From "Scribble Drawing" to Fabric

This week the "scribble drawing" piece (see original post) was finished. It was both fun and challenging (mostly in choosing the right fabrics). And what a mess was made to put it together!

Here it is in progress, using the vinyl overlay for placement...

Notice the extra "seam allowance" for the purpose of overlapping pieces.

...and here's the finished (but unbound) piece next to the original drawing, titled Fish out of Water.

This fish is definitely out of water, and discombobulated at that. Gills, eye, body, tail and fins are all there--
just not where you'd expect. The distant waterfall also serves as a teardrop from the eye.

No batting was used, so no real quilting was done. Superior MonoPoly was used to stitch the raw edges to the buckram base--which is so stiff you can't quilt it at any rate (I did test it).

Would I do a project like this again? Probably not, unless I could quilt it. That's half the fun of it, after all. But at least my curiosity is satisfied. Anyway, it has a binding now...

...and is hanging (with bits of masking tape, lol) on the stairwell wall. VVHH calls this piece my Picasso, so the stairwell must be my gallery, haha.

UPDATE: Today, three days after my post, I found my "Picasso" on the stairs. So much for masking tape!  :)

On to the next project...although there a couple of UFOs (unfinished objects, for any non-quilting readers) hanging around. We'll see.

'Til next time,

Linda

Panel Quilting and Embellishment

This week, a finish for the Artworks Aqua Nuance Digital Panel my friend Janet gave me for Christmas (see post dated 5/11), the first ready-to-quilt panel I've ever used without cutting up for something else. These are still available at a couple of online quilt sites, by the way.

Here's the original, which was so beautiful I was almost afraid to touch it, let alone embellish it or even pierce it with a needle!

But I did, first adding a few elements to the top and then quilting it fairly densely with a low-loft poly batting and lots of different threads. So here's the finished quilt (click to enlarge):

Here are some close-ups (click on any of these photos to enlarge). The rocks came from a Wind and Waves fabric by Wilmington Prints.

The seabirds came from free stock photos at a website that doesn't even require attribution for end use. I cropped them in my photo program, printed them on a Jacquard Inkjet Fabric Sheet, and fused them to the quilt top.

The boulder directly above was cut freehand from a Stonehenge fabric by Northcott. (Note: The boulder became necessary, after the castle, rocks and ship were added, to stop the viewer's eye from wandering off the quilt--which mine did.)

The ship was cut from a curtain panel I found at Goodwill for two dollars. It did need some tweaking (see post dated 5/11).

The castle was designed and made (see post dated 5/11) from yet another Stonehenge fabric.

Lastly, here's a photo of the quilt lying on a table, which seems to be the only way I can get quilted texture to show up well in a photo (the studio lighting is from east and west windows only, at the ends of a long, narrow room. It's a constant battle, which I try to fight with several Ott Lites.)

Next time: Adventures with turning my "scribble drawing" (see post just previous to this one) into a piece of fabric art. Ay-yi-yi...

Linda

In (and Out of) the Water

This week the seascape digital panel (see last post) is on the machine.  (Click on any photo to enlarge.)

The water is being quilted with Sulky's holographic thread, giving it just the right amount of sparkle. I love this thread, which comes in several colors, and never seems to break as long as low tension, low-to-moderate speed, and a fine (lightweight) bobbin thread are used.







Wanting a break from increasingly dense stitching, I opted to try something that's been stewing in my head for a while: rendering a color-pencil drawing in fabric.

This is my working color copy, which had to be pieced and taped.
The original was a little too big for the scanner.

This started out as a "scribble drawing," if anyone remembers those from school decades ago (do kids still do that?), and it evolved into an abstract drawing titled "Fish out of Water."


For anyone too young to be familiar with the phrase "Fish out of Water," it refers to someone who is completely out of his/her element or comfort zone. (As you can see, this fish is out of its element in more ways than just being landlocked.)














Step 1 was to copy the drawing (in black and white) in poster format on the printer, 2 sheets x 2 sheets, and splice them on the back with transparent tape (first trimming some margins and overlapping others to match up the fronts).

[The drawing board is like a big clipboard, available at any art supply store.]

Step 2, using large tracing paper--which conveniently comes on a roll--or regular tracing paper taped together, to trace the drawing's outlines with a black Sharpie.

Step 3, retracing the outlines from the tracing paper (the black-and-white printer copy is removed but kept for reference) onto freezer paper, and then cutting out the separate sections of freezer paper to use as pattern pieces.

Step 4, carbon tracing the outlines--yes, more tracing!--onto a base fabric (in this case, buckram--a canvas-like fabric used to stiffen drapery headers).

Step 5, retracing the outlines on a piece of clear vinyl (see next photo).

[At this point you might be wondering, why so much tracing? Well, if you don't have a light box large enough or a glass-top table under which to put a light, and you're not willing to tape things up on a back-lit glass door to trace vertically, extra tracing is what you wind up doing. The thing is, I don't mind it that much--it's kind of relaxing.]

Step 6, positioning the base fabric (again, buckram here) as the bottom layer (I use the clips at the top as well as pieces of masking tape all around).

Step 7, matching the outlines on the vinyl overlay to the outlines on the base fabric, and then firmly clipping or taping down the top edge only of the vinyl. (Fabric pieces will be slipped in under the vinyl and positioned on top of the base.)

Step 8, choosing fabrics and cutting out the pieces by using the freezer paper patterns (ironed with the plastic/shiny side down onto the right side of the fabric). The fabrics can first be stabilized with paper-backed fusible web or fusible interfacing on the wrong side---or they can just be glued down directly on the base. (For curved pieces, I strongly suggest stabilizing, as the pieces may otherwise stretch and pucker when glued.) Of course, if paper-backed fusible web is used, the pieces will eventually be iron-fused to the base instead of glued.

To avoid gaps, a bit of a "seam allowance" needs to be cut outside the pattern lines wherever another piece is going to overlap (note: pieces are glued down beginning with the furthest in the scene and ending with the nearest, and trimmed or overlapped accordingly). I cut these "seam allowances" with pinking shears to avoid a hard line from showing through the overlap.

Unfortunately, though, once those "seam allowances" are glued/stuck down, they hide parts of the carbon-traced lines. That is why the traced lines on the vinyl overlay are necessary. It is the only way to assure accuracy in positioning the fabric pieces after some of the base lines get hidden.

Overall, the process is less time-consuming than it sounds. It probably took me longer to write about it than it does to do it. :)

Next time I hope to have all the pieces tacked down with mono-poly thread, and the seascape fully quilted.

Have a great weekend!

Linda

Hang 'em High

This week, VVHH (very versatile handy husband) did me the honor of mounting a decorative curtain rod high over the twin bed, so that we could hang the 42 x 35 fall landscape quilt recently completed. (Click any photos to enlarge.)

I found the rod online, on sale, at Target. With its beautiful leaf pattern, it seemed perfectly appropriate for a landscape with trees. The brackets are adjusted to the shortest length, so the quilt hangs fairly close to the wall.

This is the first quilt (other than my initial amateur attempt) kept for myself.

After that, it was time to hang the Oriental piece (which I won't sell because of the wonky inner border). This rod has been up quite a while in the studio and comes in handy for temporary hanging before a sale or an exhibit. In between times, I'll leave this piece on display. Nobody will see it but us and an occasional guest (the studio doubles as a guest room, with a folding cot stored in the closet). Being small, this hangs kind of high, but doesn't get in the way when I'm using the old Singer (under cover in the photo).




Anyway, time for a new project! On impulse, I took this digital photo fabric panel from Artworks, Aqua Nuance, out of the closet.

My friend Janet gave me this for Christmas, and I've been hesitant to do anything to it other than quilting, since it's utterly breathtaking just as it is. But after staring at it for a while, I got out my favorite ship fabric...

This is only part of a curtain panel found at Goodwill for two dollars.
These ships have been used in two previous quilts.

...and cut out one of the ships, after backing it with paper-backed fusible.

Needs more wake...looks like it's going backwards!

Here it's being auditioned after a rough cut...












...and here it's been fussy cut, tweaked with paint markers and Sharpies, and then fused in a lower position than when auditioned. The ship's waves are playing better with the panel waves now that some white paint has been applied.

Then some rocks were cut from a Wilmington Wind and Waves fat quarter and added to the beach.

Now it seemed to need a third element, maybe somewhere on the cliffs at left. Maybe a castle? Out came the tracing paper.

Next, a Stonehenge fabric by Northcott Mills. And some scissors and a black Sharpie.

Then a heavy outline of Fray Check was applied to the finished castle (should have applied paper-backed fusible before cutting but forgot).














Far from perfect, but not bad.

Well this is a wonky photo! Late in the day is not good for me, at least for photos. Not enough light at left, either, but you get the idea.

Now it seems to need some seagulls, and something to "stop the action" at far right. Maybe a boulder. Still mulling that over.

Have a great weekend!

Linda