Anything Art at My House

Yesterday the new Anything Art quilt bee had its first "hands-on" meeting at my house. Our theme of the day was painting fabric, especially with Shiva Paint Sticks and Tsukineko inks. Some of the ladies brought projects to paint, and others played with some quilted practice pieces that I cut up. It was a gorgeous day with a little breeze and pleasant temps, and we enjoyed lunch outdoors while sitting in rocking chairs or the swing on my big front porch. We painted either in my kitchen dining area or out on the screen porch. I also got out my Caran-D'Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons. So much fun! Here is everyone but Margaret, who left a little early, and me, out on the screen porch.

I tried out some of my rubbing plates with Shiva Paint Stiks. I think I need to purchase the Teflon grip sheet that keeps them from slipping. I like that the Shiva oil paints work well with dark fabrics. Many fabric paints are too transparent to show up on dark backgrounds.

As we shared our knowledge of the paint stiks, I learned a new way of applying the paints to the brushes. Usually, I use a hard stencil brush, and rub it in to the end of the paint stik. Several others recommended coloring with the paint stik on a paper palette or plate, then rubbing the brush into the dab of color. Brilliant! You could do some color blending that way.

Someone started coloring this quilted practice piece with the inks, but left it behind. I finished coloring it with this strange color combination.

And I emphasized the quilted swirls on this piece, that I had previously tie-dyed with Setacolor paints and quilted on my Gammill. This could become the front of a tote bag or something.

I have spent a lot of happy hours painting fabric, but it was really fun to share the activity with friends!

Another Baby Quilt

Today's Wednesday WIP is our home computer network...still trying to resolve our connection problems. You know the drill...it doesn't work...the tech guy comes out for five minutes...it works...he leaves...it doesn't work...you spend hours on the phone with tech support...you spend $100 for a new router...and so on. I am currently waiting for home visit #2 from our provider, hopefully with a new modem. Our connection comes and goes, so I am typing fast!

More technical problems...I have been waiting for a new foot pedal from Bernina since mine died on July 9 at my bee's sew-in day. Yesterday I got the call I have been waiting for...oh, yeah, they had one in stock all along! $125 and no return if it doesn't work. New one not in stock will be $195. Got smarter and took my machine with me to see if the foot pedal works. (It was still in its travel bag since the workshop.) Plugged in new foot pedal...it does not work! New problem! So, I left the whole thing there in hopes that it is not DOA.

So, this has opened up a window of opportunity to do some long-arm quilting. Yesterday I finished the first of two flannel baby quilts made by Teresa. Her work is amazingly precise, always square, ironed perfectly, folded in fourths lengthwise and draped over soft hangers.

Here is the first one. It is for a little boy. I free-hand quilted it much the same as the one I made for my niece's baby Christopher. Stars, swirls, and loops.

The back is also flannel and is pieced with leftover blocks. That made slow going over that part, but the needle and thread both held out without breaking.

I have been working on the Zen Garden quilt, adding more beads, but it does not look significantly different than last time.

Here are a couple more samples of Shiva Paint Stik stencils and rubbings that I don't think I have previously posted.

Gold PS over salmon-colored hand-dyed fabric

Copper and maroon PS rubbed over maroon tie-dyed fabric

Various blue and green PS stenciled over a fabric used as a paint blotter

Wish me luck with my technical issues! Heading for the mountains tomorrow night, so this may be my last post for a few days if I am not back in business. (We never have Internet up there- by choice!)

My Fabric Painting Lecture

No, I have not been up at our mountain cabin with no Internet service this weekend...I have been home with no Internet service! Something is wrong with our modem or router, and our service has been very sporadic. But it is working right now...hooray! We also un-installed the hated Internet Explorer 8. And now I can drag and drop my pictures in Blogger again!

You know all the fabric painting I have been doing? I was making samples for the program I presented at the Carolina Longarm Association meeting at the Forest Lakes clubhouse in Louisburg, NC. I made a new name tag to wear to Capital Quilters Guild meetings. This one has Shiva Paint Stik stenciling on hand-dyed fabric, needle-felted strap, and Swarovski crystals and ribbon.

While I was painting almost everything in sight, I noticed that my CLA name tag was looking white and boring, so I painted it with Tsukineko inks and Setacolor paint, and free-motion quilted it on the Long-arm with Tie Dye variegated thread and a metallic gold thread running together through the machine. It also has Swarovski crystals and a dyed fluffy fringe that I purchased at the Symposium from Artistic Artifacts.

We were planning to have a quilt show in September, but that has to be postponed because the church that hosts us will have to have sprinklers installed per the fire marshall. That means I still have time to make one of the challenge quilts. Here are two beautiful ones already quilted by two of our members, Suzanne and Donna. The object is to show what a difference the quilting can make.

We had a good show-and-tell with several beautiful large quilts. Here is Ann Hull on the right with the quilt she made from the Guild's Block Party blocks.

And here are the John and Dottie, a husband-wife team, with a gorgeous quilt that she pieced and he quilted.Then it was a terrific pot luck lunch, and on with my program. I started setting up my tables about an hour before the meeting. Charlie saw me with my car packed up and said, "I hope you enjoy your trip to Paris!" I brought a LOT of stuff.

I had Shiva Paint Stiks, Setacolor paints, Lumiere paints, Tsukineko inks, Neocolor II water-soluble crayons, Prismacolor pencils, Pigma micron pens, a few acrylic paints, and lots of tools and samples. I was asked to talk about the kinds of fabric paints I use, as well as how I go about embellishing a quilt. There was not really time to do much of a demo, although I did peel back the film on a Shiva Oil Paint Stik and load some paint onto a stencil brush. I also showed how I rub the Fantastix applicators on fabric to get most of the excess ink off before applying any color to the fabric. Here is my Shiva Paint Stiks display.

I got the little denim jumper at our local Goodwill thrift shop for $2.59, and stenciled some flowers, butterflies, and ladybugs on it for 3-year old granddaughter, Lily. I brought some ladybug buttons, red polka dot ribbon, and some rickrack that I may use to further embellish the dress.

These are my Setacolor transparent paints and a piece I painted and quilted.

and Tsukineko inks in their workstation with two Fantastik applicators for each color. I love that you never have to clean the applicators...a real plus if you have ever had to spend time cleaning paintbrushes. Those are my Lumiere paints and Necolor II crayons behind the inks.

After talking about the paints and other materials I brought, I had a trunk show of my painted and embellished quilts. I told the story of my "Something Girly" shadow trapunto quilt and my persistence in solving its problems. You can read about it here and see why I named it "Trouble."

I always enjoy the mixed reactions to The Green Man quilt- I think I will enter it in our show so I can hear the comments elicited by this, my strangest quilt ever.

So, now I still have to put everything away, but I am doing some sorting and re-organizing in the sewing room first. I spent several hours going through stuff on my cutting table, ironing board, and sewing table, but I have much more work to do. Anyway, I think my talk was a big success and I am relieved to be finished with it so I can move on to other projects.

I am very grateful to Donna Sontag for taking photographs during the program, and helping me pack up my dog and pony show at the end of the meeting.

Wednesday Work-in-Progress: Zen Garden

Remember the oriental fabric that I had fun quilting on my long-arm on Monday? Here it is after quilting with light blue Signature cotton thread. I outlined some of the gold shapes in the fabric, and just had fun making feathers, flowers and vines in other areas.


Today we are having more of the gorgeous sunny, breezy, low-humidity weather that is so rare in the South in July. I decided to embellish the piece with Shiva paint sticks to bring out the gold of the fabric and some of the quilted motifs.

I am very happy with the way this piece is coming along. When the paint dries, which is not taking long in this weather, I will probably add some Tsukineko inks to some of the smaller detailed areas, and possibly even some gold pen. Then, some beads for more highlighting and shine.

Tomorrow my quilt bee is having a sew-in day at our local quilt shop, Quilts Like Crazy in Wake Forest. One of our bee members works there as their long-arm quilter. The store is going to provide lunch and drinks for us. We are going to be working on more charity quilts for the guild.

After that, Charlie and I are heading to the mountains again, where this time we will have our oldest son and two grandkids to keep us company.