I already have another mosaic update and this week it's a little more interesting. I've added 3 more beads. This one is made from leftover bits from a ginger jar shaped vase. This one is from a broken soup bowl. It's going to be a bit of a pain to grout but I like having the handles (from 2 bowls) in it. Now I have to do some more white.
I have been ignoring my mosaic wall for a while but I've had some time recently to add a couple more beads. I'd guess that I'm about 1/8th done. What do you think? I surely need to pick up the pace!
This is my new wet saw. It's not Chris' saw, it's mine! I bought it a couple of months ago but just got around to using it this week. I showed how I set up the cart back in May. I bought some very expensive blades and started playing this week. A saw is like any other tool or skill (quilting, painting, shooting clays), it takes practice. (Yes, I did run it with water, this photo was right before I started cutting time.) I started with some glass pieces. Glass is hard to cut and it's going to take a lot more practice. Fortunately I have plenty to practice with! I decided to start with tile. Look! I quilting tool works for marking tile too. This is a bullnose trim tile that I'm going to use on the sink backsplash. Look at my miters! I'm so please with this. I was so happy that I decided to put up the fish that I've already made. I've got to make a lot more fish!
While Laura was sewing one day this week I made a little progress on my beaded curtain wall. I've added 3 more beads (orange, red and gold) and started putting in some of the white background. I know I need to work on the background as I go or I might get bored with it if all I have to do is white. So I'll do a little more white before I allow myself to do more beads. For perspective, this photo represents about 1/4 of the space I'm going to cover. While in Albuquerque I found these from a street vendor at the Gorge Bridge near Taos. I think they will work great as part of my beaded curtain.
I've been working on the new mosaic wall in bits and pieces. It's not a big priority right now so it's not getting a lot of attention but I have made a little progress. First I worked on the top edge. Originally I had drawn half circles to create a series of arches but I could find tile bits I liked in my stash to fill it in. But while I was searching I kept moving 3 sheets of these leftover tiles out of my way. Eventually I realized that they were the answer. I got the arched effect but much easier! I also got a few beads done too.I think I'm really going to love this section! You might be wondering about the one gold bead all alone there. Remember that these are made from leftover bits from the big wall. When I dumped out the gold bits here I knew I had to find a small bead and that one seemed the best fit. I think I had about 5 small pieces of that leftover after this so it was the perfect size and shape. This one was really easy! I think my Mom gave me a few of these geode slices for the wall and I've finally found the perfect use for them.
Now that the basement is all nice and clean it's time to mess it up again and there's no quicker way to do that than with mastic and broken pottery. It's time to start the new wall section! My goal with this section it to use up many of the containers of leftovers from the Great Wall. These things are taking up a lot of space and, like quilting, I can't throw out the scraps. So I had to come up with an idea that would use smallish bits. One day while I was working on the Great Wall I started thinking about my longarm rulers and from there the idea was born for the new wall. I'm going to make a beaded doorway! When these were popular I was still quite young so wasn't of age to have a beaded doorway of my own. But I did think they were cool. Of course I now know that they are a giant pain in the butt. But fixed in place on a wall it could be pretty cool.I drew the lines with a spirit level and the beads are all of the various sizes of rulers that I have from Quilter's Apothecary. There things come in handy for all sorts of uses. This is the width of the space. I have the beads drawn in for the top half at this point. I want to make sure I have the spacing good before I draw all of them. There's no time like the present to get started! This is a small collection of leftover orange bits. The lump of mastic is all that's left from the second bucket that I used on the Great Wall. I already have the third gallon bucket ready to go. Now it's official. Another wall is underway! The trick is going to be fitting the amount of potter to the optimal bead sizes. I hope to do this wall without breaking into new pottery but that's not going to be a firm rule. This is all that's left. Do you think I threw these out like I should? Of course not but I'll just set aside one scrap bucket for all of the leftovers, like our quilting scrap bins. That will be an improvement over what I have going on right now. This morning I had a little time to come up with a plan for the "ledge" that the beads will hang from. I think this is going to work fine and I'll have just enough of these tiles to do it. These are leftover from a friend's remodel project.
I'm very excited to have my next wall section underway. It was finally warm enough this past weekend to open the windows so I could grout the last section of the wall. It tool 7 hours Saturday but I got it all done! I am beyond thrilled with it. If you want to read about the history and see lots of photos you can check them out in the mosaic gallery.
See those 2 white sections on the right side with the "beads"? That's a hint to the next wall section that I'll start soon! Yesterday a friend came over to quilt a couple of veterans quilts. She has been through longarm training so it wasn't like I had to train a newbie. She just needed some practice and I was happy to oblige. I wanted to be nearby in case she needed something so I worked on the wall and finished the last full section. It's the perfect ending to the best project I've ever done! I struggled for weeks to think of a good motif to finish off the wall and what could be better than a Featherweight? The sewing machine needle is a glass rod and once it's grouted it will be just a fine black line. Filling in the backgrounds on the signature blocks is the last thing I have to do until I grout this side of the wall. I have to wait for a couple of warm days so that I can open all of the windows but will grout it as soon as I can. The background for the 17 block is dark blue and I think the background for the initials block will be olive green. I needed dark colors to contrast with the letters and numbers and those are the only 2 colors that I have enough materials to finish the blocks. That's as good a reason as any!
To answer your next question, yes, I'm going to keep going. I'm going to turn right at this corner and I have a plan for the next 5 feet of wall space. It doesn't involve clamshells or any symbolic imagery. I"m over all that. I have something planned that will use up a lot of cups of leftover pottery bits. I'll unveil that plan a little later. I think it's going to look pretty cool. Today it's back to the applique. I need to get all the stuff off the cutting table so I can trim the newest veterans quilts to show you. Finally a new section of the wall is finished. Only one left to go and the the signature corner. I still don't know what I'm doing in that last section but I'll get it figured out soon. In October we went with our friends to visit Niagara Falls. We stayed on the Canada side and visited a couple of other Canadian attractions while we were there. In one of the Niagara gift shops I found the plate and I knew I had another section of my wall designed. Niagara has all of the great tourist trap elements like the wax museum, Rainforest Cafe and lots of gambling. I had to pick up a couple of other elements (refrigerator magnets) that reflected the the area. I really wanted to emphasize Canada so that where the little flag came in. I had these things all glued to the wall before I decided on the red and white flag elements as the background. But before I could do the background I got sick....and this time, that was a good thing! Because I was surprised with the last element for this section. Fellow blogger Judy Stupak is also a postcard maker and in 2016 she coordinated tracking the miles that fabric postcards traveled and the total was over a million miles. I entered the mileage for my Christmas postcards. She decided to draw names from the participants and I was a winner. I received some lovely red and white fabric and this lapel pin celebrating Canada's 150th birthday. I knew immediately that it had to be on my wall and with it positioned above the plate it looks like a crown. The problem was that lapel pins have pin backs. I solved that by drilling a hole and little recess into a piece of tile. Then I just super glued it all together. Perfect.
I've spent a little time in the past 2 weeks working on the mosaic. It was something I could do without expending too much energy and precision wasn't required. This section commemorates our vacation to Maine last summer. I always have a tough time with my allergies in August and several years ago it was particularly bad so we decided that we needed an annual August vacation to some place cooler to give my asthma a break. The first year we went to Wyoming. The next year was Seattle and last year it was Maine. WE LOVED MAINE. We will go back to Wyoming again but we could go to Maine every year. In fact we are going to 2 weeks this coming summer. It was funny to be there last summer when they were having a "heat wave" and everyone was complaining about the 80 degree heat. HAHAHAHA! We spent part of our week in Portland and part on Mount Desert. This year we are going to be on Lake Sebec for a week and back at Mount Desert for a week. I found this tile in a gift shop and brought it home for one of my wall sections. Here's what I did with the tile and I'm very happy with it. I even got one of the half circles on the bottom edge done. This is leftover tile from a friend's backsplash. This is all that's left! I'm working on the Niagara/Canada block next and received something in the mail this week that is perfect to add here. The 2 partial blocks will be my initials and date and I desperately need an idea for the last full block.
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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April 2024
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