Adventure Quilter
Ellen Lindner uses fabric the way a painter uses paint, with extraordinary results
Here’s a little gift for you: a free online class about facing a quilt. It’s self-paced, so you can sign up and watch the videos whenever you’d like.
This class is set up just like my other on-demand classes, so you’ll get to see if this form of learning is a good fit for you.
Find the free facing class here.
Enjoy!
Ellen Lindner
P.S. If you face a quilt for the first time I’d love to see a photo!
Well, I think maybe I’ve finished making croton leaves for a while. This is where it stands now.
Numbers 2-8:
I really like the way they look together, don’t you? I think I’ll submit them as a collection to some exhibits. All the fabrics are my own hand dyes, except for one.
I have one more leaf, number one:
It needs a couple of companions in rust, etc. But, I think I’ll hold off on that for a while.
These are a little tricky to photograph, so I’ll be adding them to my website slowly. See these two: Number One and Number Two.
Several people have asked for a demo on how to make these. My short answer is “Be careful what you wish for, because it’s a little complex.” However, I will share the main idea, in case you want to experiment. I used a wire mesh inside each leaf. This is the kind of pliable mesh a sculptor might use to start a piece. It gives each leaf rigidity, but it’s also malleable enough to allow me to shape the leaves. This is the especially wonderful part of using this mesh: you can quilt right through it! For the first leaf, I quilted the leaf front and again the leaf back before hand sewing the mesh inside. But, for the second one, I just sandwiched the mesh in between TWO layers of batting and went for it. It worked beautifully!
I’m giving myself points for experimenting! What have you been experimenting with lately?
Ellen Lindner
You’re invited into my home to see the quilts I have on display. That’s a good way to pass the time, right? Come on in.
After viewing it, please visit the video page on my website to see my other offerings.
I’m planning on making other short videos. Anything you’d especially like to see? I’m thinking my studio, my storage set up, and maybe my dying set up. What piques your interest? Anything else I should consider?
Ellen Lindner
P.S. Pass it on!
After admiring the arch and curl of a Croton leaf, I decided I wanted to make a quilt with those same lines. And because I thought it should roll up for shipping (or lay flat) but still be malleable for display, I knew I’d want to put wire into it. Which is what plunged me into a time of great experimentation and learning.
First, I studied and photographed Croton leaves from my back porch plant. (I picked the past-their-prime leaves.)
Click any image for a larger view
See what pretty shapes they have? This is what I wanted to emulate.
Next, I scanned them an turned them into black and white sketches. I traced the outline of the first one I wanted to use.
Then, I created the top composition with two hand dyed fabrics. Next came quilting, but without a backing just yet.
Since I wanted the leaf to arch from stem to tip, I wanted to add a fairly heavy, but still pliable, wire down the center. I was worried about the end of that wire puncturing the fabric, so I knew I’d need to soften or shape it somehow. The solution came in the form of an accidental Christmas present. I had asked for glue sticks, like Elmer’s makes. But, my husband misunderstood and bought me glue sticks for a hot glue gun. (He gets points for even knowing that a hot glue gun exists. Even though mine no longer works.) The glue sticks turned out to be exactly what I needed, though. I melted down several in a little handmade aluminum foil “pot.” I dipped the ends of the wire into it and it created a nice round blob on each end. Voila!
I hand stitched the wire along the center vein line. To keep the wire from shifting from stem to tip, I created little fabric stops on each end. I glued and folded fabric over the end and then stitched it to the quilting. (BTW, I’m making this sound so straight forward. But, EVERY one of these techniques was tested and modified in a sample before using it on this larger leaf.)
In the photo above, you can see some of the tools I used, including leather gloves and wire cutters. Next, I would cut the wire mesh and hand stitch it on.
And it all worked! Here you can see that I could bend the leaf along the center vein, or curl the sides like book pages. I was getting excited!
Not shown, I used a different weight of wire and satin stitched it around the perimeter of the leaf. That was rather tricky since the leaf was now stiff. But, I was getting close!
Stay tuned to see how this turned out. Hint: I’m delighted with it!
What experiments have you tried during this time of isolation?
Ellen Lindner
After seeing the post about my bedroom redo, Sandy asked how I hang my quilts. Here’s the photo that piqued her interest.
And here’s the scoop.
(If you purchase a quilt from me it will come ready to hang and you don’t need to read any of this.)
Making and attaching a hanging sleeve
First, I make a 4″ hanging sleeve. There are quite a few variations out there and this is my version.
– Cut a piece of fabric with the following dimensions:
– Length = the width of the trimmed quilt minus 1 1/2″ inches.
– Width 9″.
Stitch the sleeve together as follows:
– Hem each short end by pressing up 1/4″, then folding and pressing up an additional 1/4″, and stitching.
– Fold the fabric in half, WRONG SIDES TOGETHER, matching up the long cut edges.
– Press the long folded edge on the opposite side.
– Using a 1/4″ seam allowance, stitch along the long raw edges, creating a tube.
– Create a tuck by stitching with a long basting stitch along the opposing folded crease, again with 1/4″ seam allowance.
– Repress, so the seam allowance is pressed open and is at the center of the back. The tuck will be on the center of the other side.
Next, the sleeve needs to be attached to the back of the quilt. Leave the tuck in place and position the seam side down.
If you’re facing your quilt you can attach the sleeve to the facing before attaching it to the quilt. To do so pin the sleeve to the right side of the cut facing, seam side down, positioning it 1″ below the top. Then top stitch close to each long edge. See this article on how to face a quilt.
If binding your quilt, stitch the top edge of the sleeve into the binding as you go. Hand stitch the bottom edge in place.
– Pick out the basting stitches. The fullness from the tuck will provide room for the depth of a hanging rod or slat.
The completed sleeve will be 4″ wide, from creased edged to creased edge.
Learn how to make a slat and use it to hang your quilt.
Ellen Lindner
“Deconstructed Screen Printing.” That’s a mouth full isn’t it? Perhaps the alternate term is a little more self-explanatory: “Breakdown Printing.” This technique uses thickened dyes applied with screen printing and it often yields extraordinary results.
Like this (detail shot.) Don’t you love the squiggly irregular shapes and “halos?”
You probably know about screen printing using a stencil. The solid parts of the stencil act as a barrier, or “resist”, to the dye and it only goes through the open parts, creating a pattern or motif. With Deconstructed Screen Printing (DSP) thickened dye is applied directly to a screen and allowed to dry. This dried dye acts like a resist to the wet thickened dye applied later.
*** I’ll be adding to this blog post as I try new things. ***
Entry #1
Here is the first screen I prepped. The color is a dark blue-green. I drew a grid and then pulled the tail end of a paint brush through it diagonally. That last part didn’t work too well. Maybe I needed thinner paint? Or thicker lines?
This took the better part of a day to dry here in Florida.
There’s one big difference between printing through a stencil and printing through a design made with dried dye. The latter will slowly dissolve as dye is repeatedly pulled through it. This is a lot of the charm of DSP, but it requires a little planning. The lines of the dried dye will erode and create little halos around each shape. This is lovely, but it also means that the color of the dried dye design will mix with the color of the wet dye. So, you have to plan ahead a little.
I chose a darkish green and got this with my first pull. It worked pretty well, although the grid didn’t show up very well. Again, did I need thicker lines? I think so.
However, I immediately realized I hadn’t mixed enough dye so I had to mix more, and ended up with a variety of greens as I proceeded. (Because I learned this lesson slowly and I kept having to mix more.)
Here’s the second pull.
Can you see how the design has already altered? There’s less white because the design lines have eroded. I did two more pulls, but then stopped because I could see I’d gotten all I could from this screen. Rather disappointing.
Here you can see how the design dissolved throughout the 4 pulls.
But that wasn’t as bad as my next screen. I forgot to take pictures of it, but it used the same dye in a squiggly swirly design. I printed it with green. Right there. In that big SOLID green spot. It didn’t show at all! I had no idea what was wrong. I’ve since had a clue so I’ll experiment more to see if I’m right.
Fortunately, I got much better results pretty quickly, so check back on this post for updates. Regardless of the results I’m having fun!
*** I’ll be adding to this blog post as I try new things. ***
Entry #2
This was the next screen I prepared, using a dark red color. This screen is my largest and that ended up being a plus, since I didn’t have to move it and realign it so many times.
And this is what I got when I screened on what I hoped would be a dark red-orange. (Shown still wet.) I was pretty happy with this, aside from the big dark spot (more on that later.) You can probably tell that I started on the right and went left. I was very happy with the way the design broke down. I printed along the bottom edge 3 more times and it was printing almost solid red by the end.
About that dark spot: I mix my colors directly on plastic, with various dye colored puddles here and there. At one point I got distracted and accidentally swiped some black which ended up on the fabric. I wasn’t too worried about it.
Now, check out a detail shot, still wet.
I missed an opportunity on this one. My dried dye design and my wet printing dye were too close in color, so I didn’t get the cool merging effect of the two. Something to work on.
This is what it looks like dry. Much brighter than I anticipated, but definitely usable. As a comparison, look at the detail shot above (wet) and then find in on the left side of the full piece to see the change in color. This is not uncommon with dying. Colors always dry lighter and it’s rather tricky trying to get them just right. Something else to work on.
Once dry, my error with the black dye shows up more. See the streaks below. Oh well, it’s still usable and I’m learning!
You know, I’m pretty delighted with this patterning. I’ll want to revisit it.
*** I’ll be adding to this blog post as I try new things. ***
Entry #3
This time I let my screen dry while propped on an angle, thus giving me drippy diagonal lines. (Dark blue-green again.)
It produced an interesting pattern. I used cerulean blue with some black to make it duller and some print paste to make it lighter.
I thought it looked quite good, even though the breakdown effect wasn’t too evident.
But, of course, when I washed and dried it the color lightened significantly. Still usable, of course, but not nearly as dramatic. Predicting color = another thing to work on.
Do you see the blue-green lines above where the screen patterns meet? I did that intentionally, trying to fill gaps in the printing. As you can see, the color mix I used didn’t quite match. Darn. Something else to work on.
*** I’ll be adding to this blog post as I try new things. ***
Entry #4
For this screen I squirted dark blue-green dye onto it. I really like the random look of it. (The pale green look of this screen is just staining due to its age.)
Because I needed some black fabric, I printed this one with black. The pattern resisted the dye very well and I got nice white sharp shapes.
But, where are those vertical white lines coming from? I had no idea. When printing, I did notice that the dye seemed to puddle in the center like that, so I expected to possibly have extra dye there. Instead, that spot resisted the dye. Maybe I hadn’t cleaned it properly? I never figured it out.
As you can see the blue-green did spread into the white areas a little. I’ve now realized that the bleeding/halo effect works best with dark dried dye and medium wet dye. I’m learning!
And I think I’ve solved the mystery of the missing pattern from my earlier screen (entry #1.) For that screen I used a homemade one. I did so again as I prepped this next screen. I could immediately see the problem as the dye dripped through pretty significantly.
To deal with this, I went over the pattern one more time. Like this.
But, can you see how speckled the drawn line is? Not solid at all. I thought I had found the culprit.
Sure enough, when I printed it the design broke down almost right away (starting at right and moving left.) I just printed it these 3 times.
This is what it looked like dry.
Can you believe the change in color? This is my nemesis! I predicted well this time, but it’s a continual challenge.
*** I’ll be adding to this blog post as I try new things. ***
Entry #5
Finally, I got something that was exactly what I wanted. Progress!
This is the screen I prepared, using a dark red dye.
I printed it with a pretty strong orange, getting darker and redder as I moved to the left. I was loving it!
And here it is dry. Yes! This time, the colors were pretty much exactly what I’d hoped for.
Of course, there were areas where the dried dye acted as a resist, leaving white spots showing. But the red dye also broke down giving little red marks too. Nice!
For the next screen I masked out triangles with masking tape (on my old stained screen.)
Then, I drew angled lines with black.
The lines will be broken by the masking tape shapes, so it should be interesting.
*** Final Entry ***
Entry #6
After the screen above was dry I removed the masking tape triangle, which gave me this. A nice fractured look, I thought.
And this is what I got when printing with it.
I like the pattern a lot. But, why didn’t the black dissolve? (I worked from left to right.) A mystery for me to solve.
Next, I made a screen with clear resist. I just squirted it on and I really liked the pattern.
But, it broke down almost immediately!
I started in the top right corner and made my first 2 pulls in a vertical line. As you can see, the third pull had lost all of its design. I did a couple more pulls and then quit. Since I had prepared fabric in front of me, I sort of scraped/smeared some fucshia lines on. I liked them quite a bit.
I was really excited to try the next screen prep: multi-colors. I used black, brown, and deep red.
In the book “Breakdwon Your Pallette,” the author gets wonderful results with this technique. Me, not so much.
Is it worth trying again? I’m not sure.
And now, drum roll please, my favorite DSP fabric. I drew black lines on the screen. Nothing special, but they bled just the right amount.
Don’t you love it? It’s actually a stronger color in person.
Here’s a detail shot. I love the irregular lines and black bleed. (Note, this was the same exact black dye I used in the first Entry 6 fabric. That one didn’t bleed at all, so the consistency of the wet/pulled dye must be a factor.)
I’ll definitely do more DSP in the future. A few things I’ll keep in mind:
– Use my largest screens. They require the least amount of lining up and the lowest number of pulls.
– Use only high quality screen with fine mesh.
– Don’t bother with clear paste as a resist.
Thanks for following along!
Ellen Lindner
P.S. Several people have asked about what resource I’m using to learn about DSP. My primary reference is a book by Leah Higgins, called “Breakdown Your Palette.” I highly recommend it. Also useful are the books by Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan. I have the one on screen printing and they now have one on breakdown printing, as well. You can also find several videos of their processes on YouTube.
My magazine paper collage, Three Cherries, is now complete and I’m very happy with it!
Three Cherries
I love the texture that the text of the pages adds.
Cool, right?
This technique is super easy: spread/paint matte medium on your surface, add a little bit of torn paper, and smooth on another layer of medium. The only tricky part is the little tiny details. Of course, I should have thought of that when I decided to tackle this subject at this scale (16 x 20.)
Which brings me to the pros and cons of glued magazine pages vs. stitched fabric pieces. Magazine pages are super cheap and the medium is quite inexpensive, too. However, if I wanted to do this image again (and I don’t,) I’d make it out of fabric at a much larger scale. More like this piece, Vine Ripened, which is 28 x 40. Much more manageable. (But the materials cost a lot more!)
Vine Ripened
The bottom line is that both techniques are fun and effective. Try your hand at the one which appeals to you.
Both Three Cherries and Vine Ripened are available for purchase.
Ellen Lindner
P.S. I also use torn paper collages to help me abstract things sometimes. Because I’m tearing paper for a small scale composition I have to leave out details. See more.
P.P.S. See some detail shots of Vine Ripened.
My dyeing/print making class with Pat Pauly was amazing. She’s SO comfortable with thickened dyes and what she can do with them that it was almost hard to keep up.
This was the first demo, about using stencils. She doesn’t use them with a screen, but just hangs on to a corner and scrapes dye through. It’s fast!
Next, she scrapes on background color. (See the berry and yellow streaks above.) Adding the background color does alter the previously stenciled areas some, but she’s not worried about it.
Pat picks up the perfect amount of dye for the perfect spread/scrape. I haven’t mastered that yet and it does make a difference. For instance, if it’s too wet and gloppy everything smears when you do the next thing.
Judy (I think) had good luck with stencils. Don’t you love the colors?
I like these “open” stencils, like those used above. They allow lots of color to print, leaving a more delicate background peaking through.
Next, we learned about putting textured items below our fabric and lightly rolling on dye. Check out Jim’s piece: those large circles are toilet flanges! (Several people headed to the hardware store after learning this.)
Pat also talked to us about having contrast within each piece of fabric: light/dark, large/small, busy/quiet. But, she said not to aim for a whole cloth quilt fabric. I think Jim hit all the marks.
We learned monoprinting next. It was very fun to do – almost like finger painting. But, I didn’t like my results. This was a very ugly bright green monoprint. I tried to resurrect it by painting over the majority of it with a dark blue (still wet here.) Better, for sure. I made the screen with soy wax, which was rather challenging with such a detailed design.
On day 2 we washed the day 1 fabrics and at the end of the day we had SUCH fun pulling that stuff out of the dryer! As you can see, Pat was pretty happy with them, too.
I don’t have many photos of my own fabrics. This is my favorite one, in-progress.
Here’s some more work from around the room. This large piece was created by Sandy, who is an experienced dyer. It shows! She worked a lot with newspaper stencils. That’s how she made the large circles.
This one, by Melinda, featured rolling over textures, stenciling and scraping color on. That scraping is really fun!
I can’t wait till I have more time to finish up my class fabrics (~8 yards,) and then to USE these puppies!
Ellen Lindner
At any good quilt show you’ll find amazing workmanship and creativity. The Daytona Beach show was no exception. This amazing trapunto quilt was made by Jan Hutchison.
Click any image for a larger view
(It looks slightly green under the lights, but was really a taupe color.)
Check out these fabulous details!
Isn’t it amazing?
This next “quilt” was sort of mesmerizing. The very light layers moved around as people walked by or the air conditioning came on, making it hard to look away.
I’ll bet you can’t guess what it inspired it: a glass of a pale yellow wine. I think it must be a very light and subtle wine.
This piece was part of a small exhibit about foods, created by a South American husband and wife. (I hate that I didn’t record their names!)
Each piece was very creative and very different from one another. What surprised me was that they depicted things like texture, smell, and taste, but nothing about appearance. Talk about subtle!
My friend, Laura Ruiz, has quite a few unique tricks up her own sleeves. For several years she’s been painting onto silk before stitching it. But, recently, she learned to paint on paper, as well. She painted this cardinal and then loved it so much she had printed, much larger, through an online company.
Next, she pieced the “9 patches” around the edges and joined them to the central motif. To help visually merge the two together she lightly painted triangles into the background of the bird. Brilliant! And then look at that quilting. She’s a master! This quilt has won quite a few prestigious awards.
Finally, here’s a look at Andrea Brokenshire’s work. She also paints onto whole cloth and then adds lots of thread painting.
A beautiful piece, and a very nice show.
Ellen Lindner
Now THIS is fun! Scoop up some thickened dye with a stiff squeegee (think large credit card,) and smear it onto some fabric. It spreads into glorious color and makes a very satisfying swishing noise at the same time.
I started with yellow and then added yellow-orange,(which looks dark orange when it’s this thick.)
But, it DID look mighty orange. Next, I added orange. Hmm, there was no color change. Then, I realized that my yellow-orange had been contaminated with deep orange. Oops. This is going to be very orange!
Finally, I added red and got this, (still wet.)
When dry it looked like this, which was more orange than I really wanted. (No surprise.)
No worries. I over dyed it and got some very useful fabric. (I took a photo, but it doesn’t really show the difference. You’ll have to trust me on this one.)
So, my overly orange fabric isn’t a very good example of this great technique. Here’s another one I did the same way. Can you see how I just swept the color on? And that became the “pattern” for the piece.
See the finished fabric – one of my favorites.
If you’re a dyer you’ll definitely want to try this technique when creating a background.
Ellen Lindner