Mixed Media Collage Class

I am taking an online class called Mixed Media Collage for the Fiber Artist with Terri Stegmiller. This week, we started with some little quilties to get our juices flowing. I made 6 sketches, and I have made 2 of them into quilts, about 9 x 12 inches or so, and have a 3rd one in the making.

This first quilt was inspired by one of the vintage fabrics that I received--peach background with pink and lavendar polka dots.

The second one uses some of the silk ribbon that I posted a couple of days ago.

I am going to use a bunch of the fabrics that I have dyed and/ or painted in the 3rd quilt.

Vintage Goodies

A friend of ours is clearing out some of her mother's sewing things, and was kind enough to think of me before sending it all to an estate sale. We went over last weekend and came home with about 5 boxes of vintage fabric, buttons, crochet yarn, lace, and other sewing notions and knick-knacks.
She also gave me this "Bow Tie" quilt top from the 1930's. It is in OK condition though it has a few stains, tears, and there are 2 complete blocks missing from the corners, so I guess I'll have to remake them. I am planning on repairing it and quilting it.


Also, I got a treasure box of vintage buttons, and some really neat vintage silk and rayon ribbon. I love the packaging--the little hanks are folded over with an aluminum band, and I love the vintage look of the spools. I am using some of these items in some new quilties that I am making.

My New Toy

So for Mother's Day a couple of weeks ago, my "kids" (read husband) got me an Embellisher needle felting machine! I've been drooling over one for the past two years, and keep talking myself out of it. I'm not sure what possessed him to get it for me, but I'm not asking questions!


I've been playing around with it, just to see what it does. I can tell that there are a lot of possibilities. I think I will just continue to play awhile, I don't want to set myself up for failure with planning too much. I made this little book cover with some various fabrics, yarn, and felt. Pretty cute.

Let me know if you can pass on any good needle felting websites or projects--I'd love to take a look.

Fiber Arts Fiesta

Fiber Arts Fiesta was this weekend here in Albuquerque. It is a bi-annual show featuring all kinds of fiber media--quilting, spinning and weaving, doll making, lacemaking, mixed media and beadwork. It was a great show this year, with lots of vendors selling wonderful products and supplies--I bought a few things myself--I'll take some pics and post what I got later.

Anyway, I entered 3 quilts, one of which got 2nd place for Small Innovative art quilts, and I also received a 3rd place ribbon for one of my bead and wire chokers. I was really surprized!






I also taught a class on Friday afternoon for mixed media postcards. These were fabric based, but with a lot of non-fabric embellishments. The class was a whirlwind, but the ladies seemed to have fun. I made a bunch of kits up, and I have some extras, so I will post them on Etsy soon.

Handpainted Note Cards

I have been having a lot of fun over the past few months painting papers. Many of the papers started off as being pages for some of my handmade books, but I was also trying to think of a way that I could show them off a little better on their own. I also sometimes do quilting and craft shows, and so I thought that these might make good pick-up items that people could buy for themselves or as a gift. I have done lots of different techniques to paint the papers including: stamping, resist, paste paper, brayer, monoprint, salt, and more. I also made a few fabric cards using some of the rust fabric that I made, and also some of the bleach discharge fabric that I did some time ago. Whether fabric or paper, I sewed each piece onto a cardstock card base, with lots of different kinds of threads. My favorite is the copper metallic! These little cards have proven to be quite addictive to make.

A Couple More from Fabric Art Workshop

Here's a few more samples--the top one is done with a variety of rubbing plates, and the bottom two are acrylic paint on a brayer over the lasagna dyed fabric shown in the previous post.

Fabric Art Workshop

I have been working through the lessons and techniques presented in the book "Fabric Art Workshop" by Susan Stein on the Artists of the Round Table group. These are some of the exercises I have done:

Copper paint applied with a brayer to black fabric

Cardboard rubbing plate

Monoprint on black

Monoprint from lasagna dyed fabric

Lasagna dyed fabric--this is actually a piece of satin with diluted acrylic paint--had to use what I had on hand!