Saturday, January 11, 2025

creativity this week, hand embroidery and Project Quilting (Mythical creatures)

 

Project Quilting is an online challenge to make a quilt in a week from their prompt. Start to finish. 

I call my piece "Weeki Wachee"

19" X 21" 
I've had an infatuation with mermaids for almost as long as my love of Flamingos

a pin gifted to me from Miss Pat and some nice perle cotton embroidery thread

Pat sent me an embroidered bag with that pin (!!!!!!!) a while ago  and it resonates with my love of flamingos kitch and the 1940's/1950's

I didn't start my mermaid piece til Thursday, dithering over fabric choices. When you work to deadline you don't have a lot of dithering time... so I tried a lot of fabrics on the design wall eventually choosing these from my stash of ocean theme fabric

I have invested a lot of time and money on my collections... Just a few to name" 

cows, Christmas, Adirondak, Betty Boop, dogs, southwest, silks, hand dyes, 1940's, M.E., and others

including ocean themes

the backing for Weeki Wachee
I've made many quilts from this stash from King sized with lots of specialty blocks, to a Mermaid piece 40 X 40 made for a Hoffman challenge, the mermaid sits on a hand dyed turtle and has a stuffed tail with real pearls embedded in it.... 
No time for that kind of design on this challenge 
I also love the designer Laurel Birch and with no time to spare, was happy to see these in my stash
I am sure you could hear me screaming from your house about that older Bernina I'm trying to use right now. It is mechanical but not, NOT simple, and not intuitive and old and needs to visit the old machine's hospital. 
I continue to need to isolate from the public (a vaccine allergy) so once again DH stepped into the breach, looked up the service manual took a screwdriver to the dismantled machine, adjusted the feed dogs that wouldn't work, so I could finish binding this. 
with a sparkly blue fabric. It's quilted with mylar glistening threads, but much sparser than usual. 
so it's "done" but I see myself beading this at some point. 
Weeki Wachee (https://www.floridastateparks.org/WeekiWachee) one of the oldest attractions in Florida, started about 1947, with underwater viewing for the show put on by "mermaids" and gardens to walk around. I went a lot as a child... of course dreaming of being one of the pretty girls in the show. 
I do not like being under water however. 

I finished the small embroidery piece this week
It is by Bucilla and dh got it at Dick Blick for one of my little art gifts
I'd like to turn it into something useful. I recently unearthed some needlepoint and cross stitch I did as a young girl (a class at the Y) not made into anything. This gave me what I wanted, a pattern all the stuff needed, and a way to keep my hands busy while watching TV. Yea!

Linking to

3 comments:

MissPat said...

I got that pin specifically for you and had it for a while. I kept forgetting to send it to you. Then I found the tote bag at the Sarasota Quilt Show, so you finally got them both. I love your mermaid piece and know it must have been a struggle to finish it, but it looks great. I have a 30 year old mechanical Bernina which I love. No motherboards to go bad in those babies.
Pat

LIttle Penguin Quilts said...

Your mermaid is fabulous, and so is your mermaid/undersea fabric collection! So glad Drew got that sewing machine to work for you. I love the little bird embroidery as well - birds are one of my favorite animals to stitch!

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Love your finished bird/flowers embrodery! And that mermaid piece is just exquisite! I am a fan of Laurel Birch's depictions of women too.