Painting Rock Mandalas

In visiting the home of Kathie, a quilting friend of mine, I stopped to admire an array of painted rocks in the planting bed beside the stoop of her front door. I thought they were gorgeous in their own right. They also added a splash of color and contrast not always possible with flowers. Not to mention, with my black thumb, plants often die pre-maturely, long before the lower limit of their theoretically supposed life span. When I learned that Kathie had painted them, I asked that she teach me how. This photo of her collection was taken many months ago and last week we finally got together for her to teach me.

Kathie had emailed me the links to a few online tutorials before we got together. She had prepped a several stones with black paint, which really makes the colored dots we applied pop. One of the  introductory tutorials I liked How to paint rock mandalas by Kristin Uhrig. She told me she had started doing this when she was laid up with a leg injury and found painting dot mandalas on small stones was both creative and relaxing.

Here is my first attempt using a nice round stone and trying to adhere to symmetry both in dot size and position.

My second attempt was painting on an oblong stone and so I thought I would be brave, branch out, and try two circular dots patterns of uneven size on the same stone. I was somewhat cocky and rushed a bit on the next rock so my dots were not as precise as I would have liked and as they had been on my first attempt. The two mandalas looked like eyes to me so I improvised and added a dotted beak.

For even more eye candy and to appreciate how precise dots, uniformly sized and spaced, can really wow, check out this link: Artist Turns Ocean Stones Into Tiny Mandalas By Painting Colourful Dot Patterns. I had a lot of fun with this activity and intend to paint some more on my own. Like quilting, precision pays off, and I will take my time and enjoy the creative process on my future stones.

Nestling Owls Completed

This quilt for my granddaughter was inspired by three things:

1. a fabric in my stash I loved, Moda's Full Moon Owls by Tula Pink, 
2. a pattern by Quilter's Dream I have been hankering to try, Square Root of Nine, and 
3. a desire to expand my FMQ bravery with a stitching path from Angela Walters book Shape by Shape.

Previous posts discussed the color selections, block placements, and border. What was left was the layering, quilting, and binding. For the FMQ I chose an Angela Walters quilting suggestion for squares, a four petaled pattern based on two diagonals within the square. I drew it below on a plastic sheet protector with a same block inserted inside.

It shows up better on some blocks rather than others depending on the fabrics, but it fills the space nicely.

For the square within a square blocks I wanted to accentuated the offset diagonal nature and so only did a four petal pattern in the very center. I intentionally quilted down only one of the diagonals (not both) to add some interest but I did stitch in the ditch around each square. My original idea was to add loops along the diagonal but they looked more like a chain link fence rather than flower petal or leaf and were distracting so I omitted them in favor of a simpler approach.

I am glad I am getting enough braver to quilt in a non-matching thread color. It shows up so much better, adding visual interest as well as texture.

On the quilt top I mixed it up a bit and added the four lobed motif in different sizes throughout. This is my overall plan. I printed a photo of the assembled top and drew my proposed path on it. Note where there was not a complete nine patch I chose to break it up into a four patch and two singletons. This four lobe pattern scales well and easily.

I did the lobes free hand but I did use a ruler on my Handi-Quilter sit-down to get the diagonals straight and to help stitch in the ditch neatly.

I repeated the four lobe pattern in the border, keeping it the scale of three motifs to one block. For the square in a square blocks that did not have the natural seaming dividing it in thirds, I marked a piece of masking tape, using as a guide. It is low tack tape and I just peeled it and moved it to where I needed it. I do not mark my quilt tops, both because I am lazy and also because I fear I could be unsuccessful in removing the marking medium.

Having a border the same width as a third of a block helping in quilting around the corners. There were no cornerstone problems needing adjusting or fudging.

The motif blended very well from within the quilt top to along the borders

The following photo illustrates the six quilting regions, clockwise from top left.

1. I sort of "winged" it on the owl blocks, pretty much echoing the owl's shape and the leaves surrounding. I was considering doing "feathers" but decided I wanted the owls to be puffier rather than flattened by excessive stitching.  
2. Next is a large four lobed motif on a nine-patch block. 
3. The border has a series of the motif lined up and scaled to one third the dimension of a block. 
4. The two-tone magic binding has a stitching in the ditch along the chocolate accent flange. 
5. A square in a square block has a diagonal, stitch in the ditch around the squares and a single small central motif. 
6. Two-thirds of a nine-patch  block has a four patch medium size motif and two small individual motifs.

As the final touch I added labels to the quilt back. On the left is the quilt name Nestling Owls, and on the right, my initial and the year. I intentionally chose Nestling Owls not Nesting Owls because in my mind it conjures up images of cuddling.

Holding the quilt outdoors give a fair overall display, but colors are a bit muted in the shadows. Sunlight photos looked washed out. I keep gaining a growing appreciation for the photographers out there who can capture the essences of a quilt. Can you find the eight owls camouflaged in this quilt? I hope my granddaughter will enjoy looking for them.

Hanging the quilt indoors gives a bit more shadowed view that reveals the stitching. Yup. There are still eight owls there. Perhaps they are easier to spot now. Once you spot them will they be "spotted owls"? Groan...

Without seeing the stitching detail, the back side of the quilt looks quite flat and frankly, a tad boring, even though I do love this paisley-esque fabric.

Photographing in the sun at an angle show up more of the stitching and lends more interest.

I have washed it twice before gifting, and it did soften. I use 100% bamboo batting because I like its drape. Too much quilting makes for a quilt like flexible cardboard. Nestling Owls snuggles nicely into this chair.

The blog posts chronicling Nestling Owls creation and progress are as follows:

Pink and Green (March 31, 2016)

Paisley Owl Nesting (April 14, 2016)
Paisley Owl Rearranging (April 22, 2016)
Border Detail (April 27, 2016)
Nestling Owls Completed (May 11, 2016 - this post)

Now I will link up with Let's Bee Social #124 so I can share the good news of this quilt's completion.

Border Detail

The blocks of the "pink and green" quilt for my granddaughter-to-be assembled to be 33½"x48½". I usually like to keep baby quilts just under a width of fabric wide so I do not need to piece the back, but 33½" was a bit too narrow. This quilt needed a border, both to widen it and also to set the binding apart from the busyness of the blocks in the center. I had selected the binding fabric right away. I definitively wanted just the right pink – rosy, not pastel, not loudly shocking, but medium-toned and strong – and I wanted to set it off with just a fine line of chocolate brown as was in the feature print. I had used brown nowhere in the blocks, but thought this accent, used in moderation as inset piping on the binding, would be attractive. I had a green striped fabric I very much liked for the border that would separate the binding from the quilt blocks.

The stripe was just the perfect blend of soft tonality of greens - or so I thought. I had been unknowingly previewing the fabric folded up and so the full range of color intensity was not so obvious. I knew the darker stripes were there because I had accepted the tones as blending with the greens of the feature fabric, which also has tones more intense than pastel; but, I do not think I fully appreciated the dominance of the dark stripes once deployed in the quilt.

I cut 5" wide trial strips and placed them around the quilt top. The colors themselves were fine but that border looked like a traveling set of lights as on a neon sign outside a Las Vegas casino or as part of a garish Christmas display in a holiday light fight competition. Both of these were interpretations I did not expect nor did I want to promote. I had intended to subtly camouflage those owls, steeped deep their diurnal slumber, but I never intended to distract the eye so much that the viewer was blinded from discovering those nestled birds. Making the border narrower would decrease the distraction, but I needed more of a solution. I tried folding and pinning the dark stripes out of view on the left and bottom borders. Hmm... somewhat better.

I doubted the success of going on a quest for different fabric in just the right shades of green and I had my mind set on a green border. Then it occurred to me that I could surgically remove the offending dark stripes from the fabric and reassemble it into a subtler, less contrasting ombré. I cut a template so I would excise only the stripes I wanted to remove along the cut strips of the border fabric.

Ignoring the usual wisdom of seaming borders on a diagonal, I seamed the strips along the line of the stripes. They will be more hidden that way, especially when pressed and quilted. I now have all these squares in the middle remaining from the sections of dark stripes I cut out and of course I will not be able to throw them out!

There were two other things I did to calm down the border and make it less of a competitor with the central quilt. I made it narrower and I aligned the stripes so they looked a bit more orderly. The border width is that of one of the squares of a nine-patch block. I was lucky in that the stripe repeat was very, very close to a multiple of the block size. I centered a pale set of stripes in the top and bottom borders and centered a darker range of stripes in the side borders. The colors still vary along the edges but to less of an extreme and they no longer look like they are marching around the outside. The corners came out as medium dark squares. I confess, I did not plan it that way, but I liked those pseudo-cornerstones there!

I am often conflicted when making a gift quilt on whether to blog about it or save it as a surprise. This granddaughter is due to make her appearance into this world in May. How much should I "reveal"? Surprises last only a few minutes, seconds even. My blogging gives me hours of pleasure while I am doing it. Explaining my choices and seeing them displayed on a computer screen, crystalizes my thinking. The voice of my posts is like I am talking to an audience, but more likely I am talking to myself. Since my hobby is about process, often even more so than product, I choose to write info about it before it is complete. Besides, a quilt is not a quilt until it is quilted!

The top now measures 39" x 52½" before quilting. The quilt I'd made for this little girl's big sister, Paisley Pearl (post for February 8, 2014), had finished at 39" x 45" so this is comparable. My next step is to prepare the backing, sandwich with batting, and (gulp) "quilt as desired". Oh, and I have to name it. I am toying with Paisley Owls, or Nesting Owls or Nestling Owls. I have a leaning toward Nestling Owls. It conjures up cuddling.

Remember those two groups of eight blocks I decided to leave out? Here they are along with some partial blocks. I will have to do something with these, too! Eventually. Not now.

Linking up now with Let's Bee Social #122.

Paisley Owl Rearranging

I completed making all my blocks for the nesting owls quilt for my highly awaited granddaughter. I made 48 blocks in total for a crib size quilt. Two fat quarters yields 8 blocks so I had tentatively picked six pairs of fabrics per my post for March 31, 2016 titled simply Pink and Green. I knew I was going to omit some of those blocks to make space for incorporating the paisley owl fabric. My post for April 14, 2016 titled Paisley Owl Nesting was devoted to sizing those full owl inserts.

Along with the big owl blocks, I was going to insert some smaller snippets of the owl fabric. I decided to make the blocks first, place them on the quilt top, and then choose which ones to unstitch and inset an owl head. Squares within squares blocks would lend themselves to an off set central owl.

The nine-patch blocks lent themselves to a central row substitution.

Swapping out one of the checked rows looked better to me so I did that even though that makes the nine-patch "wrong". It avoids drawing the eye in an up-down direction. I like that the owls are nestled in there and somewhat camouflaged. I also used some of the owl paisley fabric in the nine patch and squares in squares blocks.

All this talk of nine patch and squares in squares blocks and I have yet to give credit to my inspiration pattern! The design I am using as my basis and springboard is the pattern Square Root of Nine by Quilter's Dream.

I love this women's patterns. I have these that I am itching to try: Box of Stars, A-Mazed, The-Space-Between, Good-Grief. The hourglass like Hokey-Pokey might be too much work with angles but if I ever work on scraps I plan to give it a try. Most of the patterns are shown in sombre neutral like colors but they make up great in more vivid tones. I made a friend's quilt from the pattern Dash-in-the-Box in a combination of jewel-toned batik fat quarters pirated from a kit with a totally different French braid pattern. It was real fun to play with using triplets of fat quarters. See my post for July 13, 2013 titled Color Play of the Day Completed. The designer is an interesting lady. I have spoken with her at the quilt fairs. She used to be a chemical engineer and so loves the math and the angles. Her cutting instructions are awesome and little to no fabric is wasted. Very few seams need to line up so the patterns look complicated but are beginner forgiving.

So here are my 48 blocks all grouped together, awaited some creative, artistic, awesome arrangement. Here officially ended the honeymoon stage of this quilt. I spent two days arranging and re-arranging those 48 blocks with proposed owl accent inserts on my design wall, from one ghastly, choppy, configuration to another.

Then my daughter said something very wise to me. "You know, Mom, random and balance are not the same thing." Her statement made me aware that I first needed to balance the weights of the colors and then I could randomize. I realized that much as I loved that whimsical pale pink with aqua dots fabric (central bottom), it was really throwing everything off. It made me think of the wizards' duel scene in the Disney movie the Sword in the Stone where Merlin gives Madame Mim a virus and she breaks out in spots. Once I had that visual it was far easier to let that fabric go.

I omitted the distracting owls, just for the moment, and arranged the blocks with darker tones in the outer columns. The result was calmer but the eye still traveled around.

Some blocks would need to be set aside to make room for the owls. I kept the darker tones at the outer edges. The larger, darker toned, centrally-located owls would balance this. The aqua and pale olive blocks were blaring, so they would selectively leave to make room for the owls. Besides the request had been for a predominantly pink and green quilt and that aqua was squawking. I also downsized to 5x7 blocks instead of 6x8 blocks reducing the pieced top size to roughly 35"x49" from 42"x56". It is still an adequate size for a child and I am considering adding a border to set it off. I thought I had a right fabric to frame it but, after auditioning it, I am not so sure now...

 While I ponder my next conundrum I am linking up to Let's Bee Social #121.

Paisley Owl Nesting

I'd set aside working on the "Pink and Green" quilt for my eagerly anticipated granddaughter for nearly two weeks. I had paused to digest and figure out how I was going to incorporate the feature owl paisley fabric I loved so much. That yardage had been my jumping off point for color selection but it was too pretty to not have larger uncut sections of it somewhere. I wanted it to appear as if the owls were nesting amongst the quilt blocks. My introductory post on this quilt was March 31, 2016. The basic block size was 7¼" and the vertical repeat on the owl was 7½". I initially thought that these dimensions were serendipitously close enough that I would simply substitute out a pieced block for an owl square several places.

This plan seemed adequate but once ¼" seam allowances were taken, I was concerned that the owl might look a bit crowded. What if I shortened the "nine-patch" blocks above and below to be only two rows high and had 11¾" tall owls? Somehow this option seemed disproportionately tall to me and I did not like the partial repeat of an adjacent owl.

There was alway the compromise of removing a row from just one block and having a 9½" tall owl. This looked better height wise and the neighboring owls were not so obvious. But if I centered the block vertically this approach would would entail partial rows of the nine-patch. Partial rows did not appeal.

Then I realized I could offset the owl block vertically and reduce only one nine-patch block by one-third in height. This asymmetrical arrangement also offered me the freedom to put a square-within-a-square block above or below. The outermost strip size of a square-within-a-square block is not a multiple of the basic 2¾" grid of the quilt top so I thought trimming it smaller would look odd. I decided to forge ahead with the vertical offset design, cutting the owl paisley fabric into 7¼" wide by 9½" tall rectangles. Final quilt assembly will need to be by columns rather than rows but I can handle that. An owl rectangle will always need two-thirds of a nine-patch above or below but that is not too restrictive.

My next step is to make a couple more sets of nine-patch and square-in-a-square blocks from other pairings of fat quarters. For now, I am hooking up to Let's Bee Social #120 before heading back to my sewing room.

Pink and Green

My son and daughter-in-law are expecting a second daughter in May and I have started a quilt for her. I asked my daughter-in-law if she had a color preference in mind and she said "pink and green". The girls will be sharing a room eventually so that is the color theme. Here is the first daughter's quilt, created in response to a request for "green and brown with enough pink to know it's girl". I named the quilt Paisley Pearl (February 8, 2014). I wanted the second daughter's quilt to be distinguishable but set the same sort of quasi-modern mood.

I must confess, in an odd niggling sort of way that I cannot explain, I'd envisioned working on a turquoise quilt. To me turquoise is a girl color, where as true blue speaks "boy" to me. You will notice I snuck a bit of turquoise into the first daughter's quilt in some corner diagonals and the border. The second daughter's knitted blanket (3/21/16 post) had a bit of blue in it, also. But I dutifully went to my stash and started pulling pinks and greens for the second daughter's quilt. I love this stage of starting a new project. My sewing room looks like a fabric cyclone hit it while I am playing, but I love this stage.

I came across this piece of Tula Pink paisley owl fabric that I'd been saving for something special. I wonder if I subconsciously was thinking about it and it influenced my preconceived color inclination. The paisley swirls of it echo the swirls of the feature fabric of Paisley Pearl, but it is predominantly turquoise. On closer inspection, it does have pinks, greens, and browns in it, though so "Bingo"! I pulled the subtle ombre stripe too just because it seemed to blend well.

I started pulling pinks and greens from my stash using the Tula Pink fabric as my inspiration and jumping off point. Here are the fat quarter pairings I pulled. In the bottom row, the pale pink with turquoise dots may be a bit weak and the broad stripe has all the right colors but the wide bands may be too strong. Nevertheless, I have not removed them from the mix just yet. That green in the upper right is just the perfect green but when I opened it up, alas, it was only a partial fat quarter.

I had used part of it, ironically on a pillow for the two little girls' daddy, my son. It was the background for a 14"x14" deer pillow (December 30, 2015) commemorating his first hunting experience. I am trying to find alternate greens and so far I am not completely satisfied. They need to be brownishly-olive in tone and not too brashly yellow. I am exploring some brownish greens and greenish browns. The rightmost brown shows promise, a good tone but perhaps too dark. The middle green is the right hue but somehow the plaid, even though tiny, just seems too masculine. The stripe is a good bridge fabric with the right colors but it may be too graphic and distracting. The taupe and beige on the far left do not excite me but neither do they clash.

The pattern I am using as a starting point is made from pairs of fat quarters so the ones I pulled are an experiment. I will make up the blocks from several of these pairings and omit the blocks that are too weak, too distracting, too graphic, or yes, too turquoise. Stitching up two fat quarters is not a lot to sacrifice, neither in time nor fabric, and sometimes I just need to see things made up to be decisive. I have shown a sample of some blocks stitched up and posted on my design wall. I do not want to reveal the entire pattern just yet - especially because I do not know how much I am going to deviate from it. I plan to feature that large scale print paisley owl fabric, fussy cut in some fashion, embedded amongst mostly pinks and greens as requested. That strong pink swirl tone-on-tone definitely needs to be in the quilt because it is a statement pink and goes real well with the paisley owl. I am curious to see how it all comes together.

In making those square within a square blocks, the pattern calls for an array of various sized rectangles. To keep them straight I use two notions called Alphabitties and Clover Wonder Clips.

I found that yes, I could make my own labels from paper, but these little sturdy plastic squares are reusable and show up on light or dark fabric. They are great to use in conjunction with the wonder clips to stack and keep organized various similarly sized pieces. I just clip my fabric pieces together with the defining letter on top.

I have discovered a small time saving tip when using these Alphabitties and clips. I used to store the clips in one container and then alphabetize, stack, and store the Alphabitties in another container. I then realized the Alphabitties are harder to pick up and stick together when stored in a stack. I now leave a clip on each one and store the clip/letter pair that way. When scattered on the table top or cutting board it is far easier to spot the letter desired and pick it up. Those are the individual letters with a pink clip. The blue clips still hold a stack that is pre-sorted and clipped together in numerical or alphabetical order. If you do not have them yet, these, stacking, interlocking, Lock-Up containers (see 8/23/13 post for more info) are great. I buy mine at the Container Store.

That is enough ramblings for now. I will link up with Let's Bee Social #118.

Pre-Thanksgiving Color and Stitchery

What are you thankful for at Thanksgiving? Many things of course. But for me, from the vantage point of my quilting world perspective, I need to add to that list the rich colors and textures of the holiday. I love pumpkins in many shapes and types and here is the variety I have on my hearth for tomorrow. From left to right there is the rough woven straw, the crisp plaid cotton fabric, the nubby cable knit, the gathered silky smooth velvet, and bright, slick, hammered copper.

My younger son Alex absolutely loves a lighted tree so yesterday I assembled our 6' tall pre-lit Walmart tree and placed just a few gold ornaments on it to represent the tones of Thanksgiving. Last year was the first time we did not have a freshly cut live tree and I was a bit wistful that purchasing an artificial tree would signal us letting go of a "real" tree tradition. However, being able to erect this tree in less than 30 minutes, when the inspiration struck me, has a lot of benefits. Alex can double his holiday enjoyment. Alex is a special needs adult, but one of the perks of his situation is that he continues to enjoy typical childlike pleasures. (You can see Alex enjoying his birthday quilt in my post for May 26, 2014.) I do not want to rush Christmas, so I will wait to add the red and other bright ornaments later, in a week or so. For now, we have lights and golden hues for Thanksgiving.

For the Thanksgiving holiday, I enjoy setting a pretty table more than I enjoy the cooking part of things – and much, much, more than dealing with the cleanup and all those turkey leftovers. Here are some plates I bought at T.J.Maxx several years ago. The pattern is Royal Turkey by Maxcera but I did not know that was anything special at the time. I just liked them with their scrolls and ripply edges and bright orange-reds. I love that although there is a turkey, the colors are not just browns. The painted fruits brighten up the plates, too, as if that striking border were not enough!

The burgundy tablecloth underneath that plate was also a discount store find many years ago, but this is the first time I have used it.The quilters out there may enjoy the embroidered and appliquéd leaves at the edges and corners. Those leaves are what attracted me to it when I bought it. The low price for such detail was a pretty good incentive, also.

Since there will be only four of us tomorrow at a table big enough for six or eight, I draped a table runner crosswise at one end. I'd picked up the leaves runner at an antique store. Again I was drawn in by appreciation for the stitchery. Those tea light holders shaped like leaves were a random find at a dollar store. My son will have a blast blowing out the tea lights and having us relight them repeatedly for him. It is gratifying to watch that such a small thing gives him such great pleasure.

I love dragging bits of items from my closets, collected a various random times, and putting them together in a fun way. After gathering it all together, this is what the table will look like, pre-food. Tomorrow I will add a few red carnations in the individual mini-vases or tuck them  in with the gold utensils at each place. Those mini-vases hold pumpkins, leaves, and candy corn stick decorations within.

Shortly after taking a quilting class in fall 2014 at Alden Lane's Quilting in the Garden I bought those stick decorations at their Christmas shop. The whimsical candy corns make me smile. The pumpkins may have faces on them making them Jack O'Lanterns but I still think they add to the ambience and friendly tone of the Thanksgiving table.

My son's mini-vase is customized more to his taste. Those Tootsie Rolls pops remain true to the red, orange, and brown color scheme.

There is no food yet, but our dog Daphne is practicing for her food coma tomorrow.

Hopefully there will be moderation for us, and not a food coma. This is the first time ever that for a Thanksgiving at home, I will not be cooking. We are buying a holiday feast from a local restaurant. A single adult friend will be joining my husband and son and me. Not cooking gave me time to do this fussy table decor stuff that I love.

I am thankful that tomorrow promises to be a low-key day for us to relax and count our blessings; catch the Macy's Day parade on TV... watch a little football... blow out a few candles... do a jigsaw puzzle. I am blogging today instead of frantically baking. Whooo, knows? Maybe we will do it again this way next year.

I am joining up now with Freshly-Pieced's work in progress pre-turkey link party.