a blog about sewing and quilting…mostly…
Alice just scratched a mosquito bite until it was bleeding, and since I wouldn’t give her (another) bandaid, she started sucking on it to get the bleeding to stop.
Helen said, “OOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOO, if you suck blood you’ll turn into a vampiiiiiiiiiiiire!”
Alice turned to her sister. “I AM NOT A VAMPIRE.”
I’ve been taking a class on digital scrapbooking with Photoshop at www.jessicasprague.com and it has been very definitely worth the price. Each week we do layouts following very clear video tutorials, using products that she supplies to us in download-ready form. I haven’t deviated from her concepts much at all, other than tweaking colors to match my photos. And I’ve been SO pleased with what I’ve learned so far. Here are a bunch of layouts I’ve done since this class started. Click to make them larger.
(Using downloads from the class, plus a brush set from Designer Digitals)
(Using ASO Ultimate Grunge Brushes and ASO Art Deco Stitching Brush, both from ScrapGirls)
(Using a Freebie set from Sweet Shoppe Designs, and downloads from the class, and BHA Not Guilty embellishments from ScrapGirls)
(Downloads from lots of places (ScrapGirls, ShabbyPrincess, JessicaSprague.com, Designer Digitals, etc.):
mvj_ne_backkraftpaperlight, ASO_SS_DLOT_ScallopedEdges_2c, Anna Aspnes Monoblendz Woodsey, CBA SS Styles Inked Edges, BVA Grungelle, BMU Dreams MC, ASO Appassionata, SNU French Market, MST WhiteWashedWedding, JSprague Echoes of Asia and Home Away From Home, EHI UpattheVilla, SPCom Festival, SBA Fabricated brushes, STI Dynamic Brushes Stitches, Layout scraplifted from Angie Lucas in Simple Scrapbooks V.7 #4 (July/August), p. 35.)
(Using downloads from the class. Quotation around the circle reads: “Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express. ~Joseph Addison” and Journaling reads: “Sometimes the two of you are startlingly alike. Sometimes you are very very different. But what I know for sure is that you adore each other. And I love to watch you interact.”)
(Using downloads from the class)
(Downloads from ScrapGirls: CBA Spatter Transparency, BHA Grunge Scratch, STI SS Paper Antiqued Allusions, TCS GraphX Brush 3, KCS SS Paper Broken In 3-3, ASO Ultimate Grunge Brushes
Download from Designer Digitals: Katie Pertiet stick pin tag
The word art is mine, using Becky Higgins’ CK font, Pharmacy, Jokerman, and Impact fonts.
Journaling reads: “2.5 weeks after surgery, I could finally (almost) get to the 90 degree goal.”)
I’m totally loving this.
I had knee surgery June 12. I’m still in quite a bit of pain, and going to physical therapy 3 times per week. I can’t bend my knee very well (though I DID manage to go to 90 degrees in PT BY MYSELF yesterday — woowoo!), but I’m doing OK. Just a little frustrated. I wasn’t expecting to be this completely debilitated for this long.
However. So. I’m allowed to sew for 30-40 minutes a day right now, because of the strain it puts on my knee to use the pedal. Because of this limitation, I’ve been spending a lot of time with the iron and spray starch instead. So preparing machine applique projects is perfect.
I started this flower in a class with Barbara Olson back in April — the pattern she gave us for the class is the same one that’s featured on page one of her website right now. So we made that flower, using our own fabrics. Mine has been almost finished — but the center not committed and the petals not sewn together and the edges not pressed under since… April.
Tonight I finished pressing under the seam allowances (love my Rowenta iron — HOT HOT HOT HOT) and sewed the petals together and finished the center. Very excited with how it turned out.
Now I just have to figure out what the heck to PUT this thing on.
I’ve been auditioning fabrics like a crazy woman. And shopping for fabrics as much as possible, given my condition at the moment. Today, my mom, my friend Linda, and I hit two quilt shops and I was hoping to find something neat… Struck out, really. I got some GREAT fabrics, but nothing that really makes the flower sing.
I could put it on solid black and just quilt the crap out of it like Barbara Olson did, but I kinda want to forge my own trail, if that makes any sense…
Other than black, the colors it seems to work the best on are turquoise/aqua/pale blue or yellow/orange. Everything else makes it just sort of fade away into the background, instead of showcasing this cool flower.
Here’s the flower, just sitting on the design wall tonight:
It’s much brighter IRL; I was too lazy to color-correct. LOL
Earlier this week, I was experimenting with adding some spirals and funky stuff to the background, but have abandoned that idea for the moment… It looks like two different people worked on it and didn’t really try to integrate the concepts at all. I’ll use the spirals/leaves for something else, I think. Here’s that effort:
Kind of like Matisse and ….. somebody else got together and tried to put a piece together. Uh, not so much.
SO.
My mom suggested a graphic black and white print. On top of that, the veins of the petals of the flowers just sort of disappear, and it doesn’t really work. On top of a light yellow fabric, it’s just kind of flat. On top of an impulse purchased orange spiky batik fabric that I got today, it looks better than on anything else, but it’s still not right.
Jerry’s suggestion was to put the flower on a sunburst. So I started playing in Photoshop. My background selection efforts are very sloppy here so chunks of the flower are actually missing — I was trying to go fast because I just want to see the basic idea. But anyway.
Jerry and I agree that the rays would need to be narrower and/or possibly pieced themselves… but here’s one idea:
Thanks to ScrapGirls.com for the assist on the items used to create that background in a whopping 3 minutes.
And here’s another idea that I had earlier this week (and the fabrics are already enroute — but can be used in a commissioned piece if not for this one):
Now you know why I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m a little wound up about being able to sew again.