Improvisational Surface Design

Very rarely do I abandon other projects to work on something new. Recently, an opportunity presented itself that caused me to work on something unexpected. This recently happened because of a challenge posed by the Improv group of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. The July prompt was 'Surface Design'. My piece incorporated both improvisational quilting and surface design. This piece is mainly green because I am also working in a series with color as the focus. It felt like green should be used this time. 

This project inspired me to try a bunch of different things in one piece. For me, this is part of the fun. What starts as an experiment with materials to learn how they work together becomes an exploration of techniques and outcomes.

The first step was to see how a variety of media would work with this stencil on a piece of PFD Kona cotton. The Stabilo chunky pencils and the Derwent Inktense pencils worked as expected with no bleeding. Once the Inktense pencils and Inktense blocks were activated with GAC 100 the color did move. The Crayola Fabric, Marvy, Sharpie Stained, and Jacquard Tee Juice markers bled slightly but were easy to control. The Dye-na Flow is more challenging to control. I use water brushes filled with the dye and this can saturate the fabric quickly.

Next, after digging in my scrap box, I found several strips to sew together. Then, Pellon fusible web was applied to the back and a circle was cut using an Accuquilt die. This process was repeated on the stenciled piece. In order to have some variety with the circle sizes and fabrics, I used a set of smaller circle dies (Hero Arts) that are usually used with paper. They worked great. Both the large pieces and the additional smaller ones were attached to a larger piece of solid white fabric. Additional stenciling of circles and partial circles offers visual continuity. Adding stitched circles to the piece continued the theme. These circles were made with an embroidery sewing module using a wide range of thread colors.

I got a little carried away with adding circles and the finished quilt was too busy for my liking. It measures about 16 x 17 inches. The picture above shows it on my design wall.

Close up

The busy little quilt needed to be mounted onto a solid background to give it some space. After auditioning a number of options, I decided to use a previously painted wood panel, measuring 24" square. The sides are now painted black. I layered a piece of batting and black fabric together and quilted it enough to hold it together. The edges were turned prior to quilting. Then I attached the small art quilt to it and glued the entire thing onto the wooden frame.

The finished piece on a blue wall in my kitchen

Next month's prompt is "Sunshine". I am excited to try something with Tyvek for this challenge. What encourages you to work outside your normal process?

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS. BY CLICKING ON THEM AND PURCHASING PRODUCTS THROUGH MY LINKS, I RECEIVE A SMALL COMMISSION FOR THE REFERRAL. THE ITEM WILL NOT COST YOU ANY MORE BY GOING THROUGH THIS LINK.

Products Used:

Inktense Blocks

Inktense Pencils

GAC 100

Stabilo Woody 3 in 1 Pencils

Crayola Fabric Markers

Marvy Fabric Markers

Sharpie Stained Markers

Jacquard Dye-na Flow

Pentel Water Brushes

Jacquard Tee Juice Markers

Extra Deep Cradle Panel

Bullseye Circle Dies

Studio 2 Fabric Cutter

Hero Arts Circle Infinity Dies

Hero Arts Stacked Circle Stencil

Hero Arts - Stencils - Stacked Circles
Scrapbook.com

Spring Update - Cards, Gifts, Rag Quilts

This is just a quick Spring update with a few pictures of the cards, gifts, and rag quilts I have made since March. 

Mask made for a 2-year-old grandchild

My sweet little granddaughter needed a mask to fly on an airplane from Seattle to Phoenix in May. Winnie the Pooh has about the same size face as she does. Since she wasn't here to model it, I had to use Winnie.

 

MJ's Messenger Bag Pattern by Annie

If you are looking to make a bag for yourself or as a gift. I highly recommend the patterns by Annie Unrein. She has thorough directions with good videos to show some of the steps to assembling them. I have made several of her bags and every one of them has been well received by the recipient.

Double Oven Mitt, Hot Pads, and Card

Kitchen linens are fun to make. Usually people are happy to get new ones to replace their stained or worn out hot pads, etc. My niece is a Chemist and I thought she might enjoy these fabrics for a new set of hotpads and oven mitts. I really like the one on the right because it hangs over the oven door handle and is great for removing casseroles from the oven.

Copic Colored Baby Shower Card

The stamped images on this card are from a retired Close to My Heart set. I love how easy it is to color these open images with Copics.

Fleece and Flannel Baby Rag Quilt

The two rag quilts are made with flannel. The top one also has a fleece back. The purple one is made with different Shannon Fabrics - Minky, Cuddle, Dimples and hand-dyed flannel. Both quilts were cut with Accuquilt steel dies. (If you click on the link, it doesn't cost you anything extra but I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase from their site.)

Queen and Co shaker card

My dear granddaughter needed a quilt for daycare. I thought she might enjoy a rag quilt to play with as she avoided sleep during naptime on her little cot.

Minky and Flannel Toddler Size Rag Quilt

The Cuddle fabrics are so warm and soft. It is messy to work with but feels so lovely that it is worth the extra vacuuming and lint collection! I usually throw the fabric in the dryer when it enters the house. After cutting it, with either a rotary cutter or an Accuquilt die, I shake it out over a rug and then run it through the dryer again to collect the lint. My vacuum is the kind that collects the dirt in a container that gets dumped out. This is much better than quickly filling vacuum cleaner bags! It is necessary to vacuum frequently!

Shannon Cuddle Fabrics for Rag Quilt

Minky and Flannel

It seems that there is never enough time to make all of the things that are rattling around in my head, but at least this is a start. And these things all found good homes.

Thank you for visiting!

Beverly

Sometimes I just want to sew!

I just want to sew something!

There are times when I just want to sit at my sewing machine and mindlessly run the fabric under the presser foot. I do not want to have to think too hard about what I am making. Nor do I want to pay attention to a technique that is more challenging than a straight stitch on a straight seam! This does not happen frequently, but when it does I like to use up scraps of fabric and make "new" fabric by sewing small pieces together. And then, of course, I usually cut them up again to make a quilt or maybe even potholders.

Sewing a one-block quilt

Alternatively, I will use a simple quilt block and repeat it to make a quilt.  Oftentimes, I make them out of scraps. And almost always I use the fabric from my stash. This quilt is an example of the same simple block repeated with different colors, to make it a bit more interesting. It was a very quick and easy quilt because I used a steel die from Accuquilt to cut the Tumblers and then quilted it with an allover quilt pattern that I purchased from Urban Elementz. The binding was made from a new fabric but the rest have been around for a (long) while.

Quilted with Apex 2 Design from Urban Elementz

If this quilt looks familiar, that is because it is the second one I made using a rainbow colorway. I posted about the original (here) and another, scrappy one using the same die last summer. Those two were made for charity. The one above, my teen-aged daughter claimed. 

More fun ways to 'just sew'

Making a fabric collage - of sorts

This past February, the Portland Modern Quilt Guild hosted Tricia Royal. I was fortunate enough to get a spot in her virtual class and learned new ways of using up small pieces of fabric. She introduced me to another way to just sew without too much pre-planning. I loved the class and was very inspired by her work. We made two small pieces. I combined them because I loved the busyness of one of them and the open, negative space of the other.

Quilted shapes

The photo below shows the two pieces, one on top of the other, prior to me quilting them together.

Layered pieces

Thank you for stopping by today. It has been a long break for me, from blogging. I was not ready to share what has been keeping me busy. Partly because this has been a time of introspection and re-grouping for me. I have a few more projects that I have worked on over the past few months, which I will post soon. Sending you all lots of love and light.

Beverly

Playmat Quilt For Amelia's Car

Last summer, I bought an adorable handmade wood car for my newborn granddaughter at an art fair. I've had nearly a year to plan a quilted playmat for her. It is embarrassing to say that I didn't actually start it until last week. In my defense, my sewing machine and most of my other crafty stuff have been inaccessible up until very recently. So here it finally is, in time for her first birthday! A playmat quilt for Amelia's car:

Let me apologize for not having a fabulous picture. It is hard to photograph something that is 5 1/2 feet by 5 feet and get all of the detail. In order to make up for quality pictures, I have opted for quantity. 

When I saw Accuquilt's Go! Cute Car die, I hoped it would be close enough in scale to work with the wood car.  Then I saw that they sold digitized designs to make the applique even cuter and more versatile. That was what sold me on getting the die for this project.  It would save me an incredible amount of time!

There are more digitized designs available that are not on the quilt. I bought nine of the embroidery designs and added one extra Star Wars themed car made from scraps leftover from another project.

In lieu of attaching a  quilt label, I sewed directly onto the backing fabric. This was very easy using the built-in alphabet stitches on my sewing machine. 

This quilt was made entirely with scraps from my stash. Including the batting! I pieced the batting together by zigzag stitching four smaller pieces. This quilt will hopefully get thrown on the floor and used. If it gets taken on picnics or to the beach, all the better. It didn't make sense to purchase new fabric for something that I hope shows a lot of wear in a few years.

Playmat Quilt for Amelia's Car with a Star Wars Tie-in

The cute pink traffic cones came from Target. If she brings her quilted playmat to my house, we will make buildings out of boxes or other things from around the house.
This isn't the type of thing I usually make, but it was fun to do. I sketched it on graph paper and then drew it up in EQ8.  And then revised it as I was making it. Tonight, I am flying to Tucson for the birthday party. Hopefully, we will get to play with her new car before I have to come back home.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Beverly