Mixed Media Artist

Yay!  I have finished my woven dryer sheet quilt, and I am sooo happy with it!  Let me show you how I did the binding to finish it up. The top was quilted 1/2 inch in from each edge so that there would be a little free-edge all the way around.  The batting was cut larger all around than the top.  In this case, it is just 1 inch larger on each side.  The backing fabric is cut even larger than that, in this case 1 1/2 inch larger on each side than the batting.  This will allow you to flip the backing fabric to the front, wrapping over the batting and tucking under the edge of the top. Here in this shot above, you see one of the corners wrapped up and over at a 45 degree angle, so that the corner will be mitered when finished. I whip stitched the mitered corner into place and used a blanket stitch to finish off the edges of the binding.  As much as possible, I stitched this edging through all the layers, including the backing fabric. ...

I mentioned last week that I will do my next quilt slightly differently from this one.  The issue came about because I decided to add my batting before slicing up my quilt top, and the result was that the weaving step, shown above, was more bulky than I would have liked.  Not a huge big deal, but I'll do it in a different order next time: weave first and then add the weaving to a solid piece of batting and backing fabric for quilting. Using both a rotary cutter and scissors, I sliced up the quilt from top to bottom, leaving a 1/2 inch attachment at the edges. The cuts are wavy, and to keep them from slipping around, I pinned the layers together (dryer sheets, muslin base, batting). I cut strips of netting and wove them through the slits, alternating the ups and downs.  I left them loose on the ends and repinned as I worked. When the netting was all in place, I re-pinned the piece to some thin, soft flannel as a backin fabric.  I placed ...

I showed you this photo last week, as it was my initial inspiration shot for my current project.  But I wanted more detail in the glacier, so I turned to this shot: For my actual quilt design, I decided to cheat a bit.  Do you ever do that? I combined the detail of the second shot with the basic composition of the first.  This is just a rough idea of how it will look, with more pronounced jagged tops, but against a sky background (really cheating there!) and with the bay showing at the bottom.  This completely changes the proportions, but so what?  It's my fantasy! You'll notice that my drawing skills leave a lot to be desired, and that's just fine since most of my work is abstracted rather than strictly representational. Without cutting anything, I folded some of the dryer sheets to figure out the color placement and size of the finished piece.  Many of the colors are quite similar, but by layering them and using them like an impre...

To continue with my goal of using up and recycling supplies that I already have, I decided to experiment with dryer sheets.  I've been saving a stack of them for months (actually a LOT of months!), and it's probably past time to figure out a project for them.  But my desires are not simply because I am sooooo green.  Nope.  The decision was really based more upon the fact that the used sheets seem like a great way to capture the look of Alaskan snow and ice, and full-out glaciers! To get the ball rolling, I started with the acylic color sample I had previously made for myself and added a few more colors to it. And then I began painting, adding thinned washes of the various colors (almost, but not quite, all of them) to used up dryer sheets.  One color per sheet.  I used freezer paper to protect my surfaces. Here they all are, hanging to dry in my kitchen, with an ugly red drop cloth beneath them.  At least it makes them stand...

When I made my Alaska quilt a little while ago, I was disappointed to not be able to use any of the fabrics that I actually bought in Alaska!  There was possibly going to be another stumbling block, too, to using them in a different quilt...I don't like using very many identifiable prints in my work.  But these fabrics are all Alaska themes, so darn it, what to do? I finally settled on making a little lap quilt that would allow me to stitch it up quickly using my machine, which I rarely do in my art quilts, to feature the actual prints, and to basically finish the whole thing in one day! 1. I started by tearing strips of the fabrics to approximately 4 to 6 inches wide and the whole length of each fat quarter.  I arranged them, layering outward from a center strip and overlapping by about a 1/2 inch. 2.  I evened off the ends and pinned the strips in a few places to a piece of natural cotton batting.  I used 1 1/2 inch wide masking tape to measure...

I've chosen to try a different kind of binding for this quilt than I usually do.  I've seen it called a "wrap and tuck" binding, but it may have other names.  The gist of it is easy: the backing fabric is cut larger so that it can be wrapped to the front and tucked under the outer 1/2 inch of the top.  At the bottom of this post are links to the other parts of the tutorial in case you missed anything. It's hard to see in this picture, but I'm trimming the netting even with the quilted top.  Notice that the outer 1/2 inch of the top has not been quilted. Using the 1 1/2 inch masking tape as a guide, trim the batting to match. Still using the masking tape as a guide, trim the backing fabric 2 inches wider all around (3 1/2 inches wider than the top on all sides.  Fold the backing up and over the masking tape and iron to form a good crease.  Remove the masking tape. Tuck the backing underneath the free edge of the top and iron again....

The quilting is all going to be done with two strands of embroidery floss, through all four layers (backing, batting, top, and netting).  Sometimes there will be more than four layers, because the top pieces overlap at the seams.  Still, a good sharp needle and only two strands of floss should be no problem.  I usually start from the back and pull the knots through the backing fabric to hide them.  Because of the way I'm planning on framing the piece, all quilting must stay back 1/2 inch from the edge.  I added pins all around to remind myself of this. Simple spirals for the water I decided to stick with the somewhat abstract or stylized nature of the quilt when chosing how to quilt it.  Because so many pieces are overlapped, I knew I had to be very careful to not jump around too much, or I could end up with large wrinkles.  Many times with a quilt like this, I'll start in the middle and work outward in all directions, but this time, bec...

Time to start making some fabric choices.  When I show you the following pictures, it may seem like it was very easy - just follow the planogram from last week - but you'll have to trust me when I say it didn't work out quite that smoothly.  I had a lot of false starts and re-dos before I got it into the final form.  Even then, I needed to leave it alone for two days to be sure! I chose a large dark blue print of tree silhouettes and the moon for the backing fabric.  This was an important choice, because my plan was to fold this fabric to the front and create a frame for the quilt instead of my usual frameless binding.  I laid down a large piece of the backing fabric and a piece of batting, and then used masking tape on top of the batting just as I had on the table to block out the size of the finished quilt. The batting and backing fabric both needed to extend several inches beyond the masking tape border in order to create the frame at the end. ...