Practice and the UFO

I don't know how you get to Carnegie Hall but I know how you improve at free motion quilting. Practice, practice, practice.

I keep a wholecloth quilt sandwich put together all the time to practice designs, test tension on new threads and generally unwind. But I had one practice sandwich that was a little more planned out.

Over two years ago I was taking an online class from Craftsy* in quilting feathers. I quickly fell in love with the process. However, some of, well, many of, my plumes were more squared off than rounded. I needed a lot of practice. At some point I created a practice quilt with a stash of solid fabrics. It was a chance to fill a variety of shapes with features and experiment with different threads. At the time I had only my home sewing machine so I divided the quilt into 3 sections to quilt and then put together later.

Later never came. Until last Saturday morning when I walked into my studio and my eyes landed on one of the sections I had been using as a throw over my feet on cold days. Before I could get distracted, I flipped on my long arm and began finishing the quilting on a couple of sections and was soon sewing the large pieces together.

You can see from the photos that I used all kinds of threads and every feather design in the class. I arranged the fabrics so I would have a variety of shapes to fill. These are far, far from perfect. I still love to do feather work whenever it fits the theme of a quilt.

If you aren't a quilter, you might think a UFO is still a little green man from Mars. In the quilting and sewing worlds it is a Unfinished Fabric Object. I've heard the term used in papercrafting too for those unfinished scrapbook albums. I guess we should call those USA but that would really be confusing.

Fortunately the snow missed us but not the cold so I enjoyed a warm weekend putting together the sections of my practice quilt and finishing the quilting. Completing a project is it's own reward but this one gave me more practice and a larger quilt to keep my feet warm.

This weekend, I've been baking a cake and am working on some cards for a new video. Stay tuned...

Thanks for visiting today.

*The specific class I took was Ultimate Free Motion Feathers from Patsy Thompson. It is excellent.

Art Quilt Tour

I am excited to announce an updated Etsy shop with new art quilts!

These quilts were created over the last few months.  There are two series of quilts.  One is pieced and machine quilted with regular quilting fabrics. These are the color gradient series.

The other series are painted quilts.  What is a painted quilt?  Watch my YouTube video and find out...

I will soon have a blog post up to share more about the process for gelli printing fabric.  Every fabric is unique.  If you would like a one-of-a-kind quilt for your home, visit my shop at: 

Lisa Echerd Art on Etsy

Thanks for stopping by.

Scratch That

In my last post, I said that I would be starting a new blog on my new website.

I do have a new website, but not a new blog.  I ran into a technical challenge on the new site with the blog portion.  Then I found out I could just keep this blog and stream it to that site as well. Problem solved.

So this blog will continue.  If you visit me at lisaecherd.com you will see the posts as well and clicking on them will bring you back here to read and comment if you like.

The new website has more information about me and will have updates of its own from time to time, such as a portfolio of my work including the quilt shown below. This blog will continue to share more day-to-day information on my various arts and craft activities including quilting, scrapbooking, cardmaking and knitting.  

I have a new cardmaking video in mind already. So stay tuned and continue to come here or the spiffy new website to keep in touch.

Thanks and sorry for the confusion.

Transitioning

Thirteen years ago next month, I started this little blog.  Now 1,675 posts later, it is time to transition to something new. Over the years I've shared countless scrapbook layouts, self-published 4 books of scrapbook sketches and another ebook, and shared hundreds of video tutorials from my YouTube channel.  I've made cards, mixed media canvases, art journal entries and gelli prints.

Through my entries mostly related to scrapbooking I have shared techniques and quite a bit of my life.  I've enjoyed the creative process and appreciated the many comments received here and at YouTube.

All my life I have been a maker.  I started with embroidery and learned many other crafts.  I remember when my mother's oldest sister helped me first learn to sew and when my dad gave me my first sewing machine as I as about to start college.  In the late 1990's I started a business making custom window treatments and continued for 16 years.  Sewing was an early passion and has been a constant in my life for 40 years!

Over the last couple of years I have been doing more and more sewing and less scrapbooking.  I still create paper arts, mostly cards, to share.  Mainly I am now creating art quilts and really all types of quilts.  It's natural for me to return to fiber arts.  But I don't feel like I'm going back. I'm going forward with my sewing using all the ideas and techniques I've learned in the last 20 years of papercrafting.  It is very exciting to put it all together.

Today I launch a new website - lisaecherd.com - to share my art quilts, a new blog and a link to my updated Etsy site.  

This blog's website - lisaedesign.com - will remain in place.  You can find links to all my YouTube videos and scrapbook posts here.  I wasn't very good at keeping up the categories but there is a search feature.  The lisaedesign YouTube channel will stay in place and any new videos I create will also be posted there.  I am keeping the same Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

The only change is the blog. The new website has a blog feature and it is where I plan to post going forward.  There is a link on the new site back to this one if you ever need it.

Thank you for being part of my blogging and papercrafting journey so far.  I hope you will follow me to a new website and a new adventure in crafting.

So please visit me at:  lisaecherd.com

Selecting Stamp Sets

The more crafts I do, the less space I have to devote to each.  My stamp collection is taking up some valuable real estate in my craft space and I'd like to pare them down.  There are sets I'm definitely not using and some that I would like to use again.

In this video, I ask questions you can ask yourself about your stash or about sets you are thinking of purchasing.

I reference Stampin' Up! stamps but the ideas apply to any brand and I have more than just Stampin' Up! in my collection.

Thanks for visiting!

Last Chance for Sketchbooks

 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I have some exciting arts and crafts plans for 2022!  Soon I will introduce you to a new website and blog.  Don't worry, the information here and the videos on YouTube will continue to be available.  Thank you for your comments and support over my almost 13 years of blogging.  Really?  13 years?  Yes, time flies...

As I move forward, I have decided to retire my 4 Sketchbooks created from 2013 through 2016.  These sketches are still a valuable resource for scrapbookers.  If you would like to purchase one or more sketchbooks you can find them on my Etsy shop until January 20.  (These are ebooks and are downloadable only.  You will not receive any printed materials.)

Each ebook sketchbook contains a sketch to scale for various types of scrapbook pages including both one and two page layouts.  Sketches are organized by the number of photos supported.  Many focus on the most common size of photos - 4"x6".  They make scrapbooking easier!

See my Etsy shop for purchase.

The last chance to buy a sketchbook is January 20, 2022.  After that the shop will be renamed and stocked with my new art.  

Hope you have a happy new year and have made some crafty plans of your own.

Painting Fabric

 

Just what I needed a new hobby!  Well, not totally new.  I quilt.  I gelli print.  I play with paint.  Now I'm doing them combined.  This little art quilt was made entirely with solid fabrics, paint and thread.  I only had two colors of fabric paint at the time so the color palette was a bit limited.  I snuck in a little permanent marker to fill in a couple of spots.

I'd had the paint for awhile and had experimented just briefly when it came in but hadn't had time to really dive into it.  To make the border fabrics, I used gelli printing, mostly with a 3x5 block.  This created pretty prints however the fabric cuts had to be fairly small.  Since I loved doing this so much I've bought several more colors and am experimenting using my 8x10 gelli plate.

On Craftsy I took a class from Heather Thomas and learned about drawing with your machine quilting.  She used some other products for coloring in but I stuck with the fabric paint and a brush.  It's a lot of fun!  

I was so pleased with this little quilt that it is hanging in my craft room. I'm so obsessed, I've abandoned fabric I had purchased for other projects to enjoy playing with paint and solid fabric.

Thanks for visiting today!

Art Quilt Play

Just playing with some scraps, various machine quilting threads and rulers.  As much as I love my Pfaff sewing machines, I could not get either my old basic one or my new one that is supposed to be more for quilting to work with a ruler foot. The thread would always break.

The new Handi Quilter Capri works easily with rulers which are really more templates to help quilt various designs cleanly.  I was still practicing on this piece.  The rulers would slip so I had some trouble keeping straight lines.  I just got in the little grippy things for the back of the rulers and no more sliding.  I'm practicing more on another quilt.

My husband found this little quilt this morning laying on the sofa and carried it into the bathroom to find me and tell me how much he liked it.  We debated which way it should go.  I designed it for the shaped pieced column to be on the right.  I know I've seen another quilt with that type of element somewhere but I could not find it to link it up.  It's shown here the other way up.

This was a fun little project just to practice.  It is hanging in my sewing room now as inspiration to keep creating.

(ETA this photo, unrelated but I need a place to link it: