Another Horse of Course - part 3

My Horse #3 looks decent on the background (actually under the background!) so now to decide what thread to use to stitch it down! I have a good copper/brown Lana Madeira thread but it's really hard to use in my machine.  Hard because you have to go SO, SO slow with it.  My daughter gave me a ton of her threads about a week ago and guess what!  She had a great variegated thread by Signature called 'Autumn'.  So I started to play around with sewing both threads to see which looked better.  The variegated won!  It has a touch of green in it along with shades of gold to dark brown.  I'm not a fan of quilting with variegated threads but with this stitch it did work.

Just playing around with small strips of paper on the background.

I prefer the placement above...this is too rigid.

Here he is all stitched!  I was playing around with some threads for his tail!  I'm actually putting a tail and mane on this horse!  My other two were missing both!  HA  So far...so good...now I'll fuse to batting and start some free motion work.

 

Another Horse, of course - part 2

 I last posted on arranging the painted paper behind the background fabric for my 3rd horse piece.  I got thinking that I might run into a problem with stitching over the paper so decided to put my thinking cap on (it took me awhile to find it!) and figure out a way to make the paper flexible or at least ready for stitching. Awhile back, I took a Zoom class from Margarita Korioth on using paper in our quilts.  I vaguely remembered the process and had to review!  Thank goodness I kept notes!  HA 

So, what to do but make a test sample!  Out came some pieces of painted papers, fusible web (Misty Fuse), fusible lightweight interfacing, cheesecloth and batting/fabric.  I started off by putting Misty Fuse on the back of my painted paper.  Then  I laid down interfacing and put the cheesecloth on top and fused together.  Next, I laid the paper (with Misty Fuse on) and fused those together (cheesecloth & paper).  Woohoo...it worked..the paper was flexible and not as stiff as it was.  This isn't quite the same method Margarita used but gave me enough ideas on how to apply her thought process to my piece!  

Next up, I wanted to make sure I could stitch through the paper, batting and background fabric easily.  So I cut out a small area on this painted/dyed fabric (I did add Misty Fuse to it before I cut out the rectangle).  Laid a piece of the painted paper under the opening and fused to a piece of batting.  I did some stitching around both paper and background and it worked great!

BUT, then I got looking at the background piece and I didn't think it had enough color in it.  I'll be doing some free motion quilting but still thought it needed some more color.  

Back to the dye room to find some paint to match the existing 'goldish' dye.  I have no idea what dye mix I used when I originally made this piece of fabric.  I did have the oval plastic pieces so it was pretty easy to paint more ovals on.

I also stamped some of the small stripes.  I'll be doing some hand embroidery on those as well as adding some tiny strips of the horse papers!  Just to add some color to the background.  Well, that's my thought process so far!

This isn't the final placement for the paper behind the background..  I just forgot to take a picture before I fused and too lazy to do it now!  I had to play around with moving the paper and then marked around the edges with 1/2 to 1" excess  and cut out a funky horse shape.  HA  Then I fused the background fabric to the horse paper cut out.    I had Misty Fuse on my background fabric too.  So now I'll do some stitching to hold the paper to the fabric.  Stay tuned for part 3!

And I have started on knitting the summer tee!  WHEW!  Long way to go but I may finish before winter!  Good project to work on while Bob watches baseball at night!

Another Horse, of course!

 

While waiting for my yarn to arrive for my next 'drive Robbie crazy knitting' project, I decided to play around with a  paper I stenciled and dyed.  I added some white paint using a small stencil and I was quite happy with it.  In fact, I thought this would make a nice background but what could I add to it!  

As I was standing in my sewing room, I got looking at my horse hex pieces I did a few years ago and thought!  Why not another hex horse and use the paper for the horse!!  

This was the first horse I made.  I hand stitched the patchwork background, then cut out the horse pattern into the patchwork (yes, that was scary!).  I knew how many hex pieces I needed (3/4" hex) so once I made a hex square piece of fabric I just stitched around the horse. 

For the 2nd quilt, I took the horse patchwork I had cut out and started to make a larger hex background!  It was easier just to make the horse fabric!  HA  

Waste not, want not, right!  Well, I didn't have any leftover pieces so................

This was my hex pattern sheet but I was also lucky to have kept the original horse pattern I made from a free coloring page site on the web. 

So I cut out a template of the horse shape reversed and this was a smaller one than the hex horses.

I have tons of hex pieces in every color there is!  So I started to lay hex pieces around the 'paper' horse!  HA   I did like the white/peach mix on top of his back.  But nothing really did the trick for me.

As I was taking off the hex pieces, I liked the simple contrast of the white background around 'him'.

So in my stash I went.  I found this hand died piece I did awhile back - yes, I pulled out probably 20+ pieces of fabric but nothing did the trick!

So I bit the bullet and traced the horse form on top of the dyed piece.  I backed the fabric with a lightweight stabilizer because I was going to use an Xacto knife to cut out the horse but that was not  working so I just used scissors.  And, yes, I  kept the horse piece!  Who knows...horse #4 in the future!  Maybe with a hex background!  HA

Then the fun came playing around with which way to turn the paper to get the horse to look right with the white stencil marks.  

I'm still playing with this part as well as deciding how to cut most of the paper away because I'll be doing free motion quilting and perhaps some hand stitching on the piece.  I'm still working on that aspect of the project.  

And my yarn came so my sister and I are starting another project together!  So much fun to cry on her shoulder when knitting doesn't work out!  HA  And to be the little sister and allow my big sister to cry on my shoulder too!  Just wish we lived closer to do this project. The yarn is quite thin and 4 or 5 wraps, which should drive us crazy!!!  It's a light weight summer T (Miya Tee)...now to finish it for the summer!  DUH!  Why don't I make a sweater for winter...no pressure to finish this, right!

The Payne's menagerie!

 One of the reasons I love summer, no it's not because of the hot weather (not a fan) but because of the birds we feed!  This year is not exception!  We have 3 birds nesting about 5 feet apart under our deck! 

The first picture is a Dove nest!  I have to say she isn't that great about making a nest.  I told Bob she's a sloppy homemaker!  HA  

The 2nd picture is our robin, who nests under our deck every year...or at least one of their previous fledgings grown up come back to where they were born.  Yes, she has some of her nest laying around but at least she has a nest you can see!

The 3rd picture, which is hard to really see is a neat little Finch nest!  This is the first time a finch and dove have nested under the deck!  Today I watched one little baby robin finally leave the nest!  That will be sad but in past years the Robin has had more than one nest!

We place a hummingbird feeder out along with two separate bowls of jelly.  So far we are feeding: Hummingbirds, Chickadee's (yes, they eat jelly!), House finches, Red breasted Grosbeak, cardinals, Orioles, Doves...I'm sure I'm missing a bird or two.  I can see the feeders from our kitchen so they amuse me when I'm cooking or doing dishes.

I love the Orioles.  We've seen several males at one time and a female comes and goes.  

Now I need to tell my snake story!  My next door neighbor called me yesterday afternoon to say she had a snake caught in the dog yard under some plastic/straw panel they had laid down.  She didn't know what to do so I said I'd be right over. 

Well, this is what I saw...this little garden snake...poor little guy's belly was swollen where he was wrapped in the plastic netting!  I asked Lori for a pair of scissors because it was obvious he was tangled up so much we needed to cut away the netting.  Which I did!!!!  It wasn't easy because it was so tight around his body I was afraid of cutting into him.  But it worked and he slithered away!!!  Poor little guy!  I'm not fond of snakes because usually they startle me but seeing this little one having an issue I felt so bad for him and so did Lori.  We now call ourselves the 'snake wranglers'.  HA

I'll have to make sure to keep my camera ready so I can take pictures of all the different birds that eat at the Payne's restaurant!  Or any more snakes!

Just stuff!

 Figure not point in me posting the 101 art projects I'm doing daily...not sure if you can see the posts we do but if you're on FB you can go here to see!  We're up to day 81 and this was my piece!  It's dyed, stamped, stenciled on 11.5"x14" layout paper.  

  I'm still trying to decide what to knit...so while I play with printing, stamping or making collages, I'm also thinking about what project I should do next!   Should I knit or quilt or ???Thinking of another horse hex piece?  Or another scrap piece I hand embroider Or???????  So many decisions to make, right! 

I am so excited to see our Orioles back!  The finches and chikadee's have been eating at our jelly feeders for over two weeks!  But the male and female Oriole's are back as of this week!  I love watching them!!!

Still no hummingbird's - yet!  But I so love watching these beauties!  

Both Amber and Nick's lacrosse teams made it to the WHAC final's.  So proud of both these kids....they've worked so hard to play and have done well. 

This was Amber's last year of college Lacrosse and bittersweet!  I know if it's possible, she'll be assisting some Lacrosse practice team somewhere!   This was Amber's last game with her dad and her Auntie Dawn.  

Nick did well in his freshman year too.  So exciting when the kids score!  I get to watch most games on YouTube and I do a replay when kids get a goal and send to them!  One of Nick's goals the announcer said "Impressive goal by #19, Nick S."  That was SO cool!  HA  This is our boy #19!

And I have to show some of my tulips that have bloomed...I still have groupings of others that have buds but not flowered yet.  I planted these last fall and they are a different variety of tulip..kinds strange looking but I think still pretty! 

They look sick in the photos but they really are quite pretty...just different.  

So that's my 'stuff' for now...at least until I decide what other project I am going to start on.