Stuck Behind Bars

Glue sticks rock. Imagine what landscape quilting would be like if we were using the traditional squeeze bottle of school glue...or worse yet, the giant jar of school paste (more of which I ate than actually used on my art projects in grade school--that stuff was dang yummy. Good thing it wasn't toxic, too!).

Point being, this week alone, the innards of 4 glue sticks disappeared into my landscape quilt. Granted, only the edges of the fabric pieces are slathered with the glue, but even at that, it's surprising how fast the stuff goes. (Hence my husband's reaction, as usual, to hearing that we need to buy glue sticks today. It basically goes, "What, again??? We're keeping Elmer's in business!!")

So yep, lots of gluing went on this week, as well as more detailing (see last week's post, It's in the Details). The garrison went from this:

To this:

It took about 3 hours--cutting, fusing, shading with Sharpie markers, and sewing two layers of black organza onto the side of the building (the top layer of which I later cut partly away--it just looked too dark when the piece wasn't in bright light, as it is here). Haha, no escape now for that mysterious man--he's literally stuck behind bars!

After the garrison was glued down and dry, it didn't seem to stick all that securely. Time to take the quilt top to the machine and tack all those pieces down, before adding more on top of them. I used to use clear monofilament for the tackdown--quick and invisible--but my dealer thought it best to avoid using it, for the sake of the tension discs, unless absolutely necessary. She suggested Invisafil, a 100-wt. poly thread. It works great. It does show a tiny bit, but only close-up, and most of it will be covered later by the quilting thread.

Then the quilt top went back on the table, under the vinyl overlay again, re-fastened with paper clips at the table edges. It smoothed out and realigned nicely. Time for more gluing, yay! Sure, that's pretty much a preschool activity, but it's relaxing and so much fun to see those pieces go down on the background fabric. Things moved faster from this point, and probably will until it's time to add the young lady. She's not even cut out yet; in fact I still haven't decided on fabrics for her hair and her coat. I may have to shop for those. That should be fun!

A few more pieces were added yesterday. They'll have dried by now, so I can glue some more today (that is, after grocery shopping, paying bills, balancing the checkbook and a couple of laundry loads. You know...life.  :-/  Can't complain, though, as my time is mostly my own. The kids are grown and I'm very lucky to be able to work at home.). Looking very much forward to free-motion stitching this landscape--first embroidering some weeds and ferns on the stabilized quilt top, and then quilting each element according to its individual form, outlining stones, stitching tree bark, etc.

Also, last Sunday my friend Janet invited me over to dye in her garage--scarves, that is. And since I'd never done this before (the sky in the quilt above was painted, not dyed), it was the perfect opportunity to take along some PFD cotton. It was a lot of fun, and although the fabrics didn't turn out quite like I'd planned, that was half the fun of it--not knowing what anything would look like until it was over and rinsed out.

Since I'm whoopin' it up for all the gluing, detailing and dyeing that got done this week, here's a hookup to Sarah Craig's Whoop Whoop Friday. She's already got a major Christmas gift well on the way to being finished. Also linking to my favorite free-motion blog, Leah Day's FMQ Friday. She's stitched some beautiful new designs and is planning her group project for 2014. Remember to check out their awesome reader hookups at the end of each blog.

Before signing off: Last week I posted a rear-view photo of our cat Zoe watching a squirrel outside the door. Here's a nice portrait of Zoe alongside my late mother-in-law's much-prized (and much-used) 1962 Singer 503a...an awesome workhorse of a machine.

Have a wonderful weekend and stay warm--or cool, depending on where you are! :)

Linda