Gerbera Daisy Watercolor

It is so much nicer now that the hot weather is behind us (I hope!). I find it harder to work on anything when it's' hot and humid. But now that fall is here, I'm feeling the motivation to get back at it!

This is a watercolor painting that I finished a few months ago. I haven't been doing as much painting lately because I've been spending time on fiber arts more. I am hoping to make a fiber art piece based on this painting one of these days. In the meantime I'm teaching a beading work shop, and working on a landscape commission project. And appreciating better weather!






Gerbera Daisy Watercolor

 

Beading Embellishment Class

beading sampler

I will be teaching another class on adding beads to quilts as an embellishment on October 6th, from 1:30 - 5:00 pm. The class will be taught at Flying Geese Fabrics in Tustin.


The class will focus on teaching different ways that you can use beads on a quilt or fabric project. The goal is to have you take home a sampler with different beading styles so that you can use it as a reference and idea source in the future.

The beading styles that will be taught include: stars, flowers, bunting, bow ties, dangles, clusters, draping, and fencing.  The photo shows a sampler with these styles on it that you can make, or at least start, during the class.

If you are interested in signing up for this class you can contact me and I will send you the information: ewintemute@sbcglobal.net.

Kelso Visitor Center Sign

Signage
 

This is a close up of the sign on the Kelso Visitor Center Building on my Route 66 piece. The actual building at the Mojave National Preserve was formerly owned by Union Pacific, and their sign on the building remains there. I wanted to make the sign reasonably close to the actual sign, but with some changes to make the colors fit with the rest of the piece.

I drew the sign on paper the size that I needed it to be, and then traced the sign on white prepared for dyeing  fabric. I used Tsukineko Inks to color in the sign. I then turned the edges under and stitched it to a piece of maroon wool. I cut the wool out to the shape of the sign and stitched it to the building.

The wool backing gives the sign some loft and makes it more prominent on the building. I have used this technique on small flags and other signs on quilts and like the effect of it. You can use felt in place of wool as a backer and save some money.

Think about using this on other features in an art quilt that you want to stand off the background a bit, such as leaves? flowers?

Mojave National Preserve Details

I uploaded a detailed photo of the building area and hills on my Mojave National Preserve Quilt. I wanted a larger photo to show some of the quilting stitches that I used on the hills. I got the ideas for these stitches from Leah Day's website, Day Style Designs. She has 365 quilting stitches on the website, and it is a great reference for ideas for machine quilting. The stitches are categorized by type. I have used this site several times to get ideas for stitches.

The link to the site is www.daystyledesigns.com.

Check it out!

Mojave National Preserve Background Stitches

Detail showing background stitching

Fabric Painting at Teresa Shippy's

 This is fabric that was painted at one of Teresa Shippy's workshops last week.  Teresa owns a bunch of tin tiles that she uses for making painted "impressions" on fabric. You lay the wet fabric on the tile and then apply paint using  a couple of different techniques. I applied the rust orange color using Setacolor paints, and then flicked on some yellow paint after the first layer was dry.

 The photo below is a close up to show the imprint on the fabric a little better, I hope.


I intend to stitch around these impressions to enhance the design, and then see if there is anything else I need to do to it. Perhaps some beading???? Anyway, it was a fun class and I encourage to take one some time. I am going to try to do this each year.

Tortoise Shell Fabric

silk fabric

The photo below shows one of the tortoises in my Route 66 Mojave National Preserve piece. As you know, a tortoise's shell has polygon shapes in it. I wanted to depict that aspect of the tortoise shell, and thought I would probably do that with thread painting. But I had a piece of silk fabric (to the right) that had raised cross-stitching in it.  I had previously painted some of this fabric using Setacolor paints and put it in my stash. I came across it when I was pulling fabrics for this quilt and put it in the pile for "consideration".  







Below you see some of this painted fabric that is left over after making this quilt. I painted it in different areas with different colors. The pink/purple/yellow areas happened to turn out perfectly for my color scheme, and made for an interesting tortoise shell fabric. No thread painting required!

painted silk fabric