Applique is my Passion

I updated the Show Schedule for 2015.  As we are getting older, Paul and I are flying less and driving to shows closer to our home which is in PA.  (Believe it or not, not wanting to fly has to do with the disruption of our body cIocks: if we have to get up at 2 or 3AM to catch a flight at 6AM to someplace out west, losing 3 hours of time change...we never seem to catch up to local time and it is time to come home. Then it takes three days to get back to normal.)   I have indicated which shows have invited me to teach.  You can click on those shows’ web sites to see which Felted Applique class I will be offering.  We still have a few shows that haven’t gotten back to us yet, so we may be adding a few more.

I finished the Woolly Alphabet quilt in September and am now writing the pattern.  This is a pattern that needs to have all the designs in color detail photos.  We have decided to add an extra color page or two so you can see all the stitches and beads and color changes, not for you to copy exactly what I’ve done, but to show you options. The first time I will be teaching the Woolly Alphabet pattern will be at Mancuso’s best show on the east coast: Hampton VA.    Nothing like having a deadline over your head to get things done.   I entered the quilt in PIQF, Mancuso's best show on the west coast, and it didn't win any prizes.  When I saw the judges comments I understood.  They said glowing things about the quilt until they got to the zinger (encouragement to make better quilts in the future).  They said I should have hand quilted it.  Okay, my next crazy quilt will have no batting…I am thinking it might have a fish theme. Paul and I have decided that poster

I am thrilled to be able to finally see the end coming to the Alphabet quilt in Wool that I have been working on since last summer.  The border is on, and I am now adding some trim between the main part of the quilt and the border.  I have auditioned the trim here to see if I liked it.  The trim is two wool yarns that I had in my stash that I ply-ed together and then ply-ed that on itself so that it is four yarns for thickness to cover where I joined the border. This trim also helps to hold the border on because I hand- sewed it on and the sewing goes through the border and the part with the letters.   Here is a closeup of the hand embroidery.

Our next show is the MD Sheep and Wool Festival.  In preparation for that I decided that I would like to be able to spin my own yarn, so I bought a book called Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont.  I learned how to make my own spindle with a 1/4" piece of dowel which I cut into a 12" length, and a wooden toy wheel as my whorl, and a cup hook at the top.  My purpose for spinning is to have lines that I can felt into landscapes pictures, making just one more element to play with in my designs.  I've been watching Youtube videos on how to spin, which is easier than reading about it.  I used lines of commercially made yarn,  for stems on the flowers in the Dragonflies in Wool.  But I want to expand that to become tops of hills and valleys.  I've collected a lot of scenic photos and put them in my Pinterest board called Felting Art.   You can find me on Pinterest by searching for Debora Konchnsky.  This is sort of what I am working toward:    https://www.flickr.com/ph

This is my newest pattern, Dragonflies in Wool.  Each of the images of the dragonflies is an applique.  The stems of the flowers are green wool yarn and the flowers are free form created, not using appliques, based on a photo I took last summer.  Here is the dragonflies with flowers from my yard laid in place.  I copied the positions of most of the flowers.  Here it is 9 months later and I finally finished the pattern .  Sometimes it takes me a long time to figure out what to do next.  I hand dyed all the roving (wool fibers) threads and wool fabrics, because this is fun to me.  The colors work well together because of this.  The bees and the dragonflies wings were made by mixing Angelina (thin iridescent plastic fibers) with the wool rovings, making them sparkly..