Tag Archives: fuse

Flower Power

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.

flowers
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…

basic flower solid fabrics
Solid fabrics
flower solid fabric pastel
Solid fabrics with wax pastel detailing
flower embroidered
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.

Quilting Away

If you haven’t free-motion quilted or thread painted but wanted to, I encourage you to just jump in! I have had to get over a lot of hang ups because I came from the “hand quilting, perfect stitches, and needle turn applique” mindset. Working Playing with my Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen machine and thread has been some of the most fun I have had in my fiber art career. But this can be done on a home sewing machine too!
garden quilt update detail 06 09

garden quilt detail 06 9

I’m so fortunate that I get to do this and call it “work!” I’m about to quilt the sky on this commissioned piece, after yards and yards of thread and many hours of free-motion quilting the flowers and foliage. Here are a couple detail photos… The sky and most of the flower fabric were painted by me and the butterfly (and birds which don’t show in these photos) will be a lesson I hope to be giving on Curious.com/fiberdesignsbyann in the future.

Doggy play day!

Sometimes it is good to just create something for fun – no rules and no deadlines! So I grabbed a greeting card my daughter designed years ago and used it to make a pattern for a little art quilt. Today I’ll post the first three steps and when it is finished I’ll post it again.

I used a piece of my hand painted sky fabric for the background.

slobbery prior to stitching
Fused no stitching (At this stage it looks like a polar bear to me)

I draw outlines on a piece of Sulky Super Solvy water soluble stabilizer and used KK 2000 temp spray adhesive. Then I free motioned sketched stitch the details.

slobbery prior to pastel
Stitched before wax pastel

Then using Caran d’ Ache water-soluble wax pastels, a paint brush and water, I added some highlights and shadows. I think I may hit the eye reflection with a dot of white textile or acrylic for a bit more spark.

My daughter says it’s better than her original but I like it just as much!