necklaces

This picture has nothing to do with fabric, but I had fun making them. What you see are necklaces made from waterbombs. I saw something like this a couple of weeks ago at a textile event and they made me smile.

(self)portrait

A couple of days ago I showed here the first try of a (self)portrait. It evolved into this after some tweaking and tips from Pamela. Size is 23"x38". I had so much fun making this that I worked on it till it was completed. For the class it was sufficient to have the design glued. Techniques used for this piece were free style cutting, raw edge applique and free motion quilting.
The pictures here show some detail of the quilting:

If you want to work outside your box and have a lot of fun, I advice you to take this class. On this link you can find more info: http://www.quilterskeeplearning.com/classes.html

styrofoam stamping

Often supermarkets sell their fruit, meat or pizza on styrofoam trays. Normally these things are thrown away but it is possible to use them as stamps. I stamped this fabric with them. With a pen I drew figures in it, applied some setacolor opaque with a foam roller and placed the stamp on the fabric. In this case Kona black. Instead of a pen you can also use a toothpick or a knitting needle to draw with. Certain types of glue 'eat' the styrofoam and by using this glue you can create patterns as well.

(self)portrait

For this week's lesson the exercise is to make a selfportrait. This picture is my first attempt to it. I leave it up to you whether it is a portrait or a selfportrait :-). As with all Pamela's lessons all material is cut free hand without any templates. At the moment it is attached with only glue. Pamela still has to give her critique before I can continue working on it.

moow and handdyed fabric

And this is how Moow looks when it is finished. The leaves are attached with only a few stitches while I used raw edged applique for all the other parts. This is not my normal style of working, but I am beginning to like it more and more. Size is 20"x20" and except for the fabric for the cows all the fabrics are my handdyed ones.

Here are some pictures of fabric I dyed yesterday:

The green/yellow on the left is a bit dull, but I love the multi-colored one at the right. If you are interested in these fabrics, let me know they are for sale.

swaps

This week two swaps were brought by the mail. The pictures above show the shibori swap we did on my dyeing group. From left to right they were made by Linda, Vicky, Kathleen, Judi, Wolf, Thelma, Susan and Becky. As you can see all types of shibori were allowed.


And these pictures show the result of the monoprinting swap we did on my surfacing group. Here the artists are: Marijke, Becky, Sandra, Kelly and me.

I can't show yet anything I have finished. Right now I am working on two quiltlets, one for Pamela's class and the other one for Bakersdozen. Probably I will have something to show tomorrow.

beach

The present theme for the Challenge Quilt group is beach. The picture above shows my interpretation of it. Although the due date is May 1, I am early and finished it last week. I had some free time and a number of commitments so why not work on them and have them done. Size of this quilt is 20"x20" (50cm x 50 cm). All the fabrics used are my own handdyed ones.

moow and fabric necklaces

This picture shows the lay-out for the quilt I am making for Pamela's 2nd lesson. In this lesson we are working with colors and optional again black and white. I choose to work with different blue/greens and browns. Last year I had bought some fabric with cow spots and it was perfect to use for this quilt.
Once a year there is a textile day (Textielplus) in the Netherlands where you can see all kind of unusual ways of using fabric. Much attention was on felting. The picture on the left shows a necklace made of felt which I bought. Other sellers had lovely necklaces as well. One of them inspired me to make the one you can see on the picture on the right. For this one I used silk cord.

sailing and (e)mail

Above picture shows what the mail brought me this week. Vicky had a leap day give away which I won. She send me a fat quarter of her handdyed fabric and a template with butterflies. I am certain that I will find good use for these goodies. Thanks Vicky!
Also I got this week an email letting me know that one of my quilts is selected by jury to be exhibited at the International Exhibition on Textile Art "Scythia7" in the Ukraine in June this year. Another country to add to my list of where my quilts have been shown :-).

A few days ago I showed the first layout for my black and white quilt which I am making for Pamela Allen's class. After her critique I made some changes to it, like a different fabric for the palm trunks and added some rigging to the sailing boat. I rawedged all the pieces, trimmed the quilt a bit so that it is now 20"x20", quilted it and added a binding. I am calling this 'Sailing to the tropics'.

beach and sailing boat

This week I worked on 2 quilts at the same time. One is the black and white sailing boat of which I showed a picture earlier this week. Some small details have been changed to the original lay-out. The other quilt is for the beach theme with the Challenge quilts group. On both quilts I only have to add the binding and the sleeve. Expect pictures later this week.

Sailing

At the moment I am taking Pamela Allen's class Think like an artist. For the first lesson we have to make a still life using only black and white fabrics. No rotary cuttor or templates are allowed, everything is free style handcut. This is a picture of my first attempt. I guess I will have to make a few changes to it before I can start stitching because when I look at the picture I realise that it is a bit difficult to see the boat and part of the trees.

caffeine

I am a member of Bakersdozen, a yahoo-group in which we make 13"x13" quilts based on a theme. One of the themes is caffeine. For this quilt I dyed the background fabric with instant-coffee. The quote is from Josephine Baker: "He was my cream and I was his coffee. And when you poured us together it was something".
When I found this quote I knew I wanted to do something with it. After some searching I found a picture of a dancing couple and knew that it would fit. For the lady I printed coffee beans on a sheet of fabric, for the man I used one of my white fabrics. The quote was quilted with a variagated thread, for the background I used a blending thread.

ice dyeing

Friends of mine who live in the US have lots of snow at the moment and were able to do some snow dyeing. Here in the Netherlands I don't think we had more than 2 mm of snow this winter. Don't know whether I really miss it or not. Anyway the talking they did about the snow dyeing and the pictures I saw, inspired me to do some ice dyeing. If you are not familiair with this type of dyeing it is very easy. Presoak a piece of fabric in soda ash, wring it out and place it in a container. Put this container in your freezer. After a couple of hours the fabric is frozen solid and you can take the container out of the freezer. Pour the dye mixture over the fabric and let it batch. While the fabric defrosts, the dye can penetrate the fabric and creates very crystalline patterns. Out of experience I can say this technique does not work if you roll the fabric into a ball and let it freeze like that. I did that once with a piece of fabric. The dye only penetrated the outer borders of the fabric and the inside of the ball part remained white. Had to overdye that piece of fabric before it looked good.

quilts at shows

Today I heard that this quilt will hang at an exhibition at The Loft Gallery in San Pedra, Ca, USA. I made this quilt for the Flower Power Challenge which was organised by Annie Copeland on Quilt Art. The show will run April and May. Maybe more will follow.

Closer to home, I also have 2 quilts hanging in shows here in The Netherlands. Can't show pictures of them yet, you have to wait till later this month after the shows have closed. The Violets I can show here today, as they can also be seen on the Quilt Art site.

fabric dyeing

The pictures you see here are the result of some fabric dyeing I did this weekend. Each piece of fabric is 20"x20" (50 x 50 cm) and is dyed with procion. After batching, I rinsed and washed with synthrapol, let it dry and ironed the pieces. These pieces of fabric are for sale. Their price is € 4,-- or us$ 6,-- a piece. Let me know if you are interested.

update and on-line classes

I have no picture to show you today, but within a couple of days I intend to have finished my caffeïne theme quilt for the Bakersdozen group. Due date is somewhere in July/August so I am ahead of time.
The last couple of days I spend many hours at the computer. I intend to start offering on-line classes through my website within a couple of months. They will be about (surface)design and I will offer them both in English as well as in Dutch. I want to have a selection of different classes when I start with it. Probably by that time I will also have handdyed fabric available for sale. If you have a specific intrest, just let me know and I will see whether I can help you.