Fabric Fantasy

All that cutting and sewing with fabric

for the church banner got my creative juices going

for a chance to play in other ways.  Thankfully, it was short-lived as

I found it was going to take a lot, a lot (!) of work

to achieve the results of my fantasy.

I love to read creative blogs.  As soon as I finish reading I start wondering how I can try the technique on something for myself.  So it was no wonder that all those fabric scraps and too many textile art blogs conspired to launch me into trying to decorate a jacket and a shirt for summer wear.

I decided to "embellish" or add some fabric art pieces and then put some hand stitching on top.  I used to do a lot of embroidery and was horrified as to how much I had totally forgotten.  But an ignorant person has no fear so I got busy with my summer jacket.

First I played with some very simple shapes and moved them around on a light piece of white fabric.  I used scraps of what I had (not a good idea as I had already forgotten how important it is to have "like" weights and weaves, but oh well...) and I thought these colors would go well on a gray linen. 

Between pining and gluing I managed to get the piece attached to the center back of the jacket.  Because I don't do anything the easy way I had also decided that one sleeve and a front pocket should also be enhanced to match the back.  In hindsight I think my design proved a little "over done" and busy.

jacket back and sleeve, pocket not shown

OK, I will usually try something twice before I quit totally.  So I decided to improve my technique by using fusible facing (much easier to sew thru than glue) and simplifying my design for another piece. I took an inexpensive tee-shirt and got busy.

Here is the front of the shirt.  I loved using the light blue from another tee but the yellow was not so pleasant to work with.  I also added sleeves and lengthened the shirt with pieces from that sacrificed shirt.

I like the overall design much better, the sleeves and "tail" not so much.  Again it was an experiment and I did just enough to test the waters.  Like anything else I would need to try quite a few more pieces to get a fool-proof method down and learn how to design.  This will do it for me.  It was fun and once again I gained a new level of respect for those artists that work in fabric.

While I'm quite content to stay with my paints I, for sure, will be wearing both of these new pieces if only to the studio this summer.  And though I may not be doing any more designs on clothing, rest assured that the summer experiments have barely begun.  Here's to dabbling out-of-field!

EXPERIENCES IN COLOR,

Cindy

A Painters Quilt

In the mountains of western North Carolina there is a wonderful

movement to place quilt patterns on old barns across the landscape.  These are painted and

range in size from 8 feet x 8 feet to a smaller 2' x 2' depending on their placement.

Artists recreate some of the vintage patterns and tie them into the wishes of the landowners.

Sometimes folks want a custom pattern that reflects their family or lifestyle.

It was the latter that inspired me to see if I could create a pattern of my own.

You may remember my grid and planning I did killing time on an airplane:

I had decided to use the shapes of wine bottle and birds as those represent two of our

favorite deck 'activities.'  Everything must be gridded as if you were to plan

a pattern for straight line pieceing of materials.

Next I had to transfer this pattern to a canvas carefully marking off a similar grid and sticking to the formula.  The pink color has nothing to do with my plan...it was paint used to

cover up a painting-gone-awry so I could recycle the expensive canvas.  I painted in the "muslin" color to get me started in visualizing where I was going with color.

Slowly and carefully I painted in each square, or portion thereof, and later I went back and did some of the background "fabric" in a slightly different tone just so it would have the look of cloth.

Obviously my canvas was not square so I had to fill it in and write the name of our home as well as the name I gave the pattern on the space below.  It took about 2-3 coats of paint over everything.

And ta-da!  It's not on a barn for sure but it is in the mountains of western Carolina.

I think we will enjoy knowing that our "Bottles & Birds" can be added

to the quilt tour...in our neighborhood at least.