Black Tail Design

January 2012

Stephanie — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 04:06:07 +0000

Like many people, I have been reflecting on 2011 and what I want to accomplish in 2012. I don’t think of these things as resolutions, but more like a plan of action. First I want to post weekly to my blog. It would be great to post more, but at least once a week is an attainable goal. Next I want to become a better quilter. This will mostly just take lots of practice–as any accomplished quilter will tell you. I also want to daily draw a zentangle–see my zentangle category for more information.

This year I purchased a chalk board calender. It is a paper calender that can be written upon and erased with chalk–just like a chalkboard. For those of you who have only used white boards, and do not know what a chalkboard is, please consult an adult over 30. Each month has a prompt for you to complete the drawing. January is a newspaper headline. Here is my headline for the 1st week of January.

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