Christmas Surprises

It's Christmas week for two of my quilting groups.  Yesterday the Anything Art group met at Ruth-Ellen's for our annual holiday lunch to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah.  We all helped make the potato latkes, and Ruth-Ellen made the kugel.  

In honor of the season, I made some little ornaments for the ladies to select.

Some are made from a piece of needle-felted batik enriched with silk roving and other fibers.  The shiny one on the left is made with Textiva film and bits of ribbons and threads that I fused to a piece of Timtex with Misty Fuse.

Here it is, upside down...thanks, Blogger!

I made quite a few of these but they were snapped up yesterday at the art quilt bee meeting!  Each one has a little bead, mostly ones that I made from Shrinky-Dinks painted with Lumiere paint.

I received a very nice quilted, beaded fabric bowl from Toni yesterday.  She cut up a quilt, tucked in the sides, and voila!

Roberta made us each a fabric-covered notebook covered in cheery Ultra-Suede.

Sideways this time!  What's going on?

Tomorrow it will be Christmas brunch in Wake Forest with my Whacky Ladies bee.  I don't get to participate in all their meetings anymore due to the distance involved in driving at night, and also because we often leave for the mountain cabin on Thursday nights.  But I am looking forward to seeing them again tomorrow!

Trying out some new toys

I have spent the last couple of days working on things for Christmas. I'm not sure how to feature them on my blog when the recipients may be reading this, so I will try not to give away any secrets.

I am always one to see a new technique on Simply Quilts or in a magazine, buy all the necessary tools and supplies, and then let them sit for a while before ever breaking them out of the package. Such was the case when I saw Patricia Bolton of Quilting Arts Magazine on Simply Quilts. She was demonstrating how to make Artists Trading Cards in large numbers. The newer episodes of Simply Quilts have step-by-step tutorials, so I was able to find them on the website and print.

Yesterday I painted my fabric with lots of shiny Lumiere and Shiva paints, and even added a little foil. The foil adhered rather well to the thicker areas of paint.



The next step was to adhere a fusible web to the back of the fabric. After that, you cut it up into shapes and adhere to a felt base. I used green felt since this will be for a Christmas ornament. Then, add lots of other delicious goodies on top, like shiny threads and Angelina fibers. Add a little Bo-Nash powder sprinkled over all.

After your painted fabric shapes are adhered to the felt and you have added the goodies, place a piece of sheer fabric over the top, and free-motion quilt with a shiny thread. The directions call for a chiffon scarf, but I used a piece of silvery organza.

Then, the part that was new: I got out my never-used heat gun and proceeded to melt away some of the organza. You will reveal the shiny stuff lurking underneath.

I drew a simple Christmas tree shape and cut it out. Then I either just zig-zagged around the edge, or stitched down a shiny trim on the outside of the tree. Add a hanger and voila!

The heat gun thing was a revelation in that you are producing some noxious fumes when you melt your sheer fabric. Stinko! I held my breath and had the fan on. If you hold the heat gun in one place too long, you get holes in the felt base. This would be a good project to do on the screen porch. But it was cool watching the organza shrivel up!

In retrospect, I wish I had used a more sheer cover fabric, because I think that some of my shiny paints and fibers are still hidden under the sheer fabric. But this was a really fun process!