365/ 56 & 57 Of Pirates and Best Friends

Saturday I got a call from one of my most favorite friends whom I do not get to see enough. My dear friend Kathy Hart had a solution to my problem with embroidering text onto the backside of my Dead Parrot Pirate Art Quilt. Kathy is one of those amazing people who sees something, wants to make it herself and does it--and does it very well. Totally fearless and awesome gal!!

So she called me to tell me exactly what I needed to do in order to get the embroidery looking good. Just from looking at the picture on my blog, she could immediately tell that I was using too many threads. The DMC floss can be pulled apart so that you have six strands. My thinking was, hey this will go quicker if I use it as is, nice and thick. Wrong. Kathy knew that. 

Kathy also said that my stitches were going the wrong way and that I should outline stitch the letters and then fill them in with satin stitch--but those stitches needed to be horizontal and alternate the lengths within each row. I love it when my friends have the answers I need!

Here is the before:

Before: 

I also decided to embroider on top of Sulky Light Tear Away Stabilizer. First I traced the letters onto the stabilizer and then temporarily sewed the strips onto my quilt with a running stitch.  Here is my sampler I did after I talked with Kathy:

  After:

Much better. From the sampler I also learned that it was better to do the outline stitch then remove the stabilizer prior to filling in the letters and skull with satin stitches. The sampler looks fuzzy because I didn't remove the stabilizer until after I was done with the embroidery. It's very difficult to all remove that stuff from under the stitches. 

Close up of the skull prior to embroidery on the stabilizer and after I removed it:

Feeling like maybe I knew what I was doing, I moved onto the quilt back and got all of the stablizer sewn on. It's much different trying to do embroidery on a quilt. I learned that my stitches were much too loose and have redone the "Y" in Yo three times now. And the "o" is missing. I have decided to continue with the rest of the quilt and will finish up that first "Yo" last. 

Here is my progress as of last night:

365:52 Y, y, y...eeeeee?

Today's post is about the letter "Y". Not just a letter, but the sound is also a word as in "Y, damn it, Y?" And the source of my late night "sigh". The answer? Because you are new at this. Love that one. But it is true. How easily those words of wisdom fall out of my face when my daughter is struggling with a new project, yet how briny and thorn covered when I must choke them down!!

Last night I began the embroidery of the song on the back of my Dead Parrot Pirate Quilt. It just so happens that the first letter I had to embroider was...."Y". How appropriate. Here is how it turned out:

Arrr, me 'earties Not exactly the look I was a goin fer. It be barnacle covered fer sure, if ya know what I mean. I thought I was clever. Just print out the text I wanted, in the size that would fit the designated space on the quilt back, pin it above that area for handy reference and off I go. Ya, I be off the map and this letter be goin oft ta Davy Jones' Locker. 

BTW: I outlined the letter first with split stitch and then used satin stitch to get a raised look. A great idea, but...

Embroidery is new to me, most definitely when it comes to text. I did research some sites on the how-to-part and there might have been something about, I dunno, practicing? I have a new plan. In addition to "practicing", I am going to print or trace these letters onto Sulky Light Tear-Away Stabilizer. Then I can embroider directly onto the image and just "easily" remove the stabilizer when done. Easy Peasy. Bwahahahahaha.. I mean Arrrrrrrrr... If that not be to me likin then there is always paint.

365:50 An hour for a Dead Parrot Pirate

I managed to sneak in a hour last night, while cooking dinner, to work on the Dead Parrot Pirate Quilt. As I was free motion quilting I kept thinking of what a pain it would be to have to remove those tiny stitches if I made a major mistake. And then... I did. One of the corners in the back got folded over on itself and I accidentally stitched it down to the quilt that way. Honestly, correcting it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. So now I have pinned down all the edges of the quilt so that can't happen again. Must learn to listen to that little voice a little sooner.

No picks for last night's post, but I will put some up later today.  Looks like I will have a couple of hours that I can put into this project and finish up the fireworks section on the front. It's getting exciting!!!

365/48 & 49 Aye Matey, it;'s that Pirate again...

I did a lot of work this weekend on the Dead Parrot Pirate Quilt. In fact, I am exhausted. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into, but I am enjoying the experience. Since the last time I worked on the quilt I was finally able to make some big decisions. 

Finally deciding what to do with the border of the quilt freed me up to work on it again. On day 48  I added a 3" border of black fabric.

I then attached the batting and began quilting down the pirate and his bones so that he would get all quilty looking or puffy not sure what the term is here. This is the first time I had done quilting without the back fabric being in place and I like the results. Quilting the parrot this way ensures that it will not show through to the back--a very good thing.

 

It's not so easy to see in the picture, but I also embellished the pearl some more with rainbow transparent thread. The pearl now looks like it is glowing in that dead claw. Better pics coming soon.

The back side of the quilt needed to be important too. It's too large an area to just ignore with plain fabric. So once the parrot was quilted I added the black back piece. Love fusible batting--makes life so much easier.

Now for some fun. I found Articles from a couple of pirate ships and settled on the one from the Revenge. A month ago I had downloaded about 9 different piratey fonts. Dafont is a great place to get some, but the best place for a pirate font is Morstation.org. Once I had the ship's Articles to my liking I reversed the text and printed it out on transfer artist paper or TAP. The TAP was ironed onto tea stained fabric and then I attached it to the back of the quilt with Steam a Seam 2 . Honestly I doubt I would do any applique work or quilting without all this fusible stuff. It's magnificent!!

Back to the front: I started quilting the "fireworks with light blue rayon thread. It's a lot of fun to do, but gets tiring. So here is how the front looks now. If you click on the image you can view the larger size and see all the detailed work I did today.

Here is how part of the backside looks with the Article and the fireworks from the backside. I used a black multi-colored thread. Again, better pics next time so you can really see it.

Some time this week I plan to do (learn) fancy free motion quilting on that wide front border. Waves, waves  and more waves are what I will be quilting on the black border using a multi-color black thread or maybe that metallic black thread. The waves should look really cool from both sides--in my head anyway.

365: Day 32 Quest for a Pirate Song

I love Sulky black metallic thread!! Thread painting with this stuff was so much fun that I didn't want to stop. Luckily I have lots left over to play with for another day! Here is a close up of the metallic thread and how I used it underneath the cheesecloth to add a bit of sparkly mystery and drama to the quilt.

Check out my Dead Parrot Pirate now! He is so cool. This picture also shows the button eye I will be using as well as a metal button on the Pirate's skull cap. Can you see the black metallic thread beneath the cheesecloth? The picture doesn't show it as nicely as it looks, but it is there in 3 places surrounding the pearl/orb.

Here is an unobstructed view of the thread painting using the metallic thread. I pulled the cheesecloth back so you could see what I had done.

I decided to print a pirate's code, or song or map on the backside of the art quilt. The cream colored fabric below was too white, so I dyed it with tea bags and now it is ready to print the text on. I might add some inks or try burning the edges for a better effect. Please leave me a comment if you have any suggested pirate songs or codes I should use. 

Oh ya, the black fabric is for the back of the quilt as well as final border to the front. Oooh almost forgot. See that cord on the right side of the head? That was from my daughter's sailor bracelet that finally broke. It looks really good on the quilt...so that is going on there too.

365: Day 30 Dead Pirate Comes to Life

Post for Sunday, February 13th (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!)


Watching the Pirate come to life is so much fun. This project has been so enjoyable. Today I spent several hours doing some hand embroidery.

Although I did spend sometime Googling embroidery stitches. I wanted to try something different, however the basic stitches seemed to fit the quilt best. I used the blanket stitch to outline the wing bones, eye and tongue and the outline stitch (stem stitch) for the claw. 

Close up of blanket stitch on wing bones

Embroidery around eye and tongue

Outline stitch for claws and blanket stitch on bone

Outlining the claw with light gold and dark gray makes the pearl (orb) seem like it is glowing. I am really happy with the way this portion turned out. Credit goes to my daughter for suggesting the idea. She is brilliant. 

365: Day 24 Redraw

Time to redraw the Dead Parrot Pirate. There were portions of the parrot that needed refining in addition to deciding it's final size. Including a 2" border the finished size will be approximately 13"x19". 

Part of the process is to trace the image onto tracing paper. Knowing that I wanted to shorten an arm bone and move his hand father from the beak, I traced those parts of the parrot as well as the head onto 3 different pieces of tracing paper. When it came to tracing my subject, I just moved the different pieces of paper around until his parts looked right. This was much easier and far less time consuming than trying to redraw the whole image at once.

Having purchased the main fabric for my Dead Parrot Pirate art quilt, I needed to pick out coordinating fabric from my stash. It's a somewhat muted collection of fabric. I will be making blackened cheese cloth to use for his tattered rags. I think the purple fabric will be combined with the brown to make 2" wide stripes for the backing of the quilt. Not sure what fabrics will be for the borders. Might need to do a little more shopping.

Sparrow was a great help. She sat in the bags of fabric to make sure none had walked away. Good kitty. Do you think I can get her to wash up the fabric for me?

365: Day 17 Dead Parrot Pirate

Yesterday I mentioned a drawing I completed that continued the theme of Dia de los Muertos in animal form. First there was the Dead Vibrant Cat and then the Dead Vibrant Dog. Well here is a look at my sketch for the Dead Parrot Pirate.

I plan to do this as a quilted work ..maybe as a pillow or a wall hanging. I haven't decided yet.This dead critter is definitely larger than the other two. Parrot Pirate needs some adjustments particularly in the way the claw grasps at the pearl. 

Dyed cheese cloth might look really great for the torn fabric that hangs off his bony wing. Being able to see through the torn cloth to the images beneath could be really mysterious.

I am also thinking about using satin floss in whites, grays, peaches and pinks to embroider the pearl and then go over that with some rainbow transparent thread. This is going to be fun and challenging to create. I sense a fabric shopping trip in the near future.