New Quilt - "Welcome Complexities #2"

"Welcome Complexities #2"

Title: Welcome Complexities #2
Materials: muslin, commercial cottons & other fabrics, inkjet printed fabric, chalk pastel, fabric paint, beads, crayon, oil paint sticks, permanent marker, sequins, heat transfer foil, iron-on sequins
Dimensions: 18.75" by 13.25"

Click on details below to view larger versions on Flickr. 

This quilt is from mid-2012, and it's my first big experiment with using oil paint sticks by rubbing the tip directly on the fabric surface.  After this successful trial, I am in love with them, and the complexity they add to a quilt.  It's like once you bring paint sticks into the picture, your quilt automatically acquires a whole new layer of age and wisdom! 

New Quilt: "Fictional Animal: White Bird of Legend"

This long-necked bird ended up being my first ever whole-cloth quilt.  The background fabric is heavily disguised with textural elements, but it started out as a sleeve from a green plaid button-down shirt (you can see the cuff opening with button hole on the quilt's bottom right).

To make the outline for the bird, I traced one of my drawings onto the fabric using the "Look Ma, I Invented Carbon Paper!" technique (tutorial coming soon!), then painted inside the lines with white fabric paint.  The painting process took FOR EVER, and I am going to have to look for quicker, easier methods to fill in an outline on textured fabric with a flat, opaque color.

After the bird was painted, I had fun adding random cross-hatching using regular Crayola crayons, and even did a little bit of rubbing using a colander for texture.  You can see that part right above the bird's knobbly knees.  I also added black fabric paint to the bottom of the quilt with a roller.

I chose a very high-loft polyester batting to accentuate the quilted texture, and finished off the design by adding a small amount of white, blue and gold oil paint stick on the raised areas. 

"Fictional Animal: White Bird of Legend"

Title: "Fictional Animal: White Bird of Legend" 
Materials: cotton shirt fabric, oil paint stick, fabric paint, crayon
Dimensions: 11.25" by 12.75"
Date: 2012

Available Materials Lab: Coffee Sleeves as Rubbing Plates

The "Available Materials Lab" is the section of my blog all about tips and tricks for making fabulous things using materials you can acquire easily and cheaply, or may even already have in your home.

I noticed a while ago that those paper sleeves you get with a cup of coffee frequently seem to have really interesting textures embossed into the surface, presumably to make them better able to protect your hand from the heat.  Since I have recently been very excited about finding different materials to turn into rubbing plates that can be used with various media on fabric, I thought coffee sleeves might be a perfect example of something that can produce an attractive, generic looking background pattern. 

Materials:

• Coffee sleeves from wherever you get your coffee - collect however many you need to make a nice sized rubbing plate. 
• Some sort of substrate to glue the sleeves onto - I used a cardboard mailer I found in the recycle bin. 
• Basic white glue. Hot glue or a glue stick might work as well if that's what you have on hand.

I have a giant pile of coffee sleeves from Dunkin Donuts lattes.  Fortunately, now that I'm laid off I'm consuming far less of those!

This is a ridiculously easy project!  Just spread some glue on the backs of your coffee sleeves:

And arrange them together on your backing material.  The pattern will probably not line up perfectly, and you will pick up the line between the sleeves when you do your rubbings, but that's part of what makes these found-object rubbings look so great! 

If corners start to lift up, slap a big coffee table book on the whole thing.

You'll be surprised how beautiful the rubbings you produce using coffee sleeves can be! 

A small sample rubbing using white oil paint stick on blue silk.

Gold and maroon paint sticks on fabric that already had a polka dot design - a little busy perhaps?