Tag Archives: mini landscape

Altered Book Landscape

If you have any interest in assemblage and mixed media art or just want to enjoy something a bit different from fabric and quilt making, I recommend Ina’s Art Room on YouTube. She makes wonderful works of art, usually using surprising elements (sometimes fabric). Ina also invites subscribers and visitors to participate in her 4 Core Challenges. I’ve participated in the past and it’s fun! Ina posts her videos on Fridays.

Ina’s January 2022 #4core challenge was to use a book as the substrate and include texture, metal, and give the piece a “winter vibe.” After the deadline she posts a video showing everyone’s finished projects. The January challenge video should be posted on her channel in early February.

I decided to participate again and here is my piece; a candle backdrop featuring a fabric landscape.

I have made the inside of the book the new “front.” The votive is covered in fabric coils and has a flameless tealight.
The cover is now the “back.”

I bought the used book at the local library. The original hardcover was red and had some globs of glue under the paper part of the cover… so I scraped and tried to cover it with snowflakes. I tried a few different things to add texture to the snowflakes but in the end just painted them with a pearl white acrylic paint.

Here are few photos of the process.

First painted gesso over the red book cover and then acrylic.
Added splatters for flying snow.

I had the painted sky fabric in my stash, the white/gray fabrics are commercial, and the foreground snow is thin white batting. The fence is cut-up (used) craft sticks (tongue depressor size) that I painted, and the wire is just coated wire. I added a few little frays of silk fabric for the grass. The “snow” on the fence and wire is sawdust (for texture) mixed with gesso and some acrylic paint.

It was fun to quickly stitch up a very simple, little fabric landscape for this project.

Auditioning before the fabrics were fuse and quilted.

The fluffy border is a beautiful soft yarn and I think it worked perfectly!

The things I love about Ina’s challenges – She encourages artists to really make it their own, she offers loads of ideas, and there’s no pressure (though there is a finish-by date). I enjoyed every minute of making this project… well, all but the waiting time for materials to dry!

Winner! Thank you to those of you who entered the appliqued miniature landscape top sweepstakes/giveaway. Congratulations to the winner – Deborah F (Please email your mailing information to me at fiberdesignsbyann@gmail.com).

2022 – Many unfinished pieces have been weighing on me for far too long, so I’m going to work on actually finishing as many pieces as I can this year. I hope you’ll come by to see what I’ve done, maybe get more ideas and be inspired. There will probably be a few giveaways along the way.

Stay safe and make art that makes you happy.

Changing Ways

I laugh when I think back to the days when I would only work on one project at a time, start to finish, and they were usually pretty big size (quilt) projects. Now I’m usually working on at least three projects at a time. Maybe it’s because I’m older and there are so many things I still want to try.

I was hoping to have this one finished but some days just don’t go as planned, I’m guessing you know what I’m talking about.

This is the mini landscape in a leaf that I designed a while ago. The sky and water are my hand painted fabric, the other pieces are commercial fabrics. Below are some of the process steps. As I worked on this I thought about how I would be so much more comfortable doing all of it by hand – the applique, even the quilting. I have always felt happier, more in control, doing hand applique and quilting. All of my early miniature landscape were made by hand, and ti’s the way I have taught mini fabric landscapes to students. But now that changes day to day and I’ve had to change my ways; raw edge fusing, machine quilting and sewing have allow me a better chance of getting projects done in my lifetime!

To begin – The little landscape pieces were positioned on Wonder Under, pressed and the leaf cut out. Usually I would remove the paper and then cut it out but in this case it was easier for me to cut it out with the backing paper still on the back.

I measured and cut freezer paper about the size of the finished quilt and pressed it onto the black background fabric. Next I positioned and held a cardstock leaf pattern on the freezer paper and drew around it, then I extended the landscape lines out from the edge of the leaf. I numbered them from furthest back to the most foreground piece.

I cut them apart and removed the pattern and freezer paper. Next I pressed/fused the leaf in place on the the background fabric. and ironed the freezer paper pieces in order, back in place (like a puzzle), leaving a little gap; a bit of trimming was required so there would be a gap. BTW – This could be the makings for “stained glass” style quilt too.

Then I used a Chaco liner and drew in the gaps. I drew quilting lines for the sky, and then wiped them away, and tried a few more times until I found a design I liked.

Here the leaf, sky, and landscape extension lines have all been quilted – blue thread for the sky and a gray for the landscape. I started to close quilt using color thread within the extension sections, out from the landscape elements and sky, but it was not a good day for that…

Early on I knew it wasn’t a good day for me to be quilting. But instead of quitting for the day like I should have, I ripped out colored thread quilting and grabbed black thread. I’m thinking about dry brush painting some of the outside edges of the black quilting. I’ll have to think on that after I finish all of the black quilting… we’ll see!

Reminder – Next post I’ll be announcing the Leaf Decorated Box winner.

As winter and the holiday seasons approach I hope you will be safe and find some time just for you.