Playing with Fabric Painting and finishing a Thread Sandwich!

Time is flying by and another month has cruised past me.  During the month of May a small group of us have been meeting at a friend’s house to play with all manner of textile things.  Fabric painting, stamping and making our own cord among other things.

Here is Linda showing us some of her creations and explaining what we can do with our fabric paints.
The following technique is done with a wire rack. 


Starting in the middle, poke your fabric through the holes using the end of a paintbrush.

This is mine and I have dabbed the blue paint into the wells and the green onto the surrounding fabric.

The pieces are laid out to dry.

My finished piece which looks a little bit like little blue pansies.
We also used the fabric paints in a shaving cream marbling technique.  It was a lot of fun and yielded some amazing results.


I used some left over paint and shaving cream and did this stencil with it. 

We then did a sun print.  Firstly we painted the fabric with fabric paint, laid out our objects ( we used bracken fern leaves ) and then laid the pieces out in the sun to dry.

This is my finished sun print. (In between the leaves I sprinkled some lentils).  Very happy with it.
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Now for a long overdue finish!!
Last year we did a thread sandwich at art quilting with Linda Wrench.  It is just a matter of cutting up all little pieces of fabric, ribbon, braid, thread etc etc and laying it out on a base.  Then we covered this with water soluble stabilizer and free motioned quilted all over it. 
I made this little green box with mine.  It is a pattern from a Stitch magazine and was quite easy to make up.  I embellished the piece with a little bit of bling and made the cord with Linda a few weeks ago using wool and thread I had in the stash.


We are about to go away on another trip to the bush, but I hope to post more of what I have been up to over the past few weeks in the coming days. 
It is a busy time trying to pack and get organized for a big trip, but I still managed to start yet another quilt this week.  This one is for our daughter’s partner and I am doing some hand embroidery on it, so I just wanted to get it to a point where I can take it with us and perhaps do some on the trip. Also, I am on a time line – it has to be finished by early next year for his birthday!!
Ciao, Dianne.

Seeing Red

 For my birthday yesterday my wonderful Thursday quilting friends gave me all these delicious red fabrics.

We are asked what type of fabric we want for our birthday and I chose red. I am seeing a red quilt sometime in my future.  Perhaps a Baltimore type one, but then again, who knows.  I would like to design something different.

Here is Carmel (on the left) with Joan checking out Carmel's quilt of many colours.  She has put all these scraps together in a log cabin style to create this fabulous ecclectic quilt.

Love, Love, Love it.

A Lucky Girl

I was a very lucky girl at retreat and won this moda jelly roll from this wonderful quilt shop. We just had to pop in and say thank you and hi on our way home seeing as it was en route and also right next door to a fabulous coffee shop. (A good excuse to do a bit of quilty shopping too)



The weather was very spring like and I love the natural flower show around the camp grounds.

Does anyone know what tree this is?

Kaffe and Other

This is the outcome of going into a fabric shop, being overwhelmed, and NOT having a clear idea of what you need.

These are the "Kaffe Fassett" fabrics I purchased, only the one on the right is not a Kaffe Fassett - and the one on the left I already have. Hmmph. They are both good blenders though and will hopefully slow down what I feel could become a very busy quilt. Typically of moi, to be offered 1,000,000 bolts of fabric and come home with one I already have!!!!

Anyways, isn't the blue one out of this world? Mmmmmmmmmm I must start this quilt soon.

This is my favourite friend in the kitchen, the Crock Pot (or you may call it a slow cooker). Before we went on the jaunt to Brisbane on Saturday, I threw in a beef pot roast into this little gem and it was cooked when I got home. Brilliant! Coming up to Winter, I will be doing our favourite - Beef Curry and it also does Ox-tail stew to perfection. You can use the cheaper cuts of meat and they will come out tender e.g. Bolar blade roast, Topside roast, chuck steak, blade steak etc. etc. (Can you tell I am the daughter of a butcher?)

With the pot roast, I put in 1/4 cup of beef stock, a chopped up onion. a couple of cloves of garlic,(and you may add other veges such as carrot), plenty of freshly ground black pepper and a sprinkle of mixed herbs (if you like them). All you have to do at the end of the day is chuck some greens/potato/pumpkin in a steamer or oven bake them and you're done.

Well, I have to go to "real" work today at the Blue Care Regional Office - it is the administrative arm of a group of nursing homes. Only going for a few hours, so will be able to work on my latest quilt, "the brown thing" when I get home. It is coming along well, and I promise as soon as I have the top together I will post it.

Vintage

I asked our older daughter what colours she would like for her hall table runner. She suggested teal and lemon in a vintage style. This may seem quite innocuous, but by "vintage" she probably means 60's - 70's. Oh dear - that is a bit close to the bone!
Anyhows, I will have to go fabric shopping yet again as I don't have any of this "vintage" stuff and I do like the sound of the teal and lemon!

Drool......Drool...........

These are my Valentine's Day present to myself 'cause I am totally in looooove with Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

The top ones are the latest purchase (on special of course) and the fabrics below were purchased at the last Quilt Show in Brisbane in October. yummmmmmmmmmmm.

Can't wait to make these up - will have to be a very simple design I feel as the fabrics have already enough busyness in them.

Some of Amy Butler's prints tone in, so will be looking for some fabrics to quiet them down.

Normally, I am not attracted to brights but these ones really grab me.