Birds or no Birds....That is the Question

I made some Bluebirds. These were sketched, then traced onto paper that I then cut up for a pattern. I then used several fabrics on each bird and fused them to muslin. Cut them out and placed them on stabilizer and thread painted them. Right now they are just pinned on the quilt and I didn't think much about the placement. Do you think I need these? I am not sure. Look at my previous post to see it without the birds.

What I am Working on

I have gotten sidetracked with this small piece the measures about 19'' x 20''. The background started with fabric that I painted, sun printed with leaves, screened and stamped. I wish I had taken a picture before I started to cover it. My inspiration came from some pictures that I took along a river back in NC. The brown fabrics are leftover upholstery fabrics and the brown branches are faux leather. I am thinking of adding some Carolina Bluebirds to give this a little more interest. Click on the picture to get a closer look since this is not a very good picture. What do you think?

I Finally Got Brave and Repainted the Sky!!!

Today I finally repainted the sky of my 'Flight Over Greenland II' piece. I have been looking at it for over a month and decided I couldn't make it worse. I first painted the sky area with extender and then took cobalt blue and added just the slightest touch of black and started from the top. I then added white for the gradation and clouds. Click on the photo for a close up view. Now I am finally happy with it and will quilt it.

What Should I Do With This?????

This piece is whole cloth painted with Setacolor paints. This picture is a little darker than the actual piece. I am trying to make a follow up piece to my 'Flight Over Greenland' journal quilt that is still on tour somewhere. You can read about it here. I am really unhappy with the sky. I over painted it after it dried because I didn't like it and now I think I should have left well enough alone. I have been contemplating what to do for a couple of weeks now.

Should I just go for it an try another over paint? I was thinking I could us paint extender to give me more working time. I also thought I could put a resist on the mountain line before I paint because I really like the mountains and it really does look like Greenland when I flew over last year coming back from Denmark. I have also thought that maybe when it is quilted it will turn out ok. Any opinions would really be appreciated.

Playing With Screen Printing

One of my goals this year was to take a class and learn a new skill. I signed up for Lyric Kinard's screen printing class at Quilt University. The class has been going for 4 weeks now and yesterday I finally had time to do some of the exercises. I spent about 6 hours playing and had some good and not so good results...... lets focus on the good.....

This first picture is a print created from a freezer paper stencil that I created and ironed to the back of the screen. I used Speedball fabric screen printing ink and this good print was after several tries. It was a lot harder to get the thick paint through the screen than I thought it would be.

When I tired of this, I carefully peeled the freezer paper off of the screen and put it paint side up on my work surface. I then put a piece of white PDF fabric on top and pressed it into the paint. I really like the results and didn't waste the paint.

This next print is from a thermofax screen using Lumiere paints and it was much easier to print.

I used the thermofax screen and overprinted my tree. I like this too.

Next I did another freezer paper stencil and used craft acrylic paint thinned with fabric medium for the print. This took several tries also and the paint was a little too thin to get a crisp image.

Again when I finished I carefully peeled off the freezer paper and put a piece of fabric over it to get this image. I love this one.

This next exercise was something I had read about on the ride back from Florida. (the book I was reading is 'Water-Based Screen Printing Today') I drew directly on the screen with water soluble crayons. In the picture you can see the white fabric medium that I flooded the screen with to get the print.

At first some of the thicker crayon markings acted as a resist until it got wetter as I continued to print. I really like this also and got about 5 good prints out of the screen. Each is a little different since the paint kept dissolving into the fabric. I can't wait to try this again.

In this last exercise I put a stencil under the screen and used a bleach pen to print. This fabric is a very flat black and I love the color of the discharge. It was really easy using the stencil and I recently found 4 very nice ones marked down to $3 each at my local quilt shop, Red Hen Fabrics.

As you can see I really had a fun day.

At the Beach - I Love Being a Grandma

This is my six year old granddaughter yesterday at Panama City Beach. My husband and I are watching her for a few days and decided to come down hear and enjoy the beach. We are so lucky to be able to have these special times with our GD. I do things now that I haven't done in years such as play mini golf, swim in cold water and play all kinds of games that I outgrew years ago. Who knew that being a grandparent would be so much fun!!! This picture could just be screaming QUILT.

Panama City Beach is a great place for kids with lots of kid friendly things to do and you just can't beat the sunsets on the gulf. Will be home on Friday.