A Year of Journal Quilts

"Leftover Sunshine" was made from leftover fabrics from my sunflower quilt. Sunflowers have always reminded me of sunshine. This 9x12 inch journal quilt was later donated to the Alzheimers Priority Quilts auction.

Click on each image to enlarge it and see details.

"You Rogue" is a memory quilt I created from a wonderful day spent with my favorite guy fishing along the Rogue River. This is a photo transfer journal quilt of pictures I took that day. The water was so crystal clear, we could watch the fish follow the lure right up to the bank. The background is different water photographs.

CLICK HERE to see more Photo Transfer work

"Bounce".....is the result of my obsession with circles. I love them, I am attracted to them and can't get them out of my system.

"It's Been Lovely" A gelatin printed background using bubble wrap, rubber stamps with images of women parade across the top. We have all had days when we felt just like this......It's been lovely.....but now I think I'll go scream!

Click the image to enlarge it and see the detail.

CLICK HERE to see more Jello/Gelatin Printing

"You Spoil Me Rotten" Photo transfer of a copyright free image. I struggle in the summer with trying to find time to quilt and work in my flower garden. My husband doesn't mind the laundry piling up and no hot cooked meals. He puts steak on the BBQ and calls me when dinner is ready......he spoils me rotten.

"Tinker turns 50".......12 x 12 inch journal quilt to celebrate my sister's life. I like to remind her that she is my 'older' sister.

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" a journal quilt to remind me I am as old as I feel. I am 17 in this photograph, which is how old I feel most days.

Quilt Pink......a memory quilt I made for myself. These are leftover fabrics I found in the trash after the class was over. 20 quilters gathered to create quilts to be sold at auction to benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Free-motion quilted feathers and embellished with glass beads.

" A Study in Purple" Created as a sample quilt for a class I was teaching to beginner quilters.

"Big Bloomers" was also created as a simple quilt for a beginner class I was teaching.

"Reflection" was inspired by the background fabric in this journal quilt. I loved the black trees, so I free-hand cut a tree from black fabric, then free-motion quilted the tree to attach it to the quilt top. This was also created as a class sample for beginners.

"Fly Away Home" the background was created by making a print on gelatin with acrylic paints. A feather is free-motion quilted across the top, and embellished with crystals.

Journal quilts are a wonderful way to complete a project in 2 or 3 hours. It gives you a sense of completion in such a short period of time. Most of our quilt projects take weeks, months or years before we get that feeling of completion. With a journal quilt you can try out a new technique, put your thoughts into fabric and thread, and create something tangible in just a few hours.

Give it a try..........you are worth it.

p.s. To see more Journal Quilts Click HERE

CLICK HERE to view My Quilts

May Your Bobbin Always Be Full,
LuAnn Kessi

Sunflower Quilt........In Progress

Sunflower quilt......in progress.

Random size strips of sunflower fabrics pieced into 8 inch blocks. The piecing of all the strips was very therapeutic and I got in my "piecing fix." Sometimes we just want to sit at the machine and piece.......it is good for the soul.

After most of the blocks were together, I put them up on the design wall in random order. The blue blocks were just begging to become the sky, so I moved all the blue blocks to the top portion of the quilt.

A vertical design wall is a necessity when designing your quilts. Get those blocks off the table, off the floor, and up on the wall. You will be amazed at how much your work improves when you can see it up at eye level.

When I was happy with the block arrangement, I pieced the top together and began adding the sunflower applique. I love the contrast of the sunflowers against the blue sky, they just jump off the quilt.

I began introducing batik fabrics in the sunflowers. I did not use batiks in the background blocks, but they were perfect for the flowers. The shaded colors of batik fabrics lend themselves well to flowers.

In this photo the sunflowers have no stems, they are just hanging in mid-air.

Click on each photo to enlarge it and see details.

A close up view of some of the sunflower heads. Rather than just use one fabric for the center of each flower, I chose 2 different browns to represent the middle of some of the flowers. If you look closely at a real sunflower, they appear to have an inner circle within the center.

I also turned the flower heads at different angles to give the impression that they are 3 dimensional and bowing their heads forward or to the side.

Close Up view of sunflowers with stems.

I used Steam a Seam Lite 2 fusible web. I like this product very much. Once the fusible is applied to the back of the fabric, you can place the sunflowers temporarily on the quilt and they stay there.......they don't fall off the design wall. The flowers stayed in place so that I could do the design work, be happy with all the placement, before I ironed them in place. This product is also very light and does not leave a stiffness in the fabric, or gum up your needle when sewing through it.

This quilt.......still in progress......measures nearly 100 inches square. The sunflowers are 7 feet tall. I plan to add a few more sunflowers in the lower portion, and add chickens at the bottom pecking around in the grass.

Right now I don't feel the quilt needs a border treatment. I think a border will close it all in.........I like the open feeling it has right now.

I will post more photos of this quilt as I work on it.

I hope to have the quilt completed in time to enter it in a show in September 2009.

I asked my husband if he could work me up a flowerbed in the yard so I could plant a few sunflowers. Later that day I arrived home from town to find a 100 foot long flower bed ready to be planted...........what a guy!

These are photographs I took of the sunflowers that grew. These became the inspiration for the sunflower quilt.

The blue sky in these photos inspired the blue sky in the quilt.

I kept these photographs close by as I was designing the quilt. They were a big help in determining what the flowers should look like, the shape of the leaves, the centers of the flower heads, etc.

Later in the fall, as we were cleaning out the flowerbeds, I cut the last remaining flowers and brought them into the house to enjoy.

Just looking at these photographs today transports me back to days filled with flowers and sunshine and warm weather. They make me feel a bit warmer this morning when the thermometer reads 30 degrees.

p.s. To see more Sunflower Quilts Click HERE

CLICK HERE to view My Quilts

Wishing You Flowers and Sunshine,

LuAnn

Baby Season in My World

It has been baby season in my world. No, I am not a new mother, or grandmother. My nieces and nephews are starting their families, and this is a good excuse for me to take a break from my quilting projects to design a few fun baby quilts. They are delightful to create and the flannel backings make them so yummy.

The first baby quilt is.....Bubbles. This is flannel on both sides. I have been having fun making circles. I tried one of the new acrylic circle cutter rulers, it made perfectly round circles and was fun and easy to use.

Click on each of these photos to enlarge them and see the details.

This is my grandnephew just home from the hospital on his bubbles quilt.

The entire time I was designing this drunkards path quilt, the colors and softness of the flannels kept reminding me of cotton candy...........again I am creating circles. The flannels are very forgiving when curve piecing. I used lots of spray starch to keep the fabric stable while I was handling it. I used 6 inch drunkards path acrylic templates, and cut around them with an 18mm rotary cutter. This quilt was a pleasure to make.

My niece and I with her cotton candy baby quilt at her baby shower.........

My grandniece snuggled into her Cotton Candy Quilt

I was quite taken with this fun balloon fabric, so much so that I bought what was left on the bolt and pieced it into 4 different baby quilts.

This Dancing Stars quilt has a large pieced star in the center, 3D prairie points on the inner and outer borders. Prairie points add so much fun to a baby quilt.

This is my grandniece just home from the hospital wrapped in her pink Dancing Stars Quilt with her Great Annylu holding her.

Dancing Stars in Pink

Pinwheels........this is the third baby quilt with the fun balloon fabric in the border. This quilt has 3D pinwheels in the center of the quilt, and prairie points on the edge.

Twinkle.......has friendship stars in the center, prairie points on the inner and outer borders, and the last of the balloon fabric in the border.

After a big quilting project, I actually look forward to taking a few days to create a baby quilt. It is fun, joyful to handle and look at the fabrics, and helps me clear my head, so that I am ready to take on the next big quilting project feeling refreshed and ready to go! And......it is fun to wrap up and hold the babies in their new quilts.

To see more baby quilts CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to view My Quilts

May Your Bobbin Always Be Full,

LuAnn

Seize The Moment

Snow photography is my favorite. When I wake up and the world is white, I quickly throw on my clothes and ask my husband to take me for a ride. The photo you see here was taken at the Westfork Barn where our cattle are fed in the winter.

Click on this photo to enlarge it and see it close up. I love the frosty tree limbs on the left side of the photo.

The white sheep against the snow is one of my favorites. These are North Country and Lincoln sheep. They knew my husband was there to feed them, so they came out of the barn to greet us........it made the perfect photo.

Do things when you are inspired to do them. Don't put them off until a more convenient time.........by then the snow may have melted and the opportunity is lost.

In quilting, use that fabric while you are still inspired to make something with it.

Your enthusiasm will eventually dwindle, and you will forget why you purchased that fabric. Make notes in a journal when you are inspired. You can take out the journal at a later date, see your notes, and that inspiration will come flooding back to you.

We need to cultivate our creativity, like a gardener tending to his flowerbed.

To see more snow posts CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to view My Quilts

Seize The Moment,

LuAnn

Inspiration

Our home along the Big Elk River has a definite impact on the quilts I create for my husband and two sons. The beauty of the river, the hills, fields and surrounding area all end up being a part of my quilts.

Click on each image to enlarge it and see details.....

"Strength & Courage" was created for my youngest son who knows every inch of the river below our house, every beaver den and where all the best fishing holes can be found. As a child his cowboy hat always had an eagle feather in it that he found laying along the river banks. The river was his second home, and his quilt reflects his love of the outdoors.
"Cabin in the Woods" was created for my husband. It contains the douglas fir tree that is so prominent in our part of the state, as well as the elk, deer, beaver and salmon that swim up the river each year.

"Big Bear" was made for my oldest son, who has always had an admiration for bears. On my way home from town late one afternoon, I came around a corner just in time to see a black bear on the road, he stood up, looked at me and climbed the hill on the other side of the road. The border on this quilt is the bear paw block set on point, which seems to move in a clockwise direction, as if running around the quilt.

Take a look around you.......what do you see.........would it make a great starting point for your next quilt?

Use your inspiration to jump in and begin......sometimes the beginning is the hardest part of all.

Just get going and design something you are inspired by.........then sit back, quietly, patiently..........the quilt will tell you what it needs if you just take the time to listen.

CLICK HERE to view My Quilts

May Your Bobbin Always Be Full,

LuAnn

Inspiration

These sunflowers grew in our yard. I photographed them daily, studied the shape of the leaves, the many shades of color, size, texture, how they contrasted to the blue sky above them. Even after the sunflower patch was put to bed for the winter months, I was still able to enjoy the hundreds of photographs. I studied the centers of the flowers and realized they had several layers of color and texture. Some flowers had very small centers and very large petals, while others had very large centers and very small petals. All of this sunflower study motivated and inspired me to put sunflowers into my quilts. With this new knowledge about how sunflowers truly look, it was a pleasure to create my own from fabric and thread. I also used photo transfer fabric to create a small journal quilt from one of my favorite photos.......one last sunflower left in the patch......all alone.....bowing its head, as if to say.......Sunflowers give a nod, summer has ended, fall has begun.

Inspiration is all around us, if we are willing to take the time and truly see it with our eyes and feel it with out hearts.

To see more posts about the Sunflower Quilt CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to view My Quilts

Wishing You A Day Filled With Inspiration,

LuAnn

p.s. If you click on each photo, it will enlarge so you can see the detail of the flowers and the quilts.

Shaving Cream Printing Tutorial

Printing on satin using shaving cream and dye na flow paints.

* Fill the 9x13 tray with a half inch of shaving cream and spread it out evenly.

* Choose the colors of dye na flow you like and sprinkle them all over the surface.


* Using a fork, hair comb, toothpick, etc. drag it through the paints to blend them and create a pattern that appeals to you.

* Place a 9x13 inch piece of white silk over the top of the paint and shaving cream. A brayer was handy to press the fabric into the shaving cream to allow the paint to throughly saturate into the silk, but not so hard that the shaving cream squished up to the top surface.

* It will only take a few seconds for this process, then you can lift the silk off of the surface. A thick layer of shaving cream will come off on the front side of the print. At this point, the back side of the printed fabric looks better than the front. The shaving cream prevents you from seeing the front clearly. You can see in the photos the back and front sides of several different prints.

* Place the silk print on the counter with the shaving cream side up for about 5 minutes. Then using a plastic scraper of some kind, just scrape all of the shaving cream off of the print. You will now be able to see the vibrant front side of the print.

* You are now ready to iron and heat set the silk print. Using parchment paper on the bottom and top of the print, the printed silk is sandwiched between the parchment paper, this also helps protect the silk from the hot iron, press for several minutes on both sides to heat set the fabric.

* I like to allow the fabric to sit overnight, then i rinse off the residue of the shaving cream and allow the silk to dry.

* You are now ready to create something wonderful with the textile print you created. They make wonderful little journal quilts, or you can cut it up and sew it into a quilt design.

* Coarse salt sprinkled on top of the silk when it is on the countertop, proved very interesting. After scraping the shaving cream off, you can spray the silk with water and it allows the paint to spread across the surface, if that is the pattern you desire. The last photo shows a few tests on the silk with the salt and water. Always good to experiment to see what happens! You may discover something wonderful.

* Have fun, keep your surfaces covered with a plastic drop cloth, and wear an old shirt to protect your clothes.

* I also found the less you manipulated the paint with a fork or comb, the more vibrant your print. If you move and blend the paint too much, the print becomes muddy and less vivid and vibrant.

* Tried regular cotton, and did not have satisfactory results.

p.s. To see more Shaving Cream Quilts Click HERE

To see more Tutorials CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to view My Quilts

May Your Bobbin Always Be Full,

LuAnn