I got this far on my current quilt, before I knew it needed something more. Clearly, the white needed some texture. So, I decided to fling some paint onto it! I practiced first on a piece of muslin, then I just went for it. Amazingly, I did this without any fear! I was READY to break…
I have a new lecture that’s rather fun, called “Confessions of a Fabric Whisperer.” (Actually, I’ve changed the name about three times, but I think this might stick.) In this presentation I give an amusing accounting of some of the wacky things I’ve done over the years in the pursuit of creating art quilts. Some of…
In Part One I showed you how to mark large irregular circle shapes. Now, let’s learn how to make smaller flowers. I did this sample on a t-shirt and I wanted the design to be on the front only. Therefore, I put a baking sheet inside the shirt. Draw 5 small dots with a Sharpie….
While at the retreat, I attended a demo about dying fabric with Sharpies (permanent markers) and rubbing alcohol (isopropyl.) I already knew alcohol would make Sharpies bleed, but I’d never seen this particular application. This is the sort of result you can expect. Cool, right? And this is how you do it: – Stretch fabric…
The retreat provided plenty of time for everyone to work on their own projects. I decided on a very difficult approach to my project and therefore made slow progress. I made some great scraps, though. (I’ll show you the in-progress craziness when I write a future post about said project.) I think Barbie Swanson‘s scraps…
Back in July I bought this beautiful painted piece of fabric from Pat Pauly. Isn’t it gorgeous? I knew it could be the start of something wonderful. The only problem is that the scale of this fabric is much larger than I normally use. Which meant that I didn’t have other similarly scaled fabrics to…
My experiments and play this year have taught me a lot. Some of it has produced good results and some of it has taught me what to AVOID. All of which is valuable. I learned more about abstract composition. And how NOT to get transparency with fabric. I tried my hand at deconstructed screen printing,…
I recently added paint to a quilt! Gulp! This is something I’ve only done once or twice, so I definitely had to get my courage up. It helped that I had done a bunch of painted exercises a few months ago. So, I did some practice samples, held my mouth just right and gave it a…
A few months ago I was playing around with paint quite a bit and using a lot of palette paper. You’re probably familiar with it. It’s sorta waxy, so it can handle a lot of moisture. Often, the paint dried in interesting ways, so I decided to save the papers. (Yep, I did it again:…
After so much experimentation with paint and collage I was anxious to see if and how it might translate to fabric. I gave myself this assignment: – Make 4 small collages, each with paint used at least once. – Experiment with different ways to get a sheer/transparent effect. – Start with materials immediately on my…