Painting Fabric and a 1st Place

I really enjoy painting fabric and managed to get a little time to devote to it this week. The first photo is of fabric I purposely painted.



The second is of painted dryer sheets



Look how cool they look when you start overlapping them, I just love the texture and transparency that this provides.

Don't the fabrics and dryer sheets look great together?


The final photo is the result of clean up. The darkest muddy one is from cleaning up right after my painting session the others are the result of wetting the surface and cleaning up all the bits of dried paint on it. I like to do this at the end of a paint session just to see what I might end up with.

I do not really "paint"my fabrics (not with a brush anyway) I pour paint onto my vinyl covered table and then proceed to lay or drag the fabrics though the paint until I get the desired look. I almost always, then throw generous amounts of Pickling salt onto the pieces that are then left to dry. The salt will start to "pull" the paint which gives some really terrific effects.

Last week the Quilting Gallery hosted Nature's Best on-line quilt show. I entered pieces in both categories and am so delighted to be able to say that in the Large category my quilt Earthbound placed first. I was given 1st choice of the prizes so I chose the Aurifil threads, I think I might like to try to create a whole cloth quilt with them. Thank you to everyone who chose to cast their vote for my work.

Showing off my Back Side

Belinda of Brown Dirt Cottage is asking if you'd like to
"Show Off Your Back Sides"....the back side of your quilts of course.....what did you think I meant? Post it on your blog - then visit Brown Dirt Cottage where you can add your blog URL to "Mister Linky".
Here is the back side of "Earthbound"....the front is actually shown on my last post, along with a link to read more about this quilt.
Since this quilt's design had an environmental message I decided to take all of my left over scraps of fabric and paper..........yes, paper too.....anything that would have otherwise been thrown away.
I chopped them into little bits and scattered them across the back of the quilt, covered the back with a layer of drapery sheer, then basted and quilted as usual.
So there it is...........my back side!







Oh wait...... I have another one with a back that is a little different. When I was learning to do top stitch curved piecing, I thought I'd practice the technique by creating this border for the back of a quilt that I called, Learning Curves.

Online Quilt Festival

Have you heard? Amy at Park City Girl is hosting an online quilt festival. What a fabulous idea!
I am a little late joining in as the "festival" began yesterday and will run all week. All of the details are here along with links to see the show. I haven't done a lot of quilts just yet and I am not sure I have a favourite but I have decided to show Earthbound for the following reasons. It was an experiment to see if the curved piecing technique I had recently learned could be applied to a fair sized piece using a complex design and I wanted it to be the one technique only......no paint.....no markers.........no mixed media of any sort. I don't know why I just wanted to see if it could be done. This was my own original design that began as a doodle. Many who look at it may not realize that each and every piece is separate. Every piece covers the next on one edge or another. There are no raw edges. It was the first quilt that I had really done any stitching beyond stippling or meandering. I was quite pleased with the result. Click on the picture to see a larger image and more detail.
If you'd like to read more about this piece and it's process check out this earlier post. I'll need to set aside some extra time this week for this wonderful festival because at this point there are well over 200 participating, Come join in or just relax with your favourite beverage and enjoy the show.

What to quilt?

The most asked question at my recent workshop? How do you know what to quilt? Unless you are wanting to use stencils or are doing a very traditional piece, you will likely be asking yourself that question. In most cases the quilt will tell you what to do, study it, listen to it. In this post I am going to give you some examples and explain why I chose to quilt the piece this way. Earthbound was the first quilt that I really let go and did all sorts of different things across the entire quilt. First I broke it into sections........tree, sky, hills, water, earth and so on. When I began I really had no idea of what I would do. I carefully considered each area and stitched to capture the effect or "movement" I wanted. I also wanted to carry the design out into the border.

So if you look closely you will see that I simply continued that "curly Q" effect in the lower sky and out into the border. Gave the hills some movement by changing the direction of the stitches. See how the tree branches seem to be growing right through the inner border. These roots stand out because the stitching is fairly dense all around them. I used several different stitches to get the feel of layers of earth and rock. Examine the waves, I just followed the curves to emphasize the movement. It may be hard to see but I even stitched tiny scales on the fish.

In Siren's song, I wanted that underwater feel. I did some waving lines and some tight elongated stippling here and there, wanting to have the feeling of the elements being surrounded by gently moving water. I wanted the hair to look as though it was floating and maybe just slightly tangled, so again I changed direction of the stitching often. There really was no decision to be made when quilting the border, that wonderful print told me exactly what to do, I just stitched around those rock like shapes.
So next time you just are not quite sure what to quilt................Listen carefully, it will tell you.

More machine quilting practice

Here are a few more samples I have ready for January's workshop. While trying to decide what stitches to show I thought how nice it would be to include some "McTavishing", not really being sure of just how to do it, I began looking at that pattern and realized that it was kind of a combination of 2 stitches I had used in Earthbound to depict the sky and wind. One consists of curling lines , while the other is just stitching away from a point and then moving along the outside edge to a new point and then stitching back in a waving motion changing direction every so many rows.
In this sample you can see that I have used these stitches separately on each of the outer rows and combined the two together in the centre, I does indeed resemble McTavishing.

Next I lightly penciled in some simple shapes and just did some simple outlining and small stippling. Lots of possibilities here.


I did a sample of regular meandering (Don't really need a photo of that do you?) and this fun wavy circular one.

I should volunteer to do workshops more often because in doing the prep work I am learning a great deal.

Print your own fabric............printing, painting, bleaching

Well here it is again..........This is the post that caused a few problems earlier this week but since I don't give up easily I am trying it once more. Hopefully, without any glitches this time.

Sometimes you just can't find exactly what you want. Sometimes we have to "settle" but if you only need a small amount for a project then why not create a fabric to suit your needs?
The last couple of years I have entered a piece into the "Wee" Quilt Challenge. This challenge requires the use of plaids in the making of your miniature creation. Most often I want several very small pieces and either don't want to purchase a lot of plaids or find it difficult to get the plaid in the colour I want along with the scale necessary to be effective so I have enlisted the aid of my computer and inexpensive ink jet printer. The plaid used for the "hills" and the thistle in the piece shown above were created on my computer.
First I spend a little time "creating" the plaid I want, this usually involves scanning or photographing a plaid and then manipulating it on the computer. Change the size, colour and value to get exactly what you are looking for
This can apply to any fabric print you already have in your stash. In one case I had fabric with print and scale I wanted but needed a totally different colour and hue. Not only does the use of the computer allow you to acquire the look you are after but also guarantee a "one of a kind" finished piece.


I have been quite successful using Bubble Jet Set and Bubble Jet Set rinse. Just follow the directions on the bottles.
Most recently I was working on a piece and I could not come up with quite the right shade of blue but needed about a fat quarter (a little large for using the printer) so I decided to try paint. Paint is quicker and cleaner than dye plus you can see exactly what your finished colour will be right from the start. In this case I wanted a little extra "movement" so I chose a tone on tone print with the intention of using the reverse side. I created the colour I wanted by mixing my paints and diluting with water, then I wet my pre-washed piece of fabric, squeezed it until it was just damp and then immersed it into the fabric much the way you would with dyes. I continued to move the fabric about while "squishing" it so that the paint would settle in different spots and create random lines.
Here you can see what the original piece of fabric looked like, the right and wrong sides after painting. I let it dry completely and pressed with a dry iron. It worked great!
Now back to the plaids. I am currently working on a piece for the 2009 "Wee" Quilt Challenge……….(sorry no sneak previews just yet) The fabric I chose for the back looked like a good candidate for binding as well, but being a batik I wasn't sure just how well it would blend with some of the plaids on the front……..no problem I just drew a few lines……well lots of lines actually using a fine tipped fabric pen and created a plaid batik. I am quite pleased with the result.
When working on Earthbound I had exactly what I wanted for the outer border but could not quite find the right piece for the inner border. Believe it or not, the inner and outer borders are from the same piece of fabric. I simply took a small piece of that dark green and bleached it to remove some colour, what you see as the inner border is the result. Is that cool or what?
So if you are not completely happy with the fabrics you are using, get creative…….not only can you create and print your own, there are lots of ways to add, remove or change colours in existing fabrics. All it takes is a little imagination and not being afraid to experiment.

Ribbons

You may have noticed that most of my work is not from patterns, magazines or books, although I do occasionally adapt a pattern, I prefer to do my own thing.

I don’t really know what I am doing………maybe, for me that is a good thing because since I don’t know the rules, I do not restrict myself to playing by them. I get an idea and just try it out to see what may come of it.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have time in which I can play, to discover new and interesting things while completely enjoying the creative process.

Although I have always had the encouragement of family and friends, I’d quite often wonder if they were just being kind.

While helping out at our guild’s Harvest of Quilts show, I had been approached by several people expressing an interest in my work. I was simply amazed at the wonderful comments I received.........I actually have fans! How exciting is that?

I had entered a few pieces into the show and was thrilled to learn that once the ballots were counted, my work had earned 3 Viewer’s Choice awards. What an honour as there is a tremendous amount of talent among our guild members and it was evident at the show.

In the wall hanging category, my piece titled Earthbound was chosen as the 1st place winner.

In the miniature category, Glen Etive was voted as the 1st place winner

with Viking’s Bane earning 2nd place.


I hope to continue to play,share my discoveries and maybe even inspire.



Check out those one of a kind ribbons....Very cool!

MyQuilts Part 6

This piece is called Earthbound. I was very pleased to learn that it had been accepted into The Grand National 2008 show titled Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, held at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery.
This work is really the result of my wanting to know if I could create a somewhat larger, more complicated piece than I had done to this point using the top stitched curve piecing method I so enjoy.
The answer is YES I can.
I began with not much more than a doodle that kind of, sort of, looked interesting. I played and developed it into a reasonable drawing on 9" x 12" sketchbook paper. The image was then projected onto a large piece of paper which was taped to the wall and traced into it's current size. This image would be traced again so that I would have a second layer to "map" how each individual piece would be added.

If you are unfamiliar with this technique, let me explain the basic premise. Each piece is inserted next to another. Each piece is turned under on one edge and then is placed to allow it to overlap another so that there are never any exposed raw edges. So to be successful at this you must take the time before the first piece of fabric is cut and decide how you plan to insert each piece. Here on the right you can see pretty much the whole drawing as it lies on my cutting table.

Left is a close up view of the water area. The arrows indicate which edge I plan to turn under.
If you like jigsaw puzzles you most likely would enjoy this process. Quite often I would think to myself.........I"ll just go and put in a few pieces.........but it can become a bit addictive and you find yourself there for very long periods of time. The actual piecing alone took me 120 hours, add to that the drawing and redrawing, "mapping" which is quite time consuming, preparing it for quilting and the free motion quilting itself, this piece took close to or possibly even exceeded 300 hours in making. Knowing that, would I do another similar piece? You bet!


I also had the idea, ( since this was not yet complicated enough) that I wanted to put all of the left over bits onto the back of this quilt. I kept every scrap of freezer paper and fabric....If it was not large enough to be of any real use I chopped it up into tiny little bits and scattered it across the entire back, placed a layer of drapery sheer over and then made sure this quilt was basted very well in preparation for all the wrestling it was in for while I did the free motion quilting on my domestic machine.
Then a thought occurred to me. Uh Oh! Can I actually quilt through the layers of the quilt and all of that fabric and paper I just crammed on the back? I guess I will find out. Not wanting to risk making a mess of this piece I decided to make a small landscape with lots of seams close together similar to what I was working on, added all that garbage to the back and see what would happen when I quilted it.
It worked surprisingly well so I was able to get back to the business of completing this quilt. I am quite happy with the result.
If you have an interest in seeing the other works that were exhibited at this year's Grand National check out the online catalogue and for past exhibits visit www.grandnationalquiltshow.ca
It was a fabulous show as usual with some of the most amazing works by quilt artists from across the country. I was thrilled to have the chance to be a part of it.