 As promised, here are a few pictures of some new items, made by Leanna Shields. There are cute pincushions and coasters, earrings made with fabric yo-yo's, gift tags with yo-yo's, and, my personal favorite, ice dyed fabric! It's so fun, come and check it out! These fabrics would be great for a special book cover.
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 I was asked to make a contribution to the UAF English department fundraiser auction, Dead Writers Reading and Raffle, (on Friday, Oct. 28, at the Blue Loon for locals). I thought a journal cover would be appropriate, and I even had some fabric with words on it to use. But that ended up on the inside, since I realized one of my new panels would work for a journal cover as well, as long as it's big enough. I only added one other fabric for the outside, then lots of stitching. I used a variegated purple, orange and green thread for the ravens, which was a little scary, but I think it worked! Class Saturday! There is still room in the journal cover class for Saturday if you want to make your own! I have some more panels available, see previous post. Click here to sign up for classes, there are a couple more coming soon too!
Click the photo below to see all of our kits and patterns!   I am very excited about several new things happening! First is a new class: I recently bought some Robert Kaufman panels, which are really fun to embellish with free motion quilting. If you use matching thread, it just adds texture, but doesn't show a lot, so it is a stress free way to practice your free motion skills on a quick project. Or, you can use contrasting thread and really add some details to the panel! In the sample, I used metallic, but it doesn't show up very well in the photo, stop in to see it! Click the photo to register for the class. There are 16 different images to choose from, (pictured below) and you may want to pick yours up early to get coordinating fabrics for the borders and binding and backing. When: Saturday, Nov. 12, 1-4 pm Cost: $25, includes panel (about 10 x 10". finished project is 15-16" square depending on how big you make your borders.) Or, have a party!
and....fun new things in the shop! Nope, I lied. We do have new stuff, but I just realized I don't have pictures of everything yet, so you will have to wait until the next post! :-) But here's a sneak preview...one of them is ice dyed fabrics! Here are the panel options for the class or party, I have lots of favorites, which one is yours?
Two more classes before this one still have room, one is this coming Saturday, so sign up quick!
I recently saw this photo of an amazing quilt. If I am reading the paper correctly, it says it was made by Karen Lambdin, border quilting inspired by a quilt called "Tree of Life" by Jan Hutchinson. A quick Google search found me photos of that quilt as well. (second and third photos) Someone correct me if any of that is inaccurate. I love it when it takes me a minute to figure out how someone did something, and these borders definitely did that! It is done entirely with quilting/trapunto, but it looks like an applique on top of pieced fabric. I have been wanting to try this technique ever since, and I found the perfect project to try it on, on a much simpler scale for now! (Keep scrolling :-) )   Close up of the border, pretty amazing!  This chickadee fabric was made to go with a particular quilt pattern, so there is lots of blank space around the birds. Usually there isn't enough space for me to get a whole greeting card in one piece of fabric, so I wanted to do something interesting with it. I decided to try that same technique, but much simpler. I drew a diamond grid, stitched the lines, then quilted densely in the spaces. All three of the last photos would work just how they are, although if I was just quilting the lines, I might use a straight stitch foot instead of free motion to make them a little straighter, ha! :-) It's hard to tell in the photo, but the one with the most quilting really makes the bird pop up. So fun!
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Beret Nelson's On The Trail Creations Blog Page
Beret NelsonI am a homeschooling mom of three fun kids, who are now old enough that I have a little time to pursue my passion for sewing! After several years of making quilted cards and art quilts, I'm now designing kits and patterns. Some of them have even been in Keepsake Quilting! I teach classes at local quilt shops, and would love to do more traveling and teaching eventually. I also have many tutorials, including some on YouTube. I am blessed to live in Alaska where I am surrounded by the inspiration provided by the beauty of God's creation! 
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This was a fun, quick project that uses kind of a confetti quilt technique for the petals. I also used Inktense for the words. I like that because I could stitch just outside the letters instead of on them, so they pop up more! Here are some process photos:
First, I drew the letters on paper,traced them on the fabric, and colored them with dry Inktense pencils.
Then activated the ink. Aloe vera gel or fabric medium work best on fabric, water tends to ‘bleed’. The letters are much brighter! Also, you can see my fairy frost background fabric better in this photo.
Now for the fun part! To make the fabric the petals are cut from, I started with a piece of lightweight fusible interfacing. I knew my petals would go into the seam on the edges, so I didn’t want it too stiff. With the glue side up, I covered it with some strips of fabric. You can go straight to the confetti pieces, but I think this saves time and thickness. Fuse them to the interfacing.
Then I added some random pieces, placing them mostly over the edges of the first fabrics to break up those long lines.
Ooooops! It looks like I forgot a photo... The next step is to add tulle, but you can see the fabric pieces under it. I didn’t use fusible web on the small pieces. You could, or just dab them with a glue stick. As for the tulle, you can do one layer, more than one, or wrinkle it up, which is what I did. I zapped it with a bit of 505 spray, but mostly used lots of pins!
Then, using a walking foot, I stitched some lines in random directions to hold everything together. You can also use free motion. I recommend a closed hole foot so the toes don’t catch in the tulle. After it was nailed down a bit, I added lots more lines, until I felt like it could be cut up without falling apart.
The back looks cool too! The thread color only changed because my bobbin ran out 😁
Next, I cut out petal shapes and a center and started arranging them. It was hard to picture what it would look like trimmed, so I took a photo and cropped it on my phone. Really helpful for placement!
The cropped photo made it more obvious that my top petal was too short, so I adjusted that by pulling it up a bit. I took a couple more photos and cropped them until I liked it.
Hmm, I see I missed a couple more photos... I stacked my top with batting and muslin (pre-backing), zig zag stitched around the petals, quilted the background and around the letters, and did some decorative stitching on the center. I then trimmed it square, but left a ‘bump’ where I planned to leave the hole for turning. This makes it much easier to fold those edges under! I placed the final backing on, right sides together, stitched all the way around except for the hole for turning, and clipped the corners. Two more tips! One, the backing does not have to be cut precisely, just use the edges of the quilt top as your guide for stitching, then trim the excess. Leave a ‘bump’ by the hole on that too! Two, it helps a lot to press the seam allowances by the hole before turning. (Photo below) A great trick I recently discovered!
After it’s turned and pressed, I usually cheat and close the hole with fusible web.
Let me know if you try it!
After it’s turned and pressed, I usually cheat and close the hole with fusible web.
Let me know if you try it!
