Burning sheers Video

This is a little video I made up while I worked on my walk in the woods Quilt, Stay tuned for more finishing work on this piece.

Walk In the Woods Part 2

The next pictures shows the first border added, Please note I used a rotary pinking blade to give the edges a textured edge. I then layed this piece on top of a second border piece and top stitched in a metallic thread just shy of the pinked edge. When it was stitched down I used my duck billed scissors to remove excess fabric from areas .

I used stamping to do the fish, I stamped a light color of cream down; then I stamped in a dark color. After I did this I used art chalks and a medium stamp. I pressed the medium on the stamp and stamped over the cream printing I then dusted on the chalk and whisked away the excess. This is mot a medium size stamp but a stamp pad full of mediium. It was fun to see the images of ferns and fish appear as I applies the powder. patience was key here because I had to wait for area to dry before I could restamp over with the black ink.

Here's a close up of the fish and the ferns . Keep playing till it looks right to you. My grandson came in and said it needed Birds and a deer . So I next took a piece of Lutradur and using acrylic paint and a fabric medium painted it a midnight blue color.After the lutradur dried I applied steam a seam !! to the front and then I layed a piece of foil on top. I put parchment paper over the foil to protect my iron. After it cooled I pulled off the foil and was left with a webby spider web effect. I used this piece to create the crows. I went online and looked for non copyrighted crows. Found some I liked then I traced them on tissue and cut the images out of the lutradur. I then applied them with fusible web.

Here's an overall view as it stands now, notice the sketched in tree branches for the crows. I blocked the quilt to maintain its flatness by pressing it with a damp cloth, be careful when repeatedly pressing as you don't want to melt the angelina, or burn the inks. Obviously this is not a piece that will ever go in a washing machine but you still need to be careful

Stay tuned for part 3 as I add leaves, deer and bind the finish piece.

A Walk in the Woods part 1

This is my latest piece, It was totally improvisational and you will see the process I used to make the total piece. I started with a small square of hand dyed fabric I had created last summer.

I placed the fabric in a plastic embroidery hoop so the fabric was face down and the muslin was facing me. The hoop edges are raised and the fabric is flush against the bed of the machine. Do Not put your hoop under the needle with the flat side up. I loaded embroidery cord and dyed yarns onto my bobbin and used a strong poly thread on top. I proceeded to stitch some free form tree trunks.



























As you can see in the photo above right the embroidery floss gives a lovely raised stitch. I use straight stitch only , drop the feed dogs and I also use the teflon machine quilting mat on the bed of my machine. It's fantastic. My next step was to take some silk roving, wooly yarns and threads and free motion attach them to the front of the piece. I switched the hoop so now the top fabric was facing me and the muslin backing was flush to machine bed. I used tiny pieces of angelina fibers and film too.






After this step I went to my heating tool and burned away excess areas of thread or angelina that were blocking the background fabric from shining thru. I attempted to video this so bear with me as I was holding the camera and burning at the same time. I did wear a face mask to stop fumes from getting me sick !!! Remember to use caution .

After this step I free hand stitched in a rock wall and then used Tsuknieko inks to color it in.

A landscape was pencilled in and then some Pine trees.

At this point I did some more thread play , working on the front side of the piece, adding in smaller tree branches etc. I added in some pieces of cut novelty fringe, threads and yarns to give the tree tops some more dimension. I used a quilt basting spray on the tree top area. I then sprinkled the threads and fibers on the top and used a free motion darning foot to capture the pieces . This is a great time to use up all your odd filled bobbins. If your tension is good it doesn't show and it eliminates thread waste.

I then proceeded to do more stitching and fill in areas with trees yarns etc. The Borders were attached and then pinked with a rotary cutting blade. Keep on playing remeber there is no wrong if you like it add it , if it doesn't work we camn always cover it up !!!!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of a Walk in the woods:

Cording Foot Binding

Ok I like to finish things fast and try to avoid hand sewing. Recently, I decided I was going to apply my binding, then blind hem stitch it down with monofilament from the back side.

To the left is a photo of the cording foot on my Bernina. This is an awesome foot and I can't say enough good about it. After I applied the binding I used the foot to aply a 4ply embroidery yarn along the inside edge. This covered the blind hem stitches too. I also used this foot to apply the stems of the flowers.I should tell you that the center panel was made by my grandson, we picked up leaves dipped them in paint and pressed them to a hand dyed piece of cotton. We also used rubbings with shiva paint sticks, foiling and art glitter.

When the piece had been cured and heat set, I applied 2 borders, machine quilted it. Longarm and Domestic machines were used.

Puff paint trees with Foil in background

These trees have been smeared on puff paint by my fingers, foil applied to background first and soon I will post thread painted version. I will do all thradplay first

Snow Scene in fabric paint and thread

This is a quick little piece I just did , machine applique, fabric paint and rayon threads.
I used the expanding heat sensitive paint and fabric pens. I wasn't to impressed with the puffiness I thought it would be thicker but it's the first time I used it too . Any thoughts on using puff paint would be appreciated.