OMG! I can't think of anything else to say except beautiful work.

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! very nice

Love the dandelions you made but not the real ones.

wow kudos to you and your beautiful work... love it !

Amazing! Love all the bling!!! :)

I agree!!!!

Beautiful work, thank you for sharing, this is what makes this message board so great! :!:

I love all of them and especially the peacock. Well done. Thanks for sharing.

Those jeans would probably be worth two or more (dollars) now!!

Beautiful work!

Your work is out of this world beautiful, and truly unique. Thank you for sharing.

Wow your work is stunning! How do you come up with all your ideas? You must have access to a florishing garden!

Well, no garden right now, but someday I hope to! Thank you!

Sarah CA...

It's driven me crazy that I don't have ONE MEMORY of what happened to those jeans...LOL It was back in the 70's... I couldn't s-h-i-m-m-y my buns into those jeans if my life depended on it now...LOL But.. it would be fun to see them again. I did a few wild projects back in those days and I sure wish I had kept them.
.

I had a pair of shorty short jeans onto which I embroidered an apple. Not a very good job either! But I saved them for years waiting to fit back into them. Finally gave up and threw them away! LOL It got to be too disappointing seeing them in the drawer without a chance of being worn!

Wow they are ll beautiful.

Just checking.. have I missed the tutorial yet? I've been AFK for a bit.

Absolutely stunning

Highmtn, I am sorry that I am so slow, but I have been stuck in bed for a week. I have the fern over half done and have some done on the dandelion. I have also been requested to show how I made a sewing kit - a reuse project, so I am working on 3 at the same time, and I am working on a birthday gift for an early November birthday, a man's vest that has miniature work in it. I will post on this topic when I finish. I am sorry that I am not any faster. But I have not forgotten about you. Thanks for your patience.

PS: I am looking at your avatar and it is beautiful! Can you tell me about it and post a larger picture? It looks like YoYos. I have a thing for them! Kitty :-D

I agree!!!

***********************
Kitty!!
NOOOO NOOOOOO NOOOOO....
PLEASE DO NOT APOLOGIZE! I just got worried I had missed your tutorial, and I learned many moons ago that ALLLLLLLL good things are WORTH WAITING FOR!!! Sorry you've been down for a week. I messed my back up about a week ago too.... I SO DON'T HAVE TIME TO BE GIMPED OUT! I started a new job 6 weeks ago, completed my PCC, and a lap warmer quilt I had made for the local United Way fund drive ....and.. just finished painting 3 Halloween pumpkins with 2 more to go. Not too easy when bending over makes me omit little yelping noises like I'm suffering from Tourette's Syndrome...LOL My Chiropractor just recently retired.. I am a woman without a "bone cruncher" and I need to gut up to find a new one.

My AV was the results of a "Paint Chip Challenge" our quilt group did (with the projects due on Oct 1st). Not only did we follow the standard PCC rules we tossed a twist in which was you had to use ONE technique you'd never used before. Surprisingly, I have made it to a RIPE old age (59) and had NEVER made a yo-yo before..LOL I had to go on YOUTUBE to SEE how it was done. The name of my piece was "Primitive Posies", and when I got it done I had at it with jewelry findings from my jewelry kit.

Ok... as you asked here's the photos of my PCC projects. After I got the base items sewn on (yo-yos etc) I used Swarovski crystals and various jewelry findings to schnazzy it up. I am still contemplating putting some brass colored paint on the center of the solid white daisies. I should have done that BEFORE I sewed them on... live and learn.

My skill level pales in comparison to yours. I'm just guessing about proper attachment of the embellishments. I've taken several quilt classes, but I'm all self taught when it comes to adding bling and glitz. Embellishing fascinates me... THAT'S the direction I want to go.

Also... the PCC projects are 9" x 12"... so.. not very big. It IS sewn square... it was just a bad photo...lol

Get well.....and don't feel pushed by me about your tutorials. I'm watching this thread.. so.. hopefully you'll let us know when you pop them into a new thread.

Hugs...

Felicia

Highmtn, I love your primitive yo-yo piece. I've never heard of a Paint Chip Challenge. Where might I find the official rules? I'm also watching this thread for the tutorial. I can't get over Kastlekitty's wonderful embellished applique!

I think your having too much fun. Your work is so interesting and beautiful. You put those overseas workers to shame..
Now what do you do with all of these give for gifts??

Highmtn, Your work is beautiful! I think you did an excellent job! I love yo-yos. Thanks for posting the pics! They are wonderful! Most of my work is small, 9X12 or there about. I have not been quilting very long and have never done a bedquilt yet. I do small pieces because they are easy for me to handle, that is why most of my work is applique, hand embroidery, and embellishment, but I love the sewing machine and mix hand with machine all the time. I work these small patches into bags, pillows, anything I can think of. Right now I am working on the fern, but instead of making it into a bag, I am going to put it on a needlebook. There have been so many beautiful examples online.

A few years back when I got interested in quilting, I searched around on the Net and came across something that urged developing a pattern of working everyday. What they said was to make a notebook in a sense, pages of 9X12, and work on one everyday. I cannot keep up with that. But, I did start one after the other, whenever I could. To use them I made bags, pillows, whatever small item I could imagine them to be. These pictures I posted in this thread are some of them. The point of the article was to show you how you can increase your creative talent, even if you think you don't have it in you. Many people give up without trying because they see something and think they don't have the skills to be "so creative". I look at stuff all the time and am intimidated by it. I guess the exercise is a way of getting over that intimidation and starting to make the creative juices flow!

Whatever I have done in quilting I have learned on my own, meaning reading things online, such as this board, watching videos, tutorials, articles, books, looking at pictures, etc.. I have learned a whole heck of a lot on this board alone! It is amazing to me! There are no classes in the local area that I have ever heard about. It seems it would be fun to gather with some other people who have the same interests and work on things together. Sort of the old fashioned quilting bee idea.

I also do not have a machine that does FMQ. Mine is set up to do straight lines, with an attachment bar to keep you going straight and even. I can move the feed dogs down though, but since my machine is 35 years old, I am having problems finding information about it. I see that women are just moving the fabric under the needle, but when I tried it, I got a very jerky angular looking line that I eventually tore back out. I am wondering if FMQ is possible on my machine and I just don't understand how to do it.

Highmtm, I love your paintchip challenge project, our quilt group did that challenge too. Love the yo-yo's and the embellishment work you did. Your self-teaching is right on!

WOW!!WOW!!WOW!! beautiful work and beading. That takes a lot of good eye sight.

Thanks LOWELL ;) :)

Here is the pattern for the fern. It can be used in the positive or the negative.

These are the background fabrics that go behind the fern. I am not sure that they will come across proportionally, so it may be better to use the fern pattern itself and cut your own backing fabrics.

I copied the fern onto freezer paper so I could iron it onto fabric. This is an already used pattern which has been ironed onto fabric which already has fusible web ironed to it. That makes 3 layers, pattern on freezer paper, fabric, fusible web on backing.

The outer edge of the fabric has been cut away.

I used a curved exacto blade to cut the inner leaves away. Do this very carefully so you can use the inner leaves as a second block. A very small pair of scissors will work too. First use the exacto knife to start the cut so you can keep the inner leaf neat and tidy to use on your second block.

This can be a little time consuming and hard on the hand, but I like the results. I am waiting to see if Accuquilt comes out with a die of detailed leaf sets that can be done this way for applique. It would save a lot of time!

Choose a piece of fabric for your second block, place the fern onto it and replace the tiny leaflets, after removing the backing from the LEAFLETS ONLY. This is important. Keep the backing on the large fern so it does not adhere to the background fabric when you iron the whole piece. When you carefully peel away the entire 3 layers of the large fern, you will have a second block or negative of your work which you can hand embroider. Work carefully cutting! Why throw away this second block by being careless when it makes a beautiful delicate looking applique. I would do handwork on it. I am not sure a machine can maneuver around the small leaves.

This is the result of carefully cutting, removing the backing from only the tiny leaves, replacing them, then ironing them to the second backing fabric.