Hello My Quilting Friends! I've just gotten back from vacation so this week's podcast is all about our trip and my new favorite crafts: free form crochet and watercolor painting. Enjoy this podcast and see what I'm working on in this video:
Wonderful Vacation with James
This past week James and I took off for the beach and had a wonderful time hanging out with family, eating delicious food, and relaxing together. I really enjoy taking trips with my son because he's super chill and so long as we can agree on a book or podcast to listen to, we usually get along well.
We even went to the beach one day which isn't my favorite thing to do in the world because it's so much work to get everything out on the sand, then you get sand on everything, and you get the idea! But we had a great time and for the first time in my life, I felt happy to be in a swimsuit.
I'm so happy I took on the challenge of Whole 30 and have turned this diet into my lifestyle. Yes, very occasionally I'll eat dessert, but I no longer feel like sugar's slave. I'm so much happier with my body and I'm able to easily figure out when a food I'm eating isn't the best choice.
While on the trip, I brought along my new obsession - freeform crochet. I've been working on these little medallions and freeform chunks for awhile, but this week I finally started putting them together to create this large fantastic fabric:
This is going to (eventually) be a sweater jacket and I love the combination of playing with different funky crochet stitches and the challenge of sewing them together so they lay flat.
I'm wondering if we could do something like this with quilting. Freeform quilt fabric? Quilt lots of little chunks, then zigzag them together randomly? It might be faster than crochet and still create this funky effect!
Another reason why freeform crochet is working so well for me right now is it's a convenient project to work on while I listen to Mally the Maker. I have formatted the book so it looks almost like a real book now! My favorite thing is to sit on the couch with my hook and yarn and the book spread out next to me so I can listen and catch any last edits while I crochet.
This is intensely relaxing. It doesn't even feel like work! It feels fun!
Learning a New Painting Skill
I'm also learning how to watercolor paint, something I never thought I'd want to learn how to do. Watercolor always sounded hard, and all the watercolors I've ever seen come out super pale and pastel - not my thing at all!
Turns out there are a lot of ways to get bold color with watercolor paints and the blending effects look a lot like batik fabrics. My goal is to paint fun color combinations, then turn that into fabric and effects I can use to make more cheater cloth panels for Spoonflower.
I'm enjoying the process of letting the paint do what it wants and enjoying the different effects it creates every time. It's definitely a lesson in a lack of control!
Quilting Along with Fusible Applique
This week we're connecting all the fused pieces we cut out for Eternal Love last week and building the quilt together. This is a lot like putting together a big 33 piece puzzle!
Click Here to learn how to make a fusible applique quilt.
I admit, I had a bit of trouble with my quilt while filming the video, but I left in the issues because I wanted to show you that even if everything is falling apart (which it kinda did) it will all work out in the end!
I hope you're enjoying the Eternal Love Goddess Quilt Along as much as I am. I love sharing my goddess quilts with you and seeing the beautiful versions of the quilt popping up online. Next week we'll have a new goddess quilt story about Torrent of Fear, a goddess quilt about overcoming fear so you can live the life and do the things you want to do!
Don't forget to check out our other podcast episodes right here.
Let's go quilt,
Leah Day
3 comments
I don’t crochet (know just a little…) but am fascinated with your free form style! Would you consider teaching a class in it??????
Hi Paula – I love Jennifer Hansen! I’ll definitely look for this tutorial. Yes, freeform crochet is very similar to Irish Crochet, but instead of connecting motifs together with a chain stitched mesh, this is much more dense and intense. I’ll probably try freeform Irish crochet next because I’m having such a blast playing with these chunky designs!
Irish Crochet was what that immediately reminded me of, your freeform crochet. Oh to be that creative. Jennifer Hansen (StitchDiva.com) had a great I thought tutorial on an Irish Crochet cushion (pillow) cover. There might be ideas you can pull from that. Love your work as always