Festival of Quilts

If you made it to the Festival of Quilts this year, you would have seen the work of DeAnne Hartwell Jones who had a solo exhibition. DeAnne is a traditional quilter in every sense of the word, as she pieces and quilts everything by hand. In her 30 year career as a quilter she has produced many beautiful quilts, predominently in the Welsh quilting style.
I want share with you a few of her landscapes, that she kindly let me photograph, as some of the fabric in the pieces were painted by me.

These too were all done by hand, and she will be demonstrating her technique at the Jen Jones Quilt Centre next year.
If you want to find out more about DeAnnes work, there is an article in the August 2010 issue of British Patchwork and Quilting.

fabric friday

Paint Effects -Scrunched

Couldn't really think of another word to describe this method. 'Scrunched' seems as good as any.

Choose 3 or more colours, watered down, a sealable plastic back and a pippette, (or spoon if you can't get your hands on a pipette).

Dampen the fabric with a spray and scrunch it into the back. Start adding drops of colour on top of the fabric until you are happy.

Seal the bag and squeeze a little if you want the colours to blend more, or leave well alone if you don't. Leave preferably on a sunny window sill until the water droplets in the bag have become clear. You can then remove the fabric from the back for faster drying.
As with any of these techniques the results will depend on amount of paint to water and on how wet your fabric was to begin with.

I have to be honest with you here, this technique can be a bit hit and miss.  Sometimes it comes out wonderful other times not so much. However, if you are not happy there is no reason why can't stick it back in the bag and splosh on some more paint, as I did with this one.
And, in true Blue Peter style, here are some I made earlier.

Paint Effects-Salted

This effect is so easy to create and yet so effective. It is one of my favourite.

No need to show step by step instructions. You simply paint your fabric, immediately sprinkle with salt and allow to dry. As simple as that.
Of course there are lots of factors that will determine the final outcome.
The type of salt used is one. Experiment with table salt, sea salt, rock salt, and dishwasher salt.
Drying temperature will effect how fast the piece dries, and by that, effect how much time the salt has to work it's magic.
The wetness of the fabric will also have an effect.
Now the thing to remember is to brush off the salt and heat set the paint, before rinsing out the fabric to get rid of  any salty residue.
Here are some I completed earlier!

fabric friday

Paint Effects -Mottled

Prepare your colours. I am using three, an oriental red, a buttercup yellow, and a mixture of the two with some added pearl.

                

Spritz the fabric lightly with water, and prepare a sea sponge (this gives a better effect than man made).

Spray the sponge with lightly with water before beginning. (This helps the paint to be more evenly distributed)              

 Dip into paint, then remove some of the excess paint onto a spare piece of fabric before using it on main fabric as shown below. If you don't do this you end up getting big splashes of paint instead of the delicate marks we are after.  

With a VERY gentle touch lightly dab the sponge across the fabric. Move the sponge around so that you don't get a repeating pattern forming from the shapes on the sponge.

Colour 1.

Colour 2 

Colour 3.

Different effects are obtained by varying the amount of paint and water (and dabbing) used.

Above has little paint and lots of white showing through.

Below is quite colour intensive.

This one is somewhere in between.

This method of painting fabric dries quickly and uses little paint. It can be a bit frustrating. When I demonstrate this in class I find that the most common mistake is to be too heavy handed, but with a little practice it is easy to do.

fabric friday

Paint Effects -Layers

This fabric painting method gives such wonderful effects and is so easy to do.
I have named it Layers as the colour seems to settle in layers as I will show you in this quick tutorial.

Mix up two or three colours, although there are no restrictions as this is a great method for using up any bits of left over paint. Begin by lightly spraying the fabric with water.

 Load a broad paint brush with colour. Begin painting strips of colour horizontally across the fabric in long bold strokes.

Add the next colour

and the next. (Don't worry about drips and splashes.)

Change the brush to vary the thickness of the colour.

While the fabric is still wet, grab with both hands and scrunch the fabric up by pulling it from the top to the bottom. Put gloves on if you don't want to get messy hands.

Leave in situ, or move somewhere convenient but then don't move again until completely dry.

Alternatively, fold or pleat the fabric neatly.

Here are the finished results (not ironed at this point).

The finished fabric is lighter in colour when dry, but the level of "scrunch" will determine how much colour is in the final piece. 

Heat fix with a dry iron. Experiment with different colour combinations and enjoy the serendipitous effects.

See more examples of this effect in my fabric gallery here.