Feather Heart Design

Here is another in my Art&Stitch Practice Series.  Art&Stitch is a digitizing program found here.

Today, I decided to channel my inner froo-froo, girly side.  I call this design my Heart Feather Series:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

First, I see this used in a border:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

Or how about as a wreath design:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

Here’s a block design, too:

Design by Carla Barrett

And, finally, my favorite design- a larger Block Motif:

design by Carla Barrett

Hope you have enjoyed this series of quilting designs I have created using Art&Stitch design software.  More information on this software is found here.  

Which one is YOUR favorite?

 

 

 

Palm Leaf Quilting Series

Good Day to you!  Today, I have a new group of quilting designs to show you in my Art & Stitch Design Series.  I call the following designs my “Palm Leaf Set.”   If you like it, let me know and I will send it to Jessica to see if she would like to sell it on here website, Digitech Patterns.

First, I drew a single palm leaf design:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

Next, I wanted to see how it would look as an allover pattern:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

I could see the allover design pattern being used on a modern quilt or a tropical quilt.  Next is my favorite- what happens when I turn the Palm Leaf into a block motif?

quilting design by Carla Barrett

I like the above block design and can’t wait to use it when the right quilt comes along!
It took me only a few minutes to create the designs shown here using Art&Stitch program.  It took me longer to copy paste, crop and add the type to the designs using Photoshop.

Can you tell I am having fun?  What are YOU up to creative wise?   Carla

Modern Quilt Design

Just finished a nice modern quilt for Doug, and now I am drawing designs for the next modern quilt- one by Lyn Baker.  I will most likely draw up 4 or 5 designs for her quilt using Art & Stitch program.  Here is my first one- a design for the sashing part of Lyn’s quilt:

mod sashing 1 by Carla Barrett

As you can see, this is a simple geometric design for a smaller border or sashing.  It has a nice modern vibe and will go with other parts of the quilt and designs I will be using.

Art& Stitch is a terrific program, it only took me a few minutes to import my quick sketch from Photoshop, then trace over the design using the Bezier Tool.   I first saved it in the ANS extension, then saved it with the extension used by my machine- an Intelliquilter.

Stay tuned!  Have several quilt images to share with you in the near future!  Carla

Adobe Illustrator Homework

This semester, I decided to take an Adobe Illustrator eCourse through a local college in Sacramento.  So glad I did, here are a couple of samples of my homework projects.

First project was to take a TV or video remote and recreate it to be as realistic as possible.  I did show it early in the semester, but I like what I created:

rasterized AI file for class

Next project was to take an interior image from a magazine and recreate it using certain color pathways and lighting.  Here is what I turned in:

class project by Carla Barrett

The most recent project is a package redesign- where we had to search for a grocery store product in need of a design overhaul.  Here is my label for this beef product:

Personally, I like the white/blue ribbon in the product logo I made.  The cow art is also mine; here is a close up of this white-faced hereford:

AI art by Carla Barrett

Taking a class like this is great!  It stretches your skills, challenges you to try something new, plus I love to design.

Of course, if it were up to me, I love the first cow I drew for this project  (see below), then decided it was too un-sophisicated for a product design.  Still, it would make a terrific Carla quilting design:

Copyright design by Carla Barrett

Can you say Moo?

 

Art & Stitch: Designing a Series

As part of my ongoing practice after attending Theo & Loes van der Heyden’s Art & Stitch  workshop, I decided to show you how I drew a doodle and turned it into a series or quilting designs for my quilts.  If you are interested in learning how to do this, be sure to sign up for Theo and Loes workshop, too.

Let’s start with a doodle:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Then you combined 2 blocks to make this design:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Notice there is a cute little critter that emerged once the blocks combined?  I love the randomness of finding surprises like this.  Next, we will combine 2 triangles to make a block design:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Now add 3 more blocks to create a large block design:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

We are just getting started!  Let’s make a border design to match the other blocks:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

How about a wreath where the critters are looking inward:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Or, critters looking outward:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

In order for this design to stitch out without jump stitches, all I needed to do is add a transition design:

copyright 2013 Carla Barrett

Can you tell I am having fun?   By the way, my Birdy Designs are for a future post….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Digitized Fun!

I promised I would share some designs drawn in Art & Stitch (ANS) software to practice what I learned in the workshop by Loes and Theo van der Heyden.  

In this class exercise, I started by drawing some feathers in a triangle block, then made a simple block motif by copying 4 times:

design by Carla Barrett

To be honest, it doesn’t ring my chimes yet.  So I decided to see what would happen when I copied more blocks designs together:

Yes, this block works for me now.  I like that you can take a ho-hum block design and turn it into a better design by playing with the program.    Once again, it only took me less than 10 minutes to create the block shown above.  I see lots of fun designs in my future!

Next up on my quilting table will be a lovely modern quilt by my friend Lyn Baker.  Lyn is a wonderful binding instructor and you can catch a class with her at High Sierra Quilters in Placerville, CA.  If you do not see a class on the website, but trust me, she has them regularly.  Contact Doug at the store if you need a binding lesson with Lyn.  Lyn is responsible for my huge improvement in my bindings.

Anyway, I plan to design some fun modern designs for Lyn’s quilt and then digitize them for practice.  I will be sharing my progress as I complete them.

Also, in my next ANS post, I will show you how I traced one of my birdy designs and made a quilting pattern out of the art.  Keep watching!

Ada the Kitty

Many blog readers may remember that when I write about my youngest son, now an adult, I mention that he has autism.  He lives nearby us in a small apartment, with lots of support from parents and his independent living worker.   Many people on the spectrum relate better to animals than people.  Joseph happens to loves cats.

We had loaned him our favorite kitty, Oscar, as a therapy pet.    Here is a picture of Oscar:

• 

Unfortunately, about 3 months ago, Oscar went missing.  We were devastated, searched in vain; but Joseph took it especially hard as Oscar was his companion and only friend.

A few weeks ago, a starving stray showed up at Joseph’s front door, meowing.  We think the kitty had been dumped, as it did not act feral, just hungry and thin.  Joseph took this sweet calico kitty in, and named her “Ada” in honor of the first woman programmer, Ada Lovelace.  He has showered Ada with love and affection- who in turn is warm and affectionate back.

Ada is the sweetest kitty, we fell in love with her, too.  Then, one day we get a phone call from Joseph.  He thinks Ada was very pregnant.   Uh-Oh.  All my pets gets spayed and neutered, so I forget that other pet owners are not as responsible.   Now I think the owner may have dumped Ada rather than deal with baby kittens.

Last night, Ada gave birth to 3 5 healthy baby kittens.  One kitten is spoken for, so we only have to find good homes for 2  4 kittens.  Ada will remain an indoor cat until the vet spays her at the proper time.

Pictures to follow…..

New Feather Worksheet Page!

Hello, I have added a new blog page to this site I wanted to share with you.  Regular blog readers know I ran a 10 part series on how to draw/quilt feathers earlier this year.  I had the bright idea to group them all together on their own blog page for easier access.  Did I mention that my lesson worksheets are FREE, too?

Here is a sample feather practice sheet:

Feather practice 6.1 by Carla Barrett

Want to visit this page?  Look at the top of the blog , but under the blog header art.  Look for the words, “Feather Worksheets 1-10″ and click on the words to access the page.  Alternatively, you may all click here to visit this page.

If you did any of the exercises- and are proud of your hard work, not to mention your stunning feather examples, send me pictures of your completed worksheet(s).  If you do not have my email, just click on the contact page and I will respond back.  I will be sharing these on the blog when I get a fair number of them.

Enjoy your week!  Carla

Art & Stitch Workshop

I recently attended a wonderful seminar in using Art & Stitch (ANS) digitizing software for quilting and embroidery design.  I loved this workshop and had a blast drawing designs using this vector program developed  by Theo and Loes van der Heijden.

As an incentive to practice what I learned, I thought I would share fun designs developed using ANS a few times per week.  To begin, the following designs were from a class exercise following directions by Loes.  (Carla note: For students who have taken my Tablet Design class, this is a similar process taught in designing wholecloth quilts).

You start with a triangle doodle design:

ANS example design by Carla Barrett

Repeat 3 more times to create a bock or motif.  For ANS users, you would select and then click on the magic square function in the program:

copyright 2013 by Carla Barrett

Next, you can then create a larger block using 4 of the blocks:

Copyright 2013 by Carla Barrett

Finally, you can also create a large Edge-to-Edge design in ANS, too:

E2E design by Carla Barrett

For those of you interested in the program I am using, Art & Stitch has a free trial download on their website here.

Let me know what you think?   Happy quilting!  Carla

 

 

 

Doug’s Quilt

I am busy working on a quilt for a guy quilting friend named Doug.  Doug owns a local quilt store and he is funny to boot!  He will call me posing as Bill Clinton, and ask me whether the Presidential library should have a condom dispenser in the bathroom or other product?  It helps that his Bill Clinton imitation is spot on.

Doug’s quilt has an overall duck hunting theme.  It also has some lovely applique cattails on the quilt for further visual interest, too.  (I promise to show pictures when finished).  I knew I needed a border design with ducks on it, so I turned to Digitech Patterns to find one.  I eventually found this loon pattern by Denise Schillinger, which fit the bill:

This pattern looks more duck-like than loon-like to me.  Loons swim very low in the water is why I say this.  Anyway, I digress….. here is the finished border design using this design.  Note that I took this picture from the back side of the quilt:

border design

Doug’s quilt has light cornerstones in all four corners, so I wanted to place a related design that would go with the border.  Unfortunately, I could not find one, so it was time to create one using bits and pieces of Denise’s Digitech Pattern design:

Obviously, I still have to add the tight piano keys to the un-quilted side of the block, but I ended up really liking this design and how it looks on Doug’s quilt.  I shared it with him on Facebook, and he was very happy.

Carla Tip: This is my quilting tip of the day- when attempting to locate a complementary design for a quilt, use bits and pieces of an existing design used elsewhere in the quilt- whether it is a stencil design or digitized design.

I am adding some other duck and duck hunter motifs within the body of the quilt, but you will have to wait to see it.  Stay posted!  Hugs, Carla