Thursday, December 17, 2009

Florida trip highlights

Loved the colorful quilt exhibit, Rooted in Tradition, Art Quilts from the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum at the Florida International Museum at St. Petersburg College and was inspired by a lecture by Pauline Salzman. We also got to see our snowbird friends, the Mandells enjoying retirement living. Great warm, sunny weather and an outdoor art fair in December were some of the highlights of our trip to the Tampa area.

The museum did not allow us to take pictures so, here is one of her wonderful quilts...
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/1271352562051038769gzoyyU

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Glass Block Lights



When we did our annual gift exchange at the American Sewing Guild, Marge So created a fantastic holiday decoration. She drilled a hole in a glass block and inserted a string of lights. She then added more embellishments. You can see the hole at the base that has the plug. We will enjoy it every year...What a clever idea!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Focus!


Focus!


Tore out text and pictures from a medical journal and glued them onto a canvas base with diluted gloss gel medium. Also glued on white on white fabrics and scribbled with water soluble wax pastels, then brushed with water to blend colors. Also glued embossed wallpaper and sponge brushed on an additional coat of gloss gel medium on top of everything and embellished with trims.

The fabric paper collage is for my husband, a Pathologist. It also combined Ellen Lindner’s collage technique and 2 challenges. One is for the Adventurous Quilters that challenged us to use paper in our work and another for the Fast Friday online group to use microscopic images.
Ellen Lindner’s collage technique http://www.bonniemccaffery.com/vidcasts/021.html

Caution: Discard gloss gel medium in a plastic bag, or outside so it won't dry in your plumbing.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Cyberhints

Liquid Thread can be purchased on-line. Put the Liquid Thread in the Gutta Applicator bottles with metal tips from the Dharma Trading Company, and add a small amount of water (about 1/4). Use the liquid in the applicator bottle to outline your applique, then heat set it with your iron onto a teflon ironing sheet or parchment paper. Cut out or trim the applique *after* it is heat set and the edges of the fabric are sealed (no fraying). Then use the applique as usual. The hand is soft as only the edges have glue on them. And the glue will permanently bond the two pieces of fabric together, so there is no need to use a Satin stitch. I use a straight stitch around the edge as part of the quilting process. This is a real time saver. I like it better than any of the purchased fusibles.

Good success using the children's washable crayola markers. The ones I have came in a box of 8 colors and they're the chubby ones for little hands. I made a sample and used all the colors. I ironed the sample, let it sit overnight and then tossed it into the washing machine. Every bit of color came out in the wash. I've read that the skinny markers don't work as well, but I haven't tried them. I used the orange marker to mark a quilt design all around the border of a quilt and it completely washed out.

Bathroom rugs : cut two old towels about an inch bigger than the size wanted. One is for backing and one is the “batting”. Find the center of both pieces and aligned a rectangle of quilting fabric in the middle (cut the towel pieces in rectangles). Take strips of precut fabric and do a stitch and flip log cabin until nearly to the edge of the mini quilt, trim the towelling and bind the edges. A quick & easy way to make bathroom mats as the quilting is done while adding the strips.

...If you take the rubberized shelving stuff and cut a piece not quite as big as your rug and lay it on the floor and then your rug on top of this it won't slip. Also when you need to wash the rug you don't necessarily have to wash the rubber

Closing needle holes : an old toothbrush. Or scotch tape Or the blunt edge of a wooden seam presser.

Fabrico paints and"Champagne Mist" ink : instead of painting it on, mix about 1 inch (less than an ounce) of alcohol with about 4 drops of the Fabrico ink in a spray mister. Shake them up and then spritz felt. It has very fine pieces of shimmer, but is not as overwhelming and using a glitter or angelina or something like gold lame. Any rubbing alcohol is fine, but the 91% dries faster. It has less water in it and it less likely to cause your spritzer bottle to get clogged up.When you are done, let the alcohol evaporate and let the project sit overnight. Then set the ink using an iron. All of the alcohol evaporates overnight.

..Silk paints, unlike acrylics are more like inks and don't make things stiff.

Non slip Ruler : Place a drop of clear nail polish, then sprinkle salt on the wet polish on each corner. Let it dry.

The Skin Quilt Project: the influence of the African American quilting tradition in encouraging an appreciation for African American cultural heritage. http://www.skinquiltproject.com/

http://www.artchixstudio.com/create/classroom/classroomindex.htm free classes

http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/felt/blfelt.htm

http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/gallery/index.htm

http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/howto/index.htm

http://video.pbs.org/video/1239798902

http://www.sewingmachinesplus.com/media/products/techniques/shirring-free-motion-elastic.pdf

http://www.laurabreitman.net/collage/archives.html

http://enchantedquilts.com/

http://www.sewing.org/html/charitysew.php

http://serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog/2008/02/04/free-non-binding-alternative-quilt-finishes/

http://www.quiltart.com/triple_play/works_tn.html

http://inchiequilts.com/2009/12/01/the-daily-inchie-20091201/

http://inchiequilts.com/tutorials/inchie-ornaments/

http://weefolk.wordpress.com/

http://cadouri-din-inima.blogspot.com/2009/11/fun-with-stripes.html

http://www.arizonaquiltershalloffame.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32

http://www.quiltindex.org/

http://www.jragels.com/zipper.html making bags using the glue method of installing a zipper.

http://www.nga.gov/podcasts/index.shtm

http://www.quiltstudy.org/connections/resources/podcasts_video.html

A TinyURL is great when a web address is really long and prone to break into 2 or 3 lines of text. Just copy (ctrl C) the address of the picture or website you want to send. Open a new window (new tab) and go to . Paste your copied address (ctrl V) into the box as directed...follow the directions....and you will be given a smaller link. Copy and paste the new link into your email.

.. An even easier method: put TinyUrl on your bookmark toolbar. (then when you want to make a TinyUrl, just click on your personalized toolbar button that says TinyUrl and one is automatically created. Then you can cut and paste the tinyurl into your email.)