The Lack of Color in 2026 on Off the Wall Friday

'tis the Season right?  The season for decorating, shopping, lights, wrapping and all things color.  Normally, it's the time of year that is sensory overload with all the different colors everywhere. I look forward to it because it's my first line of defense against the cold and the dark days of December.  Lately though it seems to have gotten harder.

It all started when I realized my stash of wrapping paper had nearly diminished.  So, I went to Walmart looking for some pretty new paper.  I mean, I hoped to find some pretty new paper.  But no.  It seems that the craze of midcentury lack luster graphics that has taken over the retail scene the last few years was continuing. Plus, there was a new twist....minimalist geometric graphics...like strips.  When I say minimalist, I mean minimalist.  What says Christmas more than the palette white, black and a touch of rust red?  The best thing about this display are the boxes!

I mean seriously?!  Who thought this was a good idea?

Honestly, I don't have anything against black for wrapping paper...when done right it can be pretty great, right?

From my stash

But what did I expect?  This lackluster color trend has been going on for a long while. If you need any proof of that look at the stores parking lot.  Am I the only one that comes out of a store has trouble tracking down my car because its lost in a sea of neutral black, white and gray?  

And to top it all off, the Color Cabal...you remember me ranting about them before...those are the people who sit in New York City and decide what color we all need to love next year ...yeah them....they decide that next year's color is - wait for it - white.  Now calling it Cloud Dancer does not negate the fact that its white...the color that encompasses all the colors with no color.  I truly have no words.  

Well yes I do or I wouldn't be ranting right now.

It's bad enough that that we actually have a Color Cabal but for them to choose white in today's climate just shows you that someone is obviously not reading the room.  So now for the next year, we'll
see white show up all over the place.  To show what a bizarre chose that is take a look at the colors for the last twenty years ...here.  I mean it was ridiculous enough that last year's color was poop  mocha brown, but this year it's like they want to suck all the color out of the color of the year.  

It's enough to make a quilter cry and seek therapy.  Or revolt  ... 

revolt against

Color Cabals

against

Lack of Color

against 

Neutrals 

against 

Homogenizing our Society

Or at least maybe we can walk away from the rows and rows of ugly wrapping paper at Wal-Mart and take Tessa's advice and go to TJ Maxx where they did finally have some pretty colors.

its prettier in person and this is just a few rolls! 

Okay rant's over...

What Have You've Been Up to Creatively?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Merry Christmas Blessings of the Season

This Christmas morn, I wanted to share with you all a performance my  14 yr old daughter, Tessa and her friend Phil Lavin gave at our church's Christmas program.  Tessa has been in the program since she was 3 starting as a baby sheep and slowly  working her way up to Mary.  This is the first year though that they had Mary and Joseph  sing.  Also, to put it all in perspective - the teens are the same age as the real Mary and Joseph. 

This is Chris Rice's Welcome to our World - so proud of both of them!  (apologies for my lousy video quality!)

Merry Christmas to you all  

May God Bless you all &

 Bring you peace and joy through out the new year!

Christmas Inspiration - A Quilter's Christmas Party

Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not a huge Christmas fan.  Its such a more is more kind of holiday.
Now that is good in many ways but still it always equates to more work and more stress.

Still this time of year always brings out sights and sounds that normally are all packed away the rest of the year.  With that comes new compositions, new color palette, new textures that normally one might over look in the hustle and bustle of the season.    Since SewCalGal was nice enough to host this online Christmas gathering of my favorite people - quilters I thought I would join in with some interesting yuletide inspirational photos.  And also because  its a party - I thought I would share a little personal info so you can get to know me better.


The Basics:  I'm Nina-Marie, 46 yrs old, married to a nice cute guy Paul and have one talented teen - Tessa who turns 15 on the 31st.
I've been quilting 20 years and pretty much started doing my own original work after the first year.

I have an engineering degree (did that for 10 yrs) but gave it up to raise Tessa and  underachieve that being the Best thing I ever did.

My Quilting/Art/Whatever:
In the beginning it seemed my quilting took me all over the place.  In the last 7 years, I've made a conscious effort to learn more about the design principals of good art.  Also, I've been trying to find my own voice.  I do take classes but usually they are ones that will let me learn at my own rate with a teacher there to guide me.  I've finally started doing art in series.  And yes I still have at least 2 or 3 traditional quilting pieces going at any given time.  I am a Gemini after all!

Other Stuff I want you to know:
Well I'm a Christian.  My main rule of life is to do what makes you happy in the long run.  I don't live by the values that this world or other people put forth.  I love to be on the computer  - almost as much as quilting but not quite.  I love music.  I'm nice but super out spoken and wished I had an edit button.  I stopped watching the national news 5 yrs ago and can barely tell you who the vice president is.   I'm a saltaholic - love my sugar pure - so any kind of sugary candy is my favorite.  I don't like chocolate, pizza or spaghetti so my husband thinks I'm unAmerican.

 

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;

 And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. 

 Isiah 9:6

God Bless Everyone and as always  - Thanks for Reading!

See the rest of the Christmas Party at SewCalGal's Great site! 

'Tis the Season - A Christmas Quilt Show

 

A Winter Wallhanging

41" by 49"

2011

Machine Quilted by me 

Hand Dyed cotton (by me), commercial fabric, thread applique

Original Design

Two years ago, I started this piece to enter in the bloggers Christmas quilt show.  Did I get it done on time?  That would be a big - fat - No!   Then when I finally did finish it - 9 months later - I forgot to enter it in that that year's Christmas Quilt Show.  Are you sensing a pattern here???

So I guess the stars aligned this year, and I've finally managed to enter my Christmas Wall hanging in Michelle's 2012 Christmas Quilt Show.  Well - its really not strictly a Christmas piece - its more of a winter wallhanging.  I designed it so that it could go up in my family room starting after Thanksgiving and would stay up  till March.




I was so happy to finish it.  I learned a  few things with it - including how to make a stand alone thread applique.  It was a lot easier than I thought - but OMG it uses a lot of thread.  Also, I hand dyed the border in the middle of winter, which I don't normally do since our house is usually under 70 degrees that time of year.  All in all, it was project that started off small - ended up big  -  was a pleasure to do.

If you're interested you can see the whole wallhanging's saga here. 

See more great design walls at Judy's  Patchwork Times - Design Wall Monday!

Off the Wall Friday will return next week in all its Art Quilt Force!  All Art Quilters are invited weekly to link up what they are doing creatively!!

Winter Wallhanging Completed! Design Wall Monday

So I spent Labor Day weekend laboring over completing my Christmas wall hanging.  I'm always surprised at how much the quilting adds to the piece.  As soon as the quilting line was down, the vision I had for this piece really started to emerge.  I originally had designed this piece for last Christmas but for some reason I got stalled.  I don't know if it was because all the thread work or because it wasn't coming out the way I envisioned . . . or a little bit of both.  Still, I'm so glad that its done and ready to hang on the wall and enter in the fair!

Some facts:

• Original design 
• 41" by 49"
• Made with commercial and hand dyed fabrics
• The trees are hand appliqued
• The boughs are free standing thread appliqued
• machine quilted, faced
• good points - the design is strong, complex background adds interest and the gradations works well, thread applique adds dimension
• bad points - the quilting could have been neater, the largest tree color is off - still - the borders are still a tad crooked

I was happy to finally do a piece with thread applique and now can add that to my tool box . Its so funny that last year I designed this piece because I wanted a "quickie" , little Christmas wall hanging.  Instead I got a piece that took 10's of hours, ended up being crib size and can hang throughout the winter!

Christmas UFO - Monday Design Wall

Who would have thought that one little tree could take up three full bobbins of thread??  Well, I sure didn't!  When I got my order of thread from my sewing shop - 4 big cones of Bottom Line  - it gave me the bright idea to take back out my Christmas UFO and finish it in time for - wait for it - Christmas!  Doing so I diligently wound 3 bobbins of green Bottom Line.    I decided I was going to do the background evergreen in a thread applique rather than in cloth.  I knew it was going to take a lot of thread - but OMG didn't realize how much.  3/4rd's of the way through I had to wind 3 more.  Now I only used one of those - but still that's a lot of thread.

As you can see I'm almost done with the thread appliques.  If you'd like to know how I'm doing them - I blogged out the process in a tutorial.  I think I'll just add a few more pine leaves and then sandwich this up for quilting and thread work.  I'm not sure how I'm going to quilt it yet - gotta research and plan for that but I'm hoping I can finish it all in a week.  Then I'll just sew on the thread appliques on top of it!  Can't wait since this has been in my UFO pile for a year!

I did manage to finish up my memorial commission quilt.  I'll get a picture of it up as soon as I can figure out how to take a picture of a 10 ft long quilt!

See more design boards at Judy Patchworks!

Thread Painting- If I can do it. . . So can YOU! Design Wall Monday

You know its been a long time since a project has given me trouble.  Usually, I start off my piece with a clear notion of what the finish project is going to look like and then I just work till I get there.  I know there are lots of people who like to see where the piece takes them and they totally enjoy the ride.  I. . . .am not like that.  So when the Christmas quilt started to give me fits. . . .well it almost got designated to the UFO pile.  Still, if I did that then another Christmas would go by without me having a new wall hanging on my wall.  So I managed to persevere through my fit and kept going.

The funny thing is that the thread painting, which I've never done in my life wasn't the problem.  The pines leaves are coming quite nicely even though they are a LOT of work and thread.  I'm simply amazed at how easy the whole process is really easy.

First you sandwich two pieces of solable stabilizer between layers of tulle and put them in an embrodiery hoop. The book said to use pins but I found they just got in the way.  I then set up my machine to do free motion quilting with bobbin thread in the bobbin and rayon thread up top.  With that done, I just started to draw with my machine.  Well. . .draw is a bit fancy. . . scribble is more like it.  I layered my colors so that the darkest ones were on the bottom and the lightest one - used for highlights were on top.  Little by little the pine branch was formed.




40 minutes and 5 thread colors later, I was satisfied with the work.   I took it out of the hoop and trimmed around the branch within a quarter of an inch.  Then it was run under super hot tap water and placed in a bowl of hot water to soak for 10 minutes.  While I was rinsing it, I made sure that the glue residue was gone.   I then towel dried it and set it aside to thoroughly dry.  It only took about 15 minutes.  Then all you do is trim around it with super sharp scissors.  You can also use a stencil cutter if you have it - just watch out -'cause those things get hot!  Still I found the scissor method worked fine and any left over tulle totally disappeared into the threads.

See Easy-Peasy!!!

So it wasn't the thread painting that was giving me the fits.  Its that once I got it all done, I realized that the scale of my thread painting was all wrong.  I thought I had been working on the bottom branches but once I got it up on my board, I realized that it was all too small.  Well that revelation took me about 45 minutes to come to.  Don't you hate when something is wrong but you just can't put your finger on it????

Anywayssssssssssssssssssssss. . . . .I moved the branches I was working up to the secondary ones in the middle and  started to think how I was going to do the lower ones which will need to be a lot bigger and therefore take a lot more time and thread.  sighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  If it ain't one thing. . .its another.

You can see what everyone else is up to at Judy's great site!!

Christmas Quilt Show Ending Tomorrow

Just a quick reminder that the Christmas Quilt Show is ending tomorrow.  There is a ton of  free giveaways including one from yours truly!  So head on over to SewCal's great blog to the links to the entries and the rules!!  

I'm still trying to work my way through all 99!!!

My Christmas Quilt Show Entry - Design Board Monday

 

A Paddington Bear Christmas

For Tessa

2000

45" by 45"

Commercial Fabric/Machine Pieced & Quilted

Every once in a while, I don't think its a bad idea to remember where we came from.  I made this ten years ago as a quickie wall hanging for Christmas.  Tessa was only turning 3 and it was appropriate at the time. . . well I guess  Paddington Bear is appropriate anytime isn't he??  I remember I got the fabric on Ebay and it was from the now defunct Rose & Hubble.  I loved that company!!

Usually I try to learn and practice something with every project.  With this one I was machine quilting with a lot of shiny metallic threads including Superior Threads Glitter Hallogram which is a flat thread.  I found out that I couldn't free motion with it but it would make this funky stitch with it so I used it that way.  I didn't enjoy all of that fussing though so I never really used it again.

Anyways, since the Christmas show is so early, I'm not quite done with my new Christmas Wallhanging so I'm sharing this one for the show.  I promise to have the piecing/designing stage on the new one done by next Monday!!

You can enter this show at SewCalGal's site (its running through the week) and find more inspirational Design Walls at Judy's Patchwork.

Thread Painting Applique - Design Board Monday

Nothing new on my design board since I spent much of the week cleaning - including my sewing hole!  That said, there is something new on my sewing table.  I finally - yes finally - took the plunge into free motion embroidery.  With two books on the subject which I've read back to back,  you'd think I've done this sooner.  I have done thread painting on my quilt before but never attempted to make a stand alone embroidered applique before.  The Christmas pine boughs seemed  like just the occasion to finally put on my big girl pants and try it.

With all of that said, I would need some supplies.  I managed to buy the tulle  at Joann's but headed to my very traditional local quilt shop.  Now this shop is very nice and sells all sorts of fabrics and machine embroidery supplies.  I went in looking for film stabilizer and a machine embroidery hoop.  When I asked them for a hoop, they said the only hoops they sold like that went with their $2000 brother's machine and did I want to buy one LOL!!  Needless to say, I went back to Joann's and bought the hand embroidery hoop for $2.50 instead.

Last night, I sat down to attempt it and realized that there was nothing to be afraid of.  Using the clear directions in Quilt Savvy:Simple Thread Painting  it really wasn't hard at all.  All you do is basically layer your applique with two sheets of water wash away stablizer and two pieces of tulle that is in a color that is close to what you are making.  You draw or trace the pattern of the applique onto your stabilizer.

Then you drop your feed dogs, put on a good free motion foot and start moving the thread across the design to fill it in - just like a colored pencil.  I used bobbin thread in my bobbin and a mix of rayons, polys, and cotton thread on top. First I started by sewing in stabilizer lines - the book said to do this when you are thread painting it directly onto your quilt but I didn't think it was a bad idea to do it with a free standing applique either.  I mean - gosh - the last thing you want is a puckery design right??

I'm not sure what way I'm suppose to layer the colors since I couldn't find that in the book so I just did it the way I do with colored pencils - I started with some of the darkest colors first and worked my way up to the light highlight colors on the top.  It seemed like it was taking forever to fill in the pine limb but really it wasn't too bad.  As you can see, Kali was there to keep me company.  I did have some broken threads that needed to be cleaned out of my machine, but didn't have to adjust my thread tension or bobbin tension.
 
I didn't manage to finish the one limb but so far so good .   I just worked my way down the limb little by little going through layering the colors each time.  It seems to be laying nice and flat.   I can't wait to dunk the thing and see if water really will magically wash away the stabilizer!!

Don't forget to check out other great design board's at Judy's Patchworks!

Applique Done!! Design Board Monday

Well after finally getting my butt hand in motion -   I finally finished up the handwork on this project. I managed to sew 10 - count them - 10 hours this week.   I don't know why I'm whining so much.  I really do enjoy doing the handwork.  Still it seemed like it took forever and this was a busy week with it being the holiday of ghosts and goblins.  Not to mention now I have a real idea of how much time I'm watching TV!!!!

Anyways. . . .with that behind me I'm onto doing the thread work of the pine needles.  I know I've read and seen how to machine embrodier but have never really tried it.  I won a nice sulky thread pack last month which included all sorts of stabilizers though and they have instructions. . . . .so I'll give it a whirl!

Hopefully I can fit it in while looking at all the quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival - my gosh the talent out there is amazing!!!!

Check out other great design boards at Judy's Patchworks!

Hand Appliquing Christmas - Design Wall Monday

Well I've come to the realization that I'm going to have to spend more then 4 hours a week if I ever intend to get this project done by mid November!  So the rule this week is that if I sit down for some tv, I have to have the wallhanging in my hands.  I did manage to get the applique done on the main trunk which was really a chore.


After a bit of struggling, I came up with a new system of applique.  You see, usually I roll the background in my left hand and pinch the freezer paper and fabric with my thumb nail.  That doesn't work so well since A  - the back ground is really too bulky to roll and B - the applique is so big that it doesn't want to lie flat on the background (even pinned to the high heavens!!)  Soooooo - came up with the a nice comfy way to do it.  I sit in my little recliner and put the piece on my knees.  Under it lies one of the many useless catalogues that they send us this time of year.   The catalogue kept me from sewing it to my pants (which I did twice before changing what I was doing LOL!)    I then use my left hand to hold the applique and the background nice and flat , while my hand stitches.  Worked great - flat tree - a nice neat edge - what more could you want????
 
So this week I'm aiming to get all the applique done including the rest of the limbs - another smaller tree - and little snow island that is in the background.   Gosh that seems like a lot - better get after it!!

Oh - forgot - I included a picture of my clover needle threader - if you do hand work and don't have one of these - run - don't walk - and get one.  It has saved me endless hours of needle threading!!!

Look for other great inspirations on Judy's Design Wall Monday list!

Christmas Saga Continues. . . . Design Wall Monday

You know I'm always stuck by how much time goes into original artwork.  When I do a traditional pattern piece, all the work is in the cutting - piecing - quilting.  When I'm doing something that is my original design all the work is in the prep work and design decisions.  This project is just another example of that.  It seems like after a month I should be farther along but I'm not.  Still once I think about it - quite a lot got done this week.

I did finally managed to get the right color for the border dyed.  After overdyeing it with the strongest red and letting it sit in my oven once again - it came out just as I'd imagined it.  I was VERY HAPPY to have it done in time for this blog!!  I also managed to make a full scale pattern of  the piece and get the templates done for the hand applique of the tree.  Yep - you read that right - I'm going to hand applique the tree.  I've never done anything quite so large by hand (did I mention this project is 37" by 50"????)so this ought to be interesting but I just like the smooth finished line of hand applique better than machine.  Fusing is out of the question  since I like to get little puffs when I machine quilt.  Still its going to be a challenge. . . . .Not to mention I haven't hand appliqued in about 4 years!!

Auditions for the tree - the far right won

Still I'm glad to finally get most of the design decisions done and get on with the real sewing!!  I'm going to take this along to school this week and sew when I'm on break.  That's another good reason to hand applique - you can take it  with you.

Whining about Wine or is it Plum???? Hand dyeing Experiment

Newly dyed fabric on the left                                                                   Slice of fabric sample on the right

OMG!!!  Does everything have to be such a pain in my hassle???  I know I've whined about this before but MY GOSH! With the trip to my mother's cabin behind me, I thought I better get back after my Christmas wallhanging.  You know this started out being a quick little project that I was going to whip up in time to enter in an online Christmas quilt show.  Instead, its turned into this major undertaking.  The border is just a case in point.  In the hundreds and hundreds of yards of fabric I own do you think I could find just the right wine I needed for the border?  No - of course not.  Still no big deal - I mean why have a nice collection of dyes if you can't  custom dye a color you need now and again.  So I started researching  how to mix a nice muted whine and of course, pretty much the consensus is that its super hard to get just right.  Sighhhhhhhhh!

hand dyed fabric in oven - not our dinner!

After a couple of days of hmmmm-hawwwwwwwing about it - I just decided to take the plunge and guess!  For the one yard of fabric I mixed one tsp of fushia with one tsp of Kelly green adding a pinch of black.  Then I used a zip lock bag for the first time  - which I find more of a hassle then the beer cups I usually use.  It was odd working in my dining room rather than my porch, but I managed.  Still I put the whole concoction in my oven since the house is at 65 degrees this days - yes I put a little sign that warned all family members not to turn it on !!!

The result was a nice muted wine/plum color - really pretty in fact.  But still not the saturated wine I was looking for.  I had a slice of muted wine fabric to compare it to - so I had an idea of where I was heading.  After much discussion - even bringing in my husband Paul (read desperation)  - I decided that what I really wanted was a color somewhere between the two.  Soooooooooo back into the dye bath the fabric went using a tsp of strongest red and a bit of carmine red for good measure (grin).

I'll let ya know how it turns out - we'll both be surprised!

Scrap Happy - Design Board Monday

Well it took me two weeks, but finally I completed the background for my Christmas wall hanging.  Just as I started it, I changed my mind and decided to do 2.5" squares rather then 4".  A big ADUHHHHHHHH on me.  Should have figured out that although it would make the gradation of values nicer, it was A LOT more work.  Then to add to the drama, was the fact that I pieced it and didn't like it - so had to rip it a part and do it again - of course!  I mean why do it once when you can obviously do it a couple of times (read dripping with sacrasm)

All that said, there were some nice things, learned in this piecing.  First of all, I think 17 years later, I have conquered the scant 1/4" seam.   Most of my blocks were proper size and I did very few pins.  I also got to use up a good bunch of hand dyed blue scraps.  This took more time to cut them down individually but I felt very thrify and vindicated that I wasn't just saving them for nothing!

Speaking of that - I was wondering. . . .....................

How do you all store your scraps? For years, I tried different methods.  One that worked well for me was taking any scraps left over from a project and cutting them down into usable charm sizes.  Then they were stored by size in shoe boxes.  This was great when I was doing a lot of traditional work.  Now that I'm doing a lot of art quilts, I had to find a new method.  So I decided to start storing them in zip lock bags by color.  I have one set of baggies of hand dyeds and one set for commercial prints.  Each set  goes in a tote bag  for easy storage and travel.  When I finish a project I just throw all the scraps into a zip lock bag - then when I have some TV time I just take them out and sort into their respective color family.  Two years later it seems to be working out well.

Oh and yes - Kali was there helping out - if only she would learn to use a seam ripper - sighhhhhhhh

Its Beginning to look a lot like Christmas. . . .Design Wall Monday

You know I've never been one to start a lot of projects and then work on them simultaneously.  I'm a very task oriented  - linear - quilter.  Well, at least I was a very task oriented, linear quilter.  Then this summer hit and I've managed to start working on several projects at once.  With the fair safely over - and no I did not get my quilt quilted in time (read big sigh!) - I thought I better get after making my Christmas project.  SewCalGal is hosting a Christmas quilt show and I wanted to enter it.  Plus I've been saying for the last 3 years that I need to do a decent Christmas wall hanging for the house.  You would thing that a quilter could manage to have some decent decorations that she has sewn up during the holidays  wouldn't ya??

Sooooo, of course I didn't have an idea of what I wanted - I just knew that I wanted it to be a bit artsy - a bit classy and not toooo cutesy!!  I did some surfing and found a pattern that I liked, but it was just a tad too twee for me.  So I spent the after noon tweaking it since of course 'cause ya know I've never found a pattern that I didn't want to change in some way. Here is the finished sketch.

In old news, I did manage to come VERY close to finish hand quilting my quilt --- should finish that up this week with all of the new shows coming on.  Between the fair, a head cold and working everyday this week nothing got done.  Still things are slowing down so maybe I'll manage to finish up some of these projects!