Decorating clay with cake tool

Used cake decorater tip with slip to adorn this piece. Haven't done the foot yet, but will see how it all sticks and fires. Yes, needs some practice, but, is a start. Yes, the recent ask by my niece for an ornate cake inspired the idea. 

 

Fancy Birthday Cake

My niece requested a fancy cake for her "milestone" birthday, so I complied. I am not much of a cake decorater, so flaws all over, but she enjoyed. Used peanut butter play-dough (edible) to sculpt the dog...though her real dog might scoff at be depicted in "cute" form. 

 

Ceramic Figure

 

Will be one of a series of five. The story of 5 will not all be in clay, but, the materials will play into the story.  The next one here is a little tricky for me to figure out, as it involves taking two figures and merging them in a more complicated way then a seam merge. Ceramics. There are 4 vertical cuts on this one.

Quilt from Photograph

 

Made a quilt (a first) for a friend who moved back to his birthplace state. Tried to combine "here" with "there."  

a. Image. Grid the image so easier to sketch on quilt scale.

b. Pattern. Grid your pattern paper (made mine to quilt size) so you can eye the picture grid as you draw the image on the pattern paper. 

c. Fabric. Select your fabrics. 

d. Pattern pieces to cut. I traced on fusable to make pattern pieces, as I was going to fuse each piece anyhow...helped me to keep the orignal pattern sheet as I worked on the pieces. 

e. Fuse. Iron on the fusable -- in theory helps fray, though, I need more experience to work through some issues. I cut it so it went to the very edge of the fabric, but, I found it sometimes stuck a bit further than the fabric, and made me stitch and snip some. Since some of this moves as being sewn/ironed, making a perfect match wasn't "perfect" in my hands. 

f. Lay out. Put the pieces together to check for alignment. 

g. Sew.  I straight stitched together, then zig zaged. Took the pieces horizontally, so I could adjust as needed as I worked down the overall image. Walking foot helps stability. I zig zagged on some place too much (to try to cover the fusible that was sticking out) -- that caused some ripples in the fabric..just too much stitching. 

h. Quilt backing. I put light cotton quilt backing behind the image after I top stitched (straight and zig zag). Stiched it following the pattern pieces to avoid adding extra lines to the image. 

i. Backing. Pick your backing. I also added a message on the back -- used a separate piece of fabric and wrote on it, then hand stitched it to the backing. 

Blogger is great, but sometimes a little ornery on aliging pictures. Below shares images of some of the steps listed above.