Wednesday Works-in-Progress: Zen Garden Embellishments

Do you ever have trouble deciding whether or not to embellish your quilts with beads, paint, fibers, or other objects? I already made the decision to paint over some of the quilted motifs with Shiva Paint Stiks, which has transformed this piece from a piece of quilted fabric to an art quilt. I began to see the illusion of a pagoda, fence, waterfall, creek, and flowers. I have already added some blue-green beads to the waterfall area.
I will be adding more gold beads to define the gold "structures."

If you are going to embellish, it should certainly make a positive addition to the quilt's design, theme, meaning, or appearance. What I usually do is gather my containers of beads, ribbons, jewelry, silk flowers, buttons, and fibers. I pull out anything I think might work with the current project. Then I lay them on the quilt to see if I like the project better with or without the extra "stuff."

Below is an old brooch on the left side. I like the way the aged patina of the metal looks when contrasted with the gold and copper metallic paint. I may use it.

I am not opposed to adding silk flowers to add dimension to this piece, but have decided against these beautiful coral ones because I don't like think the warm color adds to this serene piece with cool colors. I will save them for another project.

Wednesday Works-in-Progress

Yesterday I mentioned that I would be experimenting with Shrinky-Dinks. This is a type of film that you can decorate with heat-set paints, colored pencils, acrylics, or other media, then bake for a few minutes in the oven. I decided to paint with Lumiere paints, most of which have a metallic gleam. I just painted some basic shapes and embellished with dots and squiggles. The words were added with a silver pen. You cut them out and punch a hole prior to baking. For sewing down these charms, it would have been helpful to have two holes, or it just dangles.

Then, put them in the oven. I used a low temperature of about 200 degrees F, and look what happened! These are shown on the same size sheet as the originals.

They come out like a hard, clear plastic. On mine, the paint kind of globbed in an interesting manner. The silver pen looked good for the text. I put some of the charms to immediate use on my works-in-project from last Wednesday.




This piece is done except for adding some kind of label. I have just been calling it The Pink Artist Project. Will come up with something better.

Here is the other project from last Wednesday. It is the one with Textiva film on the center block.

Last week I showed you the center block with some stuff sewed on, quilted and heat-blasted. Here is what the back of that block looked like after quilting. The base is a stiff interfacing like Timtex, with the pink fabric wrapped around it and mitered (sort of.)

Now I have added the outer frame. After auditioning a lot of fabrics, I chose this embroidered pink linen-type fabric. It came from a skirt I bought at the Goodwill thrift shop and deconstructed. It has embroidered daisy-like flowers in gleaming threads. I like the look, but it was a mistake to have one of the embroidered parts at a corner. Hard to miter over all that thickness!I added some beads and silk flowers and a yo-yo.

The center piece is sewn on to a larger piece of Timtex covered with the linen fabric. Right now, it is only attached at the edge of the center block, and it needs to be anchored down with a few stitches through the center so it doesn't buckle out.

I have experimented with some of the drinking-straw fabric beads sewn to the outer border, but am still working on that.

Embellishing Workshops with Melody Crust

I recently spent two very inspiring days at workshops sponsored by the Capital Quilters Guild with quilt artist Melody Crust of the Seattle area. Day 1 featured ways to embellish quilts with beads, ribbons, and embroidery. Melody brought many examples of her creations, including some beaded and embroidered purses to die for. She has written a book called Quilt Toppings: Fun and Fancy Embellishment Techniques, which of course I purchased. She signed it with the inscription, "Don't ever let anything be ordinary"- I'll try not to! Seeing Melody's quilts made me remember that all quilts do not have to be bed-size. Many of hers were only the size of Artist Trading Cards, or business card size. But, they were not stiff like ATC's, they were just tiny little quilts, often with beaded edges, thread painted flowers, and embroidery. What a great way to try new techniques! Melody's website is www.melodycrust.com. She allowed us to photograph her quilts, but I chose to buy her book or view her website with its gorgeous photographs. Her husband is a professional photographer!



We were each supposed to bring a project to embellish. I couldn't think of what to bring, so I did a pillow top in the colors of my baby granddaughter's room. I did not get much done on it during the workshop, but have lots of ideas! When I got home I added embroidery and beads to two quilt labels. One is for the basket quilt made by my sister-in-law's grandma. I recently finished it for her and will enter it in our quilt show. The other is for a small embellished quilt I made called "Spring Greens."




Day Two featured the use of Shiva Paintsticks and foiling on fabric. This one was lots of fun for me. She brought many boxes of supplies, so I added quite a bit to my collection of paintstick colors. We mostly used stencils (which she also supplied, or we could use our own) and applied the paintstick with stencil brushes. I made a few future quilt labels while I was there. After lunch we played with foil, and applied it with stencils or stamps. My only previous attempt had not turned out too well, so I was glad to learn how to do this. I made a few pretty foiled pieces that have gone into fabric postcards to sell at the Capital Quilters Guild show on March 9-11. They will be offered for $5.00 each, with proceeds to go to cancer research.

Here are the foiled postcards I made from my workshop samples. You can see more in the Fabric Postcards album at my Webshots site http://community.webshots.com/user/quiltnc/.