Pencil Quilt (and a couple doll quilts)

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Batik, QuiltingLeave a comment

A friend recently asked me whether I had stopped making quilts since I haven’t posted about any new quilting projects for several months. This is definitely not the case. In fact, last year I gave away nineteen quilts to various organizations. Most of these nothing fancy, just easy scrap quilts to use up fabric I have been given over the past couple of years. I still have a lot of fabric yet to use, so I will continue to make quilts to give away.

In talking with her, I realized that I have made a couple interesting quilts that I forgot to post about.

Pencil Quilt. The idea for this quilt came after seeing an advertisement for an adult coloring book with pencils. These books were sold a a way to reduce stress. Not needing any more crafts, I did not purchase a book. But, I did make my idea become reality.

To make the pencil tips as precise as possible, I used a variation of a technique called Paper Piecing. However, to avoid having to remove the paper, used dryer sheets were a better alternative. When ironed and taped to a blank piece of paper, these sheets of thin unwoven polyester can be used in any regular printer. But, since the softener sheets are lightweight, the sheets do not need to be removed.

After sorting through my batik fabrics, the quilt top was pieced in a color gradient order. For the quilting, I pulled different doodle designs into a graphics program and settled on how I wanted the quilting to look.

The end product was very close to the idea I originally had in my mind – a fun, colorful quilt.

I also made a matching doll quilt.

Another Doll Quilt. When my niece graduated from high school, I made her a quilt as a gift. She now has a two year old daughter that is using this quilt.

For Christmas, I made a doll quilt to match the original quilt. So, my niece’s daughter and her Baby Lissi doll have matching quilts.

Spring Has Sprung

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Flowers, Fused glass, Yard Art1 Comment

Spring is my favorite time of year. And, while my main planting will need to wait a few more weeks, I have been enjoying the color of the spring flowers in my gardens.

To bring the spring colors inside, I made some glass table art.

Floral Bowl:

A base of green flower stems was created with cut pieces of glass and vitregraph contour fused together.

To add details, a variety of flowers were made using cut glass with frit details, murrini, freeze and fuse flowers and flamework flowers. The butterfly was dichroic glass that was etched to create the details, white enamel paint was added to create the dots and a handmade butterfly body was made with fused dots and stringer. These design features were contour fused to soften the edges, then placed on the stem base and tack fused together.

The resulting 12″ piece of art was slumped into a bowl shape.

Eden Flower Bowls:

Eden is an innovative fused glass technique by Cristina Grumezescu Schnellboegl (tutorial available on Etsy). I will not describe the details of this technique because it is a paid tutorial, but I used this technique to create really lovely custom glass. The resulting glass was squashed to make it 3mm thick, cut into the shape of a flower, contour fused with added details and slumped into a bowl shape.

Deep Slumped Tulips:

Glass petals were cut and contour fused with frit and flower centers, then slumped over a deep ceramic form and epoxied to a green base.

I am enjoying the lovely spring flowers now in my dining room while waiting a few more weeks to do my spring planting.

Fused Glass Winter Wonderland

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass1 Comment

Winter has finally decided to show up in Minnesota. No, I’m not complaining about the previous lack of snow. I have really been enjoying the snow-free days that we have had. But, now that we now have snow outside, I am sharing pictures of some fused glass projects I have recently made.

To update the winter table decorations for my dining room, I created a mini winter scene.

Snowflake Bowl. 12″ circles with frit, mica and glass clay, full fused and slumped.

Stenciled Glass Frit
Stamped with Silver Mica
Glass Clay Snowflakes for detail

Scrap Glass Evergreen Tree. 6″ equilateral triangle of opal white glass, topped with bits of scrap white, contour fused and slumped over an arch.

Winter Trees and Fence. Scraps of clear glass and coarse frit, with a bird added to either side for some interest. This can actually double as a napkin holder.

Snow Houses. Pieces of clear glass, cut to shape and full fused. White frit powder was stenciled on to make the door and windows and coarse white frit was used to add “snow”.

On the table. A cutwork table runner and a garland of crystal beads, completes the decor.

At night I can add some tealights behind the houses for some more sparkle in the room!

Fused Glass Christmas Ornaments and other Holiday Gift Ideas

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glass, HolidaysLeave a comment

A few weeks ago, I participated as a vendor at a Holiday Market hosted by a local church. The market was a fund raiser for local missions. I was pleased to be part of that effort. 

To sell at the market, I brought several of the fused glass bowls and art pieces that I have made. Having participated last year, I knew that tree ornaments would also be popular. So, I spent a couple weeks this fall creating several variety of ornaments.

Bells:

Christmas Sweaters:

Santas, Snowmen and Gnomes:

Penguins, Mittens and Dala Horses:

Nativity:

Assorted other designs:

And even Pickle Ball Paddles:

I also made some jewelry (pendants and earrings):

And Garden Flowers:

The Holiday Market was very successful raising a nice sum of money for south metro mission outreach programs. And, I had lots of fun making the items to sell. 

I know it is too late for this Christmas. But, if you see anything in this post that you would like me to make for you for next year, please send me a message and we can make arrangements for me to get the item(s) to you. Half of what I make from selling these items will be donated to the missions outreach.

I am also hoping to participate in a Spring Market this year and am looking forward to making more garden art and Easter items. If I do participate, I will post pictures of the items that I make.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

National Cookie Day 2023

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Baking, Cookies, Holidays1 Comment

This morning, I needed to stay at our house to await a FedEx delivery that required a signature. Not knowing when the delivery would arrive, I didn’t want to be sewing or working in my glass studio because the noise may have kept me from hearing the door bell. So, I decided it was a good day to do some holiday cookie baking.

After I was finished baking, I found out that today was actually National Cookie Day. So, I guess I made the right decision as to how to spend my day.

Each year, I try some new recipes as well as bake some favorites from previous years. One of the new recipes I tried this year was Soft Almond Sugar Cookies. This recipe showed up on my Instagram Feed and I since I love almond flavoring in cookies, I decided to give it a try. The recipe can be found on a blog called Broken Oven Baking. I made a slight change to the recipe. As written, the recipe makes 8 large cookies (3-4 Tbs of dough for each cookie). I really did not want cookies that size, so I made smaller ones with 1 Tbs of dough.

These cookies are really good, especially if you enjoy almond flavoring.

The second recipe I tried was Buttery Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies. This was another recipe that showed up on my Instagram feed. The recipe can be found on a blog called Tutti-Dolci. The fresh orange zest really makes the flavors zing. I made a minor change to this recipe as well. Not wanting to hand chop the dried cranberries, I put them in the food processor with the sugar and orange zest. This worked really well and the sugar kept the cranberries from getting stuck the the processor blade.

The flavor is amazing. I think the may be my new favorite cookie!

Lastly, I made a recipe that has become a favorite for the holidays, Red Velvet Cookies. The recipe can be found in a previous posting.

Wednesday, I plan to make my holiday candies. Each year, I make Peanut Brittle and English Toffee, recipe found in a previous post, as well as Pretzel Kiss Candies.

Garden Poppies-Frit Flow and Pot Melt Combination.

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Flowers, Fused glass, Yard ArtLeave a comment

I really like when a new project turns out close to what I envisioned.

I’ve previously only done one frit flow project, with homemade frit, and was pleased with the result. With this technique, frit and/or glass shards are placed on top of a stack of glass and allowed to spread out at full fuse temperature. The result creates a wonderful optical effect.

This weekend, when organizing my supplies, I came across a ceramic pot melt mold I had custom made several years ago. This mold has holes only around the perimeter of the pot.

When I saw it I thought I would try putting just small amount of glass in the pot, hoping to get the flow to look like flowers (ie: poppies). And, wanting to try another frit flow, I decided to use that technique for the background.

I tried a two sided frit flow, but didn’t like how it looked. So, not wanting to waste glass, I broke it into four pieces and stacked them. The weight of these pieces was 680 gm. On top I added a piece of white glass with frit divided into two areas. Top half was a combination of blues. The bottom half was a combination of shades of green. The weight of the white glass and frit was 115 grams.

This is how the frit flow turned out.

On top of this, I placed some green vitregraph for the flower stems.

Then I setup my pot melt with red glass (90grams) and orange frit (25 grams) above the holes in the top half of the pot. Above the holes in the bottom half, I put pieces if green glass (70 grams).

I am really pleased how this turned out and can’t wait until next summer when I can display it in a glass stand in my garden.

Glass Landscapes

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Fused glassLeave a comment

Having several glass landscape design ideas, my latest glass projects were made for a bathroom in our house.

My first landscape was designed to use some of the beautiful Opal Art glass that I had purchased on my trip back from South Carolina in February. This type of glass is absolutely lovely with its rich colors swirled together.

To design the landscape, I took photos of the sheets of glass, printed them, cut out some of the curves to depict mountains and taped the pieces together to figure out what worked best. I was really excited about my first design.

Each of the sections of glass were carefully cut and then full fused to create the background.

Unfortunately, when I opened the kiln the next day, I was extremely disappointed – the glass had large bubbles in the surface. Further testing of the kiln shelf that I had recently purchased showed that the shelf had micro defects in the surface that caused air to be trapped thus creating these large bubbles. Subsequent tests of the kiln shelf resulted in bubbles in the exact same spots. I’m still working with the manufacturer to try to get the shelf replace. I salvaged the bubbled glass for some pot melts and drip melts that I will share in a later blog post.

Using an older shelf, I designed and fused another landscape. I did simplify the design when cutting the glass. Luckily no bubbles developed this time!!

After full fusing the background, I added details, murrini, frit, etc and contour fused the project. The result turned out really well.

The second landscape I made was more of a floral scene rather than a landscape. For this piece of wall art, I used scrap strips of green glass full fused to create an interesting background. Onto this, I tacked some murrini and several practice pieces of lamp work glass (leaves and flowers) from a class I had taken a few years ago. I also included some freeze and fuse leaves and butterflies and some custom cut flowers.

The result in a playful, colorful bunch of glass flowers.

The third piece of glass art was a trial at making a pattern bar. For this trial, I layered glass frit and scraps in a pattern trying to replicate a tree. After full fusing at 1475 degrees, I sliced the resulting bar into 1/4″ sections. Two sections placed opposite one another gave somewhat of a tree appearance. While not great, this was a successful trial run and I will be trying more pattern bars in the future.

To enhance the look of the tree, I added some additional green frit and full fused again.

My final landscape was actually two panels. While visiting my mother in the spring, I saw a wall quilt which depicted farm fields with a city skyline in the background. At the time, I thought the idea would work well for a glass art project. To create the background, I cut and full fused several different pieces of glass to make the “patchwork” fields.

To embellish my idea, I thought it might be fun to include some buildings of the Minneapolis and St. Paul skylines. Hopefully, if you know the Twin Cities, you can recognize the buildings that I have included. These were contour fused to each panel.

The new art is mounted on the wall in one of my bathrooms and adds a bright pop of color to the room.