I was just going to say how fortunate I was to take a fabric painting class from Nancy Kazlauckas last week, but then, I really only got to be there for a short time (due to a plumbing disaster!) but after the sump pump got fixed, I did get to do some painting…and it was really fun!!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Nancy Kazluackas, a native of my hometown, has made a name for herself in the quilting field by making beautiful quilts with Shiva Paintstiks and also Thread Calligraphy. She gave lectures and workshops for the Des Moines Area Quilters Guild this month. The Painstiks are oil paint in solid form that are fun to use for stencilling and rubbing permanent designs unto fabric. Nancy has plastic texture plates that make beautiful designs, most notably, her leaf pattern quilt.

Here’s my progress on that project:

If you haven’t already, take a look at my tutorial on stencilling with paintstiks and the finished quilt with that technique.

Hey, sorry it’s been so long since I posted! I’ve been a very busy graphic designer!! One thing I’ve been working at work on is quilt-related, a website for the St. Cloud Heritage Quilters.

Here it is…

You can click the picture to go see it “in person.”

I was fortunate enough to take a class from Dawn Cavanaugh last week and I have to tell you I had so much fun!! I learned technique I had never tried before. We stamped fabric with foam stamps and water soluble resist, then dyed it by painting on thickened dyes.

Besides a really fun morning spent with friends from the Des Moines Area Quilter’s Guild, I also got 6 really great fat quarters of batiked fabric (and two not so good, but that’s ok).
Here they are (you can click to see a larger view):

Aren’t the colors luscious?! I was surprised at how brilliant they turned out! The square within a square stamp is one I made from foam tape! The rest were from Dawn’s collection. She had so many to choose from, that was almost the best part! Washing the fabric was the worst part…very time consuming.

Dawn really wants to see us make our dyes into quilts and show her photos…so you should see these fabrics again, in a quilt or two!! Hmmm. Any suggestions?

Oh, I have to say that Dawn was an amazing teacher! She was enthusiastic about the project, fun to listen to and really clear in explaining how to do each step. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to go to her class in Background Quilting, because she is known for her amazing machine quilting…but this dyeing project was no disappointment. THANKS SO MUCH, DAWN!!

I finished that retro flower quiltie! And another one with an embroidery I’ve been saving for awhile! I also renewed some spring quilties, so my shop is looking a little fresh and new for spring… go see.

I got some pretty new fabric and promptly started another quiltie!

I hope the embroidery stands up to the border fabric, though. I’ll have to make sure to quilt it right so that it stands out!

I just got some fun online toys from an online web-design course I’m taking…that I think would be great for quilters!! That’s right, web designers AND quilters. Color scheme generators!! Later we can talk about the more traditional ways, such as finding inspiration in nature, art, photos THE COLOR WHEEL, etc. but for now, just play with this free technology and maybe even challenge yourself to make a quilt out of it!

Click on the little square box in the lower right. Choose a color, any color in that rainbow, to be your FOCAL color, then click ok. Then you can move around the sliders to see what other colors you get to go with it.

I also like this one: Color Wheel Spinner…It just gives you three random colors!! You’d be surprised at how many random color sets look good together! Go click SPIN

Have a colorful day!

UPDATE: I just found another widget that actually does what I suggested (using a photo to create your color scheme!) Try this, it’s really cool!! (click the file radio button, then find a photo)

I just got done hiding all my thread under lock and key! This is why…kids, cats, & thread don’t mix! Three spools of thread got wrapped around my studio table and chairs, tangled in the little boy’s legs, and batted around by the cat until I couldn’t salvage any of it. Argh! My husband would ask, what I was doing that I didn’t notice this happening…but you wouldn’t believe how quickly kids and cats can get into trouble together!!! 

So, I’ll be locking up my thread from now on (not the kid or the cat!)

Yesterday I played with crayons and stamps on fabric! I have this lovely stained-glass look stamp, which I stamped with Fabrico black ink. After ironing that to set the ink, I colored in the images with fabric crayons. Look how the coloring looks rather dull and rough until I set the crayons with the iron too…It was so fun to see what the iron would do to the crayons, I tried it several times! I think I’m going to make these little images into something, so the last photo is finding the right fabric to go with them. 

What do you think I should make them into?? Pin cushions? Little quilts? Key chains? Tiny wall art? hmmmm…

I love sewing room decor! I used to have a framed photo that was just a scissors, but I loved it. Now my sewing room has a series of quilt pictures framed that were just pages from a calendar. I’ll have to take a picture of it for you when the sun is out. I also have a bulletin board full of quilt clippings…anyway, my latest quiltie celebrates my love of sewing decor!

The photo is a little deceiving, because it’s there laying on my table. I think it would be so cute on the wall behind my sewing machine! Too bad there are only windows surrounding my sewing machine. (But I can’t complain about that!)

Now that the holidays are over, I’m thinking up new themes for quilties…and new products!! My great idea last night was for these fabric postcards. They’re not the timtex versions from the popular book, I’ve just zigzagged my quiltie right to a paper postcard! They feel really nice and sturdy, will be easy to write on and go through the mail well!! I’m very excited about the possibilities this opens up.

The peace dove is a stamped image, made with blue and green fabric markers.

I printed a nice vintage postcard design on the back of the second one.

So, what do you think of my new product??