Designing directly onto fabric

Why would you design your quilting before you even piece?
For me on this particular quilt it makes sense. The feathers have an organic form but still have a common spine on all four corners. They will also be trapuntoed. The trapunto means the quilt must be premarked so I know where to sew my water soluble thread and because each spine must match to add unity to the quilt they must also be drawn on exactly how I need them. Because the feathers are organic, each one differs and this can lead to mistakes. If I marked up the quilt once it is finished and I make a mistake all the quilt markings on the whole quilt would need to be washed out. By marking first if I do make a mistake it's only the piece I'm working on which would need to be started again.
I mark using a Berol Handwriting Pen. This gives a nice fine line and the pen doesn't 'drag' the way it does with some other marking methods. It washes out on a normal machine cycle. It does NOT rinse out, but does wash out.

Tree postcards

I'm finding postcards a little hard because they are so small. I do BIG, small to me is 36" square, the format is very restricting. I found with this last lot I did a bit better by cutting a strip 8" by 30 something and working it as a piece with evenly spaced trees, they will then be cut up into postcards. I had the brilliant idea of using the hole punch to cut perfect little circles out of red felt for fruit on the trees. Perhaps it's our hole punches but I only got 3 or four fruit, a holey bit of felt and have managed to jam up all the hole punch machines.

Plan A was to just embroider little blobs of red. So plan A it is then. I painted the trees with textile medium, as much to intensify the colour as anything else. After all I don't suspect they will be washed at any time......

Mammogram

Today was the day for my mammogram. I am so very glad I live in a country where it is free to all women. I'm also grateful that I don't live in a country where the profit motive becomes involved and women have them far more often then necessary and run the extra risks from over exposure to radiation. A friend who has a family history of breast cancer has them far more often but this is just because of her increased risk
No it's not the most pleasant experience but for me it beats going to the dentist hands down. And definitely beats going undiagnosed.

Feathers and drawing them

I've spent the last few weeks designing feathers, drawing them rubbing them out, starting again and now I'm good. I can draw them well. My only wish now is I'd put in the hours years ago I could have been doing my own thing instead of using stencils of feathers which never really worked to my satisfaction.