Wooden Needle Holder and Bag

Here is the gift that I selected to give to a member of my quilt bee during our gift exchange tomorrow.

It is a turned-wood needle holder by Meiki's Designs, which I purchased at the Vendor Mall of the Ashe County Piecemakers Quilt Fair back in September in West Jefferson, NC.  The maker is http://meikisdesigns.com . Fortunately, I was able to find it in time for our Whacky Ladies party tomorrow.  Sometimes when I buy gifts way in advance, they disappear before it is time to give them away!

I decided to make a little "holder for the holder," or a little cloth bag to put it in.  Here is when it is handy to have a supply of pre-painted, pre-quilted fabric ready to cut up and sew.

All I did was zigzag a piece of pretty fiber all around the edge, sew on a button, and wrap some more fiber around the button to close.

Here is the back view of the little needle case.

In case you are interested, the blue and green fabric was made by squeezing Elmer's glitter glue onto muslin, then painting with Setacolor and other fabric paints.  When you remove the glue, you have markings on the fabric where the glue resisted the paint.  The outside flap was painted with Shiva Paint Stiks.  You can see how I made them here if you scroll down through the post.

After the party tomorrow morning, I have to do some cooking before my husband's Christmas dinner for the office tomorrow night.  Yes, it was just Thanksgiving last weekend, but this weekend my son and his family from South Carolina will be coming up for our family Christmas.  When you work in retail and also have to share children among multiple sets of parents for the holidays, you have to celebrate when you can.  We are looking forward to seeing them and having an early Christmas!

Tissue-bleed Fabric

My Anything Art quilt group is preparing to do a display and demo at the Western Wake library using the bleeding tissue paper technique that we played with at our last meeting.  So,  I decided I better start making something with the fabric I created.

I like to make fabric-covered journals,  so I decided that one piece would become a journal cover.

This one looked sort of like an abstract garden to me.  I got out my Caran d'Arch watercolor crayons and sketched in some botanical designs.

Since neither the transferred tissue nor the crayons would withstand water,  I gave the whole piece a coat of textile medium, using a sponge brush.

It was still drying when we left for the mountains, so I have not tested it yet.  I might give it a second coat.  The goal is for it to be waterproof, but soft enough to stitch through.

Then I took a look at this piece, my least favorite.  It desperately needed something.  In this photo it is still wet,  but it was much lighter and less interesting when dry.

This time I got out some acrylic paints and some foam stamps.

Pretty busy!  This one will be chopped up and used with some calmer fabrics.

I started to try some free-motion machine quilting on this one.

Unfortunately,  I ran into tension problems on the back and had to leave it until we return home.

We have a long weekend due to the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday.  We came up Thursday night to clear skies, a huge full moon, and bright stars. The next morning was just gorgeous ,  and there was still some snow on the ground.

We went shopping and bought a couch and chair for the new cabin.  We also bought a piece of granite for our fireplace hearth.  It will have these "cultured" stones and the very dark hearth.

Yesterday afternoon the blue skies disappeared and it started to snow big, fluffy flakes.  Within a couple hours there was at least an inch of snow.  I am getting ready to brave the 12 degree temps to take some photos.

Surface Design Round Robin Update

In previous posts, I have shown pictures of the plain white fabric being transformed by members of my Anything Art Bee in our surface design round robin.  At yesterday's meeting, I actually got to see my own fabric for the first time!

This is mine after the first three rounds.  Wow!  

We had no rules for this exchange, so some people just worked on a section of the cloth, and others tried to relate what they did to the previous work.  I think mine all relates, although each section is unique.

Peg's is actually finished!  She has some blank area to work on. 

Toni's keeps getting more and more luscious.  

Peg added some twin-needle stitching to make curvy stems, and then some folded fabric blooms.

Here is a new one that looks like those candy dots on paper.

It was really fun to get together with my art quilt girlfriends for lunch and a day of catching up.  I was very touched by a special gift from Tama.  She made a flower quilt block and an Artist Trading Card for me in remembrance of my father.

The front has a message in Morse code, because in my father's Army Air Corps service in WWII, he was a Morse Code translator and air traffic controller.  I have not yet translated the message!

And the back is lovely.

Toni showed us a traditional quilt that she made for her daughter, with quotations about dogs.  It was quilted with hearts by Cathy Kirk.

And Marion had an art quilt that she made for her husband using a stencil for Year of the Dragon.

We had planned for Marion to do a little group "toot" on fusing plastic bags to make quilts, based on an article by Cathleen Bradley in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine.  (Instructions free to subscribers on their website.)

We did not get around to it since we spent so long on Show-and-Tell and just catching up.  But I brought a little piece of a plastic bag project that I did in an online workshop with amazing stitcher  Shelagh Folgate.

Isn't that cool?  I can't remember exactly how we did it, but we started with a base of a black trash bag, needle-felted strips of  heavy plastic bags, fused with an iron, covered with organza, machine-stitched like crazy, did reverse applique with gold lame, and who knows what else?

I made a clutch purse out of some of this fabric.  It sold at the "Purse-onality" auction at the 2009 North Carolina Quilt Symposium.

Okay, that's it...I have been putting off going to the gym for the first time in about a month.  Not looking forward to it!

Surface Embellishment Round Robin

Today was our first pretty day since Hurricane Sandy hovered over the east coast.  My prayers go out to those who lost their loved ones or their homes in this amazing storm.  From winds to floods to snowstorms to fires, this was one mighty wreaker of havoc.  All we got here in Central North Carolina was some rain, lots of wind, and cold.  There was enough snow in the mountains to close down Appalachian State University in Boone.

So, today I started working on a new challenge.  My Anything Art bee has started a round robin Surface Design challenge.  Each participant starts with a yard of plain white fabric, and sends it to the next person on the rotation.  She can include a journal to describe what processes and materials are used.  I suggested that each person photograph the fabric when she has done her part.  I think this will be super fun and will yield some very unique layered fabrics!

 

After the days of gray weather, I decided to get right down to it with some bright colors.  First I wet the fabric and sponged on Setacolor Transparent paint in yellows, blue, and fuchsia.  I worked on a piece of poster-sized foam board covered with a garbage bag. 

 

 

A yard is a lot of fabric to hand-paint.  I ended up doubling the fabric over itself to print some of the color on bare areas.  Then I carried the whole thing out to the driveway.  Darn!  The sun was hidden behind clouds by the time I got out there.  I went ahead and put down some stencils, leaves, and flowers to try printing. 

 

Then the wind picked up, and I started putting down rocks to hold the fabric in place.  I could already see that the objects were printing. despite the hidden sunlight.

I got out some latex gloves to wear during all this, but of course did not put them on before painting.   I am going to my quilt bee tonight, and will have to get busy removing paint from my fingernails.

 

Might do some more printing before this is finished.  I like to add more paint with a sponge brush over the objects once they are in place.  Can't wait to see how this turns out!

And it was SO much fun to do some fabric design again!

 

 

Painted Lutradur

Yesterday was the first Monday of the month, and that means a fun day with my Anything Art Bee!

The topic was Lutradur, a sort of cross between paper and fabric made from polyester fibers.

A helpful guide on using this product is Fabulous Fabric Art With Lutradur, by Leslie Riley, C&T Publishing.

Lutradur is sold in packages of 8.5 x 11 inch sheets, larger size sheets, and in various weights.  I had a package with five light and five regular weight, and our facilitator Kathy had a sample of the ultra-light.

Lutradur can be sewn, painted, run through a printer, cut, burned with heat gun, embellished with glued-on elements...and it does not fray! 

We all began by painting our sheets and stamping our sheets with an assortment of paints including Dyn-A-Flow, Setacolor, Lumiere, and regular craft acrylic paints.  We worked outside on a table covered with plastic.  When the paints dried, we added stamps with ink stamp pads.  It was fun to pool our stamps together. Some of us also chose to use a heat gun to make a lacy appearance.

Here is one of my painted, stamped, heat-zapped sheets. Notice the difference in the color hues on this white background

and the tan floor.  By the way, the "Full Moon" in the upper left is due to a jar of paint being placed on the piece to keep the wind from blowing it away.  I forgot about Setacolor having sun-printing properties!

Here is a second piece on the tan floor

on a rosy orange place mat

and again on white.

That is something to be considered as a design element due to the translucence of the fiber as well as the transparency of the burned holes.

Our project of the day was from the Leslie Riley book.  We took one 8.5" x 11" piece of Lutradur, folded it in half lengthwise and then in fourths width-wise.  We ended up with little eight-page booklets like this.

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Some of the gals brought embellishments and began immediately to add charms and fibers.  I left my "pretties" at home, so mine is not close to being finished.  I was going for a woodsy, mountainy look, but when the paints dried, they looked more blue-green.  HMMM, maybe a Mountain Mermaid book? 

Now that I have opened my packages of plain white product and actually tried them, I think I will enjoy working with this versatile product.  I created some TAP images and will try transferring them to Lutradur for my next experiment.

Sun Prints

Since the weather was still beautiful yesterday morning, and I had not put away all the paints I dragged downstairs for the art quilt bee, I just had to do a little more fabric painting. This time I used Setacolor transparent paints to do some sun-printing. They looked so pretty with their leaves and blossoms...I wish the colors of the "flora" transferred to the fabric, too!

I also worked on some customer quilts that I have not photographed yet. One more to go for this customer, then I will post pictures of her adorable quilts for her grandchildren.

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!

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.