Vintage patterns-digital images and art-art quilts-mixed media
This cute little round owl sitting in his tree was published in the McCall’s Fall and Winter 1973-1974 Needlework Magazine. Every time I see an owl I think of my mother-in-law who collected them. This whimsical fellow would look great on a pillow or tote or as a center panel on a quilt top. He could be done in a monochromatic colour scheme as well as standing out in bright colours on his own tree branch for a child’s room.
What a great way to practice your free motion stitching. This fire pattern is from the McCall’s Needle Thread Art Magazine Volume IV 1977.The colours are rich and depict the components of a fire well. This fire would look great on a postcard or in a nighttime waterfront landscape as a foreground focus.
Valerie Hearder is a Canadian quilt artist who has written 2 books on landscape quilting. www.valeriehearder.com She travels to South Africa, purchases textiles made by the Grandmother-to-Grandmother Campaign, donating 15% of the proceeds to the campaign. Also see her blog:http://www.threadlink.typepad.com/
Points of View is Valerie’s latest book. Valerie starts at the beginning with tips on what types of fabrics you will want to use in your landscapes, equipment that eases your journey through your personal masterpieces and how to get started. She includes lessons in creating basic landscapes, how to put together each piece as well as adding techniques throughout each chapter. You will learn how to colour your own fabrics using transfer dyes, fabric crayons, oil paint sticks and coloured pencils. The lessons are all well documented, photographed and easy to understand. I suggest you read through the whole book before trying a creation of your own….you won’t want to miss a step or technique that will make your landscape quilt shine.
The first time I saw these little ornaments in McCall’s Christmas Vol X magazine I loved them, but didn’t like the colours they chose at the time. No actual pattern was given. McCall’s instructions were to paste them onto cardboard and cut them out as ornaments. They would look great stitched in Christmas colours on a black or white background. You could also stitch them in one solid colour on a plain muslin backing as in Redwork. I have prepared a pattern page for you to use and posted the first four. The other six are included in a 514kb pdf file which you can download.
McCall’s Christmas Make It Ideas Volume X Cookie Cutter Ornaments
I was first introduced to fabric postcards through Valerie Hearder’s Landscape Yahoo group. http://www.valeriehearder.com
These little mini quilts are so much fun to do and the possibilities are endless. Four were done for swaps and the other four were for family.
My first was the little church. I thought of our Gatineau Hills and the churches which are nestled among the trees in the Ottawa Autumn scenery. I felt there was more detail than needed in this card for such a small canvas. I learned to streamline as I went along. The second card is entitled “Flying Home in the Morning Mist”, a picture of the highway through Thunder Bay. It is the result of a monochrome challenge. I chose brown. The third is one of the bike paths approaching the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. I called it “Cycling Through an Ottawa Dawn”. The deer was the next for a Christmas swap. It is called “Christmas Morn’ at Silver Lake”. The deer are from photos of a pretty doe that visited our garden through the fall and early winter. The singing snowmen I named “Snowdust Singers” and sent to family at Christmas. Two valentines were made for my grandgirls. The latest I made for a spring swap and I chose Ontario Trilliums growing in a forest glade. This one is “Ontario Trilliums in Bloom, a Sure Sign of Spring.
Comments