Gold

The Dutch sistergroup of the Challenge Quilts - De Uitdaging - has at the moment the theme 'gold'. For this challenge I decided to start with a black piece of fabric. I had no specific plans to start with, just followed what the fabric asked for.

The first start was made by cleaning my roller brush on to this fabric :-). For something else I had used antique gold textile paint and there was still some on my plate when I had finished working on that fabric. So after step one the fabric looked like this:

For step two I used my funky spiral templates with gold paintsticks. This is how it looked:

Looking better but not yet complete. I spend some time with a pair of scissors and bondaweb, fused the result to the fabric and ironed gold foil on it.

I think the fabric is now ready to get fused to the batting and backing fabric. For step 4 will be quilting through golden lutrador and zapping this. And of course quilting the other areas as well.

Pictures will follow later.

Four Seasons Quilt Swap

To say no to a quiltswap is difficult for me :-). The recent one I joined is organised by Margaret and this 5th Four Seasons Quilt Swap is a monochromatic one. My partner - whose name has to remain a secret till after swapping - likes blue and red and wants a wall quilt in honour of her favourite season winter. Size has to be between 16" and 20". This is how I started:

Each block is 4"x4". They were joined into this:

The background is finished. It is to represent a winter sky, blue with just a little bit of color as the sun is rising.

I did some googling and found pictures of frost on the window. One of these pictures I traced onto a plastic sheet protector and enlarged this to the size I needed. It is a bit difficult to see but this is the enlarged paper pattern. I copied this onto the paperside of bondaweb and fused this to a very light blue piece of fabric. I added some diluted white/silver paint to the fabric to give it a bit of a shimmer. The rest of the afternoon was filled with cutting out all these tiny pieces. But it was worth it. Here you can see the result after I fused it to the blue background:

The next step will be to fuse the top to the batting and backing fabric and to free motion quilt it. According to the rules of this swap I am not allowed to mail it before February 15 so there is lots of time for this.

A new beginning

For the Challenge group the present theme was a difficult one. It was what do you wish for the other members. I had a couple of ideas, but to visualize them was something else. Finally I decided to do it in an abstract style and this is the result. My wish is: creativity after a periode of bleakness, sunshine after darkness.
All fabrics are commercial batiks and the piece is machine quilted. Size 20"x20".

Research

No picture today. The last couple of days I have been working on my research paper which is a requirement of the c&g diploma course. Subject is the history of quilting in the Netherlands after 1800. I started working on it a couple of months, but had to wait for a book I needed. Publication date of the book was postponed a couple of times, but this week it arrived. There is only one specialist regarding this subject and her name is An Moonen. My paper only needs one more proof reading and than it is ready to be handed in.
Although I could not do any quilting because of this paper I have several ideas bubbling in my mind. For both the Challenge group and De Uitdaging I have ideas worked out. The same for the Four Seasons Quilt Swap I signed up for and also for 2 new challenges organised by Anne Copeland called: Methamorphosis and Urban Decay. All of these commitments have due dates between February 1 and March 31, 2009.

painted bondaweb

Yesterday I experimented a bit with painted bondaweb. On the paper side of the bondaweb I copied the spiral I used for one of the recent ccrr's and numbered all the pieces. The next step was to paint the fusible side with thin paint. I used a yellow and a blue/grey silk paint. When this was dry I cut out all the small pieces of the spiral - now you know why I numbered all the pieces :-) - and fused them to black fabric. This picture shows you how it looked at that stage.

The piece of fabric was big enough to cut it into two pieces of 4"x6". I used some gold metallic thread to stitch around all the individual spiral parts and did some echo quilting with black thread. This is the result:

Forest quilties

As you might recall I participated in Lenna Andrew's forest quilties swap and today the mail brought me 4 quilties from this swap.
The quiltie on the left is made by Darlene Kihne from South Dakota. What I love about this quiltie is that it has 2 layers. The top is a photo printed on extravorganza. this is attached with eyelets to a photo printed on silk. The quiltie on the right is made by Lise Saether from Norway. Lise used lovely autumn colors on it. Incorporating snippets of fabric and angelina covered with organza and free motion quilted it. The internet world is small. On Lise's blog I saw that she also participated in Kate's ALQS2 swap and the Textured Surfaces class given by Carol and Lynda.

The quiltie at the left is made by Marianne Baugher from Maryland. With the quiltie Marianne enclosed 3 little baggies with feathers, seeds and some snake skin (I think). A lovely thought. The quiltie at the right by Vicki Jones also from South Dakota. Vicki stitched yarn representing aspen trees on the quiltie. The fabric she used had photos of trees printed on it. Large sequins are the fallen leaves.

Thank you ladies for participating in this swap.

atc's and fiber cards

I have been working on some small stuff. A couple of extra atc's - for coming year's birthday swap I need more than 30. For these I used wall paper, foam, tyvek, several colors of paint and paintstiks.

And as it is the time of the year to send christmas cards. I made a couple of these:

For a few special people I make the cards myself, for all the other ones I just buy cards :-) For these cards I used commercial fabrics, angelina fibers, sequins and beads.

complex cloth

This week I have been working on 2 pieces of complex cloth. This is a swap from my surfacing group. A piece of fabric is send to another member who adds something to it. This is done in total by 4 members. The 4th returns it to the owner.
This blue fabric is now finished. It started out as a snowdyed piece of fabric. Than bubble wrap was used with white Lumiere paint. Third step was to add snowflakes with Jaquard paint. I did the final step. For these spirals I used freezer paper as a template and silver paintstiks.

The orange fabric was dyed with marigold, dusty rose and a bit stormy greay. The second step was done by stamping with Lumiere copper. I added another stamped layer to it by using bubble wrap cut into the shapes of leaves and using antique gold textile paint. One more step will be done to this fabric before it is returned to it's owner.

Ice dyeing

Ice dyeing is a variation of lwi dyeing. The soda ash soaked fabric is put into a container and put into a freezer till the next day. For these 2 pieces of fabric I started with a red dye - don't know the exact name anymore as I have thrown the empty container away - and on the left piece a bit of mustard. After batching and rinsing the pieces looked like this.

They had a bit too much white to my liking so I repeated the whole proces again. On the left piece I used again mustard, on the right piece sun yellow and this is how they looked after batching and rinsing:

Much better, don't you think?

Crunched paper

This fabric I made using crunched paper as a stamp. When you crunch a sheet of (printer)paper you get an irregular surface. Because of this irregularity the paint is not all over the stamp. The irregularity gives a lovely effect and is great for background fabric. I used different greens and blue paint on a limegreen procion mx dyed piece of fabric. I made this fabric for a swap with my surfacing group and right now the fabric is winging it's way across the pond.

Paint

Normally I like playing with paint because it means that I am working with textiles. Not this time. At the moment I am busy repainting my walls and ceilings. I really needed a different color scheme. So the coming time I will not be able to show you much creative stuff, as this painting is going slow. Anyway I can show you these pictures of before:

and during:
About 1/5 is done. When I feel I have done enough for the day, it is very easy for me, to just leave everything as it is and for instance read a book. I don't care whether the room is a mess at that time or not, I need a break:-)