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

New note cards

Periodically I get the urge to play with making some note cards. I like doing these because they are just fun. Note card blanks are cheap enough that if I mess up a few it's no big deal. It's all very loose and free.

Here are 3 of the latest designs.

This one was so simple! Remember the sheet of fabric that I made from the feedsack scraps? I used my Accuquilt Go! circle cutter to cut some circles and I stitched the to the cards. I liked these but kept thinking that I needed to add something. BUt I couldn't think of anything to add. Then I showed them to Estelle and she thought that they had a nice zen quality just as the are so I'm leaving them as is. 

This card started with the commercial print fabric. I had a big piece of it that was pre-fused. I used the scallop rotary blade to cut out the wonky rectangles and then stamped the owl and stars. I outlined the stars with a dark blue Sharpie marker.

This one started with a fused piece of hand dyed scrap fabric. Next I stamped the netting image using a distress ink pad. The leaf was stamped with a a large foam stamp and screen inks. I added some Pearl Ex powder to the screen ink to give it some shimmer. The last step was to outline the leaf with a brown Sharpie marker.

I'm looking forward to using these! I think they would make good gifts too.

Color Palette Challenge Project

The color palette for September is this rich palette based on a photo of a mineral pool in yellowstone National Park.

I first worked with this palette a few years ago and made these placemats from fabrics I dyed to match the palette.

There's a tutorial for them here. But I felt that using these as my challenge project would be cheating so I set out to create something new.

Coincidentally I needed some new notecards so I decided to use the palette and take care of both needs. I created 2 sets using different colors from the palette as the predominate color. I made a set of 4 in each of these designs.

Both cards started off with a scrap of hand dyed fabric fused to the card. For the gold card I sprayed the entire front of the card with a shimmery mist product that , unfortunately, spits our random blobs. But at least they shimmer! The card is finished off with a couple of stencils.

This card was more of a challenge for me. I really wanted to use that swirl stamp. It was in a new set of stamps that I bought recently. I started by adding the streaks of orange and yellow ink and then stamped over it with black ink. It REALLY needed something else and I kept wanting to stamp something in the upper right hand corner. As I was rummaging through my supplies I found some tubes of "liquid beads" that are meant for clothing. I added a bead over each of the dots in the stamp and that gave me the finishing touch that I needed. Unfortunately a couple of the beads got smashed but I'm still happy with the end result. It will be fine for a quick note.

Are you working with the color palette? There's still plenty of time in September to enter a project. On October first Judy Laquidara will post the next color palette on her blog and will have a link box for you to add your project. A name will be drawn from the entries to receive a fat quarter pack from my shop. It doesn't have to be a quilt, it can be any project!

Show and Tell Tote - Free Tutorial

A super-sized tote is useful for lots of things btu I designed this tote so that I could easily carry 2 or more quilts to my Guild meetings. The tote is about 24" wide and 20" tall. It is designed with 2 sets of handles so that you can carry it as a tote or as a shoulder bag. It's perfect for short people, like me, because it doesn't drag the ground with your arm fully extended.

It is fully lined and has one large pocket on the inside.

Of course you can make it special with your own artistic touches. A quilted bag would look great. For this bag I started with my Beach Walk gradient and added some stencil and screen print effects.

For this version I started with a color swatch fabric and added Accuquilt Go! appliques and buttons.

Get out your imagination and make your own Show and Tell Tote. You can download the PDF pattern here.

Hot off the press - another tote!

A few weeks ago I made a large tote for my Color Palette Challenge. I liked it so much that I decided that I would write a tutorial for it but first I needed to make another sample to work out a couple of design kinks. About the same time I remembered this fabric that my blog friend, Sally, sent to me. It's a color reference chart from Spoonflower. Originally I was just going to make the bag straight from the fabric but you know I could not leave well enough alone.

I cut out a bunch of shapes from pre-fused fabric using my Go! Cutter. I fused everything in place and then did a zig-zag stitch around every shape. I loved the way it looked but it didn't seem quite finished so I headed for the button cabinet and pulled lots of buttons. I tried to find buttons that matched the color swatches nearest each petal.  They are stitched on with matching embroidery floss.

This bag makes me very happy!

Here's the other side in pinks, purples and blues.  This bag is roomy enough to hold 2 or more large quilts. I think I will get a lot of use from it. I'll have a tutorial for it ready soon. I think I will call it the Show-And-Tell Tote since the original purpose was for taking my quilts to show at my guild meetings.

August Color Palette Project - A Quilter's Tote

When I do my color palette projects each month I try to use the color theme to make something that I need. Last month it was postcards. This month it's a quilter's tote. I have been wanting a very large tote bag that I could use to take my quilts to my guild meetings. I don't like any of the totes that I have because the straps are so long that the totes drag the floor. It's a common problem with the vertically challenged. I decided to use this month's challenge to design a tote that would fit me.

The challenge colors are blues, browns and reds.

I started with one of my favorite gradients, Beach Walk and then dyed some red fabric to go with. To tie the two fabrics together better I did a lot of stenciling and screen printing on both. I used a feather stencil as a not to the original color palette inspiration photo.

Then I built this bag. It's about 16" tall, 20" wide and 6" deep.

One side features the blue part of the gradient and the other side features the brown. But the best part is that there are 2 sets of handles. With the short handled I can carry the tote with my arm fully extended or I can use it as a shoulder bag with the long handles.

Best of all, it can hold 3 quilts!

It is fully lined (because I have a big stash of garment lining fabric) which makes sliding the quilts in and out very easy. I even added a big pocket for a notepad or other things that I take to my meetings.

I love the new bag and can't wait to start using it to carry show-and-tell to the meetings.  I think I will make a couple more of them.