Nutmeg Forest

Well, what to do with all my deconstructive screen printed fabric...so interesting but so busy. It's hard to use pieces together.

I've had this nutmeg colored fabric, created with "nutmeg" mx dye and bronze which work well together.  I often struggle with this part but after fiddling around for a while, I did put this combination together.

The bronze fabric was done using mushrooms, gathered on a morning walk and placed underneath a blank screen and squeegeed with thickened dye. Once dry, the dye was released with print paste mix and printed on fabric. It's a favorite technique of mine because of the element of surprise, but also it's often so busy.

The bottom half of the piece uses a lot of nutmeg and bronze colored dyes. Some of the imagery was created by using discharge paste through a screen with writing (left) -  actually a page from my mother's autograph book from the 1930s and a metal coiled ring used for cleaning brushes.

It really did need more of a focal point so a quick and easy screen I often use is one of a tree. I use my own photography to make the screen. This tree you'll probably recognize as it's been used so often but I love the shape of it and the versatility - you can having it coming in from the right or left side depending on how you flip it. Making a screen with a thermofax, the screen itself is bound with duct tape and flat. I store them in manilla folders. They are easy to flip and use either side to give you a mirror image effect. I also go back and highlight trees with paint to give the branches more "roundness" and dimension.

And the finished piece - "Nutmeg Forest". Still have a pile more of this fabric but I'm making a dent!

Garden Path

Sometimes a packet of samples can go a long way. I love blue and yellow as a combo so this was fun to work with. It was basically a no-brainer as the squares were all cut and color coordinated so just a matter of putting them together.

I did pull out my hand dyes to find fabric to use as the center squares.

I used a machine buttonhole stitch using rayon decorative thread around each center square and sashed everything with white tone on tones.

I used a binding that was a yellow - slightly printed batik that worked well as a backing also. When the piece was done, I was wishing I had bound it in a darker color. I think it would have made it more contained, but it will have to do and it is a happy piece with such bright colors. So another UFO finished and that's reason for a happy dance. It will be in a show at the NC Arboretum next year;  they encourage us to use nature themes.

Leaf II

This is part of an ongoing series I started with deconstructive screenprinted fabric from a while back. I do have a "leaf I" posted some time ago and finally got round to finishing the blue version. 

 The leaf is created from the deconstructive screen printing technique using blue and green dyes. I thought it needed more depth; using a silk screen, I screened lettering using discharge paste over the leaf to add more interest to the top. It still needed more and was small enough to run through my ink jet printer. I printed the tree branches coming in from the side. I adjusted the print opacity of the branches so they wouldn't be so strong.

 Still needing more, I used the same lettering, this time with a dark color paint to show up more prominently on the blue band that will go beneath.

 Those of you who know me know I live by the philosophy of there's no such thing as too many trees, so here we go again - more trees from a screen of a photo I took along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

 Painted organza binding, free motioned quilted and mounted on a pre-stretched canvas...

and the finished piece...."Leaf II". I will have to get busy gathering more things on my morning walk to do more of these type pieces. I like the results even though the prints themselves can be so challenging at times.

Pebbles on the Pond

I have been working on this piece on and off for a while now and finally just decided to get to it and finish it. All the fabrics I made myself either through marbling, dyeing or deconstructive screen printing.  Working with these fabrics can be challenging which is why I have been such a procrastinator.

 My Fiber Junkies group gets together every month and often our plan is to make deconstructive screened fabric. I get so excited and want to try all different colors of dyes which I have found to be a no-no! I wind up with small pieces, all different colors and none that will work together. This last time around, I was more sensible and stuck to a couple of colors having lots of choices within the same color way - not as much fun but more practical in the long run.

 I realized this piece desperately needed white, and searched through my marbled fabrics and lucked out, found one that worked. I didn't have a lot, but I didn't need much.

 The feel of the piece reminded me of pebbles, ponds, water etc and thought a tree coming in from the side would add some interest. Let's face it, I love trees and think they would go with anything, but in this case, they really did.

 I did minimal quilting on the darker areas.

 I quilted around the "pebbles and did small circles in between to make the rest pop

 The trees looked flat so I used some acrylic paint to highlight them.....

 giving them a lot more dimension.

And the finished piece - "Pebbles on the Pond".

I Spy a Rose Garden

I started my quilting journey as a traditional quilter as many of us have. It was great fun learning the patterns, the basics but by my third quilt I was wanting something different. At the very least, I wanted to design my own piece and not use a pattern.

Cameo Rose (all hand done) gave me the opportunity to do that. I was still antsy with having far fewer fabric choices than we have today but fabric dyeing came in the next quilt. I love creating art quilts but still and once in a while go back to a traditional type quilt.  I had collected on my fabric shopping adventures, a beautiful line of Moda fabrics- so much in fact, I was able to make 3 quilts from it. I still have some left - do I dare make another small one? The first one is finished - Pink Chiffon which I posted here a while back. The second one I just finished - I Spy a Rose Garden. This quilt had such pretty, soft colors I thought it needed some feather quilting.

I'm in love with Patsy Thompson's line of DVDs on machine quilting. She is incredibly talented, innovative and an excellent instructor. She suggests you make samples of the many kinds of feathers you can do. What you see here is just the tip of the iceberg but it gave me a feel for doing them and the many choices I had. This is the very basic free form feather.

 Patsy suggests you make a bunch of fabric sandwiches 9" x 12" to work on and they're ready to go. This one has a red arrow pointing to the area I want to highlight. You can see not all are curved feathers but some are "beaked" on the end. This is the "whimsical" feather.

 I love the heart and enjoyed doing this one the most, it just didn't work with my design that well.

 The"inlined' feather uses 2 different color threads, the stronger one on the inside of the plume. It's very effective and makes it pop.

 This is the "splay embellished" feather which I also liked but perhaps a little strong for the piece I was using it on.

"I Spy a Rose Garden" is finished. The I Spy pattern I've used many times to make chilcren's quilts. It makes up so well in bright colors but also in soft patterned fabric.

  I decided to go with the inlined feather which has double plumes but in different colors. I used 2 colors but so close in color and value, it's hard to tell and also the effect I wanted to keep the softness of the look.

Fun, fun, fun....now back to my dye pots and silkscreens .

Shroom's in the Forest

I finished another Haiku piece made from scraps of leftover projects - lots of deconstructive screen printed fabric along with

silkscreened fabric done with a discharge paste using a cheesecloth image.

I also ran it through my inkjet printer as I thought it needed something else on top of the mushrooms. I liked branches from trees;  with a lower opacity set in photoshop, the image is not as strong which I wanted.  The right edge needed some interest so I screened some skeleton leaves on the fabric using a discharge paste. I thought it might be too strong and tried covering it with gauze but that didn't work. Flipping it over to the wrong side where the image was more faint was an afterthought but worked best.

Since this piece was going to be mounted, I didn't need a backing fabric, just batting and a sheer fabric I use called soil separater cloth found in home improvement stores. It's similar to a nonwoven interfacing but this cloth is used to line large pipes underground to prevent soil from migrating into them. There are so many ways to use it in a quilting studio.

After simple quilting, I needed to finish the edges and decided on a binding type edge but easier as I didn't turn the edge under on the back side - no need to and it also eliminated bulk.

I sewed the binding onto the edge on front, flipped it to the back and pinned it in place along the seam line.

I threaded my machine with a monofilament thread on top and stitched in the ditch along the seam line to hold the binding in place.  You can see how the binding looks at the right edge...

and how it looks on the back.

Next step was to attach the quilt to a black fabric which would be wrapped around a pre-stretched canvas board. I cropped this image but the black fabric extended out quite a bit so to make sure it was able to wrap around the board and onto the back. When the placement was right, I pinned a LOT all around the 4 edges and using a monofilament thread, stitched in the ditch  on all 4 seam lines where the binding was attached to the piece.

I prepared the canvas board which was 12" square x 3/4" deep by laying a piece of batting on top (after lightly spraying with 505) and bringing it around to the back. A few staples held it in place.

Here is the tricky part...Lay the prepared board on top of the black fabric with the quilt piece on the outside (facing the table). It needs to be lined up perfectly so the piece fits exactly on the board. I used 505 spray here also - lightly on the batting which will hold the black backing fabric in place. If you need to readjust, easy to do.

Using an electric or heavy duty stapler, staple one side in the center, then the other side, top and then bottom. Check the front to make sure it's even.

Go back and alternately staple one side, the other, top and bottom, constantly checking the quilt to make sure it's even.

I finished the back with another piece of black fabric, picture frame wire,  eye hooks and labels.

Shroom's in the Forest and the Haiku....

                                           

Dark and Foreboding

the forest bids us to come

wonder beholds us

What to do with scraps

Oh...what to do with scraps. I had some deconstructive screen printed fabric that was going nowhere so I found some of the same color scraps and decided to put them together for a small piece.

 Often I use a screen of an old recipe that's been in the family. I like using family writings on my quilts; it allows me that wonderful connection to my past. However, after screening these words, I thought it was a bit strong by itself.

I have lots of sheers, both purchased in the curtain fabric section of fabric stores along with many I've painted myself.

This is a purchased one and one I find I use a lot.  It has a lot of patterning with a soft neutral background so it works well as an overlay for many fabrics.

I like this effect....you can see the writing underneath but it doesn't jump out at you.The sheer image is also soft and adds a nice something.

The top section was next (left) and thought it needed a little zing also. Using the same sheer, I found a different area and pattern for the top. Being the same fabric, they worked well together.

  Next I needed to trim off the left side and after previewing several color choices, decided on an olive green over the brown.

which worked well I thought.

 The last section was a purchased brown batik and that definitely lacked in personality. I had a silk screen of skeleton leaves in different sizes - perfect. I did a little color lifting using a discharge paste through the screen; thought it would be more subtle but thought it also needed a touch of black to give it just a little spark of life. Each leaf was outlined with rayon embroidery thread, done by machine.

And the finished piece - "Shadow of Leaves"