QC6 Day 16

After I finished posting last night, I realized I forgot to include a picture of the one new thing I did yesterday.  I tried a product called Solar Fast, which works similar to sun printing.  You apply the solar fast dye to the fabric and place things on top to create shadows (items from nature, stencils, etc.); you can also make transparencies of photos but I don't have the equipment here to do that.  Cover with glass or something sheer (I used organza) and place in the sun for about 30 minutes.  Then remove and place in hot water with the solar fast wash or synthropol.  I used teal dye on top of a fabric that was previously dyed, a lighter teal color.  That's why the impressions you see are not white.  The actual color is not quite as brown/gray as it appears in the picture.

Today was rainy most of the morning and again late afternoon.  We decided it was a good day to try indigo dyeing - I started getting pieces ready yesterday - all different types of shibori.  Indigo dyeing is very different from the Procion MX dyes we usually use.  Its prepared in a large bucket (vat) and is a yellow-green color in the vat.  Items are submerged for 2-3 minutes, then allowed to sit for 15 minutes; then they can be dipped again if you want a more intense color. When they come out of the dye and the air hits them, the color change begins from green to blue.  The vat can be kept going for several months, unlike the MX dyes that only last a day or 2 (or a few hours depending on the process you use).  The top group of photos show some of the different ways the fabric & scarves have been manipulated.  The second collage shows parts of the dyeing process.  We only dyed some of the pieces today; the others will be done another day this week.

I also did a little bit on two started pieces today.  First is the neutral collage that was dyed blue;  I fused on a binding and wanted to show the 2 side by side.  I also plan to add some hand stitching for embellishment.

Below is the Artistic Artifacts row which I've added a border to and layered with batting and backing for quilting.  The binding will be the same as the strips between each section, so that will tone down the orange a bit.

 And finally, another rainy day resulted in another beautiful sunset!

QC6 Day 13

Today was another partial "outing" day, but I did get a few things done.  I'll start with some pictures of yesterday's wash-outs that were laundered this morning. This is the set of 10 napkins dyed red.  I'm thinking of these for Christmas, and made print a holiday motif in the corner above the lace, but those screens are at home so that's it on this piece for now.

On Day 11 I made a small log cabin collage in neutral fabrics to try a process by Anna Buzzalino called Quilting and Dyeing Serendipity (Quilting Arts video).  The work is pieced and quilted using a variety of fabrics before dyeing, so you're not quite sure what you will get.  Different fabrics react differently to the dye.  Here is how mine turned out.  Although at least 24 hours old, the blue dye was not as spent as I expected so I did a lot of rinsing in hot water to lighten it before the final wash with synthropol which helps set the dye.  The 2nd picture is the back where you can see the quilting a little better; there was polyester thread in the bobbin which doesn't take the dye.

Our outing today was to Center Sandwich where the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen have a shop and were sponsoring a Fiber Arts Fair.  It was a beautiful day, sunny and in the 70s.  It was not a large fair but was fun and interesting.  There were animals - an alpaca and sheep, and demos on spinning, weaving, hand stitching and jewelry making.

Then we walked across the street to The Corner House Inn for lunch - we try at least once a summer to have "a sandwich in Sandwich" as Elizabeth's dad used to say.

The brick building is on the road just outside of town.  Also on the way home we stopped to take a picture of this new fence, and hadn't noticed before the owl sitting on the left end.

There was a bright red sun this evening at sunset, but it was impossible to capture with the camera.   The best I could do was the reflection on the water.

QC6 Day 11

Today was a wash out - wash out of dye, that is.  I had 3 things batching over night that I showed you yesterday - the shibori pole wrap, clamped piece and napkins.  The napkins weren't as dark red as I wanted so after rinsing I put them back in soda ash and then back in the dye pot with some additional dye.  The pole wrap looks much better now - more balanced, and the clamped piece (circles) is interesting.

I finished my "row" from Keepsake Quilting's pattern.  The pattern is only 4 blocks; I added a third Yankee Puzzle block because I felt it looked more balanced, and plan to use it as a table runner instead of part of a quilt, so length doesn't matter.

I was going to layer my Artistic Artifacts row for quilting, but decided I wanted to add a border to make it a little wider.  Since I didn't have a piece I felt worked, I decided to print my own.  I had a piece of hand-dyed orange, and wanted to add texture and/or print.  I started by printing an all over design with discharge paste, which takes color out when heated with an iron. 

On the left I've applied the discharge and started to iron the bottom corner; on the right is what it looks like after ironing.  Then I went back to the print table and screened another image over top.  But I forgot to take a picture so I will share that tomorrow.

What else did I do today?  I made a peach pie; that's my assignment while I'm here - a pie a week!

I put together a small collage in neutral colors and machine quilted it, then put it in a dye pot - the leftover cobalt blue.  The dye is not full strength, so I'm hoping it will turn out a paler color than the piece with circles above.  This is a process we saw on a Quilting Arts video called Quilting and Dyeing Serendipity.

And finally, a little bit of a sunset.

Tomorrow, another road trip!

Reader Challenges

One of the features of Quilting Arts magazine is a Readers Challenge.  They pick a topic and challenge readers to make a small quilt that fits that theme.   The sizes vary - 10 x 10, 8 x 10, 9 x 12; themes run the gamut from Passages to Hands, In the Park to In the Garden.  You send in pictures of your quilt and they choose about 12 from all the entries.  Odds of being chosen are pretty slim - they pick only about one tenth (or less!) of the entries, depending on how many entries there are.  I've entered twice in the last year; not chosen yet, so it's safe to share my creations.  I will keep trying.

 Above is my entry for Passages, called "I Can Fly".  The base is rusted fabric. Other techniques include gelatin plate printing, screen printing, transfer artist paper, and fusible appliques.  The inspiration for this piece was my daughter, who, when she was growing up, often said "Guess what?"  When I asked what, the response was "I can fly!"  She's all grown up now and proved that she can fly. 

 For "In the Garden", I submitted 2 pieces.  Above is a mini version of my Song Sung Blue quilt that you might remember seeing pictures of here.  This piece is rubber stamped and screen printed with some beads added for embellishment.  The piece below, Money Plant, is a quilt I made a couple of years ago as a sample.  It was 9x12, but needed to be 8x10 for this challenge so I cut it down and did some additional hand stitching.

Even though I didn't make it to the pages of the magazine, I'm still happy with all 3 of these pieces.

AAQI Quilt Goes to Houston

Recently I was checking to see if my AAQI (Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative) donation had sold.  It has not, but I found that it is one of a very large group going to Houston to the International Quilt Festival, where they will be for sale at the AAQI booth from Oct. 31 - Nov. 4. Houston is the biggest show in the US; I've never been to see it, so my quilt will get there before I do. You can see it's page here: use the bread crumb trail at the top to go to Houston 2012 and see more of the quilts going to the big show.

AAQI Quilt

The Celebration 2012 Quilt Challenge joined with the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) to fight Alzheimer’s.  Participants made priority quilts (9" x 11") for the challenge which were then donated to AAQI.  The Challenge Quilts from Celebration 2012 are now available on the Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative website. To view, bid and buy these beautiful quilts go to www.AlzQuilts.org. The quilts donated to AAQI by VCQ members are numbered 10251-10280.  My contribution is #10, 266 and can be found here.

Secret Projects Revealed

A few weeks ago I shared a sneak peak at some projects I was working on.  They were teacher gifts for our VCQ Celebration retreat weekend.  Since that weekend has just passed, I can show the whole pictures now. 

These are 'mug rugs", about 9 x 12.  My friend Elizabeth stitched the machine embroidered pineapples.  I added the strips and quilted the 9 mini quilts. This was good practice quilting on the new Baby Lock machine.  I also tried a fusible binding technique I learned from Cynthia St. Charles' blog,

This is one of the "Pockets to Go" from a Terry Atkinson pattern.  Three of us each made 3 of the cubes, which we filled with various treats for the teachers. Now I need to find time to make myself one!

It was a great weekend, wonderful classes and teachers, and lots of fun activities.  More later.. 

Secret Projects

I've been working hard to finish some gift items for a quilting retreat later this month.  While I can't share complete pictures of the projects, here's a sneak peak at what I've been working on.

Look forward to showing the whole thing in a few weeks!

Playing with Baby

Today I finally took some time to play with my new Babylock.  I have a small quilt from a Karen Eckmeier workshop 2 years ago that needed to be finished.  It needed some more quilting and binding & sleeve added, so I pulled it off the design wall and got to work.  I wanted to get the binding on, but realized I hadn't quilted the border, so that was the first step. I learned how to wind the bobbin and set the machine up for free motion stitching.  After quilting the border, I went ahead and added the binding and a hanging sleeve.  Then I decided to add some more quilting to the landscape.  I have a bit more quilting to do and maybe some more embellishment, but it's closer to being done, AND I got to play with the machine!  Happy with my purchase so far - lots more to explore.

Bird on Pine Branch

In my last post I shared pictures of another screen printed mini quilt in process. Here is the (almost) finished Bird on a Pine Branch. Both the pine branch and the bird were printed with thermofax screens made from original photos.  I took the photo of the pine; my friend Elizabeth took the photo of hte bird on her trip to South Africa. All it needs is to have the binding stitched down on the back. I'm happy with how this one turned out.  This is also my entry for the January Color Palette Challenge at Patchwork Times. (The January entries appear at the bottom of the February challenge information.)

VCQ Visitors & Screen Printing

The VCQ newsletter listing classes for the March 10 meeting in Annandale has been posted at http://www.vcq.org/newsletter/01-2012-newsletter.pdf. Elizabeth (http://blogaboutwithelizabeth.wordpress.com/) and I are teaching Class C, Screen Printing for Quilts, and both of us have samples posted on our blogs.  In addition to this post, additional pictures were posted Jan. 22, Jan. 8, and Jan.3.

I had a print of a pine branch I wanted to use. First I added some texture printing to the background in blue almost the same as the fabric.  Then I added more texture by using sequin waste as a stencil to give the effect of snow.

I printed the bird on purple, fused it to wonder under, and cut it out.

The final step was fusing the bird onto the pine branch. Next, borders? Then quilting and embellishment.

Screen Printed Mini Quilts

On January 3 I posted some photos of screen printed mini quilts for an upcoming VCQ class I'll be co-teaching with my friend Elizabeth - you can see some samples on her blog as well at Blog About with Elizabeth (http://blogaboutwithelizabeth.wordpress.com/).  I'm working on adding some hand embellishment to one of the pieces and thought I'd share an updated photo of work in progress.

Hopefully the differences are visible, in spite of the different lighting in the 2 pictures.  (Click on the pictures for a full size image.)  I'm using pearle cotton to add the "ricing" in the background of the screen print.  Its a variegated thread that I think helps pull in the colors of the border fabric.  I had to do a bit before deciding if I liked it or not, but I'm happy with the way it looks.  What do you think?

Screen Printed Mini Quilts

I'll be teaching a class in March for VCQ (along with my friend Elizabeth) on using thermofax screen printing for quilts.  We also have a VCQ challenge to make quilts for the Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative, so wanted to incorporate the 2 ideas into one class.  These are 2 samples I made using prints left over from previous projects and practice pieces, and some hand-dyed lace and rickrack.  I plan to add more hand embellishment so more photos to come at a later date, and maybe some more samples too.