journal quilt

This is my last journal quilt for this year. After a couple of years creating monthly journal quilts I have decided to take a break coming year. No monthly fabric journal quilts. There are other challenges planned.
This journal quilt started out as a hand dyed piece of fabric. I stitched the folds and painted the fabric with Golden acrylics. When the paint was dry, I removed the stitches. This design did not need an extra overlaying pattern of quilting, so I kept it simple and only quilted along the painted lines.

journal quilt

Again a bit late, but here is the picture of November's journal quilt. It is a handdyed piece of fabric, which I folded and stitched before I painted it. Don't ask me exactly which colors I used, cause I do not remember this anymore. But I do know that I used Golden acrylics. The quilting is very limited, only following the painted lines as they are the ones who draw the most attention. Elaborate quilting would have ruined that effect.

journal quilt

I realised that I had not yet shown my journal quilt for October. When I was working on my red pebble quilt I really liked that design so much, that I desided to use it more often and what better opportunity for that month's journal quilt :-). Again I used raw silk, black batik and red hand dyed fabric.

journal quilt

A bit late, but here is my journal quilt for September. Not surprisingly it is a screen print on a handdyed piece of fabric. I am not certain whether it is completely finished by now, because I think that the big seed pod at the left would look better with some seed beads on it. As usual this year the size is 7"x10" and the title is: After the flowers.

journal quilt

This month's journal quilt is in my favorite colors: black and white. Background is a commercial fabric, quilted in straight lines. The white circles are made of commercial felt and have a white button on top. As usual this year the size is 7"x10". My inspiration could only come up with the title 'circles', but I am not very happy with that. A bit to obvious, I guess. So if you have a suggestion, feel free to let me know.

journal quilt

On the last day of the month I was able to complete July's journal quilt. Okay, the label will be attached in August, but that is okay :-). The fabric I worked with started out as a drop cloth. Extra paint (house hold emulsion) was sprinkled over it. From freezer paper I made a template for the word 'art', ironed this onto the fabric and added black textile paint. Some random free motion quilting was added in the same design as the paint was sprinkled. As usual for this year the size is 7"x10". Title is 'Graffitti'.

journal quilt

A bit late but here is my journal quilt for June. All the fabrics I used are my own handdyed ones. The background started out as a dark blue Kona which got discharged and overdyed. I must admit I have never seen a bird with these colors, but I think it is very pretty :-)
The inspiration came from young birds which have left the nest but are still a bit insecure about their flying capabilities and spend quite some time hiding under plants. Size - as usual - 7"x10". Title: Young bird.

journal quilt

For May's journal quilt I used not the ordinary quilting materials :-). On this picture you see felt, burlap and concrete:

I unraveled the burlap and handstitched this to a piece of felt. Without unraveling it, the burlap would not have been 'transparent' enough to my liking.

It is beginning to look more interesting, but it needs a bit more. Using thin foam I cut out irregular oval shapes, placed these on top of the burlap and spread mixed concrete in it. This was put away till the next day. After the foam was removed, the journal quilt looks like this:

At first my idea was to paint the concrete, but I must say that I like it how it looks now. As usual the size is 7"x10". Title is 'Stepping stones'.

journal quilt

This month's journal quilt did not turn out exactly as I hoped it would. I used embossed pink felt and some red felt with shimmers in it. Handembroidery connects the 2 layers. Next step was to add metal 'springs' to it, but the craft wire I had was too thin to get the effect I wanted. I have to get me some thicker one so that I can finish this journal quilt later. But today is the last day of April so I had to leave it like it is now. Size is 7"x10". Title is 'Connections'.

journal quilt

A few days late, but here is my journal quilt for March. Background is woven fabric, the red one is a snowdyed piece, the purple one a regular handdyed fabric. The tree is stamped with Lumière textilepaint. These stamps I made from sticky foam on transparant picture frames. Every branch was made with a different stamp and because they were on these frames, it was easy to see where to place the next one. Free motion quilting was added. Size is 7"x10" and I call it 'Dawn'.

Longing for summer

A couple of days ago I showed you the start of my journal quilt for this month. It started as one of the samples I made for Pamela Allen's online class. I had to change the size a bit as the CQGB uses 7"x10" for the journal quilts of this year
For this journal quilt I used my own hand dyed fabrics, as technique my favorite raw edge applique. On this picture you can see a detail:

I am so fed up with this winter and all the snow that it brought us, that I called it: 'Longing for summer'.

journal quilt

This year the CQGB group has again a journal quilt project. The size is a bit different than last year: 7"x10", only portrait format allowed. I decided to join them for this year too. For January my journal quilt is based on snow - not really a surprise, is it? - and to be more specific birdprints in the snow. For the last 3 weeks we have had snow and I see those foot prints every day. Background is made from white fabric, black Misty Fuse and a layer of cheese cloth. This I fused together and free motion quilted it with a snow flake design. The stamp of the foot prints I made from sticky foam and I used Setacolor to print with. Title of this quilt is: Bird was here.

journal quilt

The last journal quilt for the CQGB this year is about snow. Not really a surprise, isn't it? Background fabric is a sunprint on which I placed freezer paper snow flake cut outs. Applied white paintstik on it and let it set for a couple of days. In my stash I found a quilting design with snowflakes which I did with a white thread. As always - at least this year - the size is 6"x12" (15x30 cm). I have no idea whether the same size will be used next year.

Gel medium transfers

A couple of days ago I started working on gel medium transfers. I did this according to a tutorial I found on the internet in which was mentioned that a number of layers of gel medium had to be brushed on the image. After at least 4 layers, you had to soak it in luke warm water and scrub the paper away.

On these pictures you can see the result. The one on the left was painted paper, the one on the right a computer print. Well one thing is certain this type of technique I will not use again. The result on the left feels and looks way too much like plastic to me, and the result on the right is not attractive either. In other words, time to do some more googling. And yes I found another technique on how to make gel medium transfer. This technique was to put a thin layer of medium to the print, press this down onto fabric and leave it for the night. Next day scrub it with a wet brush. This could be done with a paper print, but a print on a transparance sheet also gave great results. When using the transparancy you do not have to wait, but you place the sheet on top of your fabric and start rubbing away with your fingers or with a spoon. This is the result I got by using these two variations it:

I LOVE this result. This is a technique I will use more often. The sample you see here is doubling as my journal quilt for CQGB for the month of August

journal quilt

For CQGB I make a journal quilt (6"x12") every month. The idea I had was to make something with tulips the whole year through, but actually I got fed up with them. So this month I made something more suitable to the month of the year: dandelion seeds blowing in the wind. At the same time this journal quilt doubles for a challenge we have on my new group which was about spring and something new. Dandelion seeds are the beginning of new plants - most often in places where you don't want them - and they are a sign of spring. Here is the picture:

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".

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.

journal quilt

For the CQGB I made this journal quilt for February. It is based on an excercise given in one of Pamela's lessons. Size of this quiltlet is 6"x12" (15x30 cm). Background fabric is a sunprint. The tulips are made from different batiks.
Purely coincidental this month's quiltlet is also showing tulips, just like the one I made for January. I might be challenging myself to stick to tulips for all 12 months.

painted journal quilt

With my surfacing group we now and than make a journal quilt based on a certain theme/principle. This month it is: painted journal quilt. I thought I would share with you how I have created mine. The first step is to get an idea what to create. I decided to make something in the art nouveau style. One of my source books is '4000 Flower and Plant Motifs' by Graham Leslie McCallum. In this book there is a selection of art nouveau pictures and this is the one I have chosen. I enlarged the picture and copied it to transparant quilting paper. This paper I placed on top of my fabric sandwich. I used orange and green thread and quilted following the lines. After quilting it looked like this:
Removing the paper and hiding the thread ends works great when watching telly :-). The following picture shows how it looked after doing this:
At this moment the journal quilt was ready for the paint brushes. With a brush size 2 I filled in the areas which needed coloring. I worked with Deka silkpaints, Pebeo setacolor and Lumiére textilepaint. Here is the result:
This journal quilt is almost finished. I only have to attach a binding. Because of the small size the piece does not need extra quilting in the background. The fabric I picked for the background is another piece of shaving cream dyed fabric.

journal quilt

Recently I joined the Contemporary Quilt Special Interest Group of the Quilters'Guild of the British Isles (or short CQGB). For 2009 they have a journal quilt challenge using a slightly different size of 6"x12". For January I made this quilt:

Background is a shaving cream dyed piece of fabric, quilted with a tulip design. On top of this I placed a transparancy sheet on which I had printed a tulip and attached this with brads in the shape of a flower, sorry no tulips :-).