Gingko Leaves

We're lucky enough to live in an area where we have lots of gingko trees, although they are not a native species. I've put a few into my copier, set the image to enlarge a few times and then did some line drawings of the leaves.

I cut the leaves out and arranged them into a design. Using my Give and Take Applique technique I traced that onto two pieces of fusible web.

I fused the web onto two pieces of dark fabric and cut out the leaf shapes. Then I had positive and a negative shapes. I've fused all the shapes onto light background squares.

I sewed the squares together and voila....a nifty little block.

I'll be teaching this technique in Nashville in August where students learn there are so many design options that are possible with Give and Take Applique!

Shattered Angles

This is a mockup of one of my latest quilts, the blocks aren't sewn together yet and I think I'd like to add some more to make it larger and perhaps a border.

You can make it with scraps, a fat quarter collection, coordinated colours or just about any thing. I've used bright hand dyes as well, here's a block you can see.

I'm calling the series Shattered Angles and its a great echnique that give a fun twist on piecing and a surprise every time. I'm also teaching it a lot, so if you are interested in where the classes might be, let me know.

Paisley Passion

Here's a quilt that has been done for a little while but I only thought to post a picture today. Its part of a Travelling Exhibit for The Association of Pacific Northwest Quilters (I'm on the Board of Directors) and will be auctioned off in August 2010 at their Quiltfest.

The Exhibit is entitled Living Colour and this quilt is one of about 40 others. If you'd like to see them all go to http://www.apnq.org/ and click on Travelling Exhibits.

Don't forget to set the dates August 8-10th 2008 aside and attend this years Quiltfest, I'll be there!

Fusing Fabric

This cute little sample is from a class I took last year while in England. the funny thing is, the class was near to where we were staying, that particular day we had nothing planned and I already had Margarets book. How easy was that?

Margaret Beal's class was Fusing Fabric and we played with sheer synthetic organzas and soldering irons. Its just taken me a while to take a picture of this and I think I'll mount and frame it for somewhere in the house.

Flour Resist

I've been playing around with different methods of past resists. I've tried corn and potato dextrin as well as other pastes and thickened agents. I've used fabric pretreated with soda ash and dyes thickened with sodium alginate. There are so many different ways of getting colour onto fabric.

Then I read Jane Dunnewold's article in issue 31 of the Quilting Arts magazine. It's so easy! Flour and water and paints. It couldn't be simpler.

Here's a quick result and I've got some more on the go. I'll keep you posted.

Marbling on Fabric

I just spent a great morning with a group of ladies teaching them the easiest method for placing colour on cloth. Traditional marbling uses

products like sodium alginate to hold the colour while a print is taken. The method we used replaced the sodium alginate with shaving foam! Way Cool! We used Dye-Na-Flow paints which only need to be heat set when dry and each student made at least 6-8 gorgeous pieces of fabric.

In the pictures you can see the work area set up and ready to go, with the shaving foam, paints and tools laid out. Then Christine is ready to with her paints moved around and ready for printing. Then finally a finished piece of fabric waiting for the iron.

Its easy to do with little clean up required and could be done easily with children.

Soy Wax Batik

I've been teaching batik for a few years but have recently discovered the joys of using soy wax. I buy the wax from Dharma Trading http://www.dharmatrading.com/ and love their quick service and wide selection of products.

Soy wax is a renewable resource, melts at a lower temperature that the traditional paraffin and beeswax mixture, produces no smoke and best of all--- washes out in the washing machine with no residue. Just use hot water and Synthrapol! Hurray! No waxing, no mess. I bought a couple of little deep fat fryers at the thrift store for my classes and they work a real treat.

The pictures here are the same fabric, just the front and back. I used a sale priced cotton with a subtle print and some pigment dots on it. They are barely visible now and I can't decide which side I prefer.

Comments?

Leftovers!

When I teach surface design and techniques I'm often left with many small samples from demonstrations I've done in the class. They have been piling up and staring at me, asking to be made into something.

I picked out a few, cut them up and sewed up a little quilt with a variety of techniques, including silkscreening, paintstiks, mono printing and stamping. It didn't take very long and now the little samples are happy to be together and hanging on the wall!