Felice Quilt Designs

What a beautiful, sunny day for stitching with window light. I have been working away at the embellishment part of the Vegetable Quilt.  In my last post you saw the dying and cutting of the pieces. Today I will show you some embroidery work on the vegetables. What a difference! With beautiful Valdani Threads, fun cotton prints and variety in stitches used I really think those of you that are working with wool appliqué should jump into combining fabrics and threads to enhance your works. You won't regret it. Felice Quilt Designs 2014 Felice Quilt Designs 2014 There are a lot of beautiful patterns out there that have just the wool and perhaps a button hole stitch. Don't hesitate to look into you tubes, blogs, library books, and even an embroidery app, that you can put on your cell phone, to jump start your creativity.  Here's a photo of the shapes before the cotton and embroidery and one with a block with it. Felice Quilt Designs 2014 Felice Quilt Designs

After two days in the basement I can see the light of day.  It's been a rewarding couple of days of gathering the colors of RIT dye I needed, plus a few other colors that were tempting for future projects. Then I cut the white, never again to return to white, felted wool into the sizes I wanted. I went to the basement with my mason jars lined up, black marker for labeling the lids and rubber gloves so my hands wouldn't become rainbows.  Mixing the dyes was like mixing acrylic paints. It took me back to when I was teaching Art One classes the basics of color theory. It's a fun process.  What I have been doing is using very hot water in the jar, add the dye, stir in a little salt and then a little white vinegar. Those were recommendations from the package.  The next step is to wet the wool with hot water and submerge it in the dye. Depending on the value of the color you want you leave it in accordingly. Some colors were in the bath for 5 minutes while others for an h

Machine quilting with black thread on black felted wool is kind of crazy! I sat there with lights all around and it was really difficult seeing where I had quilted and where I should go, but in the end it worked out fine. I wanted to place all the bright colors on a solid background for the Circle Sampler piece so all the embroidery stitches would stand out. What do you think? I guess I could try white next time and perhaps a pastel palette. There's so much you could do with a sampler. Sampler shapes could be strips, hearts, eggs, flowers, frogs, you name it! Do any of you have any sampler of stitches you would like to share? Post them here and share. What can you do with a Sampler?  A pillow is one option, but I often thought about making a handbag with it. How about a Laptop cover?  I think I would be safe in saying you could produce blocks for a sampler then sew those blocks on a wool jacket.....nice...I think I should try that. Here's the finished Circle Sampler. Th

Isn't it a great morning when you wake up and the question you went to sleep thinking about resolves itself? All yesterday afternoon I thought about what theme would I want for my new pattern designs. I came up with two which I am now researching. Wouldn't it be great if we could solve all life's problems so easily......  I have been working on an Embroidery Stitch Sampler for an Embroidery Club at The Quilted Thimble in Chesterland. Here's a peek at one of the small blocks. This block includes the Chain, Pistil, Backstitch and in the center is the Van Dyke stitch. I'm using Valdani Threads on felted wool.   Check out the new stitch instructions on my website. www.felicequiltdesigns.com September's stitch is the FLY STITCH. The flowers are fading quickly and I need to get more photos taken before the leaves start to change. Each year I document the perennial flower bed and this year I have some new additions I need to photograph. It's helpful seei

I will start today by saying that my website felicequiltdesigns.com is up and running! I will continue to add patterns and make additional changes to keep it interesting. Please let me know what you think. There's a Stitch of the Month page to check out.  There will be a Gallery of work if you will be so kind as to share a photo of your work from one of my patterns. Include you in it if possible. I will post it on line. Connect to my Facebook page if you haven't already for SALE postings as they come about.  SO LET"S GET STARTED WITH THIS: If you are one of the first three people to purchase a Seasons pattern you can get a second Seasons pattern for FREE!!!!! Just send an email with your name and the season pattern of your choice for the free one. Order at the website. What a beautiful day in NE Ohio and I had a chance to get to the zoo with my four year old grandson, Zachary. We had a great time checking all the animals out and one stop we made watching the lori

     We are enjoying the peaches, plums and blueberries, however I love crisp Autumn Pears and that is why I decided to make them the focus of the Fall Quilt. I love the green color and thought others would relate to the pear being a part of the Fall images.        I had a lot of fun with the background fabric for the bowl of pears and the batik circles. I have recently found out about Perfect Circles by Karen Kay Buckley and they are great to use. If you haven't tried them yet you should.      The pumpkins in the border have a vine that is made from a strip of the felted wool and couched down with a variegated thread. I used variegated threads around the small maple leaves and veining in the larger leaves too. Valdani threads offer a great assortment of variegated threads so I recommend those.      As I look at the finished piece I notice how much the Yellow apple appears larger than the Red apple. I know about colors receding based on the warmth of the color but this really

It seems as though June is the wrong time to be thinking about hot chocolate and pine branches with snow on them but it is the completion on my third art quilt. Hooray!!!! Spring, Summer and Winter are complete with Fall in the works to finish the series of felted wool and cotton appliqué wall art quilts and their patterns. It's been a lot of fun getting input from shop owners, designers, friends and my special guy to help me take this new direction in my life. It's been a dream I have been sitting on for a while and it is now in full gear. I have loved creating embroidered pieces since my jean jacket days in high school. I even went as far as to "borrow" the lab coat of my favorite biology teacher to add a few paramecium, spirogyra, and amoeba in colorful embroidery floss. I wrapped it up in a gift box and was he surprised when he saw it. Mr. Featherston wore it proudly and I was happy I could learn the characteristics of each of these while working on the coat