Mischief Managed

Next up for the late gift giving parade, is a gift for my Harry Potter loving buddy,  Jeni.  Since I have been on a pillow-making kick, I decided to continue on with it for her.

I saw a shirt on flickr a couple of years ago with this image and when thinking of something for Jeni I thought it would be perfect for her.  So I made one up in photoshop and screen printed it on some sparkly linen.  Then I got to adding some improv-y patchwork  using Lizzy House Constellations and some purple shot cotton.

This was my first time using pom-pom trim on a project.  Boy was it tricky to sew.  But I do LOVE the way it looks on this pillow.  So much fun.

I also added some embroidery to the back panel of the pillow.  Just for a little extra something.  She has it now and says that she loves it so I am a happy camper.

Image Play - January

So, a little while back, Christina and I decided to do a year long collaborative project.  She told me about something that House on Hill Road called Wordplay.  We both thought that it would be fun to do something similar with images.  So here's how it will work, every month we will have an image that we have to draw inspiration from.  We will either have someone choose an image for us, or pick one ourselves or for each other.  It doesn't matter what the medium is that we decide to work with for our project.  The idea is just to push us to create something that we wouldn't have created on our own.  As someone who LOVES to just hang out in the comfort zone, I think that this will be a great challenge for me and get me to start thinking about things in a new way.

For our first month, our friend Jeni picked this image by Anna Niestroj of Blink Blink.  I had never seen her blog before, but wow!!!  So many amazing things.  I am going to love going through all of her older posts and seeing what I have missed out on.

When first looking at the image, I was drawn to a few of the shapes, but the triangles in top-center is what really grabbed me. I actually really tried to stay away from them at first, only because they were so simple and I wanted to try to push myself to try something new.  So I thought on it, and thought on it, and thought on it some more.  Nothing.  So I went ahead with my first idea.

I made a mini-quilt /wall hanging depicting a mountain scene on a starry night.  I echoed the peaks and valleys of the strip pieced mountains with some pink stitching and used beads for twinkly little stars.  I also added some wonky zig-zag quilting to the "ground" just to add some texture.

 I opted not to bind it because I was trying to only use things from my stash and I kind of like the way it looks without it.

I backed it with some Field Study feathers that I absolutely love.  All-in-all, once I stopped being stubborn and just went with what my brain was telling me what to do, this was a really enjoyable project.  I am not sure what I will be doing with it.  But for now, It can just hang out on my wall where I can see it.