My husband and I celebrate our wedding anniversary this month. We didn’t get married on the 14th and so we don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day, instead we celebrate later, the date that is special to us. The joke around here is that we can buy flowers and chocolates for each other on clearance!
I’m not a cutesy heart kind of person usually, but still I found several hearts in my work so I’m sharing some of them here.
Our first initials and a tiny heart. Hand embroidered.
The little ring around the neck on the altered jar below, was a piece of tatting one of my grandmothers made. This was a gift for my cousin who loves hearts.
Altered jar with many heartslid
I recently finished Three (grungy) Hearts below, but I’m still going to mount it onto a painted canvas for hanging. It’s just a little larger than a 8″ x 10″ canvas.
Quilled fabric
Free motion puffy hearts on silk
Kiss and Hugs Heart. Free motion and painted fabric.
The wrinkled fabric is painted shibori. Hand embroidered.
Glass mosaic picture frames.I think this would be fun to recreate in fabric.Starry Hearts, art quilt (61″ x 61″)Starry Hearts detail hand quiltingStarry Hearts back label.
If you like to color or know someone who does the below hearts “frame” can be printed out. Go to my website menu, click on “Pattern freebies” and find the PDF link. The designs would be fun to embroider too!
I make and sell MeAnndered fabric panels that can be finished in many ways. They are MeAnndered first on paper, then I laser print them on fabric.
Sometimes I print them on painted fabric…
Now the giveaway/sweepstakes…
These five little fabric hearts, all the same design, were the examples for some of the ways the fabric panel pieces (above) could be finished. After using them in a sales booth display I cut them apart and satin stitched around them. I’m sure there are many ways these little hearts could be used but I’ll leave that up to the one who ends up with them. See all three images below and the rules for entering.
They are top row – colored with marker, hand embroidered, and painted. lower row – Hand quilted and free motion quilted/thread play.
February 2 – 16 Giveaway/sweepstakes – Five little fabric hearts.
To enter: You must live in the US only (no international entries). One entry per person. Sweepstakes/giveaway begins February 2, 2022 and ends at 9pm (Pacific Time) February 14, 2022.
Leave a comment/reply on this blog post that you would like to be entered for a chance to win the five little fabric hearts and include your first and last name (or last initial).
On February 14, 2022 I’ll use a random drawer and announce the winner on my next blog post.
Winner will email me their mailing information and I will mail the five little fabric hearts ASAP. If I don’t hear from the winner within five days of drawing date, I will run another random draw. Good luck!
On my continued search through old photos I found several photos of projects that are quilt and fabric related. Again, I apologize for the photos, some of these are projects from twenty or more years ago… or long before the Internet as we now know it!
I didn’t worry about the projects being original back then, many were made before I had a fiber art business (or computer) and were only gifted to family. So I did use other designs and/or traditional patterns. If any of you have been crafting for ages, like me, you may remember making items like these. I know hot pads are an item being made by many traditional and beginner quilters these days still.
Raggedy Ann from a pattern.
The photo albums below were made over forty years ago. I’d forgotten I once knew how to crochet!
Baby photo album with crocheted detail
Baby photo album with embroidered detail
Machine satin stitched, appliqued sweatshirts – before I knew what applique was.
Hot pads (hand quilted)
More hot pads (hand quilted)
Table runner (hand quilted)
Quillows
Little quilt name tags (These were for sale).
I made this to go on a gift tote bag. There may be a pattern but at the time I just made it up.
This was an original design quilt in a hoop (a gift for a principal).
While my kids were in elementary school the joke was that I should have my own parking space because I was there so much, as a volunteer. Every year I made some type of “thank you,” end of year quilt for both of my kid’s teachers. At that time being there offered me the opportunity to place items for sale in the faculty workroom. I made a lot of tiny quilt pins, many from fussy-cut commercial fabrics but the ones I share here were all hand painted originals on fabric. I really loved making these little pins (I may have shown some on my blog in the past).
For spring
Valentines Day
Commissioned hummingbirds
The angel was made for a special friend.
As I went through the photos I started to remember many more projects I made but never took a photos of. I’m so glad photographing projects is easier now.
I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me, and if it has given you any crafty ideas, all the better!
First, in case you didn’t catch it, I had the date wrong for the Oct hummingbird notecard set giveaway. It will be announced next post, Oct. 27, rather than the 25th. I’ll still close entry on the 23rd.
In an early post about printing fabric on brown paper bags I shared a painted and embroidered pumpkin done on one of the background fabrics. Here is the demonstration video. It was a fun project, maybe it’s just this time of year, but I really enjoyed sitting and stitching by hand. Do you do hand needlework and if you do, is there a time of day, month, and/or year you are most in the mood for it?
After embroidering one big leaf I wasn’t happy with it so I ripped it out. I finished everything and left the leaves in an outline. It wasn’t working for me, so I had to decide outline, or embroider, or paint them. After a little consultation with my artist daughter, we decided painted leaves would go best with the painted pumpkins. I think we were right!
I remember telling my son I wanted to use his photographs in my art quilts but I didn’t mean printed on fabric; I meant the actually photograph. I know I’m not alone in wanting to use photographs in combination with fabric and fibers. In today’s post I share a few from other artists and I thank them for granting me permission to share their work here.
If there is a quilt maker in a family there’s a pretty good chance at least one memory quilt has been made that includes special photographs celebrating a person, a day, or an event.
Fellow quiltmaker Ruth O’Neil shared her bookshelf quilt top. It has a photograph printed on fabric of her brother along side her niece’s daughters and books with titles (all but one) from a her niece’s favorite author. The plant near the top has 3 dimensional leaves.
Ruth O’Neil artist
Ruth O’Neil artist
Ruth made the quilt below after a safari trip. I think the pattern and fabrics work really well with the photographs.
Ruth O’Neil artist
Ruth also shared this quilt. Her daughter gifted her fabric printed with these photographs and the blue batik. Ruth and her fur baby obviously are fans of this guy!
Ruth O’Neil artist
Susan Lenz is a prolific artist of unique work. Many of Susan’s pieces include vintage photographs or her own, some she digitally alters before they are printed on paper or fabric. To the printed photos she will add stitches and embellishments… sometimes framing them because Susan is also a professional framer. Susan always posts excellent stories and explanations about her artwork and her travels, if you haven’t already, I suggest checking out her website and blog, where the below images can be seen in greater detail.
Susan Lenz artist
Susan Lenz artist
Susan Lenz artist
Susan Lenz artist (detail of Palmer-Epard Log Cabin), see her blog for full image. Note all the hand stitches in the sky!
Joanna Mack aka The Snarky Quilter takes photographs that often capture textures, shadows, and light. She sometimes uses filters in photoshop software to alter her photos. Always learning as much as she can, Joanna explores and produces projects using a variety of techniques and methods.
I wish I could say that we collaborated but this piece is entirely hers. Joanna won a small, painted fabric landscape in one of my blog post giveaways. She started with a photograph she’d taken of a rusty textured (outdoor fireplace) barrel, altered it in Photoshop, had it printed on fabric, and later cut it into strips.
Joanna’s barrel printed on fabric
Ann’s painted fabric landscape (the grassy fabric is purchased).
She cut the landscape fabric too and stitched it to her barrel pieces and then, as she writes on her blog; “I quilted it to resemble chain link fencing covered with the stems of weeds. The edges are finished with paint and yarn.”
“A Cell With A View.” by Joanna Mack
I appreciate that Joanna has had some of her photographs printed on different types of fabric and shares her thoughts about each one on her blog. To read more about “A Cell With A View” and see her other projects and be inspired, visit her blog.
Petra Heidrich is a textile and mixed media artist in Germany. She embellishes vintage photographs, postcards, and sometimes paper, using thread and floss. Petra’s embroidery layer draws me in, andthen I look past it and notice the photograph. I think the embroidery stitches and photographs play and work very well together.
On her website, Petra writes – “I like to refer to embroidery as “painting with thread.”
Petra Heidrich artist
Petra Heidrich artist
Petra Heidrich artist
I recently rediscovered a box of postcards I’d gotten years ago from my parent’s estate. In the box I found a postcard that just called to be made into a photograph on fiber piece. I contacted the photographer, Bill Banaszewski, to ask for permission. So that he’d have some idea of what I had planned I attached two images from my Photograph on Fiber series. Not only did he give me permission to use his photograph but he also wrote that his wife is a quilter!
In my original Photograph on Fiber series pieces I mounted the photo under/onto plexiglass, I don’t use it anymore, otherwise the process is essentially the same. My landscape is mounted onto a acid-free board for hanging and for this piece I slightly edited a scanned and printed copy of the postcard’s back to use as the label.
Label on backboard.
Bill has been photographing New York’s Finger Lakes for years. To see his photographs and learn more go to Finger Lakes Images.
The photograph, in this piece a postcard, is mounted about 3/4″ (not quite 2 cm) above the art quilt.
“Finger Lakes” Photograph on Fiber, mixed media art quilt by Ann L Scott. Postcard photograph, by Bill Banaszewski.
“Finger Lakes” detail.
I hope the pieces in this post have inspired you as much as they have me.
I’m looking forward to sharing the photograph and fiber/fabric pieces, that other artists have given me permission to share, in an upcoming blog post. For now I’ll give you a little look in to the piece I’m working on for that blog post. I’m not going to show it with the photograph until the piece is finished.
After a good bit of time examining the photograph that will be a part of this piece I decided the direction I’d take my design.
I started by painting a sky using Jacquard Textile Colors (JTC).
After I ripped the fabric I realized it was too small for my frame and so I used pins to stretch it.
I painted a woodsy hillside using JTC and used NeoColor ll wax pastels for the lower half. I pulled off some silk threads from a piece of raw silk fabric to audition where I might add tree trunks. If this had been a collage without stitching I would have glued those silk threads using gel medium. I really liked how they looked.
A rough layout…
I embroidered knots. First I pulled threads from a piece of dupioni silk fabric because I wanted the simmer, shine, and the threads were thicker than the actually silk spools I have. Unfortunately, the knots weren’t looking good so I switched to regular floss. In the end, in the big picture, it isn’t really going to matter.
They hardly resemble a French Knots so I just call them knots.
More painting – this time a plastic edge tapped in JTC and pulled horizontally across the NeoColor area. After that I brushed a blue paint wash over that area to darken it. When it was dry it was still a bit light for what I was going for. At this point I have myself convinced that quilting it will make it right.
Pulled paint using sharp edge over NeoColor ll
I used the same sharp edge, (it was just a piece of plastic advertising that was a bit thinner than a credit card), to make the trunks. I was going to just quilt the trunks but was playing with the paint and couldn’t help myself. I think I will still quilt them or maybe not!
This was taken when it was wet, the lower area dried much lighter.
I always learn something when making any Photograph on Fiber piece, sometimes many things. They’re always a challenge but a fun one. We will see where this one takes me and what I learn.
A Reminder – Next post, June 16, I will announce the winners of the painted fabric.
In my continuing quest to find any art I may be able to do during my recovery I have discovered many limitations. While cutting out these small hexagons, first with scissors and then rotary cutter, I was pushing and moving in ways I shouldn’t have been. Oh, boy, did I suffer the following day. Lesson learned.
Anyway, this is what I made. Thanks to my funky embroidery hoop stand (made from a broken lamp, it has been a great stand and the price was right!), I was able to do a bit of embroidery on the (raw edge) hexagons to hold them. I would have liked to embroider around the all the edges but sadly I couldn’t. They’re far from perfect and fraying but I’m fine with that.
It can be sat on or placed on a table.
This picture is a bit key-stoned, the hexagons are the same size.
I used a glue stick to hold them in place, which didn’t work very well. I didn’t have applique glue and I knew I wouldn’t be able to embroider through fusible at this time.
I’ll be seeing if I can still paint fabric and let you know how that goes.
The giveaway… A box of colorful hexagon patches – at least 200. They are approximately 1.75 inches side to side, 2 inches point to point, and each side is 1 inch.
Entry and rules –
The Hexagon patches sweepstakes/giveaway begins Wednesday, March 10, 2021 and ends at 4pm (Pacific Time) on March 16, 2021.
To enter: You must live in the US only (no international entries). One entry per person. You must leave a comment on this blog post stating you’d like to win the Hexagon patches and include your first and last name (or last initial). Subscribe to my blog to get the notificationpost with the winner’s name.
On March 16, 2021 I’ll use a random drawer and announce the winner on my next blog post. Winner will email me their mailing information and I will mail the hexagon patches ASAP. If I don’t hear from the winner within five days of drawing date, I will run another random draw. Good luck!
Fiber art, sewing, quilting, stitching, mark-making, what have you especially enjoyed working on this year?
Hand stitching has been something that has brought me great comfort during 2020. Here are a few of the pieces I’ve finished… Well, the thread work is finished, most have yet to be mounted or framed.
I used solid white, painted, stenciled, and gel plate printed, some commercial fabric for the backgrounds, one even has fused petals. I also discovered that the fabric I love to paint and use for applique, which in the fabric used for most often for batiks, is not as easy to embroider through as a nice regular quilter’s cotton because of the fine thread and tight weave. Click on image to enlarge.
I appreciate you stopping by and I hope your wishes for the New Year come true.
I remember when I got rid of all of my embroidery paraphernalia; when I became a quilter! Before then, for years, I embroidered everything. Then a few years ago I discovered mark making with thread, more specifically, floss. So, off I went to buy all of those embroidery tools and materials, again. But now I approach embroidery differently, not so much flowery, cutesy stuff but more as another layer and bit of interest to add to mixed media works of art. Having said that, this is what I did this week while resting with the flu. It is on a piece of my hand painted pole wrapped cotton (faux Shibori).
Even if the subject is no longer my cup of tea, it was fun to draw and stitching it was really good for my motor skills which have been feeling clumsy lately.
I have been finishing up some deadline projects and that feels good. There is always a bit of stress that goes with that and I often swear I’m not going to get myself into that situation again. But then the mind starts going and the ideas start flowing and I’m at it again (my own worst enemy!) I love making art and I know that I’m lucky to be able to spend my days creating. Here are a couple pieces I share in my new course – How to Make a Photo on Fiber Mixed Media Art Quilt, at Curious.com. Here is a discount link if you are interested in my lessons and over 20,000 more on Curious.com.
Snow Bunny photo of bunny photo by J. Krefting
Garden Path photo and fiber by Ann
Garden Path is the main piece in my new course. From developing the design, to the fiber elements, to quilting the heck out of the borders, it was a fun project. I love growing a photo past the edges using fabric and fibers!
I often make landscapes but I think using a wedding or baby photograph would be great subjects to softly surround with fiber. Or maybe not so softly…I can imagine heavy metal too!
We walked on Coronado Island this morning. There were beautiful and colorful gardens and flowers everywhere. I love flowers even though Kona (aka the cat) will inevitably chew on any that arrive in our home, they still brighten my day.
From my sister
When I lecture I often talk about how there really is something for everyone in quilting and fiber art and I use these three fused flower pieces to demonstrate that in a small way…
Solid fabrics
Solid fabrics with wax pastel detailing
Printed fabric hand embroidered detail
So whether you are a solid fabric kind of person or one who likes colorful prints and embellishments, I hope you enjoy every minute of your creative life and share it with someone else… I’ll bet you’ll brighten their day too.
