Inspire Me Thursday - It's Hip To Be Square

Square is the prompt this week at Inspire Me Thursday. I love to use squares in my artwork, both as my format and as individual elements, but they are usually perfectly square. This time, I chose to use a rectangular "canvas" and add not-so-perfect squares to the mix. It's hard for me to not measure everything precisely, but I'm working at getting out of my comfort zone. Pictured above is a small quilt (approx. 12 x 9-1/2 inches) made from some more of my hand-dyed fabric. As usual, the pieces are fused to the background with Wonder-Under instead of stitched, then quilted by machine. I will probably do some more quilting on the background, then add a binding and prepare it for hanging. I had some scraps left over, so I made an ATC, below. Thanks to Judy Scott for inspiring me to get out my sewing machine again!

Inspire Me Thursday - Artist Trading Cards

This week's challenge at Inspire Me Thursday is ATCs, or artist trading cards, which are tiny works of art measuring 2-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches. I've only been making ATCs for a couple of weeks, but I've rapidly become addicted to them. They're quick and easy (usually!), can be made with bits and pieces of whatever you have on hand, and they're fun to flip through when you need a little inspiration.

I believe I've mentioned that I hand-dye my own fabric for some of my sewing projects. When you've put in the effort to dye the fabric yourself, it's hard to throw away the scraps. The card at left was made with tiny scraps I had saved from a small art quilt. The pieces were already fused with Wonder-Under, so construction was as simple as ironing everything together and quickly finishing off the layers with the sewing machine.

For the second ATC, I cut the leaf shapes from a piece of Hoffman Bali batik, then fused them with Wonder-Under to another piece of hand-dyed fabric, and again quickly stitched everything together by machine.

The third ATC is made with scraps of scrapbooking paper, newsprint, and stamped cardstock. The embellishment is a piece of matboard, covered with ultra-thick embossing enamel and impressed with a rubber stamp while still hot.

Ladder of Success

This is the small fused quilt I've been working on, although it's not yet quilted. It is constructed entirely with fusible web (no stitching here), and measures approximately 7-3/4" x 15". In the next few days, I'll be fusing it to cotton batting and quilting it by machine. I used some of my hard-to-part-with hand-dyed fabrics for this piece. I don't know why it's so hard for me to cut into those fabrics, because I can always make more. I think I'll call this one Ladder of Success.

My niece Tara is already climbing the ladder of success. She graduated from 5th grade today and received at least 7 awards (I stopped counting). Certificates nowadays are a lot prettier than when I was a kid! She was also the only graduate who made the A Honor Roll the entire year, which was a pretty big deal and earned her a big blue ribbon.

Class of 2007

Here’s my niece, Amanda, a proud graduate of the College of Art and Design at Louisiana State University. She’s pictured here with her roommates, Anne and Kim. I drove over to Baton Rouge with family members last Thursday night, and we returned on Friday evening after graduation and a late lunch. This is the year for family graduations. Amanda’s sister, Sylvia, graduated from high school yesterday in Huntsville, and her youngest sister, Tara, will graduate from 5th grade tomorrow in Mobile (yes, they’ll have a ceremony!).

And speaking of ceremonies – my friend Joey earned his black belt in Tae Kwon Do on May 12th, in West Chester, PA. And he’s not even 11 yet! The photos were provided by his very proud mom and my dear friend, Dottie. In the second photo, Joey is 4th from the left in front. Congratulations, Joey!

Although my schedule has been pretty tight, I did find some time last night to work on a tiny fused quilt. I’ll post a photo of that later. For now, I’ll just share a stack of hand-dyed fabric that’s been waiting patiently since last spring to be used in projects. Most of these were dyed with the recipes from Ann Johnston’s book, Color By Accident. Others were my own recipes, based on experimentation and pure luck.