Art Quilt Practice Pieces

After last week's whirlwind (a guild quilt show and the Art with Fabric blog hop) I didn't think I'd want to quilt for a few weeks. Well, I stayed away from my quilting for 3 whole days! However, the two little projects I made were pressure-free playing using new techniques or materials.

So far, I've participated in 3 of the Colour Me Positive 2016 Weekly Journal Challenge, by creating mini art quilts that are mostly words with free motion quilting (FMQ). I love seeing everyone's art work on the dedicated Facebook page. The pieces are fun and use all types of art journalling techniques. I didn't even know that this existed until joining them!

Week 18 of the Colour Me Positive Challenge - Healing Art (13" x 7.5")

Since I'm also using words in these quilts, I'm now learning to write again with Joanne Sharpe's Whimsical Writing books and videos. Between all of these resources, I've learned about all kinds of neat writing, drawing and art products that are easily adapted to fabric. That's why I couldn't wait to start playing with stamps, markers and stencils.

Week 18 - Healing Art

Details of the tree - coloured and thread painted

I started this piece using the tree stencil and then went a little nuts with some of my daughter's stamps.

I took out my permanent markers and coloured the tree and outlined some of the butterflies and flowers. Since the green of the tree was too intense, I toned it down with some thread painting in browns and darker green.

I then added the "Healing Art" using some cool grungy alphabet stamps. The letters didn't stand out enough so I experimented with my new markers and played around with a colourless blender. Wow! I love the effect it has on the letters - I even used them on the tops of the tulips. It makes them look like water colours. I then added metallic thread through the bobbin and did a little bit of FMQ

As with all of my art, the hardest part is knowing when to stop. I looked at the piece from the perspective of the art theory I've been learning.
Does the piece have:

• a focus point; 
• contrast; 
• balance; and 
• flow?

I think that the answer is yes. However, since the techniques used on this piece include FMQ, stencils, markers and stamps, I though that I should add appliqué to the mix. That's when I dug into my scrap stash and found two cools cats! Nothing says mellow like cats hanging around :-)

Week 9 - Live like a grownup, play like a child

At the quilt show last weekend, my daughter bought me a couple of hand dyed cheese cloth by local fibre artist Linda Palaisy.

Fantaisie 2 -my creation for Week 9 (6.5" x  9")

The colours were so lovely I could just taste them! I couldn't wait to try making something fun and whimsical, so here it is - Fantaisie 2, a fibre collage.

I attached the cheese cloth to a blue cotton to lighten it up. In my stash I found three different fabrics - the hollyhock, the faeries and half meter of fabric that had butterflies, hummingbirds and these great borders.

Fantaisie 2 - close up

I attached the fabric using thread painting. It was flimsy and difficult to sew, so I used a minimum of stitching and then quilted it. Since it's just a fun little piece, I decided to leave the borders as is, without binding. I was hoping to use the same technique I had used for Woven Landscape  - to just fold the backing between the batting and the borders, but it didn't work out. Those are the drawbacks to just forging ahead without planning!

What I learned:

• I should stop when I'm tired - that's when challenges happen.
• Challenges are not important when playing. Fix it, or just move on :-)
• To colour or write on cloth, just iron the cloth to freezer paper to make it more stable.
• The Fantaisie 2 piece is dark, but I think that the borders lighten it up and give it contrast.
• I love the look that the cheese cloth adds to the piece.
• In case you're wondering, yes, week 9 should come before week 18, but we're encouraged to add our pieces whenever they're ready. 

I will be linking up to the following parties - check them out!
Oh Scrap!  Let's Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, Free Motion Mavericks, Off the Wall Friday, and Freemotion by the River

Learning to write - again

Colour Me Positive Challenge

Like most of you, I've been writing since I was 5 or 6 years old. At different stages of my life, what I wrote and why I wrote has changed. At first, I wrote mostly for school - homework, math, essays, posters and stories. As a mom, I wrote lists of things to do and buy, notes for sick or late kids and the occasional letter or card to family. Since working on a computer, I only write when I'm at meetings or when I have no idea what I'm doing - then I'll take out a pencil and a pad of paper and write until I have some sense of what I should do, or at least what I should ask. It's my personal brainstorming session.

Week 6 of Colour Me Positive

My penmanship has never been great, but not as bad as some. I've never had a reason to worry about it until I started making art. As I participate in the Colour Me Positive Journal Challenge, it's become obvious that if I want to use words in my free motion quilting (FMQ), then I had better learn to write - again!

These first couple of efforts weren't too bad. The large writing in my "kindness to all always" pieced was fine, but the words on the fingers needed a little help, especially since I misspelled Smiling (I've always had problems with cursive "n" and "m").

Week 3 of Colour Me Positive

In the "be here now" piece, the link between the letters isn't great, particularly between the "o" and "w" in "now". Since I was mostly practicing my FMQ stitches, I wasn't paying much attention to the letters.

Then came my latest piece for week 14. From the start, the letters were a problem - and there's only one word and four letters!!!

"Once you choose hope, anything can happen" Week 14 of Colour Me Positive

There are a couple of reasons for the problem. The first is that I didn't plan my project. I'm a "jump right in" kind of gal and that's what I did. I made my quilt sandwich, threaded the sewing machine with maroon thread and started outlining the letters.

I really could have removed the letters' stitching and started over, but where's the fun in that! I love fixing things and adapting - and that's what I did. (ok, the sorry truth is that I always hope that it won't be that bad and I'll be able to ignore it!)

So of course, at first I ignored the letters and did some pretty nice FMQ around them. That was fun. Then came the challenge and fixing part. What was I going to do with those letters outlined in maroon?

I decided to hide the sewing by covering the letters with organza and then beading around them. It sure would have been quicker to have removed the thread at the beginning of the project and have started over :-) Placing a few beads here and there is fun. Outlining the word HOPE was painful. I'm just not that patient. After doing one letter, I get in the "Been there, done that" mode. I was SO happy when I finished the outlines.

Title page of my lettering journal

Back to my original thought. This work made it pretty obvious that I needed to learn to write - again. Since looking at everyone's amazing creations on the Facebook page of Colour Me Positive, I've become very impressed with the writing in their art. So how can I do that? Many participants have mentioned Joanne Sharpe, whimsical art maker extraordinaire. I have seen her book and was tempted, but what convinced me was her free video series that goes with the book.

I'm not quite ready to translate my letters to a quilt yet, but it won't be long. I also get to practice my lettering and FMQ every time I have access to a paper and pen. How cool is that?

Applying the Pencil Sketch Technique

Here are a couple of my practice pages. This first one is the pencil sketch technique from her book. I used it to write her mantra - "Play, practice, write, repeat." Replace the word "write" with the word "quilt" or "FMQ" and the saying now applies to quilting.

I found this quote by Ray Bradbury in the book Quilt of Belonging: The Invitation Project by Esther Bryan and Friends. It describes courage, hope and/or faith so well - you still experience fear but you know that you can walk or jump off the cliff and your wings will support you.

I'll be writing about the Quilt of Belonging project after I visit it with my daughter, between June 9-12, in Kingston, Ontario.

What I learned:

• A little planning when using words in a quilt is not an option - it's necessary. I really hope I remember this!
• Beading is fun in moderation.
• Learning from artists in other disciplines is great. It can all be relevant to quilting. It's a great way to broaden my horizons and learn all kinds of new things.
• My new lettering journal will also be used for free motion quilting designs and for creating writing exercises. What a wonderful journey.

Hope you keep learning and passing it on.

More FMQ Practice

Still flitting like a butterfly

Here I am, flitting again! Oh well, there could be worse things than flying around from project to project like a butterfly.

I've discovered a great way to practice my free motion quilting (FMQ) while doing something creative and fun. What more can a quilting gal ask for?

It's a weekly Journal Challenge called Colour Me Positive, sponsored by Lulu Art store in Australia. It's mostly for artists who create art in their art journals, but any medium is welcome.

Every week they have a positive theme or quote to encourage creativity and art. Just my kind of positive, loving space. The weekly post includes the latest weekly prompt as well as a link to ideas and examples of art and techniques related to it. It really is lovely and wonderful.

Week 3 of Colour Me Positive

All participants are encouraged to post a picture of their work, and write a few words on Facebook. There is absolutely no stress about participating every week. If your art work is ready by the end of the week, you post it and are included in a draw. Otherwise, everyone is encouraged to post whenever they are ready. The participants are very encouraging in their comments and "likes".

This was my first post for Week 3. The prompt was: “Make today so awesome that yesterday gets jealous.” For me, this means that if I want to make today awesome, then I have to be present. I have to enjoy each moment of today, because there is only today. I remind myself to do this with the statement "Be here now".

FMQ the sun

It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to interpret this. I chose the sun because it symbolizes life (and I can draw it!) For the writing, I used stencils, outlined the letters with thicker thread and then FMQ inside of them with finer thread.

I drew the sun's outline with iron-off marker and then quilted feathers within the sun shape and its rays. This gave me an outline to follow but left space between the sun and the rays. I like the open look of it.

After I added the wording, I didn't know if I should leave it as is, or keep FMQ. You may notice in the right hand corner, the word "Today". I was thinking of including some key words, but I didn't really like the look of it. That's why it's just there, not connected to anything.

As you can see, I decided to stitch close lines in the background (they are called match sticks). To make sure I didn't get totally off track, I drew the odd line with a ruler with my iron-off marker.

My latest creation is for Week 6. It's based on a quote by His Holiness the Dali Lama, "Be kind wherever possible. It is always possible.” I wasn't going to write all that, so as you see I abbreviated it!

Week 6 - Colour Me Positive (11 ½" x  9 ¼")

Since kindness includes many concepts, I used the outline of my hand (I can trace that!). I also wanted to include a representative from the plant, animal and people world - since kindness extends to all. I am very partial to the Buddhist concept of "Do no harm" - which for me can be translated into kindness to all.

Drawing the flower

I drew the bird from an image and created the heart-shaped flower. Here is a picture that I drew of the flower, before quilting it. I had a template of people that I outlined and quilted around.

The background quilting is made up of small swirls. I tried to use muted colours to go with the pink. That wasn't an easy thing for me to do!

What I learned:

• Writing on fabric using FMQ is not easy, and there's no spell check. Oops!
• I used one of my previous lessons learned by applying painter's tape around the project so that I would know where to stop quilting. It worked out well, but I need to be a little more accurate in the placing of the tape.
• It's taking me about 2 weeks to create one of these. The hardest part is figuring out what to draw and the most tedious part is finishing it off (binding etc.)
• I'm hoping to use more than free motion quilting in my next one. Will it be appliqué, beading, or paint? I don't know yet - it'll depend on which week I decide to interpret. I really want these fun pieces to help me learn, try and practice new things.

I've linked these to awesome linky parties: Free Motion Mavericks, Needle and Thread Thursday, Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Fabric Tuesday