Ruched Flowers and Embellishments

This photos shows a close up of the bouquet in my July 4th Mini Quilt. The three large flower heads and three flower buds are made from ruched strips of fabric. This post shows how I did the ruching. Its pretty simple.

bouquet

I taught myself to ruch from on line information. I Googled "ruching" and found several good on line references. There are different approaches and I selected the method that uses strips of fabric to make the ruched design. There are other methods that involved cutting a circle out of fabric and gathering it. I haven't learned that yet. I like the ease of the strip method, and I find that I often have left over fabric strips from projects. This is a good use for those strips and it’s a quick take along hand project.

Here is a summary of the steps for ruching:

• Cut a strip of fabric about 2.5 inches in diameter. For smaller flowers or buds, use about an 18" length. If you want a larger flower, use a one yard length. The width of the fabric can vary, so if you have something close to 2.5 inches, go ahead and use it. 

• If you want the edges to be unfrayed, then iron the edges down about 1/4 inch as shown in this photo.  If you want the edges to be frayed, leave them as they are.

• Thread a needle with thread that matches the fabric. Knot the end.

• Bring the needle up from the backside of the fabric at one end of the strip.

• Stitch through the strip at a 45 degree angle using a running stitch. When you get to the edge of the strip make sure the needle goes through to the backside of the strip.

• Bring the needle and thread around to the front and stitch through in the other direction at a 45 degree angle. Once again make sure the thread comes out the backside of the strip when you get to the edge of that strip.

• Do a couple of "zig zags" and then pull the thread to gather up. Gather up as you go along so you don't have to put too much strain on the thread. You don't want it to break and have to start over.

 

• When the gathered piece is about a long as you want it to be, secure the gathers by taking some back stitches in the back and knot the thread. These are short bud pieces. If I wanted to make a large flower head I would have much longer gathered lengths. 

• Shape the gathered length in a circle or U shape or however you want. Then stitch it down by hand to the quilt top. I like to stitch it to the top after it is quilted because the layers add more support for this embellishment.

And there you have it, easy ruching!

Happy Fourth of July - Sandwiching and Quilting

Normally I don't do my machine quilting until all the surface applique pieces are on the front. The machine quilting is often the technique I use to permanently hold these to the top. But in this instance I want the flowers and leaves in the pitcher to stand off the surface a bit, so I'm going to do all my machine quilting first.

This photo shows the fabric I used for the back of the quilt. It was given to me by Nancy Jacobus, a dear friend who passed away this last year. I will always think of her when I see this fabric.

Instead of using pins, I held my quilt sandwich together by sprinkling some Bo-Nash powder on the backing fabric and ironing it to the batt, and then sprinkling Bo-Nash to the batt and ironing the top to the batt. Bo Nash is the product that is often demonstrated at quilt shows. They use it to attach Angelina fibers to quilt tops. It worked very well for this small quilt. Here is the photo of the Bo-Nash product.

My Sweet Sixteen was used for the machine quilting. These photos show the stitching design I used. 

And now I move on to the ruched flowers...

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Happy Fourth of July - the Background...

This post is all about the background and pitcher for this patriotic mini-quilt.

Red, white and blue were my obvious color choices, with red and white ruched flowers in the pitcher. I decided a dark blue would set the red off nicely so I found a piece of blue batik in my stash that would be my primary background.

I've been trying to jazz up my backgrounds more, so I started pondering what to add to this.  I have been fixated on rectangular shapes lately. That is part of the reason I have been doing so many city-scapes. I don't know why, but the stacking of vertical shapes catches my eye and seems appealing. I'm sure a few sessions in therapy would turn up some underlying psychological issue to explain it, but I'm not going there!

So, some rectangular blue pieces along the "horizon" line could look like decorative items on a table, or just some abstract shape for interest. I wanted the blue rectangles to be a subtle addition. I cut the rectangles out and turned the edges under with a glue stick. I wanted them to be a little wonky, so I didn't take great care to see that they were symmetrical or straight. I arranged them, pinned and glued them, and then applique stitched them down. I thought a hand stitched edge would be more subtle.

Next for the pitcher. I collect pitchers and have quite a few on display in my house. I used this one as the model for this pitcher.

The overall shape was all I was after, kind of chunky looking. I drew the pitcher on freezer paper, found a red small print, and cut the shape out. Here's a photo of the freezer paper pattern and some of the blues I considered for the background rectangles:

Next came hand-appliqueing the pitcher to the background. I also stitched on a sliver of dark red to depict the inside of the pitcher edge. That turned out to not be necessary since the flowers and leaves covered it up.

With the background complete it is now ready for sandwiching and quilting. I'll show that on my next post.

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Patriotic Mini-Art Quilt

I know, we're in the midst of the big Holiday season and not in the mood for a patriotic holiday themed project, but,  if stores can have Christmas in July sales, then I can have 4th of July at Christmas blog posts! The truth is I made this Fourth of July project for a Holiday gift exchange with one of my friendship groups. I have been giving July 4th pieces for the last few years to members of this group and will be making a series of these type of mini's until everyone, including me, has one.

This piece is about 10" x 12" I think... I forgot to measure it before I gave it away! Oops! Anyway, it was a good project for trying out some different surface effects, including ruching. I have wanted to used ruched flowers for some time in my art quilts. This last summer I took ruching instructions (printed from the internet) and sewing supplies on a camping trip. While sitting around the campground during the day I worked on ruching while my girlfriend knitted a scarf. It made for a convenient carry along stitching project. I also found it pretty forgiving, which is good when you are sipping some wine and not paying close attention to what your hands are doing! I will show you the steps I used to make this mini in the next few posts. Meanwhile Happy fourth of July-mas!

Merry Christmas!

This beautiful candle mat was made by Miriam Siegel and given to me as a Christmas present. Miriam hand embroidered the "Snow Happens" and juggling snowman. Her stitching is beautiful. It looks great on my coffee table. I'm leaving it out all winter in fact! Thanks Miriam and Merry Christmas to all of you. 

Art Bombing

My house has been bombed!  Art bombed that is. 

Art bombing is normally referring to spontaneously leaving or making art in a public place. Mia Bloom does it on a regular basis. Well I had a fiberart get together and she was at my house and "bombed" it with her green GIFT board. It's painted cloth adhered to a board. It looks great in my kitchen! Thanks Mia!

SAQA Fiber Reactions Show

I am fortunate to have two pieces in the Studio Art Quilt Associates "Fiber Reactions" show in Poway. It will be at the Poway Center for the Performing Arts, from December 3 through 27. There is an artist's reception on Saturday, December 14th in the afternoon. I will be there and I hope to see you there too. The postcard for the show is inserted below and it lists the artists whose work will be shown. The postcard art was done by Laura Bisagna, one of the artists with work on display. I love her stuff.