Category Archives: Fabric

Decisions and Change

I want to thank you for reading my blog, I truly have appreciated your support and comments.
I have always felt very fortunate to be able to spend my days making art, recently though I haven’t had blocks of time to really make the art that is most fulfilling to me. So I have to make some changes.

I’ve decided to suspend posting on my blog for now. My website will still be up, but I will be posting my art on Instagram and on my YouTube channel (tap the bell on YouTube to get notifications). I’m also working to get my Etsy shop open in hopes of finding new homes for some of my art.

If we aren’t already connected on Instagram and/or your own blog, please let me know so I can follow you and see what quilting and art you’ve been up to. I’m not on Facebook.

Below is my short video showing how I painted the background photo paper print painted fabric for the fish piece. I’m still thinking about how I will finish it, I’ll post to IG when it is finished. The fabric on photo printer paper technique was fun, and as long as I have the paper I will continue to explore ways to use it.

Take good care and make something that makes you happy every chance you get!


Easy Additions

In the past when I presented live lectures to quilt guilds, one of the talks was about making the quilt more our own. We often use one main fabric to help select the other fabrics in a quilt, this is a twist on that. During my recovery ironing is not happening so please excuse any wrinkles.

Here are some examples of commercial fabrics with easy additions.

Above is a pretty floral fabric and nice black on white. With the addition of a stamp the black/white becomes a coordinating fabric and there’s more to quilt around.

The stamp was made by cutting thin craft foam into leaf shapes and gluing them onto scraps of Lauan (Sometimes I use Masonite and even cut-up sturdy box cardboard for stamp base and handle). Then I scored down the center of the leaves for added interest. Next I placed the fabric on a slightly cushy surface. Using a makeup type sponge, I applied craft acrylic paint onto the leaves, then stamped the leaves onto the fabric.

Another floral fabric needed something more vibrant so I used my Sharpie Stained markers. So simple and fun. Notice on the right side, even the addition of just a few orange dots make this fabric more lively.

Sometimes the fabric combinations are unexpected.

Jacquard Textile Color in apple green and a paint brush made specifically for applying paint to fabric.

Here the gingham inspired the squares for the stamp which was made using a thick craft foam. The paint is Jacquard Textile Color in Fluorescent Yellow.

Another floral fabric and a three leaf stamp.

Another floral fabric and a three leaf stamp on gingham.

Below, this beautiful jewel tone design on black fabric has so much potential, both with coordinating and customizing. The blue coordinating fabric inspired this next stamp and I love the look on the polka-dot fabric.

  • Again, the stamp is made from craft foam.

The last and simplest idea… To softens the dark/jewel tone fabric I pulled in a cream floral and used craft acrylic paint and a new flat pencil eraser.

The orange dots added just enough kick of color to make the subtle fabric work better with the darker.

Hard to tell here but the color of the cream fabric actually is in the dark fabric.

As I revisit these pieces it really gets my creative juices flowing. I hope these examples sparked some ideas in you.

More Fabric Fun

Now that I have discovered typing single handed (for me) is slower that slow, I’m going to make this as short as possible. The fabric pieces I’m sharing here were done with one hand, I do believe with two functioning hands I would have gotten better results. Some times it’s just more about having fun!

As usual, the pieces may look different on each of our screens and in person. In keeping with my previous posts I made three additional Neocolor wax pastel exploration pieces. The purple piece is created the same way the gray wrinkled piece was. See the captions for some of what I did for each piece. Photos on the right are the dry and pressed flat pieces.

  • wrinkled
  • pressed dry (still a favorite!)
  • Rubbed pastel onto the plexi, into a flower shape with leaves and twisted at center points
  • This for sure would have been better twisted with two hands.

For the above – I colored plexi with blue wax pastel and then orange cross-hatch, laid wet fabric on top, gently smoothed, and left flat to dry. I was going for a plaid look but my daughter says it looks like reflections in the water – I agree and really like this finish.

For the landscape i drew a simple landscape on plexi and laid wet fabric on top, smoothing with my hand until all pastel met with the fabric. Pulled the bottom of the fabric to make some ripples and pulled some down from the top for clouds.

If you color any fabric with Neocolor II wax pastels, I’d love to hear/read about and see your artwork.