Happy Mothers Day to anyone who is a mom or has/had a mom ?! I had a lovely lunch today with my Mom, and I’m very blessed to still have both of my parents healthy, active and in in my life!
Recently, at the end of a post, I shared a photo of a quilt I gave to my son’s family after the passing of their dog Moseley.
I started that quilt in a workshop with Barbara Beasley. Her quilts are amazing and her technique is very interesting. To read my post about that class click here.
I have to admit that I found using fusible in a “jigsaw puzzle” fashion, with all of it’s reversing and cutting, a bit tedious. So, it wasn’t really my thing. But… Brad, Betsy, Sommer and Trey have another dog who is also 13 years old, and I felt this time of being “safe at home” would be a good opportunity to make a quilt of Nershi too. I decided to create this quilt with my raw-edged repliqué technique because it doesn’t require fusibles and pre-cutting. Click here to read a tutorial I did on this technique last year!
I found a good photo of her – but something was missing:
With Nershi it is all about the ball. As soon as you sit down in their home a ball is dropped in your lap, in the hopes that it will be thrown – over and over again. So I found an image on the web that would work:
I enlarged the photo of Nershi, inserted the image of the ball, and printed it out. Years ago I discovered a way to do this using MS Excel on my computer – Once the directions are completed and print is clicked, all of the portions print out, ready to be taped together. To visit that post and learn how to print enlarged photos from your computer click here and scroll past the Irish chain quilt.
So I taped the enlarged photograph together, placed it on a light box, and traced all of the different shapes and areas to the back of the enlargement.
This step is a bit tedious, but I rather enjoy it. I then chose my fabrics and determined which ones go where by referring to the original photograph. The first part I do is the eyes, using white paint for the sparkle. I stitched the darkest fabric on next using my repliqué technique, but skipping the satin stitching step. As I add each area, I color it in on the pattern. Here it is from the front with the eyes and black fabric added:
I continued adding fabric from darkest to lightest in this way until the dog and ball were done. Then I cut her out from the paper and pinned her to the background fabrics. To add the shadow under Nershi I saved that portion of the paper pattern, taped it in place on the back of the grass fabric, and raw-edged repliquéd the shadow with black tulle.
Next I free-motion stitched Nershi to the background all the way around, cut the background away from behind her, and removed the paper.
The raw-edged repliqué was complete!
It was time to add borders, batting and backing, and to have fun free-motion quilting!
She was done in time to gift to my family for Easter!
I do prefer this method for creating animal portraits in fabric, but now I’m ready to move on to something completely different. Maybe it’s time for some piecing ?.
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Hankies – the topic that continues to make us smile!
This past week Margaret sent me another “hankie email”. I’m really loving the responses to that post! I think you’ll enjoy the clever memory boxes she made:
“About 15 years ago, my mother came up with this idea to give to each of
her (4) grandchildren, so I made it happen. Each memory box contained
one of her hankies & a pair of earrings, one of my dad’s ties with a tie
clip, a copy of their wedding invitation (1944), and a copy of our
family picture (1964).“
Beautiful! Thanks Margaret!
Then my friend Maureen also sent me a photo of a favorite hankie from her collection, since she was born in Wales, and a book she owns with many ideas for using hankies.
I did an internet search and was able to find copies of this book available for sale.
I asked her about being born in Wales and she responded:
“My mother was a War bride from Neath, Wales. My father was a cook and truck driver serving in England. I don’t know how they met but my mother told me they dated only three months when he proposed to her! When my father returned to South Dakota after the war (1946) my mother came to America with me on a boat with other war brides. The captain of the boat woke them up in the middle of the night so they could see the Statue of Liberty as they arrived in New York. We rode a train to South Dakota.”
What an interesting story. Thanks for sharing Maureen!
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