Black Tail Design

Christmas Card

Stephanie — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 04:07:47 +0000

Zentangle Christmas Card

Merry Christmas to Me

Stephanie — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:07:31 +0000

I had just purchased some variegated holiday thread and wanted to test it on something before I used it on a customer quilt. So, I decided to make myself a Christmas table topper. I thought the variegated thread would look good in a poinsettia design. Using white muslin fabric on top, I marked a center point on my quilt, then I marked approximate points in a circle to quilt the poinsettias. I freehanded my design onto the quilt. The flowers looked kind of plain, so I quilted a fill-in design to cover the entire area

poinsettias with background fill

Now the poinsettias don’t stand out very much, so I decided to color them using colored pencils. Here is a picture of the completed table topper.
Here is a picture of my cat Casper (of Black Tail Design fame) sitting on the table, next to the table topper

Working at the Lake

Stephanie — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:17:33 +0000

During a hot, humid July week at the lake I was working on a strip quilt. I used all hand dyed fabrics. These were pieces of material that I had dyed during the past few years and could not bear to cut up. So I got brave, took out my rotary cutter and cut them into pieces. One afternoon I was trying to piece the quilt, but it was so hot & humid that sewing seemed like an aerobic activity, I was sweating that much. At that point, I took a break and walked into the lake, shorts, t-shirt and all. I knew I would never squeeze into a swim suit at that moment.

A few days later I finished my piecing. The quilt is somewhat bigger than I anticipated. I have this idea in my head to try using some deColourant on it. I have this vision of a space picture like the ones you can see on the Hubble Telescope website. However, I am stuck on how to proceed at the moment. I will have to practice with the deColourant first. So for the time being, I have shelved this project.

Strip pieced quilt

space picture from Hubble Telescope

Deloa Jones’ Rope Tool

Stephanie — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:46:45 +0000

In June of 2011 I took several classes with Deloa Jones. Amongst the many things I learned was how to use her Rope-A-Dope tool for creating a rope border. Click on the “rope tool for web (below) see a video of her explaining how to use the template and how to turn the corners.

rope tool for web

Deloa Jones' 2" Rope-A-Dope tool

Nuveau Heart Feathers

Stephanie — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 22:22:41 +0000

I will be posting a series of tips on different types of feathers. Since it is still February, I thought some heart feathers would be appropriate. Nicole Webb has a style of feathers that she calls Nuveau Feathers. The first part of this video shows her quilting the Nuveau Feathers and the second half of the video shows her heart style of feathers. Although she is quilting using a longarm, you can also quilt these 2 feather variations on a domestic sewing machine.

I recommend practicing the heart feathers (or the other feathers) on paper or a white board first. Here is a picture of my first attempt on paper to draw her style of heart feathers. I did have to stop to erase a few times. It’s a lot easier to erase on paper than it is to rip out sewing.

my attempt to draw Nuveau Heart Feathers