Anything Art Bee-February Meeting

We got back from a trip to visit family in Spartanburg, South Carolina yesterday in time to watch the Ravens light up the scoreboard during the first half, then watch all the lights go out completely!  Congratulations to the Baltimore Ravens for the very close Super Bowl win.

Today was my turn to host the Anything Art quilt bee.  Everyone was there in spite it being held the morning after the big Sunday night football game. 

Several of us got back our finished fabrics from the Surface Embellishment Round Robin.  Here is Roberta with hers.  Peg used a pleater on the top section for that very cool striped effect.

 

Toni got back her piece, newly embellished with sparkly rhinestones and beads.  This one still makes me happy every time I see it.

 

 

And here is mine!  Da- dah!

 

 

I was so thankful for the journal that I made and sent around with my project.  I could then tell who did what, and how they did it!

 

 

It has been dyed with taupe dye after being folded accordion-style, put through a pleating machine and colored with paint and Shiva Paint Stiks, sprayed with Adirondack color wash after being sewed up with pleating threads, and stenciled with fabric markers.

 

And I love my journal, too!

 

 

Marion showed us a very cool hassock or "tuffet" that she made by paper-piecing.

 

 

And I loved the collaged art quilt that Peg was working on.

 

 

I showed off my two newest framed paintings.

 

 

 

We watched part of a Quilting Arts DVD called Layer By Layer, with Beryl Taylor.  She used very interesting methods to make mixed media pieces with stenciling, molding paste, free-motion embroidery, beading, and other lovely embellishments.

 

 

Some of us decided to do an "inchie" swap, possibly using some of Beryl's methods.  It will be fun to see what comes of this new exchange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mixed Media techniques

As I was importing pictures into this blog post, I discovered that my DH has erased all the photos on my SD disk, and replaced them with a PowerPoint presentation for his upcoming series of financial seminars. WAHHH! Obviously, he thought he was saving to a USB thumb drive. Since he is usually my White Knight of mechanical and technical issues, we will let this slide.

Most of the photos had already been saved to the computer, but not the videos of the grandchildren. I have now renamed my SD card so it will be identified as such on the My Computer list of places. Before, it just said "Removable Disk G:".

I have decided to work my way through all the techniques in my Christmas gift book, Fabric Art Collage- 40+ Mixed Media Techniques, by Rebekah Meier. Even if I already have done the technique. I will make a journal with samples of all the techniques. So, yesterday I painted a bit of fabric and batting.



Stenciled fabric (on an upholstery cloth sample)

Painted muslin rubber-stamped with Lumiere metallic paint (and a little ink)

Stiff batting dry-brushed, stenciled and stamped with acrylic paint

Leftover paint applied to used dryer sheet: (Not in the book but I hate to waste paint!)

I painted some card stock to use as journal page backgrounds, but those photos were lost on the SD card.

I am excited that our whole family will be together this weekend. The boys are going to an N.C. State basketball game and a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game. Charlie and I will be doting babysitters to the grandchildren. There are two meals out and a hot tub experience in the plans for the weekend. Then, Charlie is off on Monday, and we are going to the IMAX theater in downtown Raleigh to see Avatar.

Life is good!

Altered Fabric

Yesterday, I showed a picture of the "twinchies," or two-inch squares, I made for the members of my quilt bee as favors at our Christmas brunch. There is a little funny story behind these.

Back in July, the bee met at our LQS, Quilts Like Crazy, for a sew-in day of making charity quilts. At the previous meeting, Donna brought a large bag of donated fabric that we rummaged through, finding choices that would work for Yellow Brick Road or other simple quilts for Quilts on Wheels. We then added some of our own fabric from our stashes and came up with some really nice quilts for wheel-chair bound residents of rest homes.

In my quilt, the donated fabric was the white flower print and the ribbons and bows on black background.

Carolyn worked with the snowman print to come up with this nice Christmasy quilt.

Marilyn chose the teddy bear Americana fabric and made enough blocks for two patriotic quilts.

The point being, that even dated, no-longer loved fabric can still make charming quilts.

But...nobody would touch this outlandish, neon-orange and green "surfer dude" print.

We had a lot of laughs as we tried to get someone to make something out of this awful stuff. I ended up taking home the extra fabric to use as backs for charity quilts that I offered to quilt for the guild. But...

I decided that for my Christmas favors, I HAD to make something out of this fabric.

When you look closely at it, there are interesting grids, lines, prints, and text throughout the fabric. What do many art quilters try to incorporate into their layered, textured, creations but line, prints, and text?

So, I started painting. I used a Jacquard textile paint in emerald green to cover the entire fabric. Then I stenciled with a gold Lumiere metallic paint, and used a stamp to add additional text that looks like script writing.

Without the glaring fluorescent colors, this was getting very interesting!

My first idea was to make stuffed bird ornaments with the gold ferns as wings, but I waited too long to attempt such an ambitious project. So, I covered the green fabric with silk ribbons, bits of Angelina and Textiva shiny stuff, and a white tulle with gold metallic dots, and machine-quilted it all to a piece of Decor-Fuse. Then I got out the heat gun and zapped the fabric to do interesting things to the Textiva and tulle. I trimmed the result into two-inch squares, fused a backing of either painted watercolor paper or a lame' print,and zigzagged a fiber around the edges. Finally, I ironed on some Swarovski crystals. If you don't care about the exact placement of the crystals, you can just use your iron to heat-set the "hot-fix" crystals. Much faster than the "Bejeweler."

Now, everyone has a little piece of the ugly fabric, which is no longer ugly.

But, I still had GOBS of the surfer dude fabric.

Our bee celebrates members' birthdays by giving them a fabric fat quarter according to their preference. Our absent member Jean had asked for "brights", and it is her birthday month.

She got a lot of nice bright batiks that will be delivered to her.

And a lovely bright package of "surfer dude" fabric! Our new White Elephant gift, that I am sure will be passed along whenever possible to unsuspecting others!

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!)

Painting Fabric

Yesterday was hot and dry, but not as humid as the weekend. Perfect weather for fabric painting!

I gathered up my stuff and spent the afternoon on the screen porch, where I paint on a glass table that wipes up easily. All of these pieces were painted with Setacolor transparent paints. Some of them are sun-printed. Just apply paint, place some leaves, flowers, pasta or whatever on top, and let them dry flat in the sun.

I used those one inch sponge daubers for most of the paint application. I pick them up when they are on sale at Michael's at twelve for a dollar. This one is printed with seashells and pasta.

Leaves from thyme. It smells nice!

Marigold leaves, ageratum blossoms, daylily stamens

The scarlet pieces are not sun-printed. These mostly resulted because I can't stand to leave paint on the palette, so I keep extra muslin on hand to use it up. I actually wiped the paint palette with the mult-colored piece.

I also transformed a piece of ugly hand-dyed fabric with Shiva paint sticks. That one is still curing.

While I was painting, the mail arrived with a timely DVD: Painting Fabric for Wholecoth Quilts with Judy Coates Perez. It was on sale from Interweave Press.

I stopped my slap-dash paint slopping to watch a true artist achieve lovely results with fabric paint. You get a template with the outline of the painting with the DVD. I could not get it to download from the Internet, but Interweave very helpfully e-mailed the template to me this morning.

I also received a lovely gift in the mail. You may remember the group comfort quilt that I made with other members of my Pamela Allen art quilt online class. There were twelve blocks, and the recipient made us each a 2010 photo calendar with the blocks from her quilt. It's in Norwegian, but she sent a little translation dictionary. I am thrilled with it! Here is Sherryl Buchler's block.

And here is Pamela Allen's.

What a lovely thank-you gift! In case you are wondering about the eighth column: no, Norway does not have eight days a week like the early Beatles suggested. The last column tells you what week of the year it is. I have never seen that feature on a calendar. Now, I will just have to get used to the week starting on Monday next year! The two weekend dates are in red, so that will help me get my mind around the change.