Velvet Night Garden

Finished my velvet piece in time to show at our Tote & Gloat show tomorrow. Click on any photo to see more details.
Have a look at how this project started here, then I added foils here, so began the next stage with this

Since last time I have just added some black misty fuse with a few wee stars and bronze glitter to add to the night sky feel.

Next step was to audition different colours of organza overlays. Amazing what different looks they give to the piece.

Bronze

Silver

Cerise Pink

Black

Lime Green

Comparing silver and black

I think Angie often uses black, but my choice was the silver in the end - I like the sparkle...and so to stitch.

I stitched with metallic threads mainly in the bobbin. If you outline quilt in black first from the top, you can easily see where you are going from the back. Of course there is still an element of surprise when you turn it over.

Last step was to trim the organza away from the background. This the finished piece before being framed.

Hope you have a fun weekend.

Workshop Thursday

Yesterday I pulled out this velvet and bleach base which I started last year a la Angie Hughes (go here to see how I did it)

I gathered foils - Jones Tones and chocolate foil wrappers - as well as some lovely fine glitter

Got myself reinspired by looking at Angie's galleries of some of her gorgeous velvet garden pieces and then did some fusing and foiling on my piece.

More to follow soon I hope.

Velvet & Bleach

I love Angie Hughes' work - you may remember that so far I have made a bookwrap and a foiled velvet bag using her techniques. Yesterday 3 of us had a play day and tried out something new following instructions on this dvd (lovely selection of DVDs available from Minerva).

Have a peek at the contents on the YouTube preview
As with much of Angie's work, there are a variety of layers built up. Because of the limited time we had available, Katherine kindly did steps 1 and 2 for us a day before. This is my piece sprayed with silk paints

followed by quink ink

This technique works well with wooden printing blocks - we pooled our resources and had a lovely lot to use.

Then we went about the business of applying bleach gel to the printing blocks

and pressing them onto the coloured velvet.

You can see in the above photo that found objects like lego and bobbled coffee cup holders joined the wooden blocks for mark making with bleach :-)
This process discharged the ink, and revealed the paints below.

As we built up the layers we created pieces that look like gardens at night.

Once we thought we'd used enough of the bleach, we then overstamped areas using a variety of metallic paints. Here are the 3 pieces at the end of our playday.

Mine

Katherine's

Rhonda's

Next step is maybe some foils and definitely lots of stitch.
Check out this post by Angie of work by students that were lucky enough to have her take a class for them in person.
And see more of Angie's beautiful work at her website or her blog
Have a lovely weekend - thanks for stopping by. 

Distress Inks and Embossing

Lucky me - my lovely friend Katherine and I had a Play day yesterday. These are what I made.The velvet samples are embossed velvet using the techniques shared by Jacinta Leishman on her blog in this post. We followed her instructions and created some lovely samples.

The only thing we found that differed from her advice was that we tried indian woodblocks with great success! (see the spirally one above) A fabulous technique to try again - click here for her follow-up post where she shares her BEAUTIFUL embossed velvet book.

For the rest of the day, we were exploring some of the techniques from this book by Tim Holtz.Distress Ink Pads are a Ranger product - more info here - they are lovely to work with since they blend really well, and stay wet a bit longer so you can create interesting effects. The colours are also very yummy. First experiment was water stamping - basically you ink the card, put an embossing stamp pad onto a stamp and then mist it with water. Once you stamp it on the inked background you dry it with a heat gun and the image fades like bleach. I should note here that I used watercolour paper which meant the ink didn't blend as well. Katherine's background is much more subtle, and I learned that lesson and used smoother paper for the rest of the experiments.Next was inking the paper followed by stamping an image with Embossing ink and applying clear embossing powder. Once this was heated and cooled, we re-inked over the top with a different colour. Then ironed it with newsprint so it stopped being shiny. Mine turned out really well because there was good contrast between my first and second ink colours. It is yummy in person.We tried applying acrylic paint to a stamp next, and then inked over so that acted as a resist. Didn't really think that was anything different from similar 'resist' techniques we've tried, but a good reminder of a nice effect.

Using Distress Embossing Powder was the last technique. You stamp the image with embossing ink, and then use the Distress Embossing Powder as usual, followed by inking with the Distress Ink. These turned out fabulously.

I wondered what the difference really was between distress embossing powder and others, and did a test with some silver....I really like the distress embossing powder because it is not shiny. Nice to have different options for different effects.

If you like these techniques, also click here to get to the Tutorials on the Ranger site for making cards - some of the projects there use distress inks and embossing powders.

Have fun :-)

Fun with Painted Fusible

I really enjoy using painted fusible web. You need to use a fusible web which has a release paper backing, and I like to use lumiere metallic paint. Take a look at the instructions from Pokey Bolton here. Below is a piece which has been painted and dried overnight - still on the release paper. As you can see it is really nice to use different colours. The metallic sheen is lovely.Once dry, you turn it face-down on your chosen fabric, and iron over the release paper. Once cool, peel off the release paper, and you are left with a lovely layer. You can iron onto a variety of fabrics. This is onto velvet - the purple layer beneath that spiral.This is onto green cotton. Some of it stuck a bit when I tried to release it, but I think that just adds to the lovely textures. And once you sew or embellish over it, you won't notice these small imperfections.This is also onto cotton but I cut the fusible into heart shapes before fusing down.This is onto lutradur (hope to show you this project completed within the next week)And this is onto organza.I did a class with Sandra Meech and she used this same technique, except with ordinary acrylic paint. We painted in deliberate layers so that when we ironed it onto a medium weight interfacing, it is ready to be the base for a landscape creation.As you can see, you can use this technique for many different applications....give it a try & let me know what you come up with.

Foiled Velvet Bag

Another Angie Hughes project I recently completed was a foiled velvet bag. Click here for her machine embroidery gallery which includes examples of her bags. Luckily for me, Angie Hughes published information about foiling as a chapter called Exploring Velvet : a Mixed Media Piece in this lovely book (that's her work in the top lefthand corner)This book is fabulous, bringing together lots of great techniques to create Art Quilts. It contains many of the wonderful contributors to Quilting Arts Magazine - I have a subscription to this magazine and look forward to its bi-monthly arrival in my letter box.
Next step for the bag was being lucky enough to discover the basic bag design in this book : Don't be put off by the sheep on the back cover! This book has some really lovely ideas and useful techniques for making art quilts, using lutradur, and creating lovely velvet bags :-) Then we had a Play day...I started by cutting a piece of black velvet.The top of this piece is vliesofix painted with purple lumiere paint, and then ironed to the velvet when dry.I applied fusible web to the back of some easter egg foil, and then cut the swirls out and ironed them over the top of the vliesofix section. For the green section, I ironed fusible web directly to the velvet, and then ironed some Jones Tones foil paper (I just found mine at Spotlight) through sequin waste onto it. The piece below has had more foil adhered through sequin waste, and then the squares and triangles are chocolate foils attached using the same method as the swirls above.I then placed a chiffon scarf over this entire piece, and stitched around and over the different design elements with metallic thread. I cut the scarf away where I wanted to see more of the foil effect, but left it to show the stitching on top of the foil shapes. I added beads, then cut the bag shape and sewed it together adding a lining. The 'handle' is made by zigzagging together a variety of threads.The bottom is finished with a painted silk cocoon case, stitched and beaded, and hand-dyed silk threads hang from it. This is the completed bag. It was a fun project.

Christmas in July

I have some good friends with the same quilting/mixed media interests as me and we meet every month or so for a play day. We pick a theme or project, and work on it together. This latest one was to each come up with ideas for a wee project to start us on the way to Christmas!
My idea came from Ruth Rae's wonderful book, which I recently got for my birthday.
Her book is fabulous, with very clear instructions. We made cards from scraps. The coolest things was sewing organza over text or music. I will definitely be using this technique again.Left to right : Katherine's, My card, Lisa's. It is cool to see how we each approach things and how the finished cards are individualised. We always learn lots from each other.Katherine showed us how to stitch felt and organza together to make lovely christmas stars. This is mine finished. The velvet is layered over felt, and free motion swirls are stitched with metallic thread over the top.
Lisa's technique was to try a stencil with moulding paste pressed through. We cut a simple shape out of acetate, and then smoothed the moulding paste over the top. When dry, we coloured it with chalk. I tried letters too.Not a great pic, but hopefully you can see that the moulding paste is raised and is textured so creates a cool effect.
Another fun day, with some lovely friends. And lots of ideas to pursue in the future.