Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Modern Fusing


It all started with a free(!) day to play and a pile of scraps I have been collecting for a while. I call this quilt "Modern Fusing."
I started cutting little leaves out of the leftover scraps I had after making my hand-dyed fabric packs for Houston this year.   They were already fused so why not make leaves? I had no ideas on how or where I would use them, but they were so cute and so easy and mindless to make.  Let's just call this therapy!  So I stuffed then into a plastic bag and would add to them with each new color I dyed and fused. Well, the next thing I know, I have piles of these little leaves in different values of green.


Here, I've separated them by values and started to play with them on a white piece of fabric. White will always make your colors POP!
I stared with the darkest green values and worked outward to the lightest green which was a robin's egg blue.  They took on a pattern of their own as I worked.  It's kind of a leaf flower. 

I always take pictures of the messes I make when being creative. I don't know why but I like looking at controlled chaos.

 Now for the pressing of my quilt top.
Now the fun part, quilting!  I layered the quilt top with batting and a white backing fabric and put green Sulky Variegated Blendable thread in the bobbin and on top of my BERNINA 750.
I free-motion quilted veins in the little leaves and did a simple echo stitch on the background, still using the variegated green thread.

I found this robin’s egg blue stripe for the binding in my stash . This is why I LOVE my fabric stash - I think the stripe gives the quilt a fresh look.
Keeping with the theme of Modern Fusing, I folded the binding to the back and placed a ¼ inch strip of Steam-a-Seam 2 (which is back and better than ever) on the edge of the binding and fused the binding down to the back of my quilt.  

Can I get a shout out from the crowd?
Then I added this twisted piping to the edge of the binding. I have been making this braided, or twist, cording using the leftover strips from my hand-dyed fabrics.  I'll show you how to make this in the next blog.
I played around with different presser feet to find the right foot for couching this twist down. That was tricky but with the right presser foot BERNINA # 20C it was a breeze. The open foot held the piping up against the binding.  The needle would catch one side of the twist up against the binding edge.  As I sewed I was also caughting the back of the fused binding. 

 I added seed beads to the leave for a little bling. 

 Here you go, my Modern Fusing wall hanging.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Dogwood


I have some new patterns coming out in the New Year! This is creatively called...wait for it... DOGWOOD!  I have been mulling over  this class idea for some time - I'll be using a white flower to show how to use values of white fabric in your art work. 
After I got the first flower done and placed it on the dark background fabric I could see the dark fabrics showing through and dulling the pure white fabric color that I am trying to keep REALLY white. 

The solution was to  flip over the flower and add another layer of pure white fabric to the back of the flower, but only in certain places. Then I could purposely use the shadowing in other places as another shade of white.  
So far I am up to 19 fabrics for this flower and as soon as Christmas is over I will be back in the dye studio figuring out how to dye 19 shades of white or light fabrics.

Unfortunately, right now the dye studio is full of suitcases, Christmas decorations, and patio furniture because it has been raining for the last 3 weeks.
19 white or light fabrics means light threads. Oh, and I love my #BERNINA 750 QE.  It sews through the layers of fusible web like butter.
style="box-shadow: 3px 3px 3px #88800;" Now to the computer to write all this down.  The pattern should be ready by the end of January. I will be teaching this pattern for the first time at AQS in Paducah, Kentucky in April.  See you there!