Her Townhouse is Finished

This past week, has been very busy from Thanksgiving dinner with friends, to decorating the house for Christmas and wrapping Christmas gifts.  I try to get as much done as possible during my five day weekend.  It helps to make the coming weeks before Christmas a little less hectic and more enjoyable.

 

Choosing a binding proved to be somewhat of a challenge.

 I just wasn't sure what to do.  As usual, it was tacked to my design board and pondered it the next day while trying to teach.

As you can see, I settled on the blue border to complete the wall hanging.  This wall hanging represents my daughter's first home as well as the first car she bought on her own.

 It also represents a shift in my work, I gave much thought and planned the free-motion stitching I used in the composition. 

 I used a different stitch for each section, not just for variety, but to bring interest and continuity to the piece.

For the sky, I decided to pick up the pattern in the material.

Looking at my work with a critical eye, I should have placed some shading on the sidewalk.  The plants and trees would have casted a shadow because the sunlight was coming from the left as you can see in the porch. I am beginning to see a shift in my quilting from the mundane to one with a little more interest.

What is there about a picture of a grandmother and her granddaughter walking away from you in the distance?  This looks like a subject for a futre wallhanging.

 

Valuable Lesson Learned and Choosing a Border

 

 

 

The weather last Sunday was georgeous.  Wearing short sleeves, we put up the Christmas lights up outside while soaking up the sunshine.  As I say every year, I can't believe the holiday season is upon us again.  I hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving has a great day with family and friends....and don't eat too much turkey.

 

 

I made the mistake of trimming the bushes over my wallhanging and didn't realize fuzz with wonderunder residue was dropping all over my quilt.  When I did a final pressing to make sure that all the pieces were secure before adding the border.........I had a mess on my hands.  Several of the white areas where spectaled and dirty looking.  I tried flicking it off with my fingernail, no luck.  Valuable time was used to carefully remove the white frame areas around the windows.  Since I had just given them a good pressing, it was a little trying to peel them off without taking the darker material for the windows as well.  Finally,  I traced and replace them.  Also, I had to clean the goop off my iron.......a valuable lesson well learned.

 

 

I decided to put a thin white border around the picture before I put the wider border around it.

 

 

Mmmm...I wasn't sure about the brown.

 

 

The blue didn't excite me.

 



 

This was a maybe. 

 

 

After considering several choices, I settled on the above.

 

My youngest sister leaves in Nome, Alaska with her family.  This picture was taken on the edge of town looking north.  I think I would miss the trees living in Nome.

 

 

Deciding on Colors for the Grass and the Bushes

 

Last week, I was in Florida for a long weekend visiting my Uncle.  It was nice to get away from the gray skies and cool temperatures.  The sun felt warm on my skin and it was a welcoming sight.  The temperatures were perfect; the low 80's everyday we we there.  Coming home on Tuesday to temperatures in the low 40's was a cruel reality check.

This week, I had a difficult time choosing material for the grass.  I would cut out the different shades of green, iron it on, and tack the design on the wallhanging.  There it stayed for a short period while I stared and pondered. 

 

Option 1 seemed to conflict with the blue in the car.  My eyes stopped at the grass and the car.  They did not travel around the composition.

 

 

Option 2 seems to help your eye to travel around the composition.  My eye travels from the upper right room to the garage, the car, the grass, the neighbors door, the window, and up to the roof.

 

 

Option 3 was just all wrong.  I tried adding some of the shrubs to the picture, but it just didn't work for me.

  

 

In my mind, Option 2 was the winner hands down.  The shrubs, plants, and grass, work well together and compliment the townhouse. The plants and the tree took me a couple of nights to complete. I chose lighter material for the plants closest to the front and darker plants nearest to the house to give that feeling of depth. I will highlight the plants when I do the quilting. My next challenge.... choose a border for my wallhanging.  Choosing a border is one of my least favorite tasks, because I find it difficult to select just the right material to compliment all edges of the picture.

 

I have been to Alaska three times to visit my sister.  Not once, did I see Denali, "The Great One",  from the ground.  However, I did get to see it above the clouds from the plane.

 

Making it Look Demensional

 

We were lucky, we made it through Sandy, with just a 20 hour power lost.  I was down at my Mom's house bailing water out of her sump pump.  With no electricity to run the sump pump, we had to use the next best thing; a pan and a bucket.  Here in Maryland the water table where we live is high and when we get large amounts of rain the water has no where to go but up into the lowest part of the house, the basement.  Every hour until 3:00 AM, the rain finally subsided, we were in the basement bailing water.  My husband was back home enjoying the hum of our new generator and the electricity it provided for the house.

 

 

 

I did find some time to sit by the lantern and work on a dresden plate block for a baby blanket I am making. 

 

 

 

Using the black and white photograph, I chose the different shades of white, off white, brown  and gray.  I elected not to pick  busy printed material for the construction of her house.  I wanted to keep the lines and solid areas simple.

 

 

 

Also, this week, I found time to piece together her car.  I wish I had taken a picture of the inside of her car before I had placed the black shear material over windows.  Inside the car, I pieced together the front mirror, the seats, headrest and inside rear light.  Why, do you ask?  I wanted the practice of making it look dimensional.  Under the back of the car, I put a shadow.

 

Here is a close-up of the car.  So far, I like the look Iam achieving.  This week I plan to work on the grass and plants around her house.

 

 

The sunsets over Lake Michigan are beautiful.   People line up on the shores to snap pictures.

 

Daughter's First Home

I love October with it's cool crisp feel in the air, the autumn colors taking over the trees, flowers, and sky, the smell of apple pie baking in the oven and everything else that comes with autumn.

Also, like everyone else in the Maryland area, we have prepared our home as well as our yard, and we are awaiting the arrival of Sandy.  Hopefully, the weathermen are wrong and it doesn't pan out the way they are predicting.

My daughter like everyone else was very proud when she bought her first home.  It's a very nice townhouse in sunny Florida.  As you can tell it is a very different style from her
brother's home.  First, she doesn't have a huge cherry tree looming in the front yard.  Secondly, she has a garage and no basement. 

Looking at her house in black and white, I see that the garage is darker than her front entrance.  The front door area is probably lighter due to the angel of the sun and its reflection off the right wall.  The white trim is the same shade in all three areas of the house.  The windows of her home are black because the shades are open. The darkness of the grass is the same as the roof.  The car, even though it is blue, is the darkest and the sharpest contrast.  Just like in the photo, I think I will make her car the focus of the picture.   I will use the black and white photo to make the pattern.  I will take a couple of days to study the photograph and to pick the material.  Still being at the bottom of the learning curve, it takes me longer to make decisions.

It will be easier to make a picture quilt of her home, but it will be challenging to make it interesting. The lines are very simple and distinct. The transparency of the glass on her car will offer a challenge. I think that I will use thread to pronounce the highlights and not paint as I did with my son's home.  Again, I plan to continue to venture out of my comfort zone in the making of this quilt.  The only way to grow is to leave the comfort of the known and familiar; and to take risks. 

My love for azaleas grew from my grandparents.  Their yard was filled with them.  This photo was taken at Brighton Dam.

 

The Townhouse is Finished

 

 

Out of curisoity, I bought a twelve pound Hubbard Squash from a nearby farm stand.  What do you do with it?

Drop it on the ground to split it open; the skin is too thick to slice a knife through it.  Then you rub it with cooking oil and roast it.  Tonight we will feast on two different types of squash soup, salad and bread while watching a movie outside by the fire.

 

 

This week I found time in my busy schedule to finish the wallhanging.  I love teaching, but it does require much of my spare time preparing for the next day.  As always I taped the backing to the floor, layered the quilt pieces and basted them together. 

 

 

 

I continued to step outside of the box by not doing my usual stippling stitch on the whole quilt.  On the tree trunk, I did do the stippling stitch for the lack of anything better to do.   I did a square stich on the bricks, circles on the bushes, an oval looking stitch on the leaves plus a circle and straight line-corner stitch on the border.  I choose a darker shade of blue for the binding to softly set off the border.  Looking at it with a critical eye, the tree dominates the piece more than I had intended.

 

Thinking back to my first quilt, Jack, my composition has become more interseting.  With Jack, I only concentrated on the dog and paid little attention to the background.  Also, I did only one quilting stitch throughout the whole wallhanging.  Luckily, Jack has quite a presence of his own, so the wallhanging has some character.

 

 

A pretty sunset at Fenwick Island, Delaware.

 

Border and Stairs

 

 I mentioned I was in the process of making the Christmas Bread as I posted last week.  Well, this is the finished product, and into the freezer it went before it could be eaten.

 

This week I concentrated on the border and stairs. I painted the details and highlights on the steps.  Also, I painted the stair railing on the left hand side of the steps.   I decided to extend the steps into the border to give the home a welcoming feeling.  I hope the steps lead the viewer into the picture.  But the border just wasn't working for me, the picture and the border were blending in together. The wallhanging was tacked to my design board and stayed there for several days while I stared and thought about it.   So.... I tore out the stitching and removed it.  Luckily, I was able to remove the steps without ruining them.

 

I added a very thin white border around the picture.  I folded a 3/4 inch wide strip of material in half and attached it to the edge of the picture (I can't think what it is called when you do that).  Then I reattached the border.  The white material is just enough to to provide a contrast, but it is not overwhelming .

 

 Pictures do not do the Cherry Blossoms justice.  They are a must see in Washington, DC.  We are fortunate to live so close by them.