More mysteries

Here are more wonderful mysteries - aren't they great?

TUTORIAL -#1- THREAD PAINTED FIR TREE

As I am doing a lot of thread painting for the big wall hanging I am doing. I thought I would show you another thread painted subject. I am going to do a fir tree - quite large for the foreground. I lay a medium mottled green on my timtex - 3" wide by 16" high.

I drew a fir tree on the green and stitched around the drawing. I wanted there to be a distinction between some of the branches. Using a very dark green, I went over the portion which will be shadowed.

I then started using a pretty fairly bright rayon green for the branches, after thread painting in the trunk and a bit of the branches. You have to look fairly close to see the thread painting on the top branches around the brown trunk. I will carry on down the tree. Once I have this portion done, I will over stitch with a bit of contrast (likely lighter), to give it more of a 3 d impression. This is my first attempt at thread painting this type of tree for a closeup and I want it to look as natural and real as possible. (I am not sure whether I am going to succeed with this one or not. Usually I can highlight what needs to be highlighted once the whole thing is thread painted, but it is difficult when it is one dark shade - rather than a variety. I will post this now and finish it up tomorrow and post a picture of the finished tree (I hope) grin. Shirley

Trip to Canmore

My husband and I took a trip up to Canmore (near Banff) in the rockies, as I wanted to get some photos of the snow on the foothills. I am glad we went when we did as it sounds as if it is getting warmer and there was much less snow than I expected. I take so many pictures, but don't have many for this time of year, while the snow is on the ground and the rockies have snow on them. We had a lovely drive- We also went to Tim Hortons' for a muffin and donut (for dh) and their great coffee. I then went to the Sugar Pine quilt shoppe which is my favorite place to get fabrics for my wall hangings. They have hundreds of fq's in every type of fabric imaginable. I always pick up some batiks in all different shades as I use them all the time. I thought you might enjoy seeing some pictures I took today. I also took a lot of pictures of the forest as I want to do a
forest scene with trees from this part of the world. Most of the pictures are quite grey as it was a dull day, but as we got near to home we visited Bowness Park and the sun was out - what a difference. I hope you enjoy some of my photos. I am going to do some Scenes from these. Aren't the ditigal cameras wonderful? I love it that I can take so many and crop them or delete the ones I don't think I will use.

We also stopped at the Art Gallery where the local Guild had some art quilts on show. It
is so different than a few years ago- art quilts are 'in' now and there was a wonderful variety of abstract as well as very realistic scenes. We both enjoyed it immensely.

TUTORIAL THREAD PAINTED GRIZZLY BEAR - MAR/09

I want to make sure the finished bear is in with the tutorial so here is the finished animal-
I decided to leave the snout a light grey to show the reflection and all in all I am quite happy with it. I also added a bit of color to the hump and I think it looks realistic.

I wanted to make sure that the finished bear is with the tutorials in case people want to refer to it at a later date.

TUTORIAL thread painting a grizzly bear

Here are the steps in doing my grizzly. The top two pictures show the printed on fabric,bear which I have put on timtex. The second shows a group of brown threads which I will choose from
for thread painting the shadows, and the surface fur.

The third picture shows how I highlighted the light portions of the fur. I then did the darkest thread which is very dark and will cover all the shadows. I then chose a medium brown for the middle value and the bear is starting to look pretty good. I am now working on the bare spaces using a slightly darker than medium thread. Then I will put in the face which I always leave until last. I haven't decided how I am going to do the snout as the photo shows the light reflected on it - it is difficult to get that impression so I will think about it while I am doing the eyes. I will post the fully completed bear in the Header for a couple of days. I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. Shirley

More Mysteries!

Here are Linda's and Tammy's mysteries. They are all so different and I like every one!
From the sounds of things there are quite a few more in the works. It is amazing how different every one is from the others. Interesting how the different values and colors work. Excellent job, ladies.

Learningfa Mysteries

Our group mysteries are being posted to the photos in the learningfa group. One of my friends Noell D from Calgary gave us a wonderful mystery - the first three we have received are gorgeous. It is amazing that each one is so different from the others and looking at them quickly you wouldn't know that they were all the same patter.

Teri, Arlene and Linda Adele own the three quilts which are shown. I think Noell has done
a marvelous job and as the steps were sent out every three days, it was nice for the girls who decided to take time out from their other projects and do this quilt. I will post the
other quilts as they come in. It is a good lesson
as it shows how different fabrics make one pattern look so different.

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I have just started on a fairly large wall hanging of the area around Calgary, for an
important event coming up in June. I want to make sure it represents the Canadian Rockies and foothills and have decided to do an Autumn scene with snow on the peaks and the
featuring the beautiful gold colors on the lower trees. It is my favorite time of the year here
and it is important to me that this one really sings! grin. I am planning on working on it over the next while and hopefully it will be a success. I am pretty well caught up with only two small pieces needing binding. Have a nice day everyone! Shirley

Tutorial #4 Poppies and wildflowers

Here is the pattern, and finished leaves for the poppies, as well as the poppy pattern and finished poppies, these will be placed on the larger side border, with the poppies about 2 inches from the top and the leaves 2 inches above the bottom.

I used a pretty pink fabric and painted the deep portions with acrylic craft paint in a
deeper pink. I placed a green center in two of the poppies and overlaid it with thread painting. I then thread painted a light cream around the one center (see middle poppy).




















I then cut out a different colored set of leaves than the background and appliqued it at least three inches above the bottom of the quilt, and the poppies at least 3 inches below the top.

I then used a satin stitch for the stems making sure that the top of the stem was placed on the correct portion of the poppy - see the bottom poppy, it is facing down so your stem will come up from the leaves and curved down to the poppy. I then put a small piece of
cream eyelash yarn to represent some of the grasses . It is now time to quilt the wall hangings. The bottom picture is a close up of the BACK of the wall hanging showing you the quilting. Note that the quilting is even, all over the wall hanging. It MUST be, or your picture won't be squared off. I hope you enjoy this tutorial.

Tutorial #3 Poppies & wildflowers

I added more different greens and thread painted more grasses by stitching up and then coming down, all over the piece. I then added two tree trunks and one broken trunk, using some mottled grey fabric, cut into l/2 inch strips. I also added some flowers at the base, and two separate butterflies. I continued thread painting closely up and down. The top picture shows the intense thread painting and the bottom picture shows the finished center which will now be squared off carefully, and added a pretty rose border 2" and then added a 3 inch border on top, bottom and one side - with a 4.5 inch border on one side. This is where we will put the thread painted poppy.

TUTORIAL #2 Poppies and Wildflowers

I have continued adding a variety of green 'bushes' using different shades of ' busy' green fabric. I then started adding the closer
poppies by cutting new flowers in different shapes at least l.25 to 1.5 sized flowers around the scene. See the photo below. We now have
the shrubs and the closeup flowers.



















I am now adding a tree to the right side of the picture. We are now ready for the heavy thread painting.

TUTORIAL #1 Poppies and wildflowers

Here is a picture of the photo I saw in our local paper. I loved it and decided to try to make it. I chose three fabrics ; light blue, medium green and darker green. I then cut some hills out for the background with a medium mottled green in the back, and a yellow green for the shrubs or hills in front. I then attached them with a matching green thread and thread painted some trees on the hills.Most of this will disappear once the wild flowers are thread painted. I then took some yellow green and cut them into shrubs and then cut out some light and deep pink 'poppies' these are in the background so they are not more than l/2" in diameter. I shaped them in an elongated triangle with one of the points at the base. I also did a few in ovals. I did some grasses by thread painting a thin satin stitch narrowing to a very fine point , along the width of the flowers, blooming from the middle of the poppies. I thread painted some
vertical lines to give the impression of more grasses and stems. I added more color below that, using mottled shades of green. I had a fabric with large fern like appearance and cut two more 'bushes' I also put in some leaf fabric which blended very well. I now had a general idea of where the poppies would lie and also started placing a variety of greens in the foreground. I wanted a variety of greens with some yellow greens and some blue greens included to give the scene some depth.

This and That

I just put a new header photo on my blog- it is one of my first wall hangings, and was the
example for a lot of my landscape classes a few years ago. I can see myself that my technique has changed but I have always liked this one.

I am preparing my class for my Athabasca class and nearly have everything ready to go for the April classes. I am really looking forward to teaching this class and also having a good visit with Debbie who is my dear friend and moved up there last year from Calgary.
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I have managed to finish 2 bindings and am working on another one so soon I will have the backlog finished. I have decided to do a tutorial on this blog of one of my wall hangings that I finished last year, called Poppies and Wildflowers. I saw a photo in the paper and loved the scene - It is an unusual scene for me - but I enjoyed doing it.
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I have sent out the emails with the tutorials for the simple landscape class and am looking forward to seeing what the girls do with this class. There were a large number of students in this class (over l00) so hopefully quite a few will be completed.
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It is another bitter cold day here in Calgary. I don't remember seeing another winter like this one since the 70's -- I understand the Richardson ground squirrels (gophers) are all over the place and some of the eagles on their way north are here, so that is a definite sign of spring.

Anyway, I will start the tutorial in a few minutes . Shirley

Advanced landscape class

I have decided to let the girls vote on one of two wall hangings for the second tutorial in the landscape classes. I am going to let them vote on 'Winter Scene' or "Flower Garden'

I am just binding them right now. They are quite different from each other and I thought it would be fun if the girls could vote on which one they would like to do.
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I don't have much going on aside from doing the bindings (NOT my favorite job- and therefore I put them off - I have 4 wall hangings to do and will be glad when I get them done. I love making the scenes but the finishing is not fun! (although I know it is necessary) I have also started making bags to hold the finished landscapes, with the
name on the bag - it keeps them dust free and they are easy to store until they find their home. I don't know why I didn't think of it ages ago. They are a much nicer package done that way - It is a great way to use up fabric that I don't ordinarily use for my wall hangings.

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I have decided to do a small wall hanging - 12" x 13.5 - as I have some pieces of timtex that size and I think it would be fun to do a mountain scene, and a floral wall hanging on the timtex. I will let you see what occurs when I start one of them.

Well, I don't have much news today - I will hopefully have more to post once I finish the darned bindings! Shirley

My four season challenge with Learningfa

I am having a much better day today. I just visited Carol's blog. Carol had shown each of the steps of the winter challenge she is doing for Learningfa- I think you would find it very interesting.

I changed 11 photographs of scenes I have collected over the year, to black and white. The challenge is for each person to pick one season at a time, and make a landscape. Carol picked the covered bridge and I want you to see what a great job she is doing. Click on the pictures to increase the size. I am continually amazed at the quality of the work in the learningfa group. Some of these girls have never done landscapes before joining my group.

I would love it if you would comment on her work. Remember to scroll down and see where she started (#1) and where she is now. I am very proud of them all. It makes my day when I see such great work coming out of my challenges.
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I am happy to say that all the students got their simple landscape class emails so they can go ahead and work on them.
It is rather pretty and hopefully shows them different techniques.

I have a more advanced class coming up in
April.

We just got back from a drive - it is a sunny, fairly warm (in comparison to last week) day, the mountains in the distance are so clear you feel you can reach out and touch them, even though they are one hour's drive from here.
The snow capped Rockies are sooo beautiful. We are hoping to take a drive up to
Banff next week, as I want to get some more pictures of snow on the Rockies and in the foothills. We stopped at Tim Hortons for coffee and a doughnut (Canada's Krispy Creme, only much better- grin). There coffee is excellent and we drop in once a week, just to
get out of the house and have a bit of a treat.

I want to get more wall hangings finished (binding ) so had better get at it. Yesterday
was a loss as I spent the day fighting with my computer - grin. Talk to you all later.
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Before I go, I want to thank those who take the time to put comments in my blog. It means a lot as I know then, that people are reading it. Also those who have included me in their favorites. It is much appreciated. Shirley

FINALLY!

After spending a full day on the simple landscape class, I finally got the emails away and they didn't come back!

I talked to my tech support with shaw - (they are wonderful and so helpful). He helped me find the problem. It took some work to re do my list of ll5 people but I got it done.
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I won't have much in the way of pictures in the next while, as I am going to finish binding all the work I have done in the past while. It will take me a while but I want to get them finished.
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Computer frustrations

have caused me to spend 4 hours trying to sort out my "Simple landscape" class . I have 115 people signed up ( which I won't do again) and have had the class ready for some time (I thought) I tried to send the classes out at once and most were returned . So I divided the names up into 4 groups and tried it that way. They still were not accepted. Then I figured out that they were too large as I had tried to send out medium sized pictures instead of small. (I have been doing this for l8 months, no problem! I have now changed all the photos to small size and HOPEFULLY they will go out okay. I like sending the photos a bit larger as it is easier for the girls to see exactly what I am doing. I think from now on I will do the classes in the Learningfa blog as I understand you can limit the number of people (under a hundred)
and if the names are filled in no other students can access the blog. You can tell how
unacustomed I am to the blogging world! thanks to my friend Chris Dahl she is going to show me how to do it.

I will send out the new sized emails tomorrow and HOPEFULLY
they will go out okay. Frustrating day so far. I am going to take a break and read
my book and watch tv for a bit.

This is when I know I am not as young as I used to be.

It is weird as I have sent out so many classes with no problems. Oh well, if it doesn't work this time I will have to contact my tech help - they are so good about explaining things.

It snowed all night but is sunny and melting today. Typical March weather - I feel as if
the winter will never end this year.

I am really pleased that one of the retreats I attend every year Big Sky Retreat at Olds, Alberta is still on. I think they can use a few more people so if a really nice retreat with
lots of light, a table to yourself at Olds College appeals to you, let me know. It is on
June 6th to 9th. We even have a friend from Georgia and one from Mass. who come every year. I also go to another retreat in June at Sylvan Lake, Alberta (near Red Deer) so needless to say I am looking forward to meeting my friends again.