OOAK.biz Blog

I made a SNAFU (Situation Normal All F****d Up) while I was working on the applique pattern on the Tree of Life quilt I am working on. Working late into the night last night I was so engrossed in “stitch stitch stitch…..” that I did not realize the lighting was not quite good enough to accurately see what I was doing. Woke up this morning to look at the piece I had finished off before bed and groaned.

If you look closely (or not so close) at the edge of the yellow and orange here, then you will see that the applique work has tiny little black threads showing along the edge of the work.

Yes, I did. I used black thread to sew the yellow applique piece to the white background fabric. And I did it in dim lighting so I did not even realize I had effed up until this morning when I picked the thing up to look it over and get started again.

So, what did I do? As tempting as it was to tear all the black out and start over, I instead got out the yellow embroidery threads and am working my way around the area with the correct color to resew the section and eradicate the black that shows up.

Were I to sell this quilt for a few thousand dollars as a work of art I would toss it and start from scratch to do it all properly, but I am making it to be used and abused, so the double stitch work will only add to the strength of the little flower in the long run.

I have started working on creating quilts I can sell both online and alongside the roads here in Alaska this summer. My current project is a lap size quilt intended for use in a car or to be spread across the lap of someone sitting in a wheelchair. The pattern I am working on is a pattern I created from the online examples I have seen of the old Progress pattern for the Tree of Life.

This is a picture of the quilt pattern being copied from enlarged printouts of the color reference page to freezer paper.

And below is the beginning of the applique work. What you see here is the stem of one of the flowers growing from the ground to the right of the tree. The pattern is sitting sideways. My choice of stitching is the invisible stitch. I have not decided yet rather or not I will go back over the edges of the pieces with decorative embroidery to help hide any stitches that fail to be as invisible as they are intended to be.

I will be keeping things updated here on the progress of this quilt as I work on it.

This site is one of my new year resolutions – to get it rebuilt so that it is more useful to those who want to earn money from their OOAK creations.

Stay tuned for MASSIVE rebuild.

I am working on a new sculpture that I will be looking to sell if I can figure out how to ship the thing once it is finished.

It is my largest work so far and will measure an estimated 20″ tall by 12″ deep by probably 24″ wide when finished. It will also be exceptionally delicate, so shipping would be a major concern. I have already decided that it will have to be built in sections that would be assembled by the end buyer.

What is it you ask? A pair of nesting wyverns. I have the basic structure of them both already made, as well as the eggs which are made from real chicken eggs that I emptied, cleaned thoroughly and painted. The eggs are what dictated the size of the rest of the sculpture, which is to be made entirely of polymer clay with a metal armature to stabilize the overall figure.

Right now the female is just a basic armature, the male has the first layers of polymer clay on it and has began to be scaled starting at the end of the tail. I am about halfway up along the tail, so I have a long way to go before the male is finished. I have not even started on wing design for the pair.

When I first registered the OOAK.biz domain name, my goal was to create a resource for other artists to find out more about how to turn their passion for creating one of a kind artwork into a profitable business. I have decided that it is well past time that I get back to that goal. I might not be able to work more than once a week on this site, but I am going to get back to working on getting it up and going as the resource that I had first envisioned.