First border of Ladies of the Sea

I don’t think I am that different than anyone else when it comes to finding time to quilt. Lately, we have had our fair share of family barbecues, a couple of baptisms, weekends away and on and on and on!! I am trying my very best to squeeze in a few stolen moments here and there to work on my quilts. Here is what I have been working on….

Ladies of the Sea, a pattern by Sue Garman, caught my eye a while ago and I started working on the blocks last year. I decided to start one of the borders before I continued on with any more blocks, just to switch things up a bit!

I use the starch, stiletto and mini-iron method. This involves flipping the pattern over on to my light box and tracing the shapes. I don’t have the attention span to do all of my tracing at once, so I am constantly flipping my pattern over which is kind of annoying (and not an efficient way to work!). So I thought…Why can’t I just flip my freezer paper over instead of the pattern? So I traced the shapes onto the shiny side of the freezer paper using a Sharpie marker. (A Sharpie is the only thing I found that would leave a permanent mark and not smudge.)

Since I use 2 layers of freezer paper ironed together, I experimented and found if you place the shiny side with the markings on it on top of another sheet of freezer paper (paper side up, not shiny side up) the liquid starch will not make the Sharpie marks bleed all over your fabric! The traced lines are actually “captured” between 2 layers of freezer paper. Sweet!

Anyway, here is what I have accomplished so far. This pattern is available on my website Simple Bird Studio.

Last year, I discovered the joys of hand piecing using Inklingo. This is a hexie quilt I made earlier this year using Inklingo…

…and these are the leftover scraps, which I stitched into some log cabins blocks that will become part of the backing. I cut just cut and stitched, not worrying at all about matching colours or even the width of the strips. Very therapeutic!

I love entire Inklingo process and spent a couple of hours yesterday printing the 45 degree diamonds from the free collection. Lots and lots of them.

I have a quilt in mind and will show more when I have a bit more to show!

Til next time….

Kerry

9 thoughts on “First border of Ladies of the Sea”

Please remove me from you email list. I’ve packed it in doing quilts and went back to counted cross stitch.

Thanks for the neat tip on tracing the applique pieces and sandwiching the ink between the two layers. Great idea! Your work looks great. Love the colours.

What a super idea. ! Do you ever sleep?
🙂

Your work (art) always amazes me.

This is the method I used having learned it from Pearl Pereira of P3 Designs (pearl@p3designs.com). I use I-Denti pens (which she also recommends) to trace the pattern onto the shiny side of freezer paper. These pens do not smudge and one end is fine and the other end is thicker. They come in a variety of colors. I use black mostly to trace but sometimes define areas that are tucked under with red or blue.

One other tip she offers is to iron the freezer paper first (this shrinks it) before tracing the applique shapes onto the freezer paper, then iron the traced piece on to another piece of freezer paper which you seem to be doing. This seems to cut down on some of the slippery-ness of the shiny side making tracing easier. One thing I have to do is add the identifying applique numbers/ID’s to the dull side of the freezer paper shape after tracing so I can clearly ID them as the writing will be reversed when tracing on the shiny side.

The pens are not ready available at Joannes, etc. Here in So. Calif. most quilt stores carry them as she is from San Diego. (Next time I go to a local quilt store I will pick one up for you to try and I believe she offers them on her web site.) Didn’t mean to go on and on. – hope you find this helpful.

Terry

Kerry, that’s a great idea with the freezer paper. Your work, as usual, is spectacular. I’ve been following Karen at Faeries and Fibres for almost a year; I know you follow her as well. You’re looking like the new hexie queen here! 😉

Great tip, Kerry. I’ll be trying it on my next pieces I have to cut out. Your hexie quilt is gorgeous.

I have been tracing on the shinny side of my freezer paper for some time as I like to do most of my tracing while sitting and not standing at my light box. Lots of patterns are in books and it’s difficult to turn them over for the light box. I have been using a sharpie but might try to find one of those I-denti pens mentioned above.