Thursday, February 18, 2010

Fractured Peacock Mosaic Quilt

This quilt was made for the Fast Friday Challenge group

Cricut fun at the AQ retreat



The Adventurous Quilters enjoyed a weekend of sewing at the Columbiere retreat in Clarkston.

I used the time to play with the Cricut and cut out many designs and learned of the many shapes it can cut instantly. It calculates how many to cut out in a variety of sizes needed and cut some very intricut designs.So now I have many "appliques" cut out for the Michigan Invitaional cahllenge, my next project. I can also see many possiblities for text in future quilt projects.

Maitland, Orlando, Fl highlights






Enjoyed the Florida Sunshine, Orlando's Celebration Community and the Maitland Art Center and surrounding lakes. We also got see Luz, a friend from our trip to Argentina and Chile who now lives in the area and experienced great Dominican hospitality.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Cyberhints

Cybersewing hints

Fixing pastels artquilts: Golden acrylic medium (gloss) diluted with a lot of water, so it is very thin: brush it gently over the pastel work and it "glues" the pastels in place. Much less stiff than the spray. Note: Matte medium dulls the color and leaves a cloudy film on dark colors, but the gloss medium does not do this and diluted as it is it does not leave a shiny finish either. Can also use the diluted medium over watercolor pencils and crayons to make them permanent on fabric.

Tsunieko inks: the white is quite opaque....You can use them with a liner paintbrush...great for Writing on black fabric as well. They give remarkable coverage and it is permanent when heat set

use WHITE tissue paper as the place to draw their quilting stencil.For repeats, stack the tissue and use the sewing machine with no thread in the needle to transfer the pattern to the stack. Tissue when just damp will come off the surface with a little effort. There are no marks put directly on the quilt.

Try felting beautiful printed chiffons and silks on canvas. You can scrunch the fabric or leave it fairly flat, the result is a type of watercolor

For piecing and dense quilting,try Presencia non lint threads.
Other great threads include WonderFil threads, the rayon and metallic that do not shred.... Superior threads ..Madeira black core.. The Cotton Mako 50 weight .. Aurifil

www.sciplus.com offers one of the more entertaining catalogs as well as
a fascinating variety of things to appeal to the creative art quilter.

http://designreviver.com/tutorials
http://artquiltreviews.wordpress.com/
http://www.londas-sewing.com/pages.php?pageid=120

crayon quilts-TIPS http://www.black-cat-creations.com/coloring.php
http://blogdelanine.blogspot.com/2009/04/mein-action.html stamp carving video
http://www.pioneerthinking.com/naturaldyes.html
http://www.prairiefibers.com/Dyeing%20Techniques.htm
http://www.beadandbuttonshow.com/bnbshow/default.aspx?c=a&id=296

an example of framed textiles using a floating matte presentation. The foam core, which is a half inch thick is recessed from the top matte about 2 inches in all the way around the perimeter. Sew velcro to the back of my piece and attach it to the corresponding velcro that is glued to the matte board.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kbaxterpackwood/4310891134/
http://madquilter.blogspot.com/2008/12/folding-bag-tutorial.html
http://www.tokyo-dome.co.jp/quilt/9/
http://eyesaflame.blogspot.com/2008/06/demo-flour-paste-batik.html
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/beginnerbasics/u/learnthebasics.htm
http://quiltspluscolor.blogspot.com/2010/02/marbling-fabric-easy-way-tutorial.html