Painted picture transfer

Chris led a very fun technique at the August meeting.  This technique, by Esterita Austin, was published in Quilting Arts in June of 2013. I was a bit hesitant because painting is not something I do well, but this was simple, fun and turned out beautifully!

The steps are simple-

Martha's

Choose your image, tape it to a smooth surface and tape a piece of parchment paper slightly larger than the image over it.  Using acrylic craft/ textile paints, fill in your image.  

Cynda's

Lori's (look for the eye)

MaryLee's

Chris'

This is the one Chris did to test the technique.  Once you've finished painting, and the paint has dried completely, You make a sandwich of plain parchment, organza, misty fuse, and your painting, face down.  Press gently, then flip it over and press again.  

 The paint sticks to the misty fuse, which sticks to the organza!  Let it cool, the carefully peel the parchment away.  The image can then be trimmed down and fused to a background fabric. 

I can't wait to see how people use their images. 

Only a couple more months to the big reveal of the telephone line game pieces!  What's the telephone line game, you ask? (since I'm not sure I said much about it when we started this project)
It's a game many of us played as kids.  Sit in a circle and choose a leader. That person whispers into the ear of the person sitting next to them- a simple word or phrase.  That person whispers into the next person's ear and so on around the circle.  When it gets back to the first person, he or she tells what they said and the last person tells what he or she heard.  There is usually a big difference! (Except at one slumber party where the thing I said came around only slightly changed, but into an embarrassing thing and I was mortified!)  So we're doing it now, but with quilts.  Stay tuned.

Spirals

At the June meeting, Mary Ellen led the activity.  Using techniques from RaNae Merrill's book, Simply Amazing Spiral Quilts, Mary Ellen made this quilt several years ago for a challenge. 

She had previously done a demo on this at a meeting of the Museum Quilt Guild, so had some nice teaching aids. (she used to be a teacher, can you tell?)

Here are different types of spirals she said are easy to design. (Piecing is a different story!)










Using the outline provided, we each designed a spiral and colored it in. 

Then the construction techniques were discussed. 

For now, we used glue to lay out our pieces, a step that is helpful when making them for real.

Martha cheated and cut each spiral as one piece. 

Kathi's

I think this is Elaine's???

Although most of us have no plans to make a quilt like this soon, it was fun to play and experiment with design.

Our telephone line game is about halfway done.  I don't know about the rest of the girls, but I am dying for the reveal- more to see if what I'm making for each one has anything at all to do with the original quilt in each series than anything else!  (I can't recall if I've explained this, so comment if you want to know more about it)

Shibori dyeing in Two Parts

Our activity for April and May was combined by the members whose turn it was to lead.  In April, Cynda shared with us some techniques for creating shibori.   Then in May Susan had us all come over to her house for the dyeing process. 

Part I

At the April meeting, we did have some show and tell!

 Lori finished the piece she started at the landscape workshop she led, using a piece of fabric she had dyed as a focal point.  

 Lori used some new techniques for the leaves on the tree in this, to be donated at the bigfoot conference later in April. 

 Mary also finished her landscape, using a beautiful piece of lace for the trees in this moonlight piece!

Mary also finished making her face, using fussy cuts.  She is doing some very modern stitching in the background!

Cynda brought plenty of examples of shibori she has done so we could choose the techniques we wanted to try.

Martha's pieces- scrunched, folded and stitched.

Kathi did some interesting stitching.

Chris is trying out circles

everything in one piece!

Part II



On a beautiful sunny day that decided to rain during our meeting, we met to do the dyeing- using the "pig barn" instead. 

Pieces held in the dye for 5 minutes at a time

 

Oxidizing between dips in the dye

 And a few of the results!

Cynda's scrunched piece

Cynda's fabulous mandala

 Lori got very nice color on her pieces, even after rinsing.  (others weren't so lucky)























 These are Chris' before she rinsed them. 

Hopefully everyone will bring their pieces to the next meeting for show and tell. 

Creating Landscapes

 Before we got started on our landscapes, a couple of members had finished their face from the February meeting.

Susan

Elaine

 Elaine had also done a thread painted portrait of her granddaughter.  The photo was cut off at the top of the head, so she hasn't decided how to finish it. 

Lori led us in a workshop on creating landscapes.  Most of us used a photo as inspiration.

Kathi's was a photo of her own back yard. (there's no place like home)























Chris found inspiration in this pond scene.

Mary Ellen is using her artistic liscense to remove the telephone lines from her chosen scene.

Mary Lee was moon gazing.


















 Cynda's waterfall scene looks challenging, don't you think?

Susan and Elaine worked from scratch.

 I loved the newspaper trees!


Susan thinks this looks terrible, but I know the finished piece will be stunning!

 Elaine had a perfect fabric for both the sun and the tree. This one will also be stunning. 


 Martha's is based on a picture taken somewhere in the "wild" west.














Lori didn't get much time to work , but it looks like she's got something special started here!

We all enjoyed this project and look forward to finishing them, and seeing them all finished.