8 posts tagged “fabric”
Day four has come and gone, and day five is beginning..... As promised, I have a few photos to show today.
When painting our fabrics, we have been encouraged to just paint with
no thoughts, just make fabric.... Well, I have a bit of trouble
sometimeswith that, and tried this piece with the trellis cut out of
contact paper and placed on the canvas before adding the colors. This
may be sitting waiting for a while tofigure out just what it will
become.
I have had for a long time. I printed flower photos onto a few pieces and the effect is great.
Time for breakfast..... I hope to have at least one piece at least layed out and hopefully mostly constructed. I will be playing with my blues and see what happens.
Finally I seem to be finding myself being pulled into the studio! Fabric bowls have been calling out to be made, and I am beginning to see a bit of productivity here. It doesn't hurt that I will be giving my "Off The Deep End" lecture at a guild this week. In that lecture, I show and talk about how fabric bowls changed the way I look at fabric and scraps, and I show the progression from bowls to my pins to a ribbon winning quilt.
This is an old photo, but there are similar ones in the works now. It will take a bit longer to finish a bunch of these as I am working on writing up the pattern and instructions for them as I make them. Taking photos of the steps and drawing the actual patterns are a bit time consuming.
Here are some of the squares of fabric fused to batting ready for final cutting.
And for your enjoyment- my first blooms of Spring!! Finally some color with the dead grass and mud.
My home is now again quiet, now that all who were here visiting have
gone. Time to get back to playing with fabric. Maybe I'll get better at
shorter and more often posts here... that is my plan.
This post is a bit later than planned, but the past few days have been a bit busier. Note to self--- Don't even pull one weed without gloves if you have a history of breaking out in itchy blisters. I found many perennials buried in the weeds at work, and decided to give some Hibiscus plants a break, pulling just a few weeds out from their pots and surrounding area. I then didn't think to wash my hands after doing it, and now I am paying the price-- fat, red, itchy fingers-- It's not the first time, so I should know better. Ice packs are wonderful things!
Now to the fun part.... I played with my chalk pastels a few days ago. The weather hasn't cooperated with sunprinting, so I decided to use the breezy, humid weather for other paint play. I learned about using chalk pastels with acrylic and textile paints from my workshop with Elizabeth Busch this summer. The chalk stays put when used with the paint, when the paint dries the chalk doesn't rub off. I got some great effects, and got myself a larger selection of pastels to play with. Irises are one flower I have used in my quilting a lot, but they don't do well for sunprinting. They are great subjects for the chalk!!
Another thing I did that I don't normally do, is to stack 2 pieces of fabric on top of each other to see what I would end up with on the bottom piece. For this I used a more open weave fabric than I usually use. The photo here shows the 2 pieces together.
A lot of the chalk did go through to the second piece. The green for the leaves shows the most, and the lightest colored flowers in the middle are very faint. I will have to try again with the tighter weave fabric I usually use. I don't know if as much will go through.
Here is another set of "twins". I tried for a landscape look, here. I think I really like the under piece better than the top one. It is interesting how the greens transferred through.
Here is another landscape type piece. I was trying to get the look of a pond with grasses growing around it. I used sea salt on the green area for a different texture.
It felt good to be back to my more cheerful colors to work with, instead of the "rocks and mud" colors I have been using so much of this summer.
One good thing about the rocky stuff is that the journal quilt I entered into the Houston show was accepted!!
For something I wasn't even thinking of trying to enter, it just happened and ended up being one the jurors wanted. Now everyone will have to wait until late October for the unveiling of the whole piece. The sneak peek is here. You'll have to scroll to the end of the post.
Now back to a fresh batch of sunprints!! I actually got some done yesterday. I just need to finish heat setting them. I will show some in another post.
Well, here it is.... my first post from the road. I'm finally learning how to use my new laptop computer. Right now I am at Morrisville College in NYS, at Quilting By the Lake (QBL). I was honored to receive a scholarship to attend a 5 day class here. It's like being a college student again for a week. We are staying in the dorms and eating in the dining hall. Wonderful food! I'm taking a class from Elizabeth Busch- Small Works. I am learning so much and having a wonderful time. I really neded to get away, and this has been just what I needed. We began on Monday, and have not used our machines yet. We have spent our time so far painting fabric. OK, anyone who keeps up with me knows that I already do a lot of paintng, but there are so many new techniques out there. More tools in the toolbox.... New ways to think about paints and fabric.
Today, we begin cutting and composing some small pieces. The machine will come out, and I will see what will come from what I have produced along with what I have brought with me.
Here are a couple sunprints from my last painting session at home. I finally got a day that would work for printing. There have not been too many this summer with all the humidity.
Well, time for breakfast!! Did I say the food here is great? Then on to class-- more photos later of my progress.
I finally took some time for painting on fabric. The first for the year, Wow, late start for sure.
I played with squirting on yellow paint from a small bottle, instead of brushing it on in some areas. The effect in the lower piece, especially, made some neat effects. The next time I try this, I will have my materials ready better. I was digging through my pressed leaves in paper, while the paint was trying to start drying- lots of spraying with water to keep things wet.
The mud and rocks are back, too. I still have pictures in my mind of the rocky roadsides, and played with these two pieces. I painted the deeper colored one on the left, first then added some green and gold metallic. I then added a dry piece of fabric placed over the first, brushed the rose onto the top (back of piece #2) and pressed them together while brushing. I then scrunched and lay the pieces separately on the rock pile in our side yard that was to house a swimming pool. The lichens on the rocks helped to make some neat patterns.
I'll see what happens today, still humid, but sunny.
Here it is the last week of October, and yesterday we had a beautiful, sunny, warm perfect day for painting fabric. Until I started pulling out supplies, I didn't realize how long it had been since I had done any painting. I usually get much painting done the last weeks of Sept. through the first couple weeks of October, but with preparing for the guild quilt show, and traveling to GA, I lost a lot of painting days. I still had not unpacked my paints from taking them to my last show for demonstrating. That was the first part of September!
Here are the results of yesterday's puddling.
When taking photos of the sparkly paints, they seem to jump off the fabric with the flash.
For this piece, I used a couple new paints I picked up a while ago. They are a different brand that I usually use. I found a metalic mossy green, and a copper metallic. They are mixed in with my usual green, yellow, and a hint of blue to give the feel of fall colors on a sunny, blue sky day like yesterday.
Rainbows!! Summer may be gone, but I felt like playing with my bright colors to do a bunch of rainbow fabric. Here is one of the Fat Quarters.
The photos below show another FQ from the front, and the smaller photo of the back. I love the way the backs look!
A Salted rainbow front and back. The salt makes such interesting patterns.
Here is a full yard of fabric I painted in rainbow fashion, showing both the front and back. I mostly paint fat quarters, because they are a smaller size to deal with, and the fabric usually doesn't try to begin drying before I get all the paint on. I had a customer this summer ask if I could paint a full yard, so I gave it a whirl.
I really prefer painting the smaller pieces. It's really hard to stay farily uniform across the whole piece, but that is the best part of painting my own fabrics, I never know just what I will end up with at the end of a painting session. Sometimes the pieces I like the least when wet, end up being some of my favorites after drying, they change so much.
Final photo of this post. I looked out my front window, near sunset a couple days ago, and saw how my grass looked, backlit by the sun. It didn't come out as I had expected, but It is interesting anyway. I love the way the grass heads look like they're made of gold, and shimmering. Next time, I'll have to try a bit earlier with the sun above the trees in the far background.
Now to play with some new fabrics, and come up with a few wintery pieces for the coming holiday selling season.
Well, as promised, here are some quilt related photos of what I have been doing.
A perfect day for sunprinting!! A week ago, today, we finally had a
great day for sunprinting. I set up my tent in the front yard, and
painted and printed as fast as I could. I ended up with 16 fat quarters
of sunprints- a record! The most I usually get done on a good day is
12.
The flowers here are Nicotiana- pointy petals, wild daisies, Impatiens- lower left, and some Geranium florets, I pulled from the flower heads- they are the small, pointy flowers in upper left. The geranium is one with jagged edged florets. I think I used salt on most of my pieces- I love the efect- These are really calming to
The 2 pieces on the left were done with my favorite blue, green, and rose. The heart shaped leaves are from morning glories on my deck. They were a little tricky using more that once, but with care, I did it. More ferns, and jacob's ladder with daisies. I have also been playing with confetti I have been collecting- second bright piece has hearts and doves. The soft lavender pieces have a couple pressed hardy geranium flowers, and Violas, along with more geranium florets. The geraniums were a deep rose color, and some color was left behind in some places.
I upper left, I tried some plastic hearts with a filligree design cut out of them- in person, you can see the details better. I also used some buttercup, flowers from an Oxalis weed, and some Lobelia flowers- all fairly small, but fun. I don't see any good ones showing in the pics.
After the posts about geletin printing on the Quiltart list, I had to try it, and here is one of my first attempts. Below I have pics of what I did with these. I have 2 different quilts in the works.
I used a pale tealy dyed fabric to print- very different effect that sunprinting. These two were made from hte same painted gel with grasses and foamy sheet butterflies.
I backed each of these with Wonder Under, and removed the paper. I stacked them on each other, then cut the pieces in mavy lines. These were fused to battuing for the center panels of a couple quilts. You will have to wait a little before I post them- Still in the finishing stages. One will be a late entry for FFFC challenge, and the other will be in a grab bag challenge quilt, I like these better sliced and switched.
Another batch in different colors. Also a 5x7" mini in fallish colors.
These are a couple of my simple "matted" sunprints, the prints are bordered in ivory to lok like a matted botanical print. These are quilted and ready to go.
The largest piece in the softer, warmer tones. Sunprintd were appliqued over a fused crazy patch background, and accented and bound with couched black yarn with a bit of gold metallic in it.
I also spent time today finally planting more baby plants into my gardens and sprayed everything with "Liquid Fence" rabbit and deer repellant- the critters have been worse this year than in past- probably from dry weather.
I got some more flower pics that will come soon. I will also showing the process of the 2 geletin print pieces, after they are finished.
Here it is, a mini
tutorial showing how I sunprinted fabrics indoors last
week. I usually paint and print outdoors, but here in NE
PA, the number of good days are limited, and if I run out, or
need a different fabric, I am stuck having to wait till warm weather.
Even though it is called sunprinting, the sun is not
what causes the print to form. There are heliographic paints that react
to the sun, but I print using acrylic textile paints. Any good
quality paint for fabric will work. I have had great results with
Setacolor®, Versatex®, and now use mostly Jacquard® brand paints.
The prints are a result of the drying process, and placing the fabric
in the sun is the cheapest method of drying it quickly. In my new
setup, I have a germination chamber that was used in our greenhouses
for starting seeds indoors. It has shelves with flourescent
lights, that light and warm whatever is placed on the shelf.
Here is a stack of leaves, etc. pressed between newspapers ready for printing. During the growing season, I press leaves for at least a few hours to overnight. They don't need to be dry, just flat (actually dry items are harder to work with- sometimes very brittle).
Here are some pictures in sequence, of my paint board, fabric to be used, and paints ready to use. My paint boards are 1/4" plywood covered with heavy vinyl, and as you can see, I don't always clean up extra paint between sessions (it does clean up great with a little sudsy water and a plastic "scrubby", when needed). The remaining paint is dry, and usually doesn't transfer to the new piece of fabric. My boards are sized to handle fat quarters, or slightly larger pieces of fabric. I start with wet fabric, dunking it into a bucket of water, wring it out somewhat, and then smooth it out onto the board. This way, my printing items can have good contact with the fabric (also, if working in an outdor breeze, the fabric "sticks" to the board until it is dry). The pic. on the right is a set-up with my paints ready to use. I mix my own base colors, and work with my paints watered down to about the consistancy of heavy cream- the color will be lighter, the more water you add, and I like soft, calming colors. I have been using plastic food containers with "leakproof" lids, with great results- I can keep mixed paint in these containers for months, and if the lids are on, they usually don't leak when tipped over. I also have a mist bottle for water, inexpensive brushes, baby wipes for hand cleaning (if there is no sink nearby), a rinse container, and a bottle of "Super Sparkle" paint by Jacquard®- to add shimmer if I want.
Now the fun begins.....I apply the paint to the fabric. I like to see what happens when I overlap colors, so I work quickly, and sometimes it looks like I am slopping it on. If I want some sparkle, I add a metallic, pearl, or the super sparkle to the paint, or overpaint areas with it, depending upon the effect I am looking for.
To keep the paint wet longer, and to help colors run more, I spritz with water. You don't want to get things too sloppy, or the color will weaken more than you want.
When adding salt to sunprints, keep it between the items to be printed, not on them unless you want to soften areas of the prints.
When everyting has been added to the fabric, it is placed under the lights. The board with the fabric needs to be quite close to the lights to take full advantage of the warming of the bulbs to speed drying. the day I did this, the temp of my room was quite cool, so drying was slower that I wanted, so I placed the board on the floor near the heat outlet of the furnace there to speed things up- I didn't have patience.
Here is the dry fabric, showing the result after the fern was removed. If they are removed before "crispy" dry, they can be reused (I put them back in the newspapers). If too dry, the ferns tend to stick, and break apart. This is where playing comes in. If the fabric is too damp, the prints may not have formed well.
To see what I have already done with sunprints, check out my larger Sunprint Quilts, or Sunprint Mini Quilts, Galleries on my website. Website- www.AndrusGardensQuilts.com
