Here are the photos of other members' challenge quilts at our May 21st meeting:
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| Chris finished piecing her quilt top, and began hand-appliqueing the leaves. |
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| It will be gorgeous when the rest of the leaves are applied! |
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| Erika's quilt on the design wall. |
Apologies for the blurriness of these photos. We were fast losing sunlight and trying to compensate by turning on all the lamps and overhead lights . . .
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Top of Erika's quilt. The row of single squares shows
all 12 surface-designed fabric swatches from our exchange. |
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| Bottom of Erika's quilt. |
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Maureen's music-inspired piece also showcases
our 12 fabric swatches (center, bottom). |
We didn't get to see everyone's work-in-progress, as some members were traveling and others' quilts were still at their homes, pinned to design boards or in too many pieces to transport to the meeting. As usual, I seem to have made the least progress! I can never seem to get cookin' until a deadline is looming too close for comfort. And even then, I'm still changing my mind . . .
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My painted and thread-painted bubble trees, where
the resist failed to hold back the paint! |
Technique: Working with a
resist* in a small plastic bottle with a thin metal applicator tip, I outlined the areas that would become tree trunks, branches, the half-circle shaped "bubble," as well as the edge of the grass line. (* I used
Presist, a water-soluble resist that works on cotton fabrics.) Once the resist was thoroughly dry, I sprayed a light mist of water on the grassy area before painting it with diluted
Setacolor paint, knowing that would help the paint blend. I should have remembered to suspend the fabric onto stretcher bars (as in silk painting), and because I didn't, the wet fabric clung to my plastic-covered painting surface and the green paint migrated above the resist lines of the grass. Elsewhere, I painted on dry areas and the paint stayed within the lines (except for a bit on the far left). Once the paint was dry and heat-set, I rinsed out the Presist, then began thread-painting, a technique I love.
This was a fun experiment, though not 100% successful. I overdid it on the smallest tree on the right. Earlier, when applying the Presist there, I had problems getting it to flow in a smooth, thin line. The resulting blobs meant that after rinsing out the Presist, the white areas to be thread-painted were much wider than in the other two trees.
And after this experiment, I realized that the scale of the trees was all wrong. So it's back to the drawing board.
