Texture Journal Quilt

This is my penultimate journal quilt for this year. I'm making them for the challenge on the Contemporary Quilt Group and they set the size at 6 x 12". I choose to make mine horizontal and to dedicate each one to a different word. For November I selected TEXTURE as this is a word that has been used a lot to describe my textile art.

 I made the piece itself very textural by using a background of vintage laces which I then hand and machine quilter. The letters were cut out of a brown/gold fabric using the Brother Scan'nCut machine. They were machine appliquéd on by machine and using Bondaweb (WonderUnder in US speak). Vintage lace flowers were sewn on with a bead in the centre.

The final touches were vintage white buttons and size 11 seed beads on the letters itself as well as along the edges of the binding.

Fabric is My Life

The Documented Life Project 2015 has a new theme for May and it's one close to my heart: Touchy Feely (texture), and this week's Art Challenge: fabric,is even better! The Journal Prompt is: The Fabric of your Life. What a treat! I started with a piece of heavy duty watercolour paper, grabbed my box of vintage lace and started stitching them onto the paper. For once I remembered to take a picture.

Then I used a selection of Dylusions spray inks and added colour. The fabric rather soaks up the inks but the colour worked beautifully. I also scraped on some yellow and pink acrylic paint.

I was definitely in the mood for sparkle and added it in the shape of Stewart Gill Galatica Golden Orange Glitter. It looks very coppery and for once I managed to capture it on camera. The piece didn't need much more apart from the text. I used my label writer to add Fabric is My Life text and sewed it on.

Finally I made a discovery when I turned the page over and discovered that my sewing lines had acted as stencils when I sprayed on the inks and had provided an interesting pattern on the back. Something to tuck away as an idea for future use!

Vintage Lace ATCs

I'm hosting another swap on the ATCsforAll site, this time with the theme of Vintage Lace i.e. the cards have to contain some lace (either vintage or new, or can be drawn) and the cards have to give an overall vintage impression. And of course part of the fun is making my own cards for this swap.

I started by using some multi-coloured felt that I had made myself many moons ago. To this I added vintage lace strips and fabric images from a variety of Alpha Stamps collage sheets. I used a hand stitched buttonhole stitch to adhere them, using threads to colour in with my various images. I added a backing fabric (green and white) to which I had ironed Bondaweb (WonderUnder) and made sure I had enough to be able to fold the backing fabric over to the front to provide a border for the cards

I ironed and then stitched this down and added size 11 green seed beads as well. The final touch was the vintage text and the lace flower.

As per usual I made an extra one to keep myself. That's the one shown just above.