Archive for the ‘Art Quilts’ Category

« Older Entries

Retreat!

Friday, March 8th, 2013

There has been a lot of retreating going on around here lately, such as my running away and hiding in bed or vegging on the couch (not a good kind), but a much better kind of retreating is with a bunch of quilty friends on a quilting retreat. A week ago, I was at Watson Homestead near Painted Post NY with 27 or so other women from the Endless Mountains Quilt Guild.  The retreat started the previous Wednesday and ended Sunday…. 5 days of no housework, cooking, or other household distractions…. just quilting, sewing, creating and of course some chatting…   I spent many days packing things and loading the van in advance, hoping that doing a little each day would keep a nasty pain flare at bay (it Was a good idea…). I also finished washing out the latest batch of dyed fabrics and started ironing all of them….the night before leaving (OK, Not such a good idea)….

Tricolor Dyed fabric- Another piece that was under other other pieces in the dye container, giving it bright colors, but more white space.

Tricolor Dyed fabric- Another piece that was under other other pieces in the dye container, giving it bright colors, but more white space.

One doesn’t realize how long it takes or how mesmerizing ironing all that fabric can be…. it was like Christmas again…. You just don’t see all the details of the patterns and colors until things are pressed out nicely…. Once I got started I couldn’t stop till all was done… I didn’t want to waste retreat time with the ironing board… OK, it was well after midnight when I finished that task….

Coral Fabric- A try at a color to go with some peachy-coral painted ones from summer.

Coral Fabric- A try at a color to go with some peachy-coral and hot pink painted ones from summer…. Look at the subtle color differences and neat patterns!

Sateen Surprise #1- I loved how the colors were so bright on this piece, but didn't realize it was a sateen till I ironed it.

Sateen Surprise #1- I loved how the colors were so bright on this piece, but didn’t realize it was a sateen till I ironed it…. I love surprises like that! The cotton sateen really takes the dye well, giving super rich, bright colors.

Multi Colors on White... This piece looked perfect for my stained glass.

Multi Colors on White… This piece looked perfect for my stained glass.

There were LOTS more great pieces, but I won’t bore you with them here ;)   I thought I might concentrate on doing more with stained glass looking borders on pieces, and the fabric above is one that is perfect for what I wanted to do.  I never know just what I will want to do during a retreat, so I usually take tons of fabric and whatever supplies and goodies I can think of that I might “need”…. Always too much….

Van in Slush- Not what you want to see when you are planning an escape...

Van in Slush- Not what you want to see when you are planning an escape…

Ahhhh…. the travel morning…. Yea, a slushy snow, sleet, rain storm was upon us…  Ikkkk!  Thankfully it was warm enough that the ice on the van slid off easily and the roads were pretty bare and mostly just wet until I got near the retreat center.  Lugging my things in with golf ball sized splatting snowballs falling wasn’t too fun, but once all was moved in, I would be able to stay inside for the rest of the time there.

Group of Brag Book Photo Albums

Group of Brag Book Photo Albums

Once I got my things set up and organized, I began by finishing up several of the photo album and journal covers I had started months ago using some of my newest sunprints.  By the middle of day 2 I had the four albums above and 3 larger journal covers done.   A good start considering I was dealing with one of the worst pain flares I have had in a long time… It wasn’t a surprise…. remember the ironing??… and lugging stuff always sets off flares…. I did a lot of stretching, pacing, and a bit of napping and got through the worst.  The Album on the right in the above photo gave me a bit of a challenge… I could not find a button in my stash that looked right, so I began some playing with new supplies that arrived 2 days before I left for the retreat. (a future post will show what I got…. it was a prize that I won!)

Playing with Alcohol inks on Buttons

Playing with Alcohol inks on Buttons- This shows how the same ink looks on gold and silver tone buttons.

I had 6 new  bottles of  Adirondack Alcohol Inks to try out and decided to add some color to some of my buttons.  I had never played with the stuff, so I didn’t have any applicators or extra alcohol to clean things up (or gloves)… I ended up with some great buttons And a hot pink finger… (since getting home I have learned a lot from online videos about using the inks… lots of play ahead!)

Inked Buttons with Sealer on Them

Inked Buttons- with Vintaj sealer on them

I learned a lot with the first buttons, and finally discovered that poking the shanks into a piece of card stock made things much easier…  Next time there will be parchment over the card stock… I almost sealed the paper onto the buttons and almost ended up with an extra decoration permanently on the handle of my spare rotary cutter handle.  I only happened to have the Vintaj sealer by luck…. another part of the prize…  The bottom left button was white pearl with gold around it.  The silver rose with Wild Plum ink was used on the Maple leaf album.

Mini Design Wall with "victims" for the week.

Mini Design Wall with “subjects” for the week.

After finishing some book covers, I started with my stained glass…. I have been trying to think of ways of updating some of my older little quilts that I have left from years of selling at art and craft shows.  I got the idea after I decided that some new pieces needed a bit more pizazz and started adding the stained glass look borders to them. The Delphinium piece above is one of my newest, and the Rose is circa 2003 from my “Botanical Applique” series of simple quilts for framing.  Since my stash of “chunks and hunks” (little fused quilt sandwiches in various sizes) was very unorganized, I started by sorting things to see what colors I needed to add to what I had on hand.  I spent one whole evening sorting and organizing things.  I even threw out some of the tiniest pieces  I had been saving (horrors!)… they did go to a good cause… someone was collecting little bits and scraps to use as filling for dog beds for a shelter.

Large Hunks and Strips- This is a large plastic drawer full of sorted pieces... There is also a small container of itty bitty bits for pins... I couldn't part with all the little stuff ;)

Mostly Large Hunks and Strips- This is a large plastic drawer full of sorted pieces… There is also a small container of itty bitty bits for pins… I couldn’t part with all the little stuff ;)   Under the container are pieces of an art quilt started years ago…

Small Strips and Chunks- Sorted by color family and size

Small Strips and Chunks- Sorted by color family and size

The above strips and chunks were laid out on a tray table and a larger table at the retreat while I was working with them so I could see what I had to use… It was Wonderful having so much room to work! Now at home they are neatly in a plastic container till I use them again.

Small Stained Glass Pieces- in the process of becoming borders.

Small Stained Glass Pieces- in the process of becoming borders.

To make my stained glass, I satin stitch seam my little fused sandwiches using black thread.  I start by randomly stitching different colored pieces together and keep adding, cutting and adding more until I get something I like. At the end of the retreat I had this little container with lots of pieces.

Watson Dining Room Windows- This was a HUGE Room!

Watson Dining Room Windows- This was a HUGE Room! This photo doesn’t begin to show the size at all.

Off on a detour now…. Here are photos from inside the retreat center where we were… As you can see out the windows, the ground was covered with snow… It snowed at least a bit every day we were there except moving out day… Perfect weather to be able to stay indoors.

Watson View 1 Out The Windows

Watson View 1 Out The Windows- showing the “hotel room wing” and the view.

Watson View of Chapel- We were working in the room below the chapel.

Watson View of Chapel- We were working in the room below the chapel.

Even though we were indoors, there was lots of walking involved… We had use of a huge room under the chapel shown above, and stayed in dorm rooms along the halls between the chapel and dining room, or in hotel rooms way on the other side of the rambling building.  We also had an extra room downstairs near the main room where we had our scrap pile for sharing and other items to share along with a couple extra irons… Too many irons in the main room results in tripped breakers.  I left a LOT of fabric pieces and leftover strips on the share tables that went home with new owners :)

Delphiniums in the Garden With Stained Glass Border

Delphiniums in the Garden With Stained Glass Border Stitched On

This was the first quilt I worked on… I thought it was finished months ago, but then I realized it needed something, so it got a stained glass border.  While making the border for this one, I also started one for the Yellow Rose piece in the earlier photo.

Delphiniums in the Garden Finished

Delphiniums in the Garden Finished- 11″x14″- Black with silver yarn couched around the center panel and used to bind the piece.

 

Delphiniums in the Garden Finished Detail 1- Shows pearls, crystals and painted flower centers.

Delphiniums in the Garden Finished Detail 1- Shows pearls, crystals and pearly painted flower centers.

Delphiniums in the Garden Finished Detail 2- Showing Butterfly

Delphiniums in the Garden Finished Detail 2- Showing Butterfly

The only quilt finished during the retreat…. “Delphiniums in the Garden” also ended up going home with a new owner!!  Another guild member saw it when I took it for show and tell, wondering if it should get the stained glass…

Yellow Rose Nearly Bordered- Ready to be stitched to the Rose panel after I remove the white border.

Yellow Rose Nearly Bordered- Ready to be stitched to the Rose panel after I remove the white border. This will finish about 11″x14″.

My Yellow Rose got pretty close to done…. the border is ready to be stitched on and finishing touches added.

More Mini Quilts Awaiting Borders

More Mini Quilts Awaiting Borders

The two little quilts above are a couple that are 5″x10″ in size with their ivory borders and I think those borders will stay and the stained glass will be added to make them 8×10″ when finished.  The stained glass piecing is pretty meditative and works well as something to so when my brain isn’t working well… I love seeing how the colors interact with each other as I add them with the black stitching.  If this helps to make some of my oldies but goodies more marketable, then that is definitely a win, win, win!

Now that I have been home a while and nearly recovered from the “back home flare”, my next project will be to play with my new supplies that came before the retreat….between bouts of stitching stained glass.

Prize won in the Get Crafty Promotion put out by ArtFire! I still can't believe I won all this!

Prize won in the Get Crafty Promotion put out by ArtFire! I still can’t believe I won all this!

Amazingly, I won a big prize from ArtFire from a promotion for their new Craft Supplies section…. WOW!!  I will be blogging about what I do with what I received…  Such a wonderful thing to have happen especially when otherwise I would not be able to purchase any of those items for quite some time.  Art Therapy, here I come!

This post is linked to Nina Marie’s Off the Wall Friday… Follow the link to check out lots of great posts from other bloggers.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Art Quilts, inspirations, New Projects, Off The Wall Fridays, Play | 6 Comments »

Back in the Studio Again!

Saturday, September 29th, 2012

Thanks to a web hosting move, the first version of this post was lost… A backup wasn’t done between my posting and the move, so here goes again. …   The last post from about 3 weeks ago showed the studio upheaval from the main electrical panel having to be replaced that left my fabric, machine, and so much  more scattered here and there, making even small ATC projects a challenge.

Thankfully, the studio is back in order again!  The new electric breaker box is in, the shelves back in place and everything that used to live in the space is back home.

Empty Studio Shelves Back In

The studio looked a lot different with all those empty shelves. I did lose one shelf since the new breaker box is taller than the old one, but no other modifications were needed and the panel doors are easily accessible for resetting blown breakers or shutting off circuits for other repairs. In the past I had a plywood design wall mounted to the back wall shelf unit with hinges. That made things really hard to get to the electrical boxes, and since I had been using a 4×8′ piece of 2″ thick foam as my main design wall, the plywood one is not returning…

Shelves Almost Full Again

Getting all the fabrics and what-not back into the studio took much longer than hauling it out.  The shelves on the back wall don’t look too tidy in the photo above, but the foam design wall will hide what is there while still allowing me to quickly and easily move it out of the way to access the breaker boxes and the crawl space under the main part of the trailer home we live in. Since I have sold off most of my commercial fabrics, the bulk of what is on the shelves now is my collection of fabrics I have painted or dyed. They make for a pretty wall!

Design Wall Back in Place

Since I spent much of my time after getting the shelves filled again working outdoors painting and sunprinting fabrics, I didn’t get the design wall back in for quite a while. I cut the foam shorter to just under 7ft high to make it easier to move out of the way since the ceiling slopes down from the back wall. I really have no idea how I originally got the 8′high piece in there in the first place… I needed to cut it to get it out!  The foam also has a new cover of a double layer of poly batting that I pinned on more neatly than the first time it was in here.  Another thing I did was to cut little slits into the foam on the bottom to fit into small flower pots that make little “legs” that will keep the foam off the floor in case of new water leaks if we have heavy rains or snow melts.

The first piece to grace the new wall is one I did for a challenge put out by Karen Musgrave that I called “Funky Flowers”. I have had the top waiting for quilting for quite some time now…  The photo above shows it after quilting was done, and the one below shows it with yarns pinned around it trialing it’s binding.

Design Wall 9-18-12

Since I tend to be a major procrastinator, I needed to quickly finish up 3 more pieces that I had entered into my local guild’s quilt show that was last weekend. Two are shown in the photo above, below “Funky Flowers”   The Wisteria piece was done all but the flowers and leaves, but the stone wall piece above was started less than a week before it was due to be delivered for the show.  I seem to need deadlines to get the creativity flowing, but I really wish I could create more without the rush to meet those deadlines.

Group of 3 quilts

Group of 3 Quilts

The photo above shows the wall with the 3 pieces in addition to “Funky Flowers that I finished last minute for the show.  The biggest problem with finishing quilts so close to a deadline is that when they get “done” I always seem to find something that isn’t working or needs some more to make them better.  The top piece, “A Walk in the Woods” ended up really close to what I had envisioned when I started it over 2 years ago, but once I got it on the wall at the end, you can see a dark rock that really stands out too much…. It went into the show that way, but I need to tone it down with paint or something…  The “Stone Wall” piece lower right still bothers me too, with very little value change on the right side with the chair. I am thinking that lightening the chair a bit will help. Amazingly, this piece was the one that I heard about the most during the show while I was manning  my booth I had set up there.  I guess even with it’s artistic problems, it still grabbed eyes…

This post is also being linked to Nina Marie’s blog for “Off the Wall Fridays”

Quilt Show Booth

The last photo for this post is of my booth at the show where  I was selling my patterns, fabrics and some finished gift items.  The photo was taken near the end of the show when things were calm. The day before, every flat surface was covered with various fabrics and sunprints being looked through by many customers.  I sold many of my newest brights and some older, softer colored pieces. It was such fun! The first show I have done in a Lonnnnggg time, but it let me know that it will be a while before I get brave enough to do another.  Ken was great helping me with setup and take-down lugging, but a week later my body is still complaining… I miss the interaction with the customers so much, but spending much of a week in bed afterward is no fun….

My next project is using the little group of fabrics, painted coffee filter and papers that were hanging on the design wall in the second wall photo for this month’s “Arts in the Cards” theme of “Pear as a Color”. the rusty colors remind me of the wild winter pears that grow on our property.  I’ll probably show them in my next post along with my “Cool Cucumbers” from August.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Art Quilts, New Projects, Studio Stuff | 1 Comment »

Flowers Into Photos, For Now….

Thursday, July 5th, 2012

I have been trying to get things caught up in the gardens during the past few weeks.  I love my gardens and flowers, but this year has had it’s challenges….

Daffodil Opening in Snow Glories

After a warmer than usual winter, many flowers began to bloom earlier than usual. We had a very warm spell in March followed by very hard freezes…. not a good combination.

Wisteria Buds

The Wisteria was covered in fat, beautiful flower buds…. until the hard freeze… every bud froze… Amazingly nearly 4 months later, there are new flower buds forming just in time for the onslaught of Japanese beetles… Yikes!

Pulmonaria Mrs. Moon

Pulmonaria Mrs Moon bloomed beautifully, along with most of the usual early Spring flowers…

 

Double Trillium Pair

The Trilliums bloomed nicely, especially the double ones… They have not multiplied yet, but keep blooming each year.

 

Dewy White Daffodil

Many dewy, damp mornings made for great photos of dewdrops on the flowers such as this Ice Follies Daffodil…

 

Pink Luau Day One

Amazingly, I was able to have gobs of Peony flowers even after the plants started growing too early and we had the super hard freeze. My mulching things with hay for the freeze did keep the Peony flowers.

 

First Iris Flower of 2012

It looked as if the Iris would not have flowers, but even though the buds looked papery and dry, the flowers still bloomed nicely :)

 

Tradescantia Macro

Some photos I took were nice surprises, like this macro shot of a Tradescantia flower showing the fluffy detail of the flower’s center.

 

Raindrops on Alyssum

More rainy, wet mornings gave more interesting photos like this one of tiny Alyssum flowers dripping with water reflecting the house windows.

 

Wild Daisy Clump

Even the wild Daisies put up some full clumps of flowers… This photo was taken of one large clump of flowers and gives the impression of flowers going on for a long way.

 

Pink Lily Detail

I even found some of the Lilies that were lost last year, coming up to bloom this year. This is a macro shot of one of the bright pink ones.

 

Portulaca with Dew

I have not been feeling too creative in the studio with my quilting, so I have begun to play with some of the flower photos like this portulaca flower above.

In the middle of the strange garden season, I ended up falling and hurting my back in a new place…. I really didn’t need that!  I fell hard while trying to hurry to get some garden work done before a rain storm that was forecast.  In addition to landing me in the ER to be sure I hadn’t broken anything, I lost over 2 weeks of garden work… So much for getting ahead of things this year….  In addition to helping me to lose the garden work time, I ended up racking up some nasty medical bills…. With no insurance, CT scans, ER visit, and extra rheumatologist appointments, have made a mess of the finances.  The additional bad spot in my back has not helped with the creative funk, either… working in my studio, stitching on the machine, and other things have ended up increasing pain which was already giving me grief enough with the fibromyalgia and arthritis…  At least I have the flowers blooming in the gardens to take photos of, and I have been slowly getting things weeded and mulched little my little.

If there is enough interest in my flower photos, I am considering adding them to one of my shops… Maybe if I can’t create much in the studio, I will able to be more creative with my photos.

Posted in Art Quilts, Available for Purchase, Flowers and Gardens | No Comments »

Flowers and Gardens in the Studio

Saturday, February 4th, 2012

It has only been just over 2 weeks since my first post of the year, and I am already posting my second one…. Maybe hope for keeping up better….  Since creating my “Too Many Two’s” art cards, I have been cutting more flowers with my die cutter.

Flowers out of Fabric

The photo above shows a couple of charm squares of fabric backed with Wonder Under that were cut using my flower die… As you can see there is a lot of fabric left between each flower cutout. This bothered me, so I decided to take things into my own hands….

 

Fixing Flower Die

This photo above shows the die as it originally was. I used a cutting wheel on my Dremel tool to cut the individual flowers apart from each other… I drew lines to help to guide my cutting.

Rough Cut Die

Above is what the die looked like after a lot of sparks flew as I cut the sections apart.

Cut up Die

After using a grinding wheel to round some edges and clean up the cuts, this is what things look like now… Each of the flowers are now separate from each other. With the flowers as separate dies, it is much easier for me to cut just the flowers I really want, and it is much easier to use up smaller fabric pieces.

Group of Dies

As you can see in the above photo, I have some other dies from the Spellbinders Shapeabilities series of dies. The leaves and butterflies started out with each shape separate from the others, and with the leaves, there are multiple sizes that nest within each other when stored. These dies are considered “wafer thin” dies and meant to cut one sheet of card stock or chip board and also will emboss the papers, too. With a bit of experimenting, I have figured out that I can cut two layers of fabric successfully. The cutting base is 6″ wide by 9″ long, so if I want, I can place as many shapes as I can on 6×9″ pieces of fabric and cut quite a few pieces at a time.

Cut Flowers and Leaves

This photo shows a bunch of flowers and leaves that I cut after “fixing” my flower die. In the lower right corner, you can see some little strips I cut from some of the leftovers to make tiny Delphinium flowers. After I cut up a bunch of the shapes, I fused them to pieces of the Wonder Under backing paper until I can use them in a project. You can see some flowers fused to the left of the photo.

 

Compound Flowers

I didn’t have any projects in mind, so I just got a bit creative with the iron one day and put together new flowers by combining larger and smaller flowers like I did with these that somewhat remind me of Dianthus flowers… just not “normal” colors.

 

Lots of Flowers

This photo shows  a lot of the flowers I came up with… Pansies, Delphiniums in different sizes, Coneflowers, and a bunch of Random compound flowers. There are a lot of possibilities with the different flower shapes. I can cut up some of the larger flowers to make the Pansies, group multiples for Delphiniums, and more.  Not long after I fused up  these flowers, the most recent FFFC theme was released- Memories of My Childhood. Hmmmm…. From just a little  girl, I have loved flowers and remember helping my mom in the gardens. There even is a photo of me at about 3 yrs old with a bud I had picked off of one of my mom’s rose bushes in one hand, and “bouquet” of weeds in the other. The random compound flowers are not “botanically correct”, not what I usually use in my quilts. With my horticulture degree, I usually make my flowers as close to nature as possible. This challenge gave me a reason to just play like a child would.

 

Garden Play Base

I started with a base that was to be one of my Botanical Applique series pieces. I roughly cut some green fabrics for grass and stems. I wanted it to have the look of a  child’s crayon drawing.

 

Garden Play Fused and Quilted

Once I had the grass, I added flowers and leaves. I packed in a lot of flowers, and then added a few butterflies. After the fusing was done, it was ready for quilting, but I had to put it aside for a couple days to get paperwork in order for a visit with a new doctor. I was going to see her for the first time yesterday, in the hopes of finding out if there is something other than my fibromyalgia causing my pain levels to be increasing so much this winter, and my Rheumatologist has no answers at this point. The appointment proved to be very discouraging, and by the time I got home last evening, I needed massive doses of chocolate…  I almost went to bed early to just hide from life, but I saw this piece still in need of quilting. My mood improved quite a bit as I lost myself in the stitching…. I didn’t even care if I followed lines perfectly…. I just stitched wherever I felt like stitching at the time….  Great Therapy….

 

Garden Play Finished with Wet Glue

Once the quilting was done, I trimmed some of the white border off then couched yarn on the edges to finish them off. I had a sparkly pink ladybug button and a couple dragonfly ones that I added. I also had some plastic flowers with single holes in their centers to add more to the piece. I normally would have stitched on the flowers, but since I was dong a child-like piece and it was late, I decided to glue on the critters and flowers. I added various sized pearlescent beads to the plastic flowers and some of the fabric flowers. The photo above shows what  I had just after gluing things… You can see some of the still wet glue.

 

Garden Play Finished- 10.5"x13.5"- $195.00

This is what it now looks like… All the glue dry and a better photo taken with better light in the studio. “Garden Play” is now available for purchase at Andrus Gardens Quilts on ArtFire.Here is a detail shot showing the little plastic flowers, ladybug and pearls. A change in the way I look at what I was creating was a fun change…. Sometimes just playing like a kid is needed….

I’m not sure what will grow in the studio next… I do know I will be cutting out more flowers with my dies and there is lots of gardening to do…. Things are pretty dreary outside these days.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Art Quilts, FFFC Challenge Quilts, Flowers and Gardens, New Projects | No Comments »

“Two” Many Ideas and More

Saturday, January 14th, 2012

The first post of the new year…. now that we are nearly 2 weeks into it….  I have actually finished a few little quilts in addition to my latest set of art cards for the “Arts in the Cards” group.  Each month a new theme is chosen as a guide for the cards we send out to each other. I have only been a member of the group a year or so, but this  month is the second anniversary of the creation of the group, so the theme was Two.

My Inspiration

The above photo shows one of the inspirations for my cards. Actually, I had originally thought that I would do a tiny quilt with a pair of Tulips blooming on it… Two Tulips, but while experimenting with a new die cutting machine, I happened to notice that some of the vine and leaf die cut pieces looked like they could be twos, and another idea began to form. I then thought about “two peas in a pod”…. another idea (see little “peas” upper right in the photo above)…. THEN came the Google results…. I found that the traditional gift for a second anniversary is cotton (ok, cotton Tulips would work), then I found that there was a flower for that anniversary- Cosmos…. I love Cosmos and more ideas were flowing.  I should have stopped at that, but I pulled up a dictionary which had the definition and tons of extra information, too…  I did some playing with the definition and other words from the dictionary in a word cloud program. The program put the words in different sizes and colors in random order and I did a print out (also showing in the photo- upper left).

Printed Insides

By the time I got  done with playing on the computer, I  realized I had too many ideas to put into one little art card, so I decided that I’d add another two… Two cards.  The photo above shows the text I ended up with along with more that I added, printed over photos of Two white Cosmos flowers. I decided that the two cards would be connected in a hinge fashion with one long piece of the printed card stock. The photo above shows 3 of the inside pieces printed and in the process of being cut to size.

Creased Insides

Once the insides were cut from the card stock, the center creases were made. I also ended up fusing some little “scraps” of the vines that also looked like 2′s in the inside.

Peas

When I first thought of doing “two peas in a pod”, I needed to figure out how to make the peas…. I squeezed out drops of a metallic pea green paint on parchment paper and allowed them to dry over night.

Tulips Start

Above shows one of the little Tulip sides that I decided to make as tiny “quilts” using a thin interfacing as a “batting” so that I could do the stitching.

Two Vines Fused

In the photo above, the die cut vines with leaves 2′s and single leaves fused and “smushed” to make little pea pods.  The background fabric for these is a white with silver glitter that was then fused to a thin fusible interfacing. The one upper right is the first I played with, placing the flowers and butterflies… I decided it would be much easier to stitch the vines first, then add the flowers and butterflies after that.

Beginning Stitching

I used a green variegated thread to stitch around the edges of the vines and leaves, and added little curly tendrils to the pea pod.

Ready to fuse to inside

After the green stitching was  done, I switched to clear thread around the tulips, butterflies and flowers. The little quilts were now ready to fuse onto the inside that would connect the two little “quilts”.

Cooled Under Pressure

This photo above, shows the stitched “2″ sides after they have been fused to the other side of the inside printed card stock. Once both little quilts were fused to the outside of the inside, the pieces were folded and cooled under a weight to keep them flat. When fabric is fused to card stock, things tend to want to curl, so the weight flattens things while they are hot, then when cool they will stay fairly flat.

Outsides of the Double-Sided Cards

This photo shows most of the cards after they had cooled. To finish the edges, I dabbed them with a stamp pad with purple ink. You can see Two of the cards standing up like little sign boards. I did find I had a problem with the ink. After I put it on, it seemed to want to rub off, so I ended up brushing on some gel medium to seal it.

Cosmos and Peas Finished

Here is one of the Cosmos, 2, Butterflies and Peas sides… you can see a bit of the inside printed card stock. If you look really close, you can even see the two little peas made from the paint tucked into a fold in the pod.

Two Tulips

This photo shows the Tulip side of one of the cards…

Two Many Twos Finished Group

This photo shows a group of the finished cards, with some showing the Tulip side, and some showing the Two Peas and more side, along with one open to show the inside of a finished card. “Two May Two’s” were then packaged in archival art card sleeves and sent to their new owners.  I really never thought I would end up with so many ideas for what one would think was a simple theme….  If you would like to see what other members created for this round as well as others (if you want to do a bit more scrolling) see the Arts in the Cards Blog where each of us have posted our creations.

Big Shot Machine with First Cut

This is the new tool I have been playing with that led to many of my ideas. It was one of the vine cuts shown in the photo above with the machine. The die shown is the first one I got with the machine. I also got a couple others, but this was the one that I have played with the most. I wanted to see just how many different designs I could make using  just one die. The die cutting machine is designed for scrapbooking and paper arts to cut paper and other similar art materials. I had seen a video online showing one being used for cutting fabric, and that got the wheels turning. I do a lot of fusible applique and have been doing more with tiny pieces and even with my straight handled scissors, cutting is hard on my hands and takes a lot of time.

2 Motifs

This photo above shows two full motifs that were cut with the die. I cut two pieces of Wonder Under backed fabric right sides together using the whole design on the die. Most of the designs I have come up with have just used parts of the motif with fabric folded in different ways.

Die Play on Dyed Fabric

This is a photo of one of the first pieces I played with. I took a 6″ square of white fabric, folded into quarters on the diagonal, run through the machine just using part of the die design. I pulled the vine pieces out of the square and fused them on the outside of it, giving me what you see here.

 

Vine Heart 5″x7.5″ SOLD

This little piece above is one of the little experiments I began with and finished. This is 5″x7.5″ in size, and I arranged the vines to make the heart shape and swirl below. I began quilting with green thread on the vines and added little tendrils, then I added more quilting with the clear thread to fill things in. This ended up going to a new home after I showed it at my local quilt guild’s show and tell…. My first sale of the year!

I now have some more dies to play and see what new things I can come up with. So far this little tool has been helping me to get the old creative juices flowing again. If you are interested, I have been adding photos to a Die Cutting Album  on my Facebook profile page.  I have two more little pieces finished using die cut fabric and have photos there. I plan to get any new pieces listed in my ArtFire Art Quilt Shop also.  If all goes well, I hope to add new posts more often this year.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Art Cards, Art Quilts, New Projects, Play | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries