Alphabet

The alphabet is a year long project we are doing with one of my online Surfacing groups. Every 2 weeks (or so) I upload a picture with a character. That character is made using a technique/material of which the name start with that character. This time it is time for the I. The fabric I used to make the 'I' is indigo dyed. Not a specific way, just crunched together. As usual the size is 4"x6" (10x15 cm).

African tree

Yesterday I continued working on the red/yellow quilt I started last week. Normally I quilt before I add the applique. This picture shows a detail of the quilting:

The next step was to add (small) accents in a different color to it. Well my quilt told me loud and clear that it did not want small accents. The red and yellow made me think of Africa and I knew that an added silhouette of a baobab tree would be very suitable. I found a picture on the internet and with a Sharpie I copied this onto a sheet protector. This I scanned into my computer and with an enlarger program I made a paper template the size I needed. This template I copied onto freezer paper. I ironed Misty Fuse to a piece of black fabric, fused the freezer paper on the top of the fabric and cut it out. Additional quilting in black will be added to create the small branches. This is how the quilt looks at the moment:

Metal on fiber cards

With one of my surfacing group we have a swap this month in which we have to use metal on fiber cards. Well some time ago I gathered a number of washers and put them in a safe spot so that I could use them for this swap. And now of course I have no idea where I put them. Time for plan B: find other metal things in my studio. This is what I came up with: For the top card I used silk leaves on a hand dyed piece of fabric and added some watchparts as centre of the flowers. The card in the middle I made with crocheted craft wire and used these as flowers. I added some stitching and painted the leaves. And for the 3rd card I used a soda can. Washed it, cut it open and applied some Adirondak ink on it. Out of this I cut spirals and these are glued on the hand painted fabric. In total I made 5 cards. The other ones are based on the same idea but I started with a dark piece of fabric which makes it difficult to photograph the. They are ready to be mailed off.

Blogger Quilt Festival

At the moment the online quilt festival is going on. You can read more about it here. During the years I have made many quilts, but this is still my favourite one.
I made this as my assessment piece for my first C&G course in 2005. The background is made from black/white hexagons - all hand stitched - and my favourite flowers the poppies are in 3d on top of it. Size is approximately 45"x30". I really should measure it again. Since I made this quilt it has been hanging in my bedroom so the first thing I see every morning is this beauty.

new quilt started

I started on a new quilt. This one is based on Ellen Lindner's class. Sofar only the first part has been done. At this moment I cannot say I love this idea for a quilt on it's own. But for me it certainly has potential for creating a background for a quilt. Here is a picture of the fabric before I ripped it into pieces:

And this is how it looks after rearranging all the rectangular into a pleasing combination:

The same idea but using 2 fq's in a related - other - color scheme:

One of the fq's had more orange in it while the other one was mainly red. As you can see the fabric was wet before I dyed it. I like this color combination more than the one I showed you above.

Paradise

As usual I participated in the Bunbury (Australia) quiltchallenge. This is one of those challenges in which it is compulsary to use a specific piece of fabric. This year the fabric was a very traditional fabric with pink roses. Well I like flowers, but fabric with roses is definately not my favorite type of fabric :-). Theme for this show was Paradise. After some thinking I decided that I would work with the idea: No paradise without a snake. Background was made from different types of batiks, with the pink roses hiding in between. Eyecatcher was the snake. When I made it I knew that this was not my master piece, but it was made so I might as well send it off. The show was in March and my quilt has returned home, so I can show you a picture now:

Click here and you can see the other quilts made for this challenge.

Alphabet

This time the picture is of the H. For this character I decided to work with heatable foam. The foam is the thin type of foam you find at the children's department at JoAnn's. I cut it into the shape of the H. Next step was to use my heatgun on it - in front of an open window as the fumes are definately NOT healthy. When the foam was warm I pressed a textured button in it. This process was repeated several times. After that I painted the foam with Golden acrylic paints and stitched it onto the black background fabric.

and some more acacia resist

I have been working with acacia resist a bit more. As my experience with paints was better than with dyes I used different Setacolor paints for these fq's. Here are the pictures of the results:

My stamps were a bit unusual :-). Again one was a coaster and the other one was the container in which I bought an apple pie. Now the question is, did I buy the apple pie because I wanted a pie, or did I buy it because I wanted the container :-) I'll leave it up to you to give the answer. The coaster had a bit too less texture to give a proper print of the resist. I have used it before with paint and that was more successfull. The container however gave a lovely result. Anyway here is the picture of my stamps:

Acacia powder

Acacia powder is more commenly used for stomach problems, but it is also a great resist. I had trouble finding the stuff here locally, so I bought it through Amazon.com. This was the first time I used it, but I will be using it more often in the future.

To make the resist you use half powder and half water. I don't know how long it stays okay, but I had mine in a container (outside the fridge) for more than a week. I used this coaster as my stamp:

Applied resist on it and pressed it down on the fabric. After it had dried I applied dye using a foam brush to one piece of fabric and I used Setacolor paints on the other piece.

This is the dyed fabric. You can see the pattern of the stamp a bit, but not as much as I had hoped. However this is how the painted fabric looks like:

Much better, don't you think?

journal quilt

And here is my April journal quilt for the CQGB group. This time I used the - just coming out of the snow - look of tulips. Background is made from white fabric with a fused layer of cheesecloth. For the tulips I used some handdyed green/brownish looking fabric and added some more color with stitching and paintstiks. Size is 6"x12", title is "A new beginning".

blended quilt is finished

Last week I showed the beginning of a quilt which has to be in the US by the end of this month. Well I am relieved to say that I finished it today. The theme for this show is blending art and tradition and there was a piece of compulsary fabric to be used. Here is a picture of how the background looked when I had it pieced:

And this is how it looks when it is finished:

I used the compulsary fabric for the flowers. They are 3d as you can see on the detail picture:

Now to finish the paperwork and get it into the mail as soon as possible.

journal quilt

For CQGB I make a journal quilt every month. They are a bit unusual in size: 6"x12" (15x30 cm). Okay this one is for March - I got a bit delayed :-).

My plan is to stick to tulips for the whole year. For this month I searched google for as many translations of the word 'tulip' as I could find. When I was doing this I discovered that the word 'tulip' is exactly the same in many languages. I arranged the different translations around a picture of a field of tulips and printed this on a sheet of fabric. The fabric is a sample of some break down printing I did some time ago. Some simple free motion quilting was added and some red yarn was stitched around the piece.

mail

I participated in the Four Seasons Quilt Swap and today the mail brought me my quilt. It is made by Tami Levin I did not have a preference for a season, but I mentioned the colors black/white and red. Not the easiest ones, but Tami handled it in an excellent way. On her blog you can see some more detail pictures. Isn't it a beauty!!!

Size of the quilt is 18,5"x20". And here is a picture of it:

New quilt

I have been quiet for a couple of days simply because I had nothing to show. Had to finish some paperwork and pictures for entries to US shows. But I started working on a new quilt. This one has to be made and mailed to the US before April 30 so I really had to start working. Theme of this show is 'Blending art and tradition'. On the picture you can see part of the background I have finished till now. I started out with a traditional nine-patch, size of the patches are 2"x2" (5x5 cm). After they were ironed I cut them both horizontal as well as vertical into splitted nine-patches. At the moment they are pinned down in different positions on my design wall. And you can see I need to make more of them. The plan for this weekend is to finish the background and - hopefully - to have it quilted. Weather forecast for today is sunny and around 69 degrees F so let's see how far I get :-), the sunshine might tempt me into sitting outside and enjoy.