Patriotic Fabric Collage: "Proud to be an American"

Happy Independence Day! I hope your weekend continues to be great! Below are some photos of the other fabric collage that I completed this weekend, inspired by the holiday.

I recently added this charming photo to 

my "patriotic photos" collection.

I love the adorable children standing in a row.

It is a copy of an old RPPC printed onto fabric.

It looks like it must have been taken at

their school.

I love that the children are wearing  patriotic

banners and holding flags, and that

the little guy is dressed as Uncle Sam...

As with the piece that I posted about yesterday,

the blue fabric with the stars on it

that I used for the background is a piece of

antique indigo dating from the 1800s.

And the little quilted piece that the photo

sits upon is a square from an old quilt.

I bought a lot of these awhile ago

and posted about them previously.

Of course, I had to add some vintage lace

and crinkled seam binding to it, 

along with a paper flower held in place

by a BoBunny brad...

 

The stamped words are from the stamping

that I talked about in yesterday's post.

Again, I just cut out the phrase that

I wanted to use...

 

Like with the cutter quilt piece that I used in yesterday's piece,

the red has faded to a dusty rose...

...so for the hanger I used dusty rose crinkled seam binding,

and cream sari silk...

I really enjoyed using these old photos,

not to mention the cutter quilt pieces.

I am putting the finishing touches on two other pieces

that I worked on yesterday,

and will share them shortly (hopefully!).

Thanks for coming by,

and I hope you have a creative day!!

Patriotic Fabric Collage: "God Bless the USA"

Hello, and I hope that you're having a great Fourth of July Weekend.

This holiday inspired me to use a couple of my recently acquired patriotic photos in some fabric art. I actually made two yesterday, and here is one of them.

This is a rather tall piece.

The collage was done on a piece of a 

cutter quilt that I have had for a while.

I only wish I could have seen what the original

quilt must have looked like.

My piece is a very irregular shape

and it was from the 1860s or so.

Since it was shaped like a house,

I made believe that it was...

I used some vintage lace and buttons,

and the words were stamped with

a stamp from the Stampabilities line.

It included a lot of patriotic phrases,

so I stamped the whole thing on muslin, 

using old Archival ink in coffee,

and just used the phrase that you see here...

The photo was a beautiful old RPPC

printed onto fabric.

I couldn't resist these sweet little girls,

with the toddler holding the flag.

Don't you just love the flag that also 

appears behind them?...

You can see in the next photo how 

old and faded  the indigo fabrics are. 

I particularly love the indigo with the 

stars on it that I placed behind the girls.

And what must have once been red

has faded to a dusty pink...

Because the top section of the quilt piece

looks like the roof of the house,

I couldn't resist incorporating a vintage

piece of salvage, which I think must

have once held a doorknob.

Inside of it I placed a BoBunny brad

that I bought a few years ago...

It is about 7 inches wide, by 18 inches long,

not counting the jute that it hangs from.

It felt good to be able to make some time for creating again!

As ever, thanks for coming by.

An Old Cutter Quilt Piece: Bluebirds

Good morning my friends.

Recently I purchased a lovely piece of an old cutter quilt, which I plan on making into a fabric collage piece for The Wren's Nest. Since we have closed up our little place for the winter, that will hopefully give me a lot of time to work on it before we go back up in the spring. Famous last words from a world class procrastinator, I daresay!

I thought you might like to see a few photos of this lovely piece of workmanship.

It came sweetly wrapped in tissue paper

with this lovely trim on it...

Here is the full piece, 

which measures roughly 14 by 14 inches...

The entire cream background was done by hand,

with the tiniest of stitches, 

and the birds, vase and flower

were hand appliqued...

Here are a couple of detail shots...

I hope that I can do justice to the beautiful work 

done by the lady (maybe man!) 

who created this lovely piece.

I purchased this from eBay,

and the seller is Vintage Blessings.

You can find her here.

She not only sells cutter quilts,

but many other linens,

including beautiful whole vintage quilts

that you could purchase for your beds.

And the best part is that they are always

clean and sweet-smelling when you receive them!

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I hope that you have a beautiful and creative day.

Thanks for coming by!

Fabric Collage: "When I'm All Grown Up"

"When I'm all grown up,

come what may,

I'll build a boat

to carry me away."

Hello there! I hope that you're having a great day.

In some of my earlier posts I mentioned that I started collecting pieces of cutter quilts (old quilts that have passed their prime and can no longer be used for their original intended purpose due to shattering, stains, and so forth.) They are so beautiful in their own right and we crafters appreciate the work that went into them, so we have started finding other purposes for the portions that are still usable. My purpose was to incorporate some of them into fabric collages using some of my favorite vintage photos, but quite honestly, I have let mine sit around way too long. I have only used one in a fabric collage (still for sale in my Etsy shop), and one for Christmas stockings, the result which I shared in an older post. So, a few weeks back I started another. Our summer has been kind of crazy, so needless to say, it took me way too long to finish it.

Finally, here it is. Sorry that the photos are not great.

This was made with an old

sailboat quilt that used feed sack fabrics.

I thought the era of the fabrics worked well

with this old photo of a brother and sister

sitting in a sailboat in a studio setting.

Don't you just love their haircuts?

I couldn't resist adding a piece of real driftwood to the top...

...and of course some lace along the side.

I thought the lace looked like oyster shells,

so I sewed on some iridescent beads to it

to resemble pearls...

The fabric used on the original sailboat part of the quilt is at

the top of the following photo.

It is so soft and pretty.

And of course, this beautiful quote was just the ticket.

I also added a piece of beach netting to the bottom...

The piece is backed with the same vintage

blue feed sack fabric that you see on the

waves at the bottom, 

and came from my small stash

of feed sack fabrics...

This has been listed in my Etsy shop,

though I will need to close my shop

 on Thursday evening for vacation.

We will be headed up to the mountains,

but I'm sure that it will be there for awhile!

Thanks for stopping by.

Pieces of Old: Beautiful Cutter Crazy Quilts

Hello to all!

If you follow this blog, you know that I collect cutter quilts. You likely know that because there are so many old quilts out there that are beyond repair or stained in certain spots, they are cut down so that they can be reused in some other creation.

Imagine my excitement when recently I saw this batch of pieces of crazy quilts. They came from five different quilts, and the sections that I have show no problems. I hope that you love the beautiful stitching on these as much as I do, and appreciate the time that it must have taken to make them.

This was the first one, 

done all in the same color scheme.

I wonder who the people were

whose names appear on the quilt.

The stitching is wonderful...

There were two very large pieces of this second one.

The embroidery stitches are stunning, large and fairly thick.

The colors are gorgeous and the fabrics beautiful, 

mostly silks and satins...

This next one was done with more modern fabrics

and smaller embroidery stitches.

It is very bright and less subdued

than most vintage crazy quilts that I normally see,

but still beautiful...

This was a small piece with lovely fabrics, 

and again, beautiful stitching...

This last one is another lovely piece,

not yet completed, 

and still showing its basting stitches in some areas,

but the best part...

...is that the creator's needle and thread was still in it!

I find myself wondering what happened to this lady 

before she finished it...

Oh, the stories that these pieces could tell.

If only they could speak. 

Quite honestly,

I will have to give some careful thought

as to what I will do with them,

and how their creators' goals

can best be served.

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Many thanks for coming by!

A pile of little cutter quilt squares...

How sweet are these little cutter quilt squares?

They were all being sold on eBay

and were all originally from the same quilt.

And they were all hand stitched. 

The seller stated that the quilt as a whole was a cutter,

so she cut them into these little pieces,

measuring 6 by 6 inches.

I love that some mix in a little black,

and that the reds have faded so much they look pink...

Some have this weird shade of green.

I surmise that the green was once blue,

but has also faded over time.

Sometimes old fabrics do that.

Working with these pieces may present a challenge.

I love challenges...

I see myself using these red, white and blue pieces

with some of my vintage patriotic photos...

I bought twelve pieces,

though the seller still still has some more for sale.

I couldn't resist stacking them up...

The top piece reminds me of a sailboat,

or perhaps a piece of an old schoolhouse quilt

(missing the door and chimney)...

I wonder what this quilt looked like when it was

all one piece,

and before the fabrics started to fade.

I wonder who used it and loved it.

And I wonder how it ended up being a cutter.

I bought these pieces thinking that I might make a 

patriotic banner with them in time for July 4th. 

It seems like I would have plenty of time to do that.

But then again, knowing me, maybe not!

In the meantime, maybe I'll just display them

in a basket in our upstairs guest room,

which is the only room in this house

 that has a touch of red.

What would you do with these?

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Think creative thoughts.

It's better than nothing!

The "Old Style Camera" photo app, crazy quilt pieces, a little girl, and a Hosta...

Happy Tuesday friends! The weather here has been less than desirable, and so of course this is an excuse to stay in the house and entertain myself. 

This morning while drinking my coffee I decided to play again with photo apps, and thought that I would share some photos of my results with you. What I like the best about using these is that they are easy to use and they enhance my otherwise not-so-great-photos!

All of the photos below were edited with 

"Old Style Camera".

This works on both iPhone and iPad.

At 99 cents, it is worth every penny.

When you upload your photo, you can choose what portion

of the photo you want to use in your creation.

It has different filters that you can use to put different 

effects on your photo, such as sepia, black and white,

vignetting, and so on, 

though I did not use any of those here.

You can choose your frame and use the blurring tool

to blur the edges of your photo.

It also allows you to move "the blur" around

on the picture, and make it as large as you like.

There are several frames to choose from,

all wonderful.

Below is a photo of a piece of a crazy quilt 

from my collection of cutter quilts.

(You know how I love these!)

I find it better to choose your frame first,

since some are patterned overlays that may clash with

your photo,

and then apply the blurring tool to fade the portions

that you want to.

For the two photos below I used the same frame, 

since I thought that the black filigree really

enhanced this beautiful piece.

I did not alter the colors at all.

The three photos below are of different sections

of another old cutter that I have.

For these I used three different frames,

again, blurring the outsides.

On this third one, I used a busier frame. 

You can see the checkerboard design in it, but

I thought the colors enhanced the quilt piece.

I only blurred parts of the outer section.

Because I felt that many of the frames in this app

mimicked Victorian photo holders,

I decided to try one on one of my vintage photos.

All I did was snap a picture of the old photo,

I didn't even scan it in.

I like that it is not so clear. 

I chose only a portion of my photo,

and then used the frame below,

and blurred even a portion of the frame.

The photo below is of a Hosta that was blooming this 

past summer up at Birdsong Cottage.

I used the same frame that I used on the first two

photos above.

In this one you can see where the fading,

or blurring, changed the colors slightly.

Playing with different frames 

and points of blurring is the best way to discover

which choices will look the best.

I then used another app (Snapseed, which I talked about

in this post) for the framing.

(This will show you how you can apply effects from one app,

save them, and then move your edited photo to another app for

additional editing.)

The only thing to know about this program

is that you can't stretch the frames

to fit your photo,

so you will have to choose one that 

"fits" around the subject that you want framed.

For instance, there is a pretty oval frame,

but had I used it on the little girl, a lot of her head

would have been cut off. 

(Unless I just haven't figured out how to do it yet!)

But with everything else that I love about this app,

I am fine with that.

I can't tell you how much I enjoy working with these apps. 

Think of the possibilities while away from home.

You can edit your iPhone and iPad photos,

then put them on your PC later

and post them to your blog,

or print them out for future art projects.

And as usual, any of the above edits are up for grabs

if you want to use them!

Many thanks for stopping by!