A Rainbow of Unicorn Horns

 

I made a rainbow of monochromatic flowered unicorn horn headbands. These are an easy group costume where everyone can stand out as an individual. Also great for rainbow unicorn parties!

I decided on all white horns, but chose gold cord to wrap around the warm tones, silver for the cool tones and white iridescent for the pink and purple.

I started out with felt in five shades for each color headband and cut an assortment of sizes and shapes out of 1.25-1.75″ squares. I then quilted the center of each of the flowers with white thread so they will stay secure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother’s Day Project – Blowing a Kiss Mug Rug

The last several Mother’s Days, we have made personalized handmade presents for the mothers in our lives.  I check the Pinterest boards to get ideas and inspiration. I usually like to do something with my daughter’s image or hand or fingerprint. And now that she is getting older, she is more and more involved in the projects. 
This year I was really struck by this beautiful kid created art. I love that they are blowing kisses and that they made it themselves. It is just great! My daughter loved this idea too and we decided to modify it. She wanted to make cards and I wanted to make mini quilt mug rugs. 

http://pin.it/YYx3FxY

So I took a bunch of photos of her  blowing kisses. I printed them out on cardstock and photo ready fabric. 

 She chose bright blue cardstock for the sky and her card base. We cut out a bunch of little hearts out of pink papers that we had leftover from her Valentine project (mostly cardstock and those paint color cards). She wrote I Love You on some of the hearts and then glued them all on the cards with glue stick (Elmers big stick). She added stickers and rhinestones. 

Mini Quilt Project: 

I wanted to make mini quilts and decided on mug rug size, around 6×9. I chose a bright turquoise solid cotton that looked like the cards. I had 15″ and I layered it with an 14×20″ piece of cotton batting to make quilt sandwich. I then cut it into four equal pieces (7×10). 

The photo fabric involved a lot of rinsing and heat setting and I had to be careful with the pink bleeding a little, but they looked pretty good when dry. I ironed some double sided fusible webbing to the back side of the photo fabric. I cut around the image, leaving around an 1/8″ edge. 

We cut the little hearts out of scrap fabrics that were pink, red and purple. I keep a separate bin of my scrap fabrics with fusible webbing. These are the left over bits after other applique projects, not very big, but perfect for little hearts. 

I ironed the photo fabric and all the little hearts in place. I then free motion quilted the movement of the hearts flowing out from the kiss. I just did wavy lines with alternating loops and made sure to stitch each heart in place once as I went back and forth.

I then trimmed them to around 6×9″ (They are slightly different sizes) and added binding. I couldn’t decide between blue and dusty pink, so I used the pink for one of them. 

The moms and grandmothers loved them! 

 

Blue Genie Art Bazaar

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My space at Blue Genie Art Bazaar is up and ready for opening day Friday, 11/26. If you are in Austin, visit Blue Genie at Marchesa Hall on Middle Fiskville from 10a-10p every day until Christmas Eve. There are over 200 local Austin artists displaying their amazing work.

 

 

Family Tree Quilt

   

My maternal grandmother’s 90th birthday is coming up and I wanted to make something special and meaningful that celebrates her life. I have been thinking about making a family tree quilt for years, but it is a pretty complicated project and I was a bit daunted. This was the perfect occasion to go ahead and do it. I have written out my process for making this family tree quilt.

Making my family tree quilt

I started by looking through search engines at images to get some inspiration for family trees and also tree quilts. I did some basic sketches and decided I definitely wanted to put the tree on some hills to ground it in a scene rather than just floating in space on a solid fabric. I wanted to incorporate our ancestors in some way and thought to put their names on the roots. That meant a more developed root system. The tree started to look symmetric, so I emphasized the symmetry of the tree shape. I drew nested circles for both the ancestors and descendants, with each circle denoting the boundary of a generation.

I also filled out a genealogy chart and contacted family members with questions about ancestors, correct name spellings and who should be included from each branch of the family. I signed up with Ancestry.com and started documenting with exact names and dates. I decided I was primarily going to use first names for the quilt, but wanted to get it all documented in one place while I was at it.

I made a major branch for each child and minor branches splitting off for each grandchild. The roots were pretty basic, each one split off into father and mother, except for one remarriage which I gave an extra root.

I went through my fabric stash and thought about colors. I chose four dark greens prints for the hills in the background.  I selected 10 light to medium light greens that were solids or near solids for the leaves. I wanted a lot of variety, but you don’t need as many different fabrics. Just make sure that you are able to read the names printed on it. I went with a medium solid brown for the trunk. The darker the brown, the harder it is to see names printed, so I went lighter than I usually would for a tree trunk. I used a much lighter brown for the hearts. And I chose a very dark greenish brown semi solid for the binding fabric.

I made my quilt sandwich by layering the backing fabric, cotton batting, and sky fabric. I appliqued the dark green fabrics on to the sky fabric to create the hills. I traced the quilting circles with pencil on the sky and yellow marking pencil on the dark green.

I quilted the generation circles and satin stitched the hill edges in dark green sulky.

I traced my tree and heart shapes onto the paper side of the fusible webbing (reminder to always reverse your images when using fusible webbing), ironed it onto the brown fabrics, cut along the lines and ironed the tree onto the background.

I free motion quilted around the edges of the tree in dark brown sulky thread and satin stitched the heart in red.

I went ahead and wrote my grandparent’s names in the hearts and the ancestors on the roots. I wanted to test the pen (Pigma archival ink) and make sure I didn’t make any mistakes on the tree before adding all the leaves.

I then cut up the rest of the fusible webbing into 10 roughly even pieces and ironed it to squares of the light green fabrics for the leaves. I made a leaf template and drew leaf outlines on the fusible webbing paper. I varied them a bit in shape and size to add variety. I made the four daughter’s leaves much bigger because I wanted to emphasize them and also have enough room to write their middle names too. I cut out 50 leaves. I laid my quilt on the ironing board and arranged the leaves in the appropriate places, one for each person and making sure that the base of the leaf was within the correct generational circle. This is a tricky part and if any breeze comes through you may have to adjust or start again. You can work one branch at a time, but I wanted to get a sense of the whole and moved leaves around to get a color balance and to get everything to fit in some of the tighter places.

 

I used Pigma pen to write all of the names on the leaves. At this stage I was able to pull off a couple of leaves that I wanted to rewrite. Once I was satisfied I had the names all correct, I free motion quilted around the edges of all the leaves in green thread. I used little leaf motif to travel in between some of the applique leaves.

I made a hanging sleeve, bound the edges and signed the back. I got it finished and mailed out just in time to get there by her 90th birthday!

 

If you would like to order a personalized family tree quilt for your own family, please contact me for an estimate at thecraftymonkey@gmail.com or convo on Etsy.

 

Family Tree project details:

This project assumes an intermediate level sewing experience and familiarity with making a quilted wall hanging, fusible applique, and free motion quilting. It took about 6 hours of planning and 6 hours of sewing. My finished project was 18″ wide and 30″ long, but you can adjust the size as needed. You are welcome to use this design for personal use only. Please email me for licensing and permissions for commercial use.

Materials:

blue cotton fabric for sky (20×32″)

backing fabric (20×32″, 18×6″)

cotton batting (20×32″ )

1-4 green fabrics for hills (fat quarters or scraps)

medium brown solid cotton (18×28″)

4-10 light to medium light green solid or near solids

1.5 yards  fusible webbing (wonder under)

binding fabric (3x 1.5″ strips or enough to bind your quilt)

Pigma pen archival ink – I used black size 05

Sulky rayon threads – light blue, dark green, med green, red, dark brown

 

Erlenmeyer flask quilted zipper bags

When I make a batch of zipper bags, I like to experiment with color and style to make each one is unique. For this set, I made a few basic bags and a few with extra detail quilting.

Basic bag

I start by quilting texture onto a bunch of square bag blanks. For this batch I chose three different backgrounds in shades of grey and black. I layer cotton fabrics with cotton batting to make the quilt sandwich and then free motion quilt retro textures

Single Erlenmeyer flask

I cut out Erlenmeyer flasks and potions and then applique them on the background panels. I satin stitch around the edges, which defines the shape and secures the fabric so it won’t fray.

Two Erlenmeyer flasks with complementary colors

I think having two flasks enhances the impression that they are sitting on a lab bench. I try to choose fabrics that work together, either different colorways of the same print as in this photo or different prints with similar colors.

Lab accident quilting – Bubbling over

With several of the bags, I quilted a lab accident into the fabric. I start with the top edge of the chemical fabric inside the flask and free motion quilt little bubbles inside and spilling over the edge.

 

Lab accident quilting – Knocked over

This was my first attempt making a bag based on the knocked over flask. I appliqued the flask at an angle and then quilted the liquid pouring out in different shades of blue.

I added these bags to my Etsy store, where you can also see versions on pink and brown backgrounds. I can make these bags in pretty much any color or size, so let me know if you would like one custom made for your needs.

 

 

Cotton headbands for summer

I chose light summer colors for these solid cotton headbands.

 

 

Turning a photo into a quilted wall hanging

My process for turning a photo into a quilted wall hanging:

1. photo

I start by evaluating the photo for major blocks of color and shape.

2. sketch

I print it out and use a pencil to sketch out where I want the cutting lines to be. Once I am happy with the sketch I go over it in fine tip sharpie heavy enough that it bleeds through to the back. I turn it the paper over and go over the lines on the back so they are clear and precise. If I need the drawing to be a different scale, then I will scan it and print at the different size.

3. fabric selection

I look at the colors in the photo and my library of fabrics and decide which fabrics will be best for each section of the sketch.

4. cutting and applique

I trace each of the shapes onto a fusible webbing and iron it onto the appropriate fabric. I then cut out each of the pieces, place them where they need to be and iron them down.

5. planning and marking

I think about the effects of different quilting and plan which textures and thread colors to use. I also mark any places that need precision or special attention.

6. texture quilting

I free motion quilt the major areas, which in this case is the sky and water.

7. detail quilting

I go in and add smaller details and any highlights or lowlights.

and finally 8. binding and hanging sleeve

I add a hanging sleeve to the back of every quilt so it is easy to hang with a wooden dowel. I choose an appropriate binding that will bring the whole thing together and then it is finished and ready to go up on a wall.