Hello!

I’m writing you comfortably in my PJs from my home studio surrounded by a mess of projects. When my sister told me she was pregnant, I pictured myself sitting quietly, sewing things for my nephew-to-be, dreaming of all the wonderful things to look forward through. In reality, I’ve been stress buying fabric in bulk and have wracked up quite a to-be-sewn pile. I’ll have to sew my way out of it and of course leave enough time for drawing and painting! Did I mention I’m taking up the harmonica? We recently received a free set of harmonicas, if our neighbors don’t kill us, I think we found another fun thing to do in the evenings.

Fall is here in Michigan and I thought today would be a perfect day to share this new quilt I made for my cousin’s new babe! How about this for some fall color!?

To create this one I used “The Waterhole” collection by Riley Blake Designs. I paired it with a Kona solid on the back for a bold vintage looking color. I regret that I do not remember the name of this color.

I pieced this quilt in a spontaneous fashion building around the center block in the usual “log cabin quilt as you go way.” I maintained the upright position of all the fabric’s artwork as I went. I added some thinner strips for variety as well.

Working as I go gave me the opportunity to highlight some parts of the fabric with a little bit of a fussy cutting. But not too fussy!

My Juki continues to be a workhorse. I had some issues recently but I took her to the shop and a quick clean and rebalancing of the machine got her throwing good stitches again. That’s one of the reasons my piles got so out of control, my machine was out of commission for a while. I didn’t know what to do with myself in the evenings without my machine.

This baby quilt is a little oversized, I liked the idea of a more “portrait” style shape. This sweet new babe is Iowa so I doubled up 100% cotton batting and it gives this quilt big fluff.

I thought I’d wrap up and share this photo of my aunt finding SUMMER OF THE TREE ARMY at a Michigan book shop! Thanks for everyone’s support of my work - I do not share my appreciation nearly enough as my heart feels it.

I hope the fall breeze comes through your windows today and refreshes your soul as it is doing for me.

Kirbi

Bought some new pan pastels…

Thirteen Witches, Book Two was released in April! You can see the cover I painted in person in a book store near you. Below, I included images of the making of the cover.

Concept sketch next to Book One “The Memory Thief”

Below is the black and white ink drawing of hummingbirds used for the background. They play an important role in the book. The single drawing was duplicated many times to get the effect for the cover.

Hello from Stag Studios!

BIG news today, we have adopted a new backyard friend who likes to kick it on the spa. Yep, we are in love.

Today, I’d like to share more details about my puff quilt that I shared on my June 23rd studio update. I was really inspired to do this project, everywhere I looked I was seeing puff quilts and they all look like pillows of heaven! I know what it’s like to sew a large quilt but adding more weight to an already tough task was intimidating!

One of the reasons I wanted to create this quilt was for our salvaged/repurposed outdoor sofa needed more padding! I thought a big puff quilt will be perfect. If you didn’t see my post about our dumpster couch you can check it out here:

There are great tutuorials out there for puff quilts but I rarely like to follow directions. Instead, I read patterns and watched tutorials online, and dove into making some of my own prototypes. My great-grandmother’s quilts were “puff” quilts but used triangles, so for my prototype, I experimented with using triangles. See a picture of my grandma’s quilt here.

I loved the look but knowing I was going for more cush on the outdoor sofa, I went with a square for more puff and I made my squares much larger than any pattern I’ve seen out there. To keep a nice shape, I lined the top layer of the quilt in warm and white batting before forming the full square and stuffing!

Evan helping me with the stuffing (below.) There’s an art to not stuffing too much so you can sew the puffs together but not under stuffing them either!

This was the most exciting part for me, seeing all the puffs stack up! As I made more and more, yes I did take the opportunity to throw them in the air with glee. Why not. :)

This quilt laid on the floor for about a week as I moved around the color. I know, most quilters know how their quilt will lay out from the start but that’s just not how I work. I like to play with my colors and see what I can come up with.

I ended up arranging the poofs in an ombre of sorts. The next step was to sew them all together. Holding the poofs together was nearly impossible. Really, there were several nights I told Evan I was going to give up on the puff quilt!

After a lot of frustration I had an idea, I dug into some of my painting supplies to find these heavy duty clips I use to hold and stretch canvas. The “little clip that could” and “big daddy clamp” worked wonderfully. Along with some extra hands (thanks Evan) every puff got secured.

Next time, I will likely sew them in triangles as my great-grandmother did. I will also consider including more hand sewing. For this job, the big puffs help the comfort of our seating but I don’t see it as an easy blanket to wrap and use. Lining the top layer of the puff was a good idea but it does add extra weight, something to consider for my next one.

The puff quilt is a favorite of our dog Maisey and saved our backs on a recent vacation. Our AirBnB had bad mattress, we slept soundly on the puff quilt we brought with us “just in case.”

Have a great rest of your week! I’m busy working on some sketches this week and doing a bit of knitting. Will share more soon.

xx

Kirbi

Hello Readers,

Evan and I just got home from a long relaxing week at Lake Michigan and my painting, cover of the latest issue of Uncanny has been published!!! The twitter world is calling it “fantastically gay.” :)

Below is the beginning of the rainbow background created for this illustration. I used colored pencils with a bit of airbrush as the base. If you look closely you can see the pencil texture in the final illustration. A lot of fantasy art utilizes a lot of dark colors but for this cover I wanted it to be light and bright. That was the main challenge for this painting, to look dramatic but in a high-key fashion.

The original painting before type treatment.

This sketch below was presented to the team at Uncanny before creating the final image.

This is the plaid design I created for the character’s coat.

Below are some of my past covers with Uncanny Magazine. They are terrific clients doing exceptional work in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

That’s a wrap on this project! Wishing everyone a great July 4th. If you’d like to listen to something spirited and patriotic this week, I highly recommend this interview by Smarther News about Betsy Ross. We listened on our ride home and came away with a lot we didn’t know!

I’m back to work on other projects (and a little play.) You can see that my current research (below) is just miserable work.

Image of me in love.

Have a safe and Happy 4th!