Saturday, June 18, 2016

Dominicker Hen and Sunflower

My first Chicken Quilt has a Dresden Sunflower, little rustic barn with Velcro door, A Dominicker chicken made of herringbone wool with a big red comb and wattle.

The chicken has two layers of felted herringbone wool with
padding underneath for added texture and lots of machine 
embroidery in a feather pattern.
Feet are felt, stitched before trimming closely
Comb is improvised of red broadcloth.

Sunflower leaf is a zippered pocket with a striped lining.
I put zippers on the outside so they are easier to
find; they are not a surprise.

Sunflower 'seeds' is a piece of brown crushed  velvet with 
vertical and horizontal tucks to  make tactile bumps. 
Rays are a Dresden plate with ends stitched down so
petal ends are free.


The chicken barn has a tabbed flap door with Velcro that pulls back to
reveal a fussy cut rooster. The roof which hardly shows here is
made from a linen table napkin with great texture.

You can't have sunflowers without a sun.
This one is gold velvet with organza ribbon rays. 
Padded for extra tactile pleasure.
The sky is pieced of random strips of blue fabrics.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Lady Quilt

The first of a short series of  'Lady Quilts' is finished. These are all in brightest fuchsia pink and lime green.

One of the upper corners is a large square of lavender satin with a padded touch square in the center and an appliqued crochet piece from a collection of medallions and motifs someone gave me. Tactile in the extreme!

One of my favorites for texture: a wool square with velveteen flowers, 
fleece leaves and satin ribbon stems.
 


A square of what I call 'lady print' flannel with grosgrain ribbons. 
There is a foam bead in the center square to discover.

Button feature.

  The button is on a length of cord that allows it to store in a deep slit pocket. Pulled out, it may be hooked with the loop or slipped into the little patch pocket.

Green fleece and pink felt high heels for fun.

Gold color machine embroidery, couched yarn, a row of curved stitching and two lines of couched embroidery floss. Great textures, interesting embellishing for a sold square.

This piece of quilt blocks fit into the space of two blocks of the quilt. 
Carolina Lily pattern, it has flocked pieces: 
the pink print and the yellow print have excellent texture. 


The center square had a small drawstring bag attached. 
Paracord ties are long enough to allow it to flatten, revealing the silk lining.
I almost omitted this feature but when I showed it to Suzanne she thought 
it would make a fun item for busy hands.


Perhaps my favorite, a velveteen square has a column of shallow pockets, some ribbon loops and a prairie point in the style that Nancy Zieman teaches on her web site.
 


This quilt has 12" squares. There are enough 12" squares to make a second one, but I may slash them into smaller pieces for a different look. The next quilt has 8" squares. The various tactile items and embellishments are mostly done, ready to sew together. 

This quilt is backed with pink flannel. Since there is no batting, these quilts do not require quilting to hold the batting in place. Minimal quilting makes for a softer quilt. There is enough straight line quilting to hold the lining in place and a little reinforcement where I think there might be stress, like under and around the drawstring bag. 

The vintage Carolina Lily blocks were hand pieced, so I topstitched where the seam allowance turned back to make sure they didn't come apart before I assembled the top. Once the quilt was put together I stitched along the ditch a few times to hold the backing in place.

Busy Mat

Usually touch quilts made here are about 36 x 36" so they can be used for both activity and light cover.




The activity director at our local nursing home wanted to know about using buttons and zippers for restorative therapy. I made a trial mat using a fabric place mat that could be placed on a table or a geriatric chair tray.


A length of Velcro to open and close a tab

A button feature with large buttons

Zipper feature reveals a pocket.
Ribbons make it easier to grip.
The one I used this week has rattail cord.


After vowing not to buy anything else, I could not pass up 
this beautiful ribbon with butterflies solely for decoration.