Being challenge leader for the Color Play challenge for the Janome6500 Yahoo group, I have decided to pull out some old UFO's to see what will happen. In the earlier post, I showed photos of some of what I found. I began to play with 3 of them, and here is what has happened so far.
Here are the photos of my first subjects. The little "blahhh" hangings are small pieces I used to make and sell at craft shows. These two didn't get finished for some reason. The one with the butterflies didn't even have the quilting finished, and some of the blue markings are still there.
The star and paisley wall hanging top was another of a series of hangings I sold regularly. This one never got finished probably because I had moved on to other things or that style of hanging wasn't selling as well. I know that I would not use that paisley fabric in anything I do now.
There is nothing I can do to hurt any of these, so there is no pressure to end up with a "masterpiece". Great pieces to try things I would not have otherwise tried.
I usually paint on plain white fabrics, so this is a bit different for me.
For this little piece, I thought it mainly needed more color. I began with my colored pencils and colored in the flowers like a kid with a coloring book.
After coloring with the pencils, I added a layer of diluted Super Sparkle textile paint over it to add some glimmer and to keep the color in place. I then added touches of yellow and white chalk pastels to add more interest onto the wet paint.
I also added different shades of green pastel to the leaves. This piece definitely looks different from it's beginning, but it still needs something- more quilting…
This is the result after the quilting with clear thread in the background. I still am deciding as to whether I will add a hint of color behind the flowers or not, but this one is done for now. I will probably trim the edges neatly, and add my usual couched yarn binding. The pillowcase finish on the edges here are a bit ruffled.
Next is the butterfly piece. I didn't even finish the quilting to outline the butterflies, so started with a quick drawn line with blue pencil, then quilted with the clear thread.
The quilting lines will give me an outline to color in.
Here is what I ended up with after coloring and painting this one. As you can see, I got a little carried away with the sparkle paint on the border. I quilted my favorite vine-leaf design in the border, then filled in the leaves with the watered down sparkle paint. At this point, this piece looks a bit too busy and gaudy. I will be adding more with colored pencils or pastels to tone down the border. I may also add some more definition to the designs in the wings of the butterflies. This is the perfect way to find out things that DON"T work!
The center of the piece now looked too bright, so it got the same gold metallic paint with a bit of the pastel over the paint on the white areas. I liked what was happening with the star squares, so just left them with paint only. This photo shows some lines of the pastel color on the white fabric. I brushed over them with my paint brush to blend the colors better.
The next morning all was dry (biggest problem for me doing this, is waiting for things to dry- I had to work inside due to the weather- not too patient a person). As you can see, after the paint and pastel dried, the chalk shows more than it did when wet. This photo also shows the other big problem with this piece- there is a lot of wrinkling in the white areas due to my stretching the borders as I stitched them on. I plan to do a lot of close quilting in these areas to "suck up" the excess fabric. I will do minimal quilting on the borders and just a bit more on the stars. This piece, like the other 2 may be mounted to fabric covered canvases for display. I'll see what develops as I continue to work with these.
I am a former textile artist and new pattern designer with a degree in horticulture, wishing to share my love of nature, flowers and gardens with everyone through my photos, sunprinted fabrics, and now pattern designs. Chronic Lyme Disease has caused major changes to the direction my life. I have to limit the amount of time spent digging in my gardens, and quilting has become more difficult. I discovered pattern design as a way to get art back into my life. I now use my gardens and photos to inspire designs that can be used on fabrics and print on demand items.
Such beautiful, wonderful, creative work! I love the use of all the different materials to add (or subtract) color from your fabric. Keep up the good work!