and more tops

Pamela Allen is giving another online class. This time based on figures and faces. Because I was working on my bird themed quilts I am weeks behind, but this is what I made for the first lesson:
Size: ? no idea, I have not measured it after I cropped it, but it started out as a 20"x20" piece. All fabrics used are batiks. Title will probably be Feeding the duck.

owls

One of the tops I am working on, is based on owls. For this piece I dyed - and overdyed - the background fabric to get the deep blue color I wanted. On this background I fused a black fabric cut out in the shape of an horned owl sitting on a branch:

Interesting, but it needed more. Another owl, this time the snowy owl. I enlarged a picture of one and painted the surface white with black spots, just like they are in real life. My first one was a bit too small and this one ended up on a canvas:

With the second - larger - owl I had more success. It had the proper size. This I fused on the top and now the quilt top looks like this:

At the moment it is still in this state. I will work on the quilting later one.

atc's

This weekend AFA (www.atcsforall.com) had another a-thon. The theme this time was use a postage stamp in your work. All other techniques and materials were your choice. During an a-thon you create atc's, post them on the forum and trade them. Here are some of the atc's I made:

canvas

This time a combination of painting and quilting. The small quiltlet (9"x9") is attached to a painted canvas. I used a traditional 9 patch block, cut it in 4 parts and restitched the blocks. This became the background for some fused raw edge appliqued poppies. I have to admit that I really like this combination of quilting and canvases. No doubt I will make more of these in the coming times.

May block

Right now I am working on so many projects at the same time, that I almost forgot to show you a picture of the block for May:
As you can see, the color for this month is purple and I made - again - a variation of the log cabin block.

Swallows of San Juan

San Juan Capistrano is a town in California famous for the festival which celebrates the return of the swallows every spring. Hearing this story inspired me to make another one of my bird themed quilts. I started with dyeing the background fabric using intense blue. On this background I painted a part of the ruined misson using different colors of Lumiere and Setacolor paint:
Next step was to add the swallows. They are cut out of a black dyed piece of fabric and attached to the top using fusible interfacing:

Next step will be to quilt it, but that will have to wait for the moment. Like my other bird themed quilt, the size of this one will be 39"x39" when finished.

more background paper

You know how it goes when you discover a new technique, or a new way of using a technique. Yes, I made more background paper :-)). And this is how the paper looks when cut to atc-size:
Aren't they gorgeous.

background papers

As you might know, I have been bitten by the atc-bug and for these little cards you can never have enough interesting backgrounds. My friend and I made a couple of sheets using different techniques. The first two pictures show the result of different acrylic paints on gessoed watercolor paper. Stamps and punchinella (sequin waste) have been used to get interesting prints:

For the other two sheets we used procion dyes as ink on the same type of paper. Added some salt or sand to get interesting patterns. The first picture is done on plain watercolor paper:

The second one is done on gessoed watercolor paper. As you can see you get a more muted effect:

Even though the sheets of paper look very interesting like they are, they are even more interesting when cut up into atc-size.

Flying geese

A couple of days ago I showed the compressed sponges of geese. Well this is what I did with them:
I applied different colors of decolourant plus on it an pressed the stamps onto the fabric. The colors I used were yellow/brown/bronze/gold. When the decolourant is applied to the fabric you really feel that it is on top of the fabric. After ironing it, it just feels like the fabric. That it is a discharge is obvious when you look at the back of your fabric. I could not see this from the front.
My plan was to add some traditional flying geese as well to the top, but I must admit that I forgot this completely. Guess I have to use these in the quilting design. At the moment the top looks like this:

When the quilt is complete it will measure 39"x39". The quilting I intend to do, will be around the geese and maybe add a few details to the birds. Okay, first top is done, 2 other ones are in the pipeline.

new quilts

The last couple of days I have been designing several quilt tops. To be exact 3 designs, each will be 39"x39" and they will be related in a way to a quilt made some time ago: 'Do you want to come along?'. The first one I am working on will be a flying geese quilt. No, not the traditional flying geese, but these:
The picture shows 2 of my flying geese templates made of compressed sponge on the blue dyed background fabric. Today I am working with the templates so stay tuned for the next blogpost to see what I am doing with them.