Making Confetti

More free motion quilting is happening, this time on my second version of the Diagonal Scrap Quilt. Because the piecing is so busy, I'm using a favorite all over design, "Swirl Hook," to quilt it. Swirl Hook is a quilting design created and shared by Angela Walters. Esther Frenzel @ipatchandquilt shows how to do it too. 

I'm sure you can't see it at all, but believe me when I say the quilting is coming along fairly quickly; I'm about half way finished. Threads are YLI 40-weight cotton variegated yellow on top, and Aurifil 50-weight yellow on the bottom, since the pieced backing has quite a bit of yellow. 

Round loom knitting this week was spent making these "Comfort Dolls," as shared in a YouTube tutorial by Denise @loomahat.

Since I didn't have any fiberfill stuffing on hand, I chopped up batting scraps to fill them. It's interesting that the first fella, on the left, seems shorter, probably because I chopped the batting and stuffed him more fully. The second, taller one is less stuffed, with diced batting. 

It's a great pattern for using yarn scraps, and "futzing" to add features, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

My other make this week was completing my first diamond painting. It was easy and fun to do especially after my new carrying case (with 60 bottles for drills) and rechargeable vacuum pen arrived. 

Boy though, this is difficult to photograph! I tried, without success, multiple iPhone settings, trying to capture the way the diamonds glisten. Suffice it to say that every place where you see a grain of white... that's light refraction. A finished diamond painting shimmers and is very pretty. I will shop for a 6" X 6" frame at Hobby Lobby, so I can hang it. 

On Tuesday, I shared with some members of Big Cypress Quilters, how to create confetti "fabric" that can be made into a zipper pouch. It's fun to see the different colors and combos of snippets each maker chooses to use. 

This is a close-up of the piece above. See the fish in the middle?

These are Christmas snippets. 

This one is triangle-shaped snippets only!

This maker was being very intentional about where each snippet was positioned. I asked her, "Where's the fun in that?!"

These are scraps from a quilt that was made predominantly with purple and yellow, and a bit of green.

This was my fabric! I put it out last month on the "I don't want it; you can have it" table. She cut it into snippets!

The day was fun for everyone, especially me who had the pleasure of sharing it with one of my 4-H friends. She came to our meeting to talk a little bit about the 4-H Club, show the quilt she'd made for our Quilting Guild of The Villages "Showcase of Quilts," in January, and also show and talk about the crocheting she does.

I brought along my sewing machine and notions, along with purple-colored snippets, so she could make her own confetti fabric to sew into a zipper pouch. She enjoyed using a rotary pinking blade to chop-up purple scraps.

As always, she's proven herself to be a whiz at the sewing machine. I'm happy to tell everyone, "She's my adopted granddaughter!" 

If you're interested in making your own confetti fabric, here's my blog post about it. It's easy peasy! Linda

Allsorts

Project-hopping continues, with progress being made. 

Quilting my black and white Diagonal Scrap Quilt has been at the forefront of quilting-related activities. It's always a small hurdle to figure out what to quilt, but thanks to Esther Frenzel and the many free quilting designs she shares on her blog and demonstrates on YouTube, I am inevitably able to find a design that suits the quilt I'm working on. 

I selected Esther's "Whisps" design for this quilt. I can't say I quilted the design perfectly, nor that it's consistent across the whole quilt, but it's good enough. With so much pattern in the quilt top, even quilting with white thread isn't very visible. 

Only from the back, when you zoom-in on a piece of black fabric, can you see the quilting. 

As of Saturday night, I finished hand-sewing the binding, and will share glamour shots soon. 

In the meantime, I'm still spending lots of time with round loom knitting. This past week I made two caps. The gray one is worsted wool yarn knitted on a fine gauge loom loaned to me by a friend. 

And my second shawl/scarf. This one is knitted with two yarns - a solid seagreen, and a variegated.

I donated all three items when I attended Boomer Loomers on Saturday. Now I'm using my 24-peg loom to make a Comfort Doll, following the YouTube video by Denise at Loomahat.

I also began diamond painting my first small, 6" X 6" canvas. I enjoyed working on it at the Diamond Painting club meeting, while chatting with a quilt-y friend. Diamonds aren't precisely straight, but good enough, I think. 

In any case, I admit I'm hooked. Drill storage bottles and a vacuum pen (for placing drills without using wax) are due to arrive soon.

I'm leaving you with this thought about friendships - something I heard about and then Googled. 

What do you think? Linda

Diamond Art Painting

And now for something completely different!

Living where we do in Central Florida, with more than 2000 different clubs and activities within a few miles, it's possible to try anything at least once!

In nearly 13 years of living here, I've tried a dozen new-to-me things, some of which I latched onto and others I didn't. Line dancing, ukulele-playing, and round loom knitting are activities that stuck. Add bible study groups, quilting groups, helping the 4-H Club, and outdoor walking, and life is full. 

My latest interest is diamond painting. 

We have four diamond painting clubs here, and twice now I've visited the location nearest to me. Happily, I ran into a couple quilters I already know. Though I haven't yet "painted" with them, I've wandered around the room, talking with most of the 40 or so women in attendance, asking lots of questions. 

Do you know what diamond art, or diamond painting is? 

If you know paint-by-number, then you'll understand diamond painting.

Small resin dots or squares called "drills" are picked up with a pen-like stylus and pushed onto a very sticky background on which tiny numbered spots are arranged in a composition. Each drill has a designated number or letter that corresponds to the number or letter dot on the background. 

Funnily, once Instagram's algorithm picked up that I'd searched #diamondart, I quickly began seeing advertisements for different diamond art companies!

While most painters use a stylus with wax on the end, for picking up and putting down drills, I learned some painters use a small rechargeable vacuum pen to pick up and position them

 

This diamond painter was working on a canvas called "It's About Time" that's 27.6" X 40.2"! The darker area is complete, with square drills that create a mosaic. The lighter section in the middle remains to be painted.

Not only do diamond art kits come in a variety of designs (search Hobby Lobby, Michael's, Wal-Mart) some diamond kits include different-looking drills. A regular drill is multi-faceted resin, but others can be coated with an eye-catching finish. For example, an AB (Aurora Borealis) drill has an iridescent quality.

In the picture below you see the shiny plastic covering that protects the super-sticky surface. Usually, painters pull back enough of of the plastic to work on a small section at a time. In the back you can see one of many different types of containers for holding and organizing drills. 

I also learned that diamond painting isn't limited to creating on a canvas that's later framed. It can be done on zipper pouches and coasters. 

I also saw greeting cards, bookmarks, door hangers, napkin holders, and Christmas ornaments. Some companies even make night light kits.

Since the club leader had some basic kits to sell, I decided to give it a try. This double-sided heart mirror compact was $6. if you look closely, you can see the alphabet designations for positioning the diamonds.

I did this at home because I didn't (and still don't) have the little storage cups needed to pour out different diamond colors. In this picture you'll see that I used an empty roll from a ball of Wonderfil perle cotton, to hold one color. I also use some long-kept, empty plastic Kodak film containers! Ha! 

It took no time at all to put diamonds on both sides of this mirror compact. 

Now I want to do more!

Though I have no wall space, I bought a $3 kit to make this 6" X 6" design with 15 different drill colors. As a quilty friend pointed out, it's cheaper than a yard of fabric!

And then... I'll probably invest in one big canvas, to hopefully get diamond painting out of my system. I have too many quilts I need to finish, and still want to make!

Do tell... Do you diamond paint? What do you know about it? What's been your experience? Linda