I'm Ready For Fall/New Pattern

I am so ready for fall. I'm ready to open the windows, let the breezes in. That also means here in S. Florida,  that hurricane season is winding down. Unfortunately we have a ways to go with one churning in the Atlantic right now. I'll hide my head in the leaves and post "Winter Garden". I took this photo in La. last Christmas, hence the name "Winter Garden." The bright red spot on the leaf caught my eye. We don't get much fall color in Louisiana so it stood out.

I love to extend the lines in my photos with free motion quilting. The leaf was a perfect candidate and I was able to go to my stash for the great fabrics I used. There are actually two photos in this piece; the second being the lined, rusted rectangle below the leaf photo. I created that in photo shop by scanning a page from an old book. I also scanned a piece of rusted fabric and through the genius of Photoshop Elements ( don't we really take technology for granted) created another "leaf". I wanted to experiment with my free motion quilting; I seem to get in a rut from time to time and repeat the same designs. I found inspiration from the design in the long, light rectangle fabric. I'm happy with the quilting on this piece. I used mostly polyester threads on this piece with a # 80 Topstitch needle and nylon invisible in the bobbin.

I think of my 8( opps, he's nine today)year old Grandson, Jack when I look  at this quilt. He was sitting in the tree these leaves fell from when I took the photo.

Winter Garden is one of our new series of patterns available at www.moandmike.com.

"In the Ditch" Walking Foot

I just received my new sole with the guide plate for my Bernina walking foot. I was working on a commission piece that has several inner borders so I decided to ditch stitch them. Oh boy, time to try my new foot. It was easy to switch over from the regular sole and I went to work. I used rayon decorative thread on top and nylon in the bobbin with a #80 sharp needle. I love how it does the job. My stitching was straight and with just a little practice and attention I was getting very good results. I found that I needed to run the "fence" right over the seam to get the stitching in close. It's much easier to ditch stitch with it than without. here's what it looks like in action. You can see the "fence" out there in front and the seam I just finished on the left.

The photo below shows a wider view of the borders and stitching. The only drawback, and it's a small one is, it's hard to see where to put the needle in when you begin to get just in the right spot. I just leaned over to the right and looked under neath. It's also difficult to see where the needle is stitching, you just trust the "fence", you really don't need to see what the needle is doing. 

I'm very happy with it's performance.

Sacred Threads Exhibit

Hi all--I just received notification that "Jars Of Clay" was juried into Vikki Pignatelli"s Sacred Threads, an art quilt show with a spiritual theme. For the first time this show will be held in the DC metro area. It is held every other year and received more entries than ever before. This will be my second time to be included in this show.
"Jars Of Clay" is a digital image printed on cotton. I tiled the image and printed it on four separate printer sheets. The green jar in the background is hand painted with acrylic on cotton fabric. Maybe I shouldn't tell secrets but it is actually one of my clean-up cloths from other paint projects. It's hard for me to wash paint down the drain so I wipe it up with fabric. I love the spontaneous results I get. I used oil sticks on the orange borders and free motion quilted the entire piece.

I'm thrilled to be accepted; this piece is one of my personal favorites; thanks Vikki for the opportunity to show my work. Approx. 36"x36".

"Generosity" by Judy Momenzadeh

Wow, was I in for a surprise. I entered three pieces in the show, one large that I hoped to win something for, and two small works that I really liked also. I won an Honorable Mention ribbon for one of the small ones, "Generosity" that I made a year or so ago. It's really interesting trying to outguess the judges; you just never know what they will like. I tied with another artist. They gave two Honorables and no third. I felt really pleased that I won in a fairly traditional show and won for a relatively small piece. The other small piece I enetered was "Orange Butterfly" which is farther down in the blog. "Generosity" measures about 12"wx18"h, can't remember exactly. It was a good show, Catherine Waltz won Best of Show for "In The Garden" which was spectacular. I'm sorry, I didn't take a photo but I did want to mention her name. They have not updated the show site with current photos. Congratulations to all the winners and to all who entered!

I used oil pastels to shade in the areas of the hibiscus that aren't in the photo itself. This is an inkjet print, 8x10", on cotton.  I stamped the oriental seals with black ink and free motion quilted.

Coming Soon: Mo & Mike

We're excited, very excited to announce we will be offering quilt patterns that include a pre-printed photo on fabric.  We will be offering printing services and will print your photo on fabric.  We will also have stock photos to choose from.  You can get a sneak peak on Flickr: of a few of our photos in our catalog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mo_and_mike_photos

We will offer photos for artists to use in their work.  There will be textures and artistic backgrounds, all of which we can print for you.

The Mo & MIke web site will be up and running in June.

Winter Garden

This is a small piece I just finished. I've been working on extending the images in my photos into the backgrounds. I hit the jackpot with the light fabric from my stash. It was a perfect match to the beige leaf in the photo. Sometimes things just go right; this piece seemed to design itself. Almost anyway. I really enjoyed the quilting. I also scanned a page from an old book,and layered it onto a photo of some rusted fabric that I also scanned using Elements. It is the element bottom center with the vertical black lines. It 

measures about 22"x18".

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My First Thread Painting

I wanted to share this piece with you all because I had so much fun doing it and I was very pleased with the result. Liz Kettle posted a tutorial on the Havel's Sewing website that made it look so easy-and it was! I used a photo of mine of the daisy, printed in the size I wanted in B+W and then traced as she suggested. I had no problems with the sewing although it does take a while. I kept taking it out thinking it was done and then saw spaces that I had missed. I created the background out of tissue paper, heavier decorative paper, and parts of a Chinese newspaper from San Francisco. Then I painted it, stenciled and fused it to the background fabric. I used nylon invisible thread to stitch it down because I didn't want the petals to be free. I free motion quilted the background and then did a little hand embroidery in spots. The binding is some hand dyed fabric I had on hand. Here is the link to the tutorial that Liz posted--- 
http://blog.havelssewing.com/

Thanks Liz for sharing; I know I will be doing more of this.

Judy's Won a Ribbon

Congratulations, Judy!!  Judy has won a ribbon at the Broward Quilt Expo, but she won't know which of her quilts won until the winners ceremony Mar. 17.

I think her quilt shown below won.  I dropped it off for the show, and a few of the workers went crazy when they saw her quilt.  "Oooooh, the curves are gorgeous!"  "I love the photo!!!!"  "OMG, it's gorgeous!"

Go, Judy!

A Couple of My Newer Pieces

 

Here is the quilt I made after taking a class Maya Schonenberger taught last year in Miami.  Everything is glued and then stitched.  I didn't like the way the white muslin back looked when I was finished, so I mounted it on a piece of black fabric covered Timtex.  I took the photo before I mounted this piece. 

I painted Pansy on Egyptian cotton.  I took wool roving in the different pansy colors and spread it out and layered colors.  I topped it with tulle.  I thread painted shading and pansy detail.  The leaves background remained painted with quilting to emphsize the leaves.  This quilt is faced.

Reflection

Reflection was my entry in the digital category in the AQU Journey Show.  It won 2nd place.  Mind you, there were only four entries.  I took a photo at the NC Arboretum in Asheville last October.  The leaves were magnificent shades of yellow, gold, and red.  I turned my photo into a black and white and transferred it using an orange based cleaner onto cotton fabric in three different sizes.  I used water soluble colored pencils to color the three transfers.  The trees are pretty heavily thread painted in shades of brown thread.  The judge complained about the fabric I chose for the background.  Most everyone agrees it was a poor choice.  That's what happens when you don't plan or give any thought to a project.  It turned out to be a happy accident.

Whoa

This year has gotten off to a very creative start. This quilt, "Whoa," won 1st place at the Ft. Myers AQU Journey Show (art quilts only) in Jan. in the Florida Original category.

My inspiration was a photo I took of my neighbor's brilliant potted bromeliad.

I used Maya Schonenberger's glued background technique. I painted it to make lighter and darker areas. I used silk and polyester fabrics to create the leaves. They were fused to buckrum. I painted them and stitched them to give them a lot of detail. The leaves were then glued to felt and glued to the background. I stitched each leaf to the background. This gave the bromeliad a lot of dimension. I did some quilting on the background. I used black flannel as batting only to provide a third layer to meet some show requirements. The back is black Egyptian cotton, which is folded back and stitched to look like facing. The frayed edges of the background and batting give the quilt more interest. The edges are not straight.

I entered "Whoa" in the Broward Quilt Expo at the War Memorial Auditorium in downtown Ft. Lauderdale's Holiday Park Mar. 18-20.

Orange Hibiscus

This piece was created as a class sample for my Photo To Fiber class that I teach at The Quilt Scene here in Miami. I wanted to incorporate curved lines into my work since I normally use squares or rectangles to fill in the backgrounds. I laid the photo on a piece of tissue paper and just extended the lines of the hibiscus to make a pattern. I traced these lines onto freezer paper, cut them out and ironed them onto my fabric. I fused the pieces of fabric onto Decor Bond and then laid the photo on top and fused it down. The photo itself is a composite of the butterfly layered over the hibiscus image. I free motion quilted along the lines of the petals. I really enjoyed working this way and I'm pleased with the result.

Burano

Burano is what is called a sliced quilt or fractured quilt. That means it was constructed from a photo or image that was "sliced into sections". In our case, the image was divided into 12 equal parts, 8"x 10". This was a group project done by members of Miami Art Quilters; six of us participated so each of us had 2 sections of the image to reproduce. The chosen technique was raw edge applique. After all the sections were complete Michaele Shapiro had the daunting task of fitting them all together and Judy Momenzadeh quilted it. This piece was included in the Tactile Architecture exhibit at the International Quilt Festival in 2009. The other four members who worked on this piece are Pat Helmcamp, Elizabeth Janowitz, Anita Thompson and Stacy West. This piece is available for purchase, email inquiries to quiltinqueene@yahoo.com or leave a comment.