Painted and Pleated

painted-quilt

I’ve been making more experiments, this time with paint and pleats. For the quarter-circles above, I painted and stamped some linen and cotton fabric. Below, you can see I’ve been playing with pleats on half-square triangles. I’m thinking of combining the two methods next to create some clean-lined blocks with painted fabric.

pleated-patchwork

 

Experimentation

brushstrokes

Soon I’ll be submitting my spring fabric collection to Kokka, with all of the designs based on hand-stamped artwork. These are some side experiments that I’ve made along the way. Right now I’m focusing only on process and experimentation.

This week I’ve been experimenting with color and different painting techniques. Above I tried the same design with acrylic on paper, then textile paint on fabric, while in the photo below I tried a putty knife to spread paint onto fabric.

putty-knife

I also painted some circles onto fabric, then cut them into 3″ squares and sewed them back together again. The pink above and below is neon paint, but it’s difficult to see in a photograph. I’ll add these experiments to the pile and make them into something one day soon.

painted-circles

Paper + Fabric

freezer-paper

I’ve got quite a few of these freezer paper stencils in progress. Still white on white for now. At some point, the finished fabric pieces might turn into a quilt.

I just sent a newsletter last week, but you can catch the past two months here. Be sure to add your email in the sidebar so that you can get next month’s newsletter.

September Newsletter Tutorial

printed-pillows

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter for sewing tutorials! Next week I’ll send the tutorial for these printed pillows, along with links and some thoughts about creativity. Enter your email address in the sidebar to join the list.

You can read the August newsletter and get last month’s tutorial here.

Forward into the Past

freezer-paper1

I’m stuck on these simple, cut paper designs, even though I realize that I should move on to something else. But now I’m cutting freezer paper to make stencils. Lots of time for a stencil that can only be used once, but that’s part of what I like about them. Since I’ll be doing just one collection for Kokka per year, I’m using this time as an opportunity to focus on other projects. Right now that means I’m experimenting without a clear direction, but I will explore and find a path. Above is one that I’m working on right now and below is one that I made a couple of months ago for a book proposal that seems to be going nowhere.

freezer-paper2

I’ve also been interested in following the MQG copyright discussion provoked by this post and also the controversy surrounding this quilt. These two issues, for different reasons, are good examples of why I haven’t felt fully comfortable in the quilting world. I don’t consider myself a quilter, but I am often disappointed by the attitudes in this field of craft. However, I’m excited to attend QuiltCon for my first time this February. Thought and discussion are the best ways to propel the art of quilting forward.