I finally managed to get a chickadee wall hanging kit made! I've been trying for years, but chickadees are tricky, as they have all three values in them. It makes it harder to find a good background fabric! This has my usual hand dyed fabrics from Starr Designs, I feel like they almost glow, especially in these jewel tones! Happy sewing! Beret
0 Comments
In my 100 Days of Quilted Greeting cards series this week, the theme is cards that are dependent on a specific fabric. Sometimes it’s a mini panel, and sometimes it’s a motif cut out of a repeating pattern. One of my favorite art quilting tips is to make the fabric do some of the work, and look at fabric maybe a little differently than you are used to! For example, there are fabrics with landscapey items printed on them, like rocks, clouds, grass, etc. I don’t really love using those, although I do use tree fabrics, usually to fussy cut the trees out to put on a different background. (But I often make my own trees too.) But it’s fun to look for fabrics that give the impression of something like rocks, sky, water, tree bark, and lots more. I think this is one reason I like the Starr hand dyed fabrics so much. Their texture could be many different things found in nature! Of course, I always love the hand painty looking fabrics for backgrounds. They do so much of the work! Here are a couple that give the impression of snow, without being actual snowflakes. Batiks are another good place to look. The first one looks like it could be a fall forest in the background, and the second has swirls in the sky, which I love 😀 And panels without a lot of foreground are often a good option for backgrounds too. In the first photo below, the two fabrics are very similar. But because of the color, the blue looks like water, and the brown would look like tree bark if it was turned the other way. What do you see in the fabrics in the second photo? I think it's cool that there are so many repeated motifs in nature, it shows they were all made by the same Artist! Rivers, veins, and tree branches all look similar, or bubbles, rocks, and fish skin!
I hope you will look at fabric with different eyes, and let it help you do some of the work! However, I have a huge caution here: Value and colors are still the most important. If a fabric looks like tree bark, but the coloring really doesn't go with the rest of your project, you are better off finding one that is a better color. Look at them from a bit of distance to see if they are all playing well together. Happy sewing! Beret This week's 100 Days of Quilted Greeting cards (on my social media) theme is flowers. Thursday's post was about my iris design, which I have done with both applique and Inktense. The applique version is available as a card kit or pattern. Then I have a youtube video for the Inktense version. (I will link all of them at the end.) We were also talking about Inktense a bit in my class on Thursday, so I thought it would be fun to look at some of my other Inktense projects too! Maybe I will try to do another one of those Saturday Zoom calls in a few weeks with an Inktense project, that sounds fun😀
My goal is to post here every week, and also share it in my newsletter. But I have been finding myself in the habit of just doing the newsletter and neglecting my blog, trying to fix that! (Although there will always be some things that only subscribers get, so sign up in the sidebar if you haven't!) This week's theme for the 100 Days of Quilted Greeting Cards series is thread work, one of my favorite things! Thursday's card was this version of Black Eyed Susans, made in memory of my Aunt Sue a few years ago. It looks fairly complicated, but it's not once you break it down, so I will do that here!
Note: I think it's more common for people to do thread sketching through just the fabric, and not the batting. I more commonly stitch through the batting too, but there's no right way. Try both! Every layer adds stability, so I would definitely use a hoop if I had fewer layers. A hoop is the best stabilizer of all, so I do sometimes use one for dense stitching. If you think you can't draw a flower shape, well, neither can I 😂 This is very sketchy, and as I always say, kindergarteny. I tried to vary the petals a bit, although that would probably have happened anyway😂, but otherwise, this is not a realistic flower drawing, just 6-7 petals in approximately a circle. I probably sketched it with a chalk pencil on my background, then outlined it with thread, using the outermost color. Then I start coloring them in with thread. Think of your sewing machine like a pencil, only you move the paper instead of the pencil. I use the free motion foot, of course, and I like a topstitching needle, but really, just try what you have. Most of my thread is 40 wt, which is average/most common. I'd love to collect more thinner threads, 60-80 wt, because although it takes more stitching to cover an area, you also have more control. But again, just try whatever you have! For the first color, stitch densely at the tip, then more loosely toward the next color. You want each color to overlap a bit for shading. The second color is more dense in the center, and looser at both ends. The third color is the most dense toward the center of the flower, but if you do beads like I did, or a button, you really don't need much in the very center. Then I added beads and binding. (Binding video in the card workshop linked a couple of paragraphs up.) You can apply the same technique to other shapes too, of course! And if you try it, I'd love to see! Reply to my newsletter, or email me at beret@onthetrailcreations.com.
Happy sewing! Beret We're in the middle (day 4, hopefully it's the middle and not the beginning😛) of a cold snap here in Fairbanks, so I decided to hijack my own blog for the day to tell one story of extreme cold that we have experienced! We have lived in Fairbanks twice; from 1986/7-1994, and 2006-now. The first time we lived in several little cabins, a total of five years with no running water. (That was because one, it is much cheaper, and Brett was a full time student, and my teaching job at a small private school was almost volunteer 😂 At my interview they wanted to know what my husband did so we would have income. Umm... 😂 He did have part time jobs, and I assured them our tiny $100/month dry cabin would enable me to afford the job😂 And two, we had 10 sled dogs, so we couldn't be choosy about where we lived😂) In the winter of 1988-89 we actually lived one mile from where we do now. (On Yellow Snow Road😂 There may have been multiple dog teams...) We have lived in several places including upper and lower Michigan in between, so it's funny to be back in almost the same spot. However, there's enough elevation difference between that cabin and our current house that it was much colder there! We had a record breaking cold snap that lasted several weeks, and it ended up being a bit of an adventure! (Involving a stray sled dog, propane issues, heating oil issues, water issues, truck battery issues, to name a few 😂) A day or two of extreme cold is one thing, but when it becomes extended, lots more things start to go wrong! Our cabin had a barrel stove, a fireplace, and an oil furnace. We did have running water at this one. (Well, usually... 😂) It was also a leaky log cabin; we could actually see light through a couple of cracks up high in the logs. The downstairs was divided into two main areas, so the woodstove and fireplace didn't do much for the other half. (Upstairs was just a loft.) The bathroom was in the farthest away corner, also by one of the doors, so it was a challenge. (If I had a dollar for the number of times I said I wished we had an outhouse...much easier to maintain😂) The shower actually had ice coming up the drain for most of the winter, so we gave up on that and took showers in town. (Common at laundromats here.) Pretty soon the incoming water to the toilet froze, so we gave up on that too, and just used a pitcher of water to flush. The outgoing toilet pipes were a never ending project for Brett for a few weeks! He had to crawl under the house with a space heater to thaw the pipes regularly. They had heat tape, but the cabin was built on permafrost, which meant it had to be elevated above the ground (to prevent thawing the ground, making it unstable). So there was very cold air space the pipes had to go through! Our kitchen stove was propane, and propane liquifies at around -30 degrees. So that ended up being out for about 6 weeks, and we were left with an electric frying pan and a crock pot. With the furnace and the barrel stove both running, it was still pretty cold downstairs, so we spent a lot of time in the loft! We had a chocolate lab in addition to the sled dogs, and we kept his water by the back door. One night it froze, so we moved it closer to t he living room. Eventually it froze on the floor next to the barrel stove! (They are far less efficient than the wood stoves of today. I'll have to look for a picture of the cat laying underneath it.😂 It looks red hot, but it was just rusty... But it DID have a fire going!) Then the trouble with the furnace started... We shared a vehicle, and our work locations and schedules were vastly different, so it was interesting. Brett was still in the Air Force that winter, which was about 35 miles from our cabin. We had moved in anticipation of him getting out soon and going back to school. I still worked at a sewing shop in town, 10 miles into his 35. He had to be at work at 7:30 am, so I got dropped off around 6:30-7. The shop I worked at opened at 10. 😂. All that to say, our days were very long! One day was extra long because my work was swamped and I had to stay late. I remember it being 14 hours that we were gone, and I was exhausted. We got home to a 35 degree house. 😭 It turned out it wasn't actually the furnace, it was the underground oil tank. It had been cold enough, long enough, that the oil had gelled. 😬 So our landlord's solution was to hook up a 5 gallon jug of heating oil directly to our furnace, which was in a closet in the living room. So we had a jug of oil in our living room. Near the wood stove. 😅 But the stove didn't get that hot, so it was fine. 😂 (And still there were stretches where Brett got up almost hourly to put wood on the fire.) We also had trouble with the truck. (We had a garage at our very first house, in North Pole, where we lived for 18 months, but have never had a functioning one since. We have had two that weren't, one involving a man with a bloody knife, but that's another story... 🤣) Even with all of the winterization and plugging it in, the truck still froze a couple of times. (I was in college before I knew plugging in cars wasn't standard😂) We were stuck at home for a total of 9 days in two stretches due to the truck. Someone let us borrow a giant heater that I thought looked like a jet engine. Brett shoveled a bank of snow around the base of the truck to hold in the heat, then aimed the heater under it, and eventually got it going both times. Thankfully our jobs were both understanding, as everyone was in the same boat! Right before this cold snap, on Christmas Eve, a sled dog had followed Brett and our dogs home from a run. He had a collar, but leaving signs around never turned up his owner. (This was the third sled dog that had wandered in and refused to leave. One of those involved an 8 inch long gunshot wound, and another story, but I digress again...😂) We named him Nisse (Norwegian gnome), and since we didn't have a dog house for him, we gave him a whole bale of straw, which he turned into a big nest, kind of like Big Bird's. 😂 That ended up being all he had during the cold snap, but he did great. Brett gave them hot food a couple of times a day, and they were fine, they're made for it! The rest of the dogs had houses with plenty of straw, and the chocolate lab lived inside. Our source of water was an underground tank that we had water delivered to. Thankfully that never froze. But one evening I was saying I hoped incoming water pipes didn't freeze, because we didn't have any spare water. Then my brain went duh, we have water now, lets fill whatever containers we can find. Well, that turned out to be a good idea, as the pipes froze that night. The landlord came and worked on it, and I used warm water drained from the hot water heater to wash my hair. 😂 Now, if you haven't lived in Alaska, this all probably sounds crazy. But to us at the time, it didn't seem like we were living an epic adventure, it was just life. And anyone local who has lived here very long would just laugh at this story, and say, "That's nothing, you should hear MY story..." 😂 People have often told me I should write a book, as this is the tip of the iceberg, but my life has just been my life, so it doesn't really seem noteworthy. 😂 Hopefully after this cold snap I won't be adding stories, but here are a few pictures from today. Frosty windows, (inside) due to the exactly 100 degree temperature difference from one side of the (double paned) glass windows to the other! I tried to add a video of the swirl of cold you can see coming in the door when the dogs go out, but it wasn't cooperating... I'll try facebook 😛 We are now blessed with a well, ten inch thick walls, a very efficient wood stove, car batteries have improved, and probably more that I'm forgetting. the cold is making my walk to my studio a little more interesting, but we have always had good outdoor gear, so I haven't even gotten cold. My bunny boots weigh three pounds each, (yes, I weighed them😂), but they're warm! Thanks for joining my little trip down memory lane! Beret
​Whew! I finally got done with my mini art quilt/greeting card workshop, which I have been wanting to do for a long time! In the workshop, I will show you a few of my 'secrets' for making art quilts that look more difficult than they are! I'm also getting ready to do the live version of my Simple Secrets for Starting Art Quilting class again in a few weeks, so this is kind of a sneak peek. (I’m thinking Feb. 26-Apr 5 for that, watch here to know for sure. And of course it's always available in the self guided version.)
In the workshop, (all pre-recorded videos) I will show you how to make this little greeting card sized art quilt. (and it includes how to turn it into a greeting card). Except for a bit of the binding, which has some repetition so I didn't show it all, I did every step in real time, and I think it's about 45 minutes total! I've made about a million, so it might take you a bit longer for your first one, but they're pretty quick! It's basically my Moonshadows pattern, (but without the moon… and the shadows…), and I will show you how to make the pattern yourself, so you can apply it easily to other designs. Everything you need is in the free workshop, but I thought it would be fun to add an optional bonus VIP live Zoom call for questions (and show and tells if anyone wants to!) That will be in about two weeks, on Saturday, February 3, at 3:00 pm eastern. If you want to join in the fun, register on the workshop page, for $10. The workshop itself is available anytime, just save the link (button below) or this email somewhere! (Please do not share the link though, it’s only for current and new newsletter subscribers Anyone new who subscribes will automatically get the link! ​ I’m still doing my 100 Days of Quilted Greeting Cards on Instagram and Facebook, I hope you are following along there! This week has been traditionally pieced cards, I will put a few below. The middle batch was made from orphan quilt blocks! ​ Happy sewing! Beret This week my theme for the 100 days of quilted cards that I'm doing on my social media accounts is landscape cards. This is a favorite style, so I had plenty to choose from😅 I have always thought it was the coolest thing that I could create a 'world' with just a few strips of fabric! The first row below goes from 2, to 3, to 4, to 6 strips in the background. I did add in a few that were done with other methods too. And everyone has made outhouse cards, right?😂 I'm already posting more than one card on some days, and I will still barely scratch the surface after 100 days 😂 They're fun and addicting!
Happy sewing, Beret Cards with patterns or kits: Moonshadows Tundra Swan I hope you all had a good and restful holiday season, and are excited to start a new year! I don’t really do resolutions, but I do like to think about goals and plans, because nothing will get done without them! One of my goals for awhile has been to get better at making videos, but there have been lots of hurdles! I keep chipping away at them, but some things, like my slow internet, are hard to fix. (I did find one thing that bypasses it at least some of the time though, long story 😂) My new studio didn’t really have a space for a dedicated video set, so I was hoping to make do with my regular sewing area. I quickly realized that I had big issues with both lighting and sound. So, we did some drastic rearranging (we meaning my helpers 😂), and now I do have a set! If I’m doing more online teaching, it’s kind of important😅 The first video project I’m working on is a (free!) mini art quilt/greeting card workshop, hopefully coming soon! It goes well with my 100 Days of Quilted Cards project, and also with my classes. Even though Christmas is done, I decided to do a Christmas/winter theme for my first week of quilted cards. Below are most of the photos from the week. (All are on IG, FB, and my On the Trail Creations FB group!) Next week will be landscape style cards. Happy sewing! Beret Cards that have patterns: Northwoods Nisse Card Winter Trees Let it Snow Before, during, after! That's a lot of stuff needing new homes... 😅
As you have probably figured out by now, one of my greatest passions is to drag as many of you as possible along on my art quilting journey 😂 I have lots of plans for this year, here are a few of them:
As I work on next year’s plans, I’m trying to be mindful to not overpack the schedule. (Photo of one of my favorite gifts below, to remind me to slow down 😂 The branch in my studio is perfect!) I hope you are also leaving space for taking care of yourself and your families. And of course, to be creative! I heard someone this week who is a full time artist say they decided at one point to prioritize painting for at least 25 minutes per day. Now, wouldn’t you expect someone who is a full time painter to automatically do far more than that? But I totally got it, if I’m not careful, I can go weeks without making anything! So I hope you will carve out creative space for yourself this year too. Put it on the schedule or it won’t happen! (Preaching to myself… 😅) Happy New Year, and let the card making begin! Beret PS: If you aren't getting my emails yet, sign up in the sidebar so you don't miss anything! I'm more consistent there than here, although I'm working on it 😅 Hi Everyone, In case any of you are ambitious and are making quilted Christmas cards, this week I thought I’d share some of my tricks for making them, especially if I’m making a bunch at once! It saves a ton of time to make several of the same one at the same time, so that’s one of the things I do. There’s less thinking and thread changing involved! I think it only takes twice as much time to make four as one! Something I do with any project is to start with my batting or fusible fleece a bit larger, and then trim it down later. This minimizes the need for accuracy at first, and allows for lots of stitching which can actually change the size of a small project. But another twist on that idea is to start with a piece of batting long enough for several cards, cover it with strips or your background fabric, do the quilting, and then cut it up. This saves time on quilting, and there is also less waste, since you only need the extra once for all of the cards. I usually do four at once this way. (The purple below already had one cut off the end) It doesn’t work with every type of background, but it does with with several, like stripes, collage, single fabric, or improv! In this photo, the purple one is actually one piece of striped fabric, so all I had to do was add stitching! But doing several backgrounds at once like this is a great time saver.
And of course, I use my acrylic template to cut them apart so I can add whatever applique they are going to get. (I added non skid pieces to mine, they don’t come with that. But they would, if I could find the right product! There are products made for that, but I think my favorite one was something like stair tread strips! But I haven’t been able to find the exact one, so I haven’t included that yet.) Of course I forgot to take pictures of the finished cards, but some of these are headed to the Quilt Tree in Anchorage soon! I also chain sew the binding on, which saves both time and thread. I will link my card binding video here, I have tricks for that too, of course! In case you need some ideas, I will put my five most wintery/Christmasy patterns in here. A couple are available as kits, and all come in printed or instant download form! Happy sewing! Beret |
Beret Nelson's On The Trail Creations Blog PageBeret 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 my designs have been in Keepsake Quilting and Art Quilting Studios magazine! I teach classes online, and am starting to do more traveling and teaching. 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! Free mini art quilt workshop for new subscribers!
"Like" my facebook page!I am also an independent distributor for Plexus supplements, since I credit them with enabling me to be healthy enough to do all these fun things! They target blood sugar and gut health, which are at the root of so many modern health issues. E-mail me for more info, or check out my website! I am as passionate about getting people healthy as I am about getting people creating :-)
beret@onthetrailcreations.com or https://plexusworldwide.com/beretnelson Archives
March 2024
|