Showing posts with label paint. Show all posts

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Paper is a fibre too at Free Motion Mavericks

Hi! Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks, Week 392. The title of this post might indicate that I didn't get any free motion quilting (FMQ) done this week. It's the correct assumption to make. I guess that my overseas partner (Muv) and I have that in common - except that she's having a great time on holidays while I'm still in my studio 😊. I did however, play with paper and paint. Wow, what an adventure!

Making Accordion Books

I found another course/challenge to follow. I know....yet another one but I've been having so much fun 😍 Did you know that paper is a fibre? As a fibre artist, this is all part of learning to make and play....ok I'm really trying to justify my taking yet another course, but I've had a wonderful time making these accordion books.

Day 1 - Accordion book with 8 pockets

The 5-Day Accordion Books Challenge is organised by Vintage Page Designs through The Handmade Book Club (you will find the links in Related links below).

I had to go to my local art supplier to find the correct paper. I was a little nervous because I generally work with printing paper - so it was a new experience for me. The organisers gave us enough information that I was able to find the 2 sheets of 22" x 30" paper of the correct weight. I did buy 3 sheets of the paper and I'm glad since I have ideas on how to use these books...but more on that later 😊

Day 1 Accordion book with 8 pockets

Day 1 had us cutting all of the paper so that we would be ready for all of the challenges. I love working with this paper. It's a good weight but not too stiff. It's really perfect for these projects. We cut each sheet in four so we ended up with 8 strips of about 7½" x 22".

For our first book, we also cut up some paper for tags to put into the pockets.

For each day we have a series of short videos to watch. They are really well made and I found them very simple to watch and follow. The organisers also have a Facebook group for the challenge as well as Zoom calls twice a day to answer questions.

Tags or bookmarks in the pockets

Each day also includes a video from a guest artist who demonstrates techniques for decorating the accordion book. The guest artist for Day 1 was a collage artist, Kat Kirby. I will put all of the week's guest artists' links in Related links.

I don't remember the last time that I played with water colour paint. I picked up a set a while back but never used it. I also found some spray ink in my box of "paint supplies" that I never use. That's what I used for the front and back of the accordion book.

Book with pockets filled with tags

Back of the accordion book with 8 pockets

My husband was quite impressed with this accordion book. Since he's always running out of bookmarks, I'll make him one and included a couple of bookmarks with it. He said that he'll fill up the other pockets with the bookmarks he has.

Day 2 Accordion book with 4 panels and flap

I made this accordion book but haven't had time to embellish it. It has 4 pages, a flap and a closure.

Day 2, a 4 panel accordion book with flap

Here's how to close the flap

Accordion book ready to be embellished and used

Day 3 Layered Accordion Book

I made this accordion book but adjusted it to have more pages instead of an inside layer. The inside layer was like a band inside the book. It's pretty but I really want to be able to use these books.

Stitched fabric on the front of the book

I just had to add fabric to one of the books. I cut the fabric and then sewed it onto the paper using the walking foot that was still on my machine. I did increase the length of the thread so that it wouldn't just puncture the paper.

Instead of keeping the layer in, I cut the middle to make extra pages

The book also had a belly band to keep it closed. I stitched fabric to the outside of the band.

Accordion book with belly band

Here are the three accordion books posing in front of my Jag 😊

Three accordion books posing in front of the Jag!

Day 4 is a spinning accordion book while day 5 is a flag accordion book. Both look very intriguing. I'll have to write another post when I've made possibly embellished them.

What I learned

I can see how people who don't want to paint, could have fun using water colours. I just might try more of this one day.
I found that water colours are a lot like painting on fabric in that it doesn't really matter what you paint, you can always add stencils and stamps (or FMQ to fabric) to make it look good....and that's exactly what I did!
I love making these accordion books and I love it when they can actually be useful (to me or others!)
I had to re-attach the button on the accordion book with 8 pockets. Paper is not as strong as fabric so I ended up placing a piece of scrap fabric on both sides of the paper and then stitching the button through these scraps. It should be pretty secure now.
I have a few ideas for using these books. I was thinking that I could use two of them to illustrate or explain Stéphane's Version 2.0 quilt as well as Jeannine's Paddington quilt. I'm sure that I could play and make a variation of these with some pockets to hold things as well as space to draw or write. It would make a great souvenir of the making of their quilts. My mother made a book for the original Stéphane quilt and it's been really useful to the making of Version 2.0.

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks. If you didn't get any FMQ done, you're not the only one, so don't let that stop you from linking up to this party!

Last time Dawn, of Quilting by Dawn, showed us her Sweet Summer Strawberries Quilt. This is my favourite photo of the quilt. What a beauty. If you didn't see it last time, go check it out!

Sweet Summer Strawberries by Quilting by Dawn

It's now your turn.

Monday, June 08, 2020

More hand-stitching fun

As you may have read previously, I've been doing a lot of slower stitching - hand stitching, mediation stitching, embroidery and other fun stuff. I'm having a blast and learning so much.

Making a seashell container

I've enrolled in the TextileArtist.org Stitch Club. It's essentially the same concept as their original Stitch Challenge, but for a fee. After all that they have given to the stitching community this spring, I wanted to keep playing and learning as well as support their great initiative.

The first artist, at the end of May, was Debbie Lyddon. She makes very cool textile art. Since she lives near the sea, a lot of her imagery and techniques come from there. For example, she adds grommets to a lot of her work. These are hand done and are used a lot in sailing boats. Our assignment was to make three containers to hold something special to us or our environment.

I'm going to start with the second container that I made since it's much more like the work that Debbie showed us how to make.

Hand-stitched seashell container

I started by painting the fabric, a white on white cotton that came out really well. For this second container, I learned from the Q & A sessions at the end of the week that Debbie dilutes her acrylic paint quite a bit. I hadn't done that for the first piece and so the fabric was very stiff and a little difficult to sew by hand. The darker blue fabric pieces that have Sea and Shells written on them (with markers) are from the first batch of fabric. I could never have embroidered the words on there 😊

Seashell container with lots of embroidery

Other side of the seashell container

I embroidered the bag before I stitched it together. I love using the feather stitch when I don't have to be accurate and follow a line. This stitch is perfect for making sea weeds.

On this side, you can see that the grommets are smaller. I actually used half of a twist tie to make each of them. On the back of the fabric, I drew the circle around the twist tie. I then cut into the hole, leaving most of the fabric there and stitched very densely around the tie. I used a buttonhole wheel stitch to highlight the grommets. Inside of the small grommets, I stitched a small piece of netting - the stuff that comes from a bag of potatoes.

One the inside with the cheese
cloth covering the grommets

On the inside of the bag, with the
netting over the small grommets

For the side of the bag with the large grommets (top image), I used a whole twist tie for each grommet. I did it the same way as the small ones but removed some of the excess fabric from the middle. I then put a layer of blue hand-dyed cheese cloth over the holes - one dark and the other lighter blue.

A peak inside!

For the top of the container, I stitched down a long piece of wire (that I use for hanging frames). I had about ½" of fabric on the inside so I added a row of stem stitching right under the stitching for the wire and then about a ¼" from there, a row of chain stitch keeps the seam down on the inside.

A container to display an arrowhead

This container is used to display
rather than contain

This was the first container that I made. It was much more complicated than my second one since I wanted to use it to display rather than contain the arrowhead within it.

The prototype for the bottom of the container

I started by painting the fabrics and then made a prototype for the bottom of the container. Since it worked out, I ended up painting it instead of making another one. After that, I sewed three different fabrics together, the brown, green and blue and then stitched them into a tube. My fabric was stiff but not stiff enough to hold the arrowhead, so I inserted a roll of toilet paper inside to strengthen it.

Displaying the arrowhead on a shelf

The arrowhead comes from Northern Ontario. I found it near the swamp at the cottage where I spent all of my summers when growing up. This was probably part of the hunting territory of my husband's community. I only realised this as I was making this display container. On the outside, I used markers to draw the tree with deep roots, and birds. Around the top, I stitched on some beads and feather charms in the four directions.

Inside the container I added a stone from the area as well as cedar, sweet grass and sage. These are not the traditional things that you would put inside a pouch but I didn't have any tobacco. I made this container for my children, who are also part of this community.

What I learned

I am really enjoying learning about all of these techniques, but more importantly, I love expanding my knowledge and appreciation of textile art. Some of it can be pretty out there - and I may not be quite there yet, but I'm loving the journey.
The art that the other participants are making is sometimes quite intimidating. However, I'm not letting myself be too hard on my work - I haven't been doing this for very long and we all have our paths to work on. I make sure to save many of the work that I would like to learn from. Sometimes it's just a little detail that I might never have thought about but that's how we expand as artists and makers.
I used Perle Cotton size 8 for all of the stitching in these projects. I hadn't used it much previously and really love it.
The arrowhead container was quite difficult to make because I had no idea what I was doing!😊 I'm really happy with the way both of them came out.

Related links

Debbie Lyddon's website and blog
I use Sharon Boggon's website - Pintangle's Stitch dictionary for most of my stitches.

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. I hope that you'll join me to see what else is going on out there! Monday Making, What I Made Monday, Design Wall Monday, Colour & Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday Off the Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Beauties Pageant, Oh Scrap!, Favorite Finish - June 2020

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Catching up on World Quilting Travel Adventure

World Quilting Travel Adventure

with JoJo Hall

I have a lot of catching up for the World Quilting Travel Adventure with JoJo Hall. We are going on a wonderful world tour and making souvenirs from our destinations.

Souvenir from Oregon

Oregon, United States

Our first stop was in Oregon, where JoJo comes from. I made a smaller, more whimsical version of her landscape. Check out her original landscape, it's gorgeous!

Hawaii, United States

The second stop was Hawaii. It's certainly an attractive destination, especially with the -25 C weather we were having in Ottawa! In November I started making the plumeria flower that is on JoJo's headwrap. Of course, since I need to do my own thing, I'm incorporating the plumeria into an art quilt.

The beginning of the plumeria flower

JoJo warned us that the flower would not be impressive until it was painted and sewn. I have to admit that I was terrified of painting it. I'm sure that's why I waited until late December to attempt it - and that's just because my quilting space was such a mess that I didn't want to go near it.

I took the project to the kitchen table with my water colours and brushes (never been used) and played with the paint. I can't say that I had much fun - I was too intimidated, and I also can't say that I liked the results, but I gave myself the benefit of the doubt to wait until I had sewn it before judging it. As my son remarked, this project had better not be washed, or I'll be loosing my water paint!

I'm glad I waited. Turns out it was better than I expected! The paint and the FMQ really add to it. I didn't sew around the whole flower so that it also has a 3-D effect.

Plumeria flower after the water paint and FMQ

The genesis of this art quilt is a silk scarf that I bought in China. The scarf was very fragile and better suited to art than wearing. In my stash, I found peach and yellow fabrics as well as this amazing purple and orange fabric that my daughter brought back from Senegal, Africa. This is truly a multi-cultural project!

Working on this multi-cultural project

To make the background, I just sewed a few pieces of the fabrics together and then cut them up and sewed them back together again. I just love improvising like this.

Embroidered and beaded flower taken from the silk scarf

I cut out one of the flowers from the silk scarf, bunched up the silk around it and embroidered it down. I added many beads (until I'd had enough!) but as my daughter said - it looked like a colourful blob. To make it look like a flower, in colours that would stand out, I embroidered around the different parts of the flower.

You may have noticed the frilly bit on the right in the picture above. I wanted to add more of the silk scarf, to tie it in with the flower. I originally intended for it to drape on the right edge, then my daughter turned the piece around so that the scarf hangs off the bottom. What a difference 90 degrees makes!

Escape - almost done!

I've been hand quilting the orange and the yellow areas and adding beads to some of the colourful African fabric. I'll have to be careful to not over do it - it's so easy to get carried away.

Canada

The third stop on JoJo's World Quilting Travel Adventure is my homeland. I love Canada and I think that JoJo chose well with her souvenir - it's the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) made of hexies. I have to admit that before this project, I had no desire of doing any type of hexies! I have a UFO - an English Paper Piecing project started last summer made with triangles. It's really fun, relaxing and very, very addictive! This hexie project is even more fun because I didn't try to plan the project first. I just went into my scrap bag of batiks and cut out hexies from colours that might fit.That's my kind of project - jump in and adjust as I go!

Making many, many hexies

I won't say much more about this project except that it's a work in progress. If you're interested in doing hexies, JoJo has two really good tutorial for Basting Hexies and Joining Hexies. Please check them out!

Not sure how I'll be putting these together. Stay tuned!

What I've learned:

As usual, I'm not doing so well with following dates. That's also how I prefer to travel - without strict agendas and time tables, just an outline of possibilities!
JoJo has given me plenty of possibilities. I'm having a blast, and working very hard to not take it (or me) too seriously. This is a perfect opportunity for play,
I'm addicted to hexies (only really cool ones, but hexies none the less!) We'll see if this lasts when I try to join them!