Applique is my Passion

Crows pattern is launched!

2012-01-10T09:11:00.000-08:00

I don't know what took so long. Usually it doesn't take a month to finish writing a pattern, but I guess I wasn't as focused as I usually am. The Crows pattern has 17 pages, seven pages of which are of crows drawings and one page of feather drawings for the quilting in the border. Crows pattern is up on our website ready to fly to your house as a PDF pattern or a printed snail mailed pattern.

The Crow quilt is evolving...

2011-12-12T17:53:00.000-08:00

This is the Crows quilt with the appliques sewn through the backgrounds and cotton batting.

At this point I have added the backing fabric so the quilting of the backgrounds goes through all three layers. Each block has a different quilting design. This is a study in variations of quilting patterns as they relate to my subject matter. All the crows have beaded eyes using "iris" colored glass beads.

Life gets in the way

2011-11-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. On August 28th, a tree fell on our carport destroying it. That set off a chain of events. We had a visit from the tree surgeons to chop down the offending 60' maple tree and an ailing 60' walnut tree across the driveway. We ordered the new carport. That company abandoned us, with no communication for 6 weeks when, lo and behold, they called and said they wanted to install on October 31st. They never showed up, but they called at 8:30 at night, promising to install the carport on the next day. At 8 AM they worked like a well choreographed dance for 1 1/2 hours and they got paid and they left. Meanwhile, we had some renovations in the kitchen and bath that took three weeks. Then I got shingles, from the stress of the mess, I think. The medication made me dizzy and forgetful. I finished the meds, and the house is getting back to order.

I am starting to plan the next few patterns which will be small. I am playing around with crows in applique, and fuzzy cats in felting on cotton fabrics (just to see if can be done successfully) and it is time for a new cat pattern. People keep asking for donkeys...I'll start to do the research and see if I like donkeys.

This fall, the Sheep Wannabees went on tour with World Quilt, a group of Mancuso shows, because it won a blue ribbon for Best Hand Workmanship. I am beginning to see that being judged at a quilt show does not reward cleverness when it comes to quilt design. What is being awarded the top ribbons is craftsmanship. That means that the judges are looking for how well the stitches are formed and if the binding corners are square, things like that. Winning a ribbon has everything to do with the competition.

Foxes and Chickens

2011-09-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

My newest pattern is out. I chose the subject because I have friends who adore foxes. I've even seen one in my yard. I guess he didn't like it here since I only saw him once in the seven years we've been living here in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Click on the photo to see a larger image. This quilt is 35" x 32". Yours made from this pattern could be a different size or shape depending on how you combine the blocks.
Foxes are beautiful animals but they have mean streaks. I read when they get into a chicken coop, they kill all the chickens. I guess killing is a sport to them. My cat does the same thing, one mouse at a time.

This quilt is raw edge stitched and has hand embroidery in the backgrounds where I drew flowers and trees. In my quilt, the chickens are on the outside, creating tension.

I tried to keep the hand embroidered flowers in scale with the foxes. It is amazing how many you can draw with pearl cotton embroidery thread if you break down the flowers you see in your yard into French knots, satin stitch, straight stitch, chain stitch, and Feather stitch. These are all basic stitches.

The border quilting is based on the noxious plant, the Poke weed. The berries become purple when they are ripe and the birds love them.

This fox is thread painted to get the texture of his fur.

The backgrounds of the blocks were machine quilted on my home sewing machine.

This chicken portrait cornerstone was raw edge stitched. Each color is on top of the main color (black and white for this chicken). Everything is fused together before the raw edge stitched was done.

Felted apliques bag

2011-06-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

Look at what I just made this week. The sheep faces are appliques that have been felted with curly and combed wool fibers. I used menswear wool fabrics and orange pearl cotton for the feather stitching, and wool batting from Fairfield.

People are always amazed at the detail that can be achieved with felting. It is so easy to shade to get dimension, by adding a little bit of gray to the color you are working with. The gray needs to be mixed in your hands (push and pulling it to mix colors in your fingers). The sheeps face patterns are part of the Crazy Sheep pattern.

Foxes... a new pattern in the making

2011-05-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

I am playing with foxes now and I can't decide if I like wool felted fox best or cotton machine appliqued fox. On the cotton example I thread painted the fur. With the felted example, I mixes the gray and orange fiber before felting in the tail. Both examples need white added to their faces and bellies. This is the beginning of a new pattern for Critter Pattern Works.

More Sheep...more details

2011-04-17T20:34:00.000-07:00

I am trying to figure a way to explain how I get from one critter to a whole quilt. How do the blocks fit together without any pre-planning? I make appliques for the critters and felt them with a Clover Felting tool, CL8901, which is similar in shape to a pen, with three needles. I also use a single needle to do detail work. Next I fill in the ground that the critters are walking on, with felting and then embroidered the flowers and trees. Some of the flowers and leaves are becoming more 3-D. I felted leaves in tiny heart shapes and flowers in little circles with bead centers. I have no idea where I am going with this, but I need a smaller piece than my two previous quilts, either to enter into shows, or to hang in our booth while the larger quilts are exhibited at shows. Of course, I can't do the same thing twice, so this quilt I am working on is going to be pushing the envelope even further.

The Sheep Wannabees is a winner!

2011-02-28T06:17:00.000-08:00

My newest quilt just won a blue ribbon for Best Embellishment in the innovative category at The Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton VA. The competition was fierce. I am honored that my quilt got the prize.

Weird stuff that is available on the web...

2011-02-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

I was stumped when my source of Lincoln Longhair fibers didn't respond to my emails for more. I sent a postcard to her today. I don't have her phone number. My DH suggested doing a search for that fiber on the web. I found two more people who responded to my quiries and were willing to work with me. I stumbled onto a site that sold YAK! fiber, so I bought some. I got an email that it is in the mail already. There is a yak on the Wannabees on the lower left side.

Then I answered one lady from OR and I am sending her a check for Gotland sheep fibers, which she said were curly like the Lincoln but easier to felt.

I figured it out.

2011-01-21T06:41:00.000-08:00

I was looking at the program for Road to CA show and realized that I entered into the wrong catagory. There were three times as many enteries in Art Quilt category than in the category I entered Crazy Sheep into last year. If I had entered the Sheep Wannabees into the category "other", it would have been in the show. The learning curve for doing new things like entering into the shows, is sometimes steep. I wonder what would happen if I entered the quilt into the show for 2012 in the "other" category. Would it would get hung? Would it win a ribbon?

Since I didn't get my Sheep Wannabees hung in Road to CA, I entered it into Oklahoma City and it won a blue ribbon for "hand", as opposed to the ribbon for "machine". It didn't win any money and apparently came close (one vote short) to winning viewers choice and $250.

We shipped the Wannabees from OKC to Road. The box arrived at our hotel, (thanks to FedEx, it came as expected) on the first day at Road, so today it will be hung in our booth at Road. We sold five CDs of the pattern for the Wannabees even without the quilt hanging in our booth. Blind faith from our followers!

Bummer...

2010-11-19T18:42:00.000-08:00

I can't figure it out. The Wannabees was not accepted into Road. The email said they couldn't hang every quilt that was entered. Maybe I entered too late in the process, I don't know. Quilt shows are judges and juries of personal opinions. No worries though. There are other shows to enter and win.

Sheep Wannabees is complete!

2010-10-08T06:06:00.000-07:00

Finally, I finished the Sheep Wannabees quilt, with a few hours to spare. The application and photos needed to be uploaded to Road2CA by October 1, 2010. The quilt is about 69" square and weighs a ton since it is all wool fabrics and roving, with pearl cotton embroidery threads.
All the animals are fused appliques and felted. On the border some of the appliques are 3-D: the coleus, the butterflies, and the dogwood flowers. Some of the animals have 3-D ears or tails.

I started this quilt with the sheep in December 2009, and then branched out to other critters because I was trying to show people that you don't need to limit yourself to sheep when working with wool. Any subject will work, it doesn't even need to be limited to furry critters. I am planning on exploring lizards and fish in felting and using the sewing machine to draw the scales.

The Crazy Sheep quilt, which came before this one is a true crazy quilt. I started this quilt to see what sheep look like in pin stripes. All of the sheep were machine appliqued on crazy quilt backgrounds. Then I learned felting and so I felted some of the sheep. It was difficult to felt through the satin stitching. Then I tried appliquing with raw edge stitching. Then I found that you really didn't need to stitch the appliques down at all. The fusible and the felting held the appliques in place.When I made the Sheep Wannabees, I sewed the seams that went up and down like regular seams, a bit wider than 1/4" because some of the wools raveled easily. The seams that went from side to side were overlapped and raw edge stitched, and eventually felted and embroidered. The embroidered and felted trees are a huge new addition that wasn't in the Crazy Sheep.

The Sheep Wannabees will be a downloadable pattern, albeit a very long one, as soon as I can organize it in my head, and get it down on the computer. There are already more photos of this patten on the sheep Wannabees page showing how this quilt developed in ten months.

Meanwhile the Crazy Sheep is our best selling pattern for 2010. It is a good place to start working with roving, appliques, and hand embroidery. If you are looking for supplies to make this quilt we have those too. I will be teaching felting and embroidery at Road2CA, and Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton, VA, and Denver in early 2011.

Update photos on Sheep Wannabees quilt

2010-05-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

My Sheep Wannabees is getting more and more ornate. The more I work on it, the heavier it gets! The wools and the fibers and the embroidery all add to the interest.

I have been accepted to teach a class on needle felting and hand embroidery at Road to CA, January 23, 2011. I hope to have this quilt in the show so there is a lot more work ahead. Felting is an easy technique. A tool holding three or more needles is used to push the wool fiber into the wool fabric to make a design. Since I specialize in applique, I am making fused appliques on the backgrounds before I felt. It just makes sense to me. The edge of the appliques are easier to see than a drawn line outlining where I want to felt. The felting in the background is done free form, with no plan. Then the embroidery is added on top of the felted grass/ground that the animals are walking on. The embroidery helps to hold the felting in place. The blocks are added to the main part of the top with seams that go up and down. The seams that go sideways are overlapped and felted and embroidered, making it all very organic. Then I have embroidered trees over some of the seams to camoflage them. This top is now larger than the Crazy Sheep and I haven't a clue what the border will look like.

Update: Crazy Sheep

2010-03-05T04:24:00.000-08:00

My quilt just won a Best Workmanship blue ribbon at The Quilt Fest of New Jersey VI, in Somerset. Meanwhile, in my booth I am working on my Sheep Wannabees quilt...I am learning how to embroider trees.

Sheep Wannabees

2010-02-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

This is the current quilt top I am working on. It is made with wool suitings and felting, about six or seven embroidery stitches and animals from my patterns (www.critterpat.com). The layout is different from a traditional crazy quilt since the seams that go left and right are raw edged, they overlap. The felting reinforces these seams. The ones that go up and down are traditionally sewn seams. I have already added a camel and am planning on adding some llamas and alpacas, maybe some birds for fun.

sheep wannabees 2.6.10

2010-02-08T19:30:00.001-08:00

sheep wannabees 2.6.10, originally uploaded by Critterpat.

And the winner is...

2010-01-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

Crazy Sheep just won the Best in Innovative Quilts at the Road to CA show.

Already I am working on a new Crazy Sheep quilt with the addition of trees and shrubs. I am pushing the techniques even further.

2009-12-14T12:05:00.000-08:00

Today, I shipped my Crazy Sheep quilt off to Road to California. It is a scary thing to trust that the quilt will arrive in good condition and on time. Since I am writing instructions for a pattern on the crazy quilt stitches and all the embroidered flowers in the borders, I held onto the quilt as long as I could.

I had the quilt appraised as the first step. I found my appraiser at The Professional Association of Appraisers.

Before I shipped the quilt in a new box, with a plastic bag around it for added protection, I Googled shipping a quilt. I found this article at Mark Lipinski's site. I hope you find it helpful too.

Sharing some details of the Crazy Sheep quilt

2009-12-05T08:35:00.000-08:00

That is what I am all about: details. In my quilts, I want you to spend time looking at the details. Most of you will never see this quilt in person, so it is hard to give a feeling of scale here in this blog. This quilt is not huge, only 52" x 49 1/2" Here are on the some photos of the embroidery stitching in the Crazy Sheep quilt. All the fabrics used are suiting weight wools.

When you look closely, there are only about six basic stitches throughout the whole quilt. What's your favorite? Daisy chain? That makes sunflowers, French knots in the centers. Stem stitch? That is useful for stems, of course. Or feather stitch? I used that for stems and leaves, and ferns. Straight stitch? I used that for the petals of the dandelions (lower left). Blanket stitch? I used that for the grass at the bottom of the photo. Satin stitch? I filled in some of the leaves with that one. The chunks of felted wool behind the flowers make up my stone fence that goes around the sheep in the border. In the Woolly Sheep pattern, which I published in 1998, there is a split rail fence. All the fabrics were cotton, with some wool yarn details. The stone fence in the Crazy Sheep, in wool felting is brilliant. I must say that it wasn't my idea. A customer who saw the quilt in progress at a show, suggested it. It didn't work right away though. When I created the stones, visually they read as a stone path, not a wall. It wasn't until I embroidered the flowers on top that the wall stood up. The cattails are felted brown roving, with stem stitching for the stalks and leaves.

The gray sheep in the photo,

has felted horns with variegated pearl cotton embroidery thread sewn on to indicate the rings around the horns.

The sheep is fused with Steam-A-Seam Lite (a glue that comes in a sheet that you iron on the back of the applique) to the background and satin stitched with Sulky rayon thread. The ears are two pieces of wool fused together, cut out in an ear shape and inserted under the face applique before it was stitched. The ears stick out from the face. The details of the faces are hand embroidered with iridescent glass seed beads stitched on for eyes.

Crazy Sheep

2009-12-03T17:41:00.000-08:00

Are you having fun yet? It really feels good! My Crazy Sheep quilt got accepted to be in the Road2CA show, and I had it appraised last week so I can ship it off worry-free. The fun part is finally being finished. I haven’t wanted to add anything to the quilt since it was appraised. From the time I photographed it for jurying into the show, I must admit, I was still adding some more details. This is new experience for me, since I don’t normally enter shows. I usually don’t have time to work on something as intricate as this quilt. Where did the time come from? The quilt was always calling to me to be working on it; I couldn’t put it down. If you have seen me at any of the shows we did this year, the quilt was with me and usually I was working on it or showing it or explaining it and how it grew from the Woolly Sheep pattern which I designed in 1998 to Crazy Sheep today. Passion has a lot to do with getting quilts finished. It sure beats the alternative: cleaning, doing dishes, or the all time fave, emptying cat boxes. Yes, there are some dust bunnies living at my house, but that is nothing compared to the month and a half we had a chipmunk living with us. Chipmunks can really run fast.

I started this quilt when I bought the woolen remnants at a Creativ Festival show in Toronto about 17 years ago. The fabrics stayed in a pile for many years, then I got the brainy thought: What would sheep look like in pinstripes? I started applique-ing all my sheep by fusing the sheep in pinstripes and solids onto background wools from my collection. The backgrounds were odd shapes so putting the sheep together in a crazy quilt was the only arrangement that made sense. Then I put the blocks away in a bag and they didn't come out until two years ago. I became interested in felting, a craft that uses wool roving pushed into a background fabric to make a design. It was a perfect technique for my sheep, except that I had satin stitched them, and raw edge stitching would have been easier for felting. Oh well, I muddled through the felting of the edges of the sheep okay. Then I learned that I could actually make portraits of the sheep for the cornerstones of the quilt. At the Quilters Unlimited show in Dulles, VA, I had bought some wool that was right off a sheep's back in Charlottesville VA. It was full of brambles and lanolin and had to be washed with dish washing detergent before I felted it onto the largest of my sheep appliques. then some of the curls ended up on the sheep's heads in the corners. I learned how to draw in wool. What an amazing discovery.