She Has Flowers in Her Hair

I'm gearing up to get started on some new fabric art projects. I said 'gearing up', and that is really a more active-sounding euphemism for 'procrastinating'. But procrastination isn't all bad: I do accomplish a bit of this and that while 'gearing up'. I've rescued a knitted vest from the UFO pile. I've returned to an unfinished sock project. I've had my sewing machine serviced. I've decluttered my messy home (a bit). I've actually started cutting up and using some of all the old t-shirts that I've saved over the years to crochet a small rug. And now I'm going to blog about an art quilt I made last year. I can't believe I haven't done it already, but that's how it is. It fell between the cracks, and it's only now that I'm 'gearing up' for my next quilt, which will also be a portrait (of a mermaid), that I remembered I still haven't blogged about the last one.

So before I sail off to join the mermaids, I'll show you what I did about a year ago, when I made my flower lady quilt. I reckon I will use basically the same process for the mermaid quilt.

It all started with a watercolour painting in one of my art journals:

Before I start working on the actual quilt I like to research my methods and make samples. I hadn't used Derwent Inktense pencils in an art quilt before so I did some tests to find out how they would work.

I like to work with layers in my art quilts, and it's fascinating to see how the individual layers, which often don't make much sense on their own, will make perfect sense when combined. I'm sure there's a metaphor of something important hiding in that observation.

The bottom layer with fused raw-edge and painted appliqué

The silk organza top layer, spray painted, and with a freezer paper mask to protect the face

Silk organza, spray painted and further enhanced with Inktense pencils

The layers combined

Free-motion machine quilting in progress

Machine quilting finished

Hand stitching to add final details

The finished art quilt, which I've had the fortune to be able to display in three exhibitions so far.

I loved working on this quilt, and now I'm really looking forward to getting started on my next girl! Yay!

My plan for a mermaid quilt

I want big eyes, but I think I overdid it a little this time, so it needs a bit of tweaking. But I'm excited to be on my way. I'm also planning a mermaid doll. Yes: mermaids are The Thing for me right now, and I'll go with the flow, follow the tide, dive in and immerse myself in the subject. 😊

Thank you for dropping by and I hope to see you again soon!

Wake-Up Bells

Today is the final day of Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, and the winners have already been announced, so now I'm safe to publish images of the quilt that was sent there. As I've already mentioned here, the theme this year was In My Garden, and spring was the season that was given to Finland. I chose the lovely snowdrop, and titled the quilt Wake-Up Bells. Here's an image of the whole quilt, as well as process images and some detail shots of the finished quilt. As mentioned, it will be on tour for two years, so I took lots of photos before I sent it off.

The size of the quilt is 30 x 30 cm (12" x 12"). It's a wholecloth printed and painted quilt with collage elements between cotton and a layer of silk organza.

First of all I made a preliminary plan of the quilt on watercolour paper to help me make decisions about the colour scheme and texture before I started adding paint to fabric.

I printed cotton with pigment (textile) paint and various handmade and found stamps, transferred the pattern to the cotton with a mechanical pencil and painted the hair with a brush and pigment paint.

I also printed and spray painted silk organza,

and the cotton fabric that I used to soak up the paint that went trough the sheer organza was used for the back of the quilt.

I outlined the image with Derwent Inktense pencils, and started adding the collage elements.

I added the organza over the cotton base fabric, free-motion quilted the whole thing and added hand embroidery as a finishing touch. Here are some close-ups of the finished quilt:

If you're interested in this way of working, I recommend looking up Melanie Testa's book Inspired to Quilt. Melanie works with dye in the book, but it's also possible to use pigment paint, as I have done, if that's more accessible to you.

Thanks for visiting!

Good Things Come in Threes

Here they finally are, my little pretty purses! And I'm pretty pleased with them, if I may say so myself.

Let me give you a couple of hot tips. There are two things that helped me accomplish three purses in a relatively short space of time. I designed these purses with a particular purpose in mind, you see, and I had little time to fuff about. I needed to be efficient.

As regular followers know, these purses are inspired by and based on the techniques Melanie Testa presents in her book Inspired to Quilt (please refer back to this post for more info). In the book Melanie uses thickened Procion MX dyes to design her fabrics. However, I felt I wanted to do things quick and dirty this time, without having to soda soak or batch fabric. So I used fabric paints. Fabric paints work very well for monoprinting, as long as you keep in mind that you are dealing with a medium that dries fairly quickly. Have a plan before you spread the paint on the printing plate, otherwise you will discover that most of the paint got stuck to the plate instead of the fabric. Fabric paint gives the fabric a slightly plastic feel, but with monoprinting it isn't as bad as I expected, as the layer of paint is very thin. What I appreciated most was that the paint dried quickly, so there was hardly any waiting time at all. I was surprised by and pleased with the result, and I have come to appreciate fabric paints more after this experience.

My second hot tip is to work in a series. I'm not particularly keen on doing the same thing over and over again, I get bored too easily, but working in a series definitely helps you to produce more art, as you don't have to "reinvent the wheel" with every new piece. You learn things with each piece, and can apply your insights immediately in the next piece, so there is educational value in it as well. And when the motif is fixed, as it is in this case, I was able to concentrate on other things, such as colour and pattern. I'm not planning to always work in a series from now on, but I've realised that it is definitely something worth considering every now and then.

Here are a couple of detail shots (I love the way the monoprint makes the bud look hairy - that was serendipity):

As these are purses, I wanted the insides to be just as neat as the outsides, so I used embroidery thread also in the bobbin. That also helped me to get rid of any problems with thread tension and unwanted bobbin thread creeping up to the front.

I also bound the edges on the inside and added my own tag.

The tag is made from a piece of cotton ribbon with an inkjet iron-on transfer print.

And that's my pretty purses! I had a lot of fun with these.

Thanks for visiting and see you again soon! - Annika

Artist's Block

I'm on vacation. I have big plans. I'm burning with eagerness to try everything I ever wanted to try. I should have all the time in the world. So what's happening? - Nothing! I've been suffering from the most awful artist's block. Since my last blog entry a week ago I've managed to finish a sock, cut out the muslin pieces for a wrap-around top (no sewing, though), dye two gradations (one which is still batching), try out a fun technique with paintstiks (which I will come back to when I've found a paintstik which isn't past its 'best before' date), and created a sad little square of surface designed fabric. Yes, I know I sound a bit despondent. I feel a bit despondent. I guess I was more in need of a vacation than I realised, and my body just put the foot down and refused to turn on the creative juices. So I just have to take baby steps. It's frustrating, but not the end of the world.

This is the first gradation I've dyed so far. A warmer colour scheme than the last one, with golden yellow, bright scarlet and medium blue (Jacquard Procion MX dye). Click the tags Gradations, Dyecation, Procion MX and Frieda Anderson for more information about gradations. A lighter gradation (gradation 2, i.e.) is ready to be rinsed out, so I'll show you that one in my next blog post. What I like about working with these gradations is that it makes me mix colours that I know I would never have mixed if I had just been doing it on my own. And to my surprise I've realised that those colours that I thought I considered "ugly" are really very useful and not ugly at all. Bright or muddy, light or dark, they all have and deserve a place in the fabric stash!

First gradation, medium value (they look a bit lighter in this photo)

I mentioned a 'sad little square of surface designed fabric'. Well, to be fair, it's really not that sad, but I was a bit disappointed with it, as it didn't turn out the way I expected. I'll walk you through the process. And if you want more details and inspiration check out Melanie Testa's great article Cut from your imagination. Resist-printing fabric with paper 'snowflakes' in issue 21 of Quilting Arts Magazine.

First I printed a hand dyed piece of fabric with bubble wrap and discharge paste:

Then I applied a Magic paper (freezer paper) 'snowflake' resist:

Here's the result after applying fabric paint (dark green, metallic green and gold):

You can see the problem, right? What I should have realised when I was applying the paint is that I was working with the background. I think I would have got away with it if I'd stopped after the metallic green paint, but I felt like adding a bit of glitz, and that was too much. The gold paint jumps forward and since it's similar in value to the the resisted leaves, it obscures the resisted pattern.

I spent some time mulling over the problem and going through different ways to solve it and save the fabric, and this is what I ended up doing: I grabbed a green Multimark pen and drew in the contours of the resisted motifs.

I'm not wild about it, but it's better, it works, and it taught me a valuable lesson about contrast. Something I'm wild about, however, is the snowflake:

If I don't use it as resist in another piece, I'll glue this one into my sketchbook. I love the metallic sheen on the paper.

Thanks for following my adventures in surface design. There's more to come soon. Flour-resist. That's all I'm saying. ;-)

Have a great week! - Annika