Hey, Valentine!

Ok, it may seem a little early to be thinking about Valentine’s Day, but I’m working on a few “sweet” things for the Etsy shop. I thought I would share a tutorial with you on a quick and easy way to make your own sweet fabric.

This is a somewhat messy project, so wear gloves if you don’t like paint on your hands. You may get a few smears and spots and drips on your fabric, but that’s the look I was going for. If you want a cleaner effect, try applying the paint with a stencil brush, or use screenprinting techniques.

You’ll need the following supplies:

1. a stencil (mine is a cheap, store-bought stencil)

2. tacky spray (make sure it’s temporary adhesive, NOT permanent)
3. white paint (I like the heavy-body paint in a tube, since it’s less likely to run under the edges of the stencil)

4. a squeegee or a plastic card (you know, a credit card or that ugly old driver’s license you sanded the numbers off of, or that newfangled, plastic room key you “forgot” to give back when you checked out of the hotel)
5. rubber or foam stamps
6. a foam brush or sponge

To get started, make sure your fabric is smooth; iron if necessary.
Spray the back of the stencil with adhesive and smooth it onto the fabric.

Run a bead of paint along the edge of your card, then scrape it across the stencil.

Reposition the stencil and repeat the previous step until you’re happy with the number of stencil prints on the fabric.

Apply paint to the stamps with a foam brush or sponge, and stamp the fabric randomly or with a pattern of your choice.

Keep going until you’re happy with your fabric.

Embellish your fabric even more with fabric pens, foil, fibers, and thread.

Oh, and don’t forget to use the leftover paint in your art journal.

or on your “serendipity fabric.”

Have fun! I’m off to use my “new” fabric in a project.

Addendum: It occurred to me in the middle of the night that people might wonder whether the heavy-bodied acrylic changes the hand of the fabric. The answer is, absolutely. But I don't really find this to be a problem. Unless I'm making a garment or bed-quilt, it doesn't really matter to me what the hand of the fabric is. I've never had a problem getting a machine needle through painted fabric--and I've stitched paint on canvas. Of course, if you're hand-quilting painted fabric, you'll definitely want to use fabric paints, which will likely be thinner. Just make sure you're stencil is adhered well to the fabric, or go for the "blurry-edged" look!

Scrappy Ornaments Tutorial

The other night, I was lying in bed and thinking about how to make a detachable fabric Christmas tree ornament that I could stick onto the front of greeting cards for family and friends. The next day, Pokey Bolton sent a link to a tutorial for making fabric trees to the quiltart list: http://quiltingarts.com/blogs/pokey/archive/2009/11/30/fabric-runts-become-holiday-fabric-cards.aspx

I was inspired to follow through with making my ornaments, so I’ve created my own tutorial here. These tree ornaments are made with four layers: backing fabric, acrylic felt, scraps of fabric, and tulle. In addition, I used a couple of layers of Misty Fuse, although any fusible web would work. Here are the steps:

1. Attach fusible web to one side of the acrylic felt (felt will melt, so make sure your iron is just hot enough to fuse the web onto the felt, and don’t the iron in one place for too long).

2. Attach fusible web to the wrong side of the backing fabric.

3. Lay the backing fabric right side down/fusible side up, then lay the felt, fusible side up, over that. Begin laying fabric scraps over the felt.

4. Apply a layer of fusible web over the scrap fabric, then lay a sheer fabric over the web and fuse.

Note: You should now have the following layers, from the bottom up: backing fabric, batting or acrylic felt, scrap fabric, and sheer fabric. It’s not necessary to include a layer of fusible web between each of these, but I do if I’m using a light brand, such as MistyFuse, just to keep everything from slipping.

5. Create your tree template. I drew 1/2 of a tree freehand on a piece of paper, folded the paper vertically, and cut both sides of the tree at the same time.

6. Trace the tree template onto your fabric sandwich. There are several ways to do this. I applied iron-on tear-away stabilizer to the backing fabric and traced the tree onto the stabilizer (I could have traced the tree directly onto the backing fabric, but mine was dark and I would have had a hard time seeing the tracing lines. I could have also traced the tree onto the front, but it’s hard to mark sheer fabric). Trace as many trees as will fit onto your fabric.

Alternatively, you could trace the trees onto freezer paper, cut them out, and iron them onto the fabric.

7. With the backing fabric facing UP (assuming you've ironed tear-away stabilizer to the back), stitch a single line of stitching around each traced tree shape. Make sure the bobbin thread will show up on the front of the fabric.

8. Tear or cut away the stabilizer.

9. Turn the fabric over so that it is now right-side up. Set your machine to a zig-zag or wide decorative stitch, and stitch over all your tree lines.

10. Cut the trees out close to the stitching line. You may either leave the edges raw, or zig-zag stitch around them again.

11. If you want to, punch a hole in the top of the tree and add a piece of ribbon for a hanger; or, decorate the top (or the whole tree!) with beads, buttons, charms, etc.

I’m going to add a hanger, and then use some temporary double-sided tape to attach mine to Christmas cards, which I’m sending out to my family. Soon. Any day now. Really.

Enjoy your tree-making!

Tutorial: Transferring Patterns to Fusible Fabric

I’ve been patiently working on my largest fused quilt to date: 36”x24”. This is a project for Susan Brittingham’s Flower Power class at QU. I seriously considered using freezer paper-appliqué for this quilt, but since I’ve never used that technique, I thought I would save it for a smaller starter project.

I’m a little further ahead with my fusible-piecing than this photo shows, but I’m saving that for the “big reveal”:

In the meantime, I wanted to share a really useful technique I learned from Laura Wasilowski for transferring patterns to Steam-a-Seam. This saves a lot of time, in that you don’t have to mirror-image or continually retrace pattern pieces.

You’ll need to estimate how much fabric you’ll need, since you’re adding the fusible in advance of cutting out the pieces.

1. Lay fabric face-down on ironing surface. Peel release paper from one side and lay Steam-a-Seam (I use S-a-s 2, which is lighter than the original version) fusible side down, paper side up, onto the fabric

2. Press with hot iron (no steam) for 5 seconds or so

3. Let the piece cool for a couple of minutes, then peel the release paper from the fabric. You should now have fabric face-down, sticky fusible face-up

4. Take the release paper you just peeled from the fabric, and lay it over your pattern. Trace a pattern piece onto the release paper with a Sharpie (you can also use a pencil, but my eyes appreciate the thick line of the Sharpie. I don’t know whether the black Sharpie will show through on lighter fabrics, however). Do NOT reverse or mirror-image the pattern. I trace all the pattern pieces for one color of fabric at the same time. Leave a little “cutting room” between each tracing on the release paper.

5. Take your release paper back to the ironing surface, and lay it face-down (Sharpie side down) onto the sticky fusible side of the fabric.

6. Press with a hot iron (no steam) for 5 seconds or so

7. Slowly peel back the release paper to make sure the Sharpie lines have transferred. If they haven’t, replace the release paper and continue to press with the hot iron.

8. You should now have the pattern pieces transferred to the back of your fusible-fabric. Whether you cut them out on the lines or leave a little extra “cutting room” will depend on whether the piece will be overlapped with another piece.

Let me know if something isn’t clear in this tutorial or if you have any questions. Have fun fusing!

Weekly Square #8

This week’s square started as a class project for Susan Brittingham’s “Flower Power” class at QU. Because the floral quilt we’re making will take several weeks, she gave us a quick fabric collage project to work on this week, if we wanted to.

Originally, this piece was 8x10”, but there was a lot of “empty” space around the flowers (although the fabric was beautiful), so I decided to cut it down to 6x6” and use it for this week’s square.

I think it will make a nice addition to my year-long quilt, and it does reflect the weather we’re having, the flowers that are in bloom all around the neighborhood, and my general feelings this week of happiness and well-being.

This square, as well as the quilt I’ll be making for Susan B’s class, are based on a photo that Melody Johnson gave me permission to use. I’ll be showing that photo later on, once I’ve finished the quilt.

Here are the basic steps I took to make this week’s square:

1. Colored white-on-white fabric with Tsukineko inks (I didn't get a pic of those, but here are some more I made at the same time)

1. Free-form cut the flowers from the inked fabric
2. Cut leaf and stem from hand-dyed fabric
3. Attached flowers, leaf, and stem to background fabric with a dab of glue stick

1. Free-motion stitched around flowers, leaf, and stem with invisible thread
2. Free-motion stitched white highlights on the edges and in the centers of the flowers

1. Free-motion stitched veins on the flowers
2. Free-motion stitched the pink centers
3. Fused white dots on and edged them with Micron pink and green pens (not sure what these are—the little seed-like things in the center of the flower)
4. Fused border on and free-motion stitched it with invisible thread.

Earth Day ATCs

I’ve signed up for the Earth Day ATC swap through a Yahoo list I’m on, and even though the ATCs aren’t due until the end of this month, I wanted to get them finished and mailed off.

• I started these by fusing scraps of the transformed ugly fabric (see the last post) to a black background.
• I sprinkled this with Bo-Nash powder, heated it, and rubbed a blue-green foil onto it.
• I laid an interesting piece of sheer fabric over that (that’s the blue, green, and purple fabric you see); it’s more sheer in some places than in others. I have no idea what it is, since I got it from the clearance bin at Jo Ann’s. Then I stitched it down with black cotton thread.
• I burned away the sheer part of the fabric with a wood-burning tool.
• I stitched painted Tyvek over the fabric and a layer of batting, then ironed it (with a piece of parchment paper on top, of course) until the Tyvek shriveled and melted.
• I sewed beads and broken shells on.
• I added hand-dyed fabric to the back and free-motion satin-stitched around the edge (I wanted a little “rougher” feel to the satin stitching to match the card, which is why I dropped the feed dogs. I actually liked this better than satin-stitching with the feed dogs up!).

Here are close-ups of each of the cards:

I think these ATCs are particularly appropriate for "Earth Day," since they remind me of Earth's strata (and the beads represent the gems and minerals found in the various layers).

As usual, my sweetie claimed one, and the other three will go to the swap (I need to remember to always make TWO extra now: one for her, one for me!).