Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

3 Creative Studios Technique of the Month - Painted Batting

If you subscribe to the 3 Creative Studios newsletter or read the blog, you may have seen the announcement on January 16 that we have started a Technique of the Month program. Sue introduced the first technique and it's Painted Batting.

Of course the program comes with prizes and this is the prize pack for the first month. It includes some of my hand-dyed fabrics, a hand made book from Sue and some other goodies too!  All of this could be yours but you can’t win unless you enter so visit the free project page here and print off the Painted Batting Technique of the Month project sheet and have some fun painting up some batting.  Then post your photo in the forums here to be entered into the draw to win this prize package.

This weekend while I enjoyed the snow, I decided to make some painted batting for myself.

These first two are painted white batting. I used some DyeNaFlow paints for the base, let those dry overnight and then over-painted with Jacquard and Stewart Gill metallic paints. I have some future projects planned for these.

Next I fused full sheets of bronze and red foil to some black batting. I sponged various shades of golds, coppers and silver metallic paints on both. Then I let them dry overnight too. After they were dry I stenciled green leaves on the bronze foiled piece and stamped silver metallic stars on the red one.

Here's the one that is painted on the red foil. I think this will become postcards.

 

This is the one that started with bronze foil. I turned this one into 6 postcards. The only stitching is the tracing around the leaf. I did that with metallic thread.

One of these will go to the winner of the Technique of the Month prize winner. It's also going to be the birthday card for my February birthday friends.

Keepsakes Quilt - Part 2A - Cory's blocks

We are having our second snowstorm this winter.  It started around 6 this morning and should be wrapped up soon with a total of about 12" accumulation. We have Chris' friend Matt here until he can get out and get back to the DC area. It's really beautiful and it's great sewing weather!

I painted some batting this morning for some projects to show you tomorrow and I got the blocks cut for the second of the two t-shirt quilts. These are for Cory's quilt.

Sometime in the next week I should be posting the instructions for Part 3.

Earlier in the week I solicited advice on Facebook on removing scents from clothing. These clothes were washed in scented laundry detergent and probably dried with scented dryer sheets. I had washed the clothes as soon as I got them and was surprised that there was still a LOT of scent left after airing out for 3 months.

These knit fabrics have to be interfaced and heating up something scented makes it even worse. I had to get the scent out as much as possible.

I never came up with the magic bullet but here's what I did.

1. Soaked overnight in the washer with a box of baking soda and a cup of borax. In the morning I rinsed with a cup of vinegar. That helped a lot but didn't completely work.

2. Washed with unscented detergent and some bleach. That helped a lot but not totally either. Now they smelled like dry cleaner fluid!

3. Washed with the hunter's detergent (Scent Away) that is supposed to get rid of scents that the deer can smell. Then I hung them outside for a day. It helped a little more too.

They still have some scent but it is a lot better. Most of the ironing is done now and I will work on them in small time increments.

If anyone has any other suggestions for removing scents from fabrics I'd love to hear them.

Color Palette - Cosmic Taco

This is a piece of art glass that I have on a table by the front door. It's called the Cosmic Taco. Chris loves it just for the name. I love it for the shape....and the colors!

The block is Jacob's Ladder and I love these colors in this setting.

Keepsakes Quilt - Part 2 - cutting out blocks for a t-shirt quilt

I am showing this quilt in 2 forms, one is done with large scale prints and the other with t-shirts. In Part 1, I showed how I cut the large scale prints. In this part, we will start the t-shirt version.

The original version is based on a finished 12" square. The focus blocks are based on 3" increments. In that version, the cut size options, in inches, are:

• 3.5 x 3.5
• 3.5 x 6.5 (vertical or horizontal)
• 3.5 x 9.5 (vertical or horizontal)
• 6.5 x 6.5
• 6.5 x 9.5 (vertical or horizontal)
• 9.5 x 9.5

In a t-shirt version we can't rely on motifs that fit in a 9" square or smaller. The approach that I use for these is to cut motif as small as I can but to keep it in a 3" square (plus 1/2" seam allowance). So there might be blocks cut to:

• 9.5 x 12.5
• 6.5 x 12.5
• 12.5 x 18.5
• 15.5 x 15.5, etc

We aren't going to worry about fitting them all together at this point. Just stick to 3" increments.

I start every shirt by determining the proper finished size of the block. This particular motif fits well in a 6" finished square. Cut out the motif with at least a 1" margin larger on all sides.

Tshirt fabrics need to be stabilized. A medium or light weight interfacing will work well. I used a medium weight on these shirts because most of the are WELL worn and a tad bit thin. Cut a piece of interfacing about the size of the cut motif and fuse it to the back of the fabric.

 

I cut this motif to 6.5" square. I like to uses these ruler markers to help me properly center the motif on the fabric.

This block was cut about 12.5" square. One was cut 12.5 x 18.5. As I said, I don't worry about fitting them all together at this point.

 

Sometimes I leave pockets attached. I'll either sew or fuse the opening closed.

In this shirt, I wanted to use the emblem but the shirt is torn. I removed the emblem, cut the square from another area of the shirt, interfaced the cut piece and then sewed the emblem on the new interfaced square. If you interface the square first it stabilizes the fabric so that sewing the emblem will not stretch it out of shape.

Here's the repaired block.

and here are all of the blocks for Mitchell's quilt. A few of these were from woven shirts (the Boy Scout emblems and the Beach Luau). Those did not need to be interfaced.

I am making 2 of these memory quilts so I will cut the blocks for Cory's quilt next and then we will move on to step 3 where we will frame each of these.

Handwork Wednesday

I've decided that I am going to alternate working on ornaments and the stupid cat each month. I've got a few days of ornament play until the cat has to be awakened. This week I finished Gold Coast

and started Tiles of Lisbon