Quilted Face

In November, I did a class on quilted faces with the very talented Jacqui Karl

This photo shows 3 happy friends nearing the end of our weekend. We all enjoyed the experience of taking the lesson and making it our own. I loved the experience from beginning to end, and now have so many new ideas bouncing around in my head I'm sure you'll be seeing more mixed media quilts from me in the future. My base fabric was a white pattern on white, so when I painted it I got a lovely resist effect. It was lovely to dry our work outside for a while too 

Next we traced on the eyes, lips, hair outline - painted the eyes and lips. I altered my eye and lip shapes a little to look more like my own art journal faces

then used thick black Spagetti thread for the outline and face detail

Filling in the hair piece with our own designs

By the end of Day 1 she looked like this

Started filling in the face with a subtle variegated thread - I really enjoyed defining areas with my free-motion stitching instead of the stippling which was in the sample

Switching threads to a pink variegated for her cheek and out into the background 

and then a pink/blue for the background = End of Day 2. 

Click on any photo to see the stitching detail.
I took a photo of the back which shows I did have a bit of trouble with the black thread knotting on occasion, but it does look quite striking

Then I was home and following my #arteveryday idea to try and stitch a little and often 

- using different threads as I go through colour-changes in the background

Ready to trim and add binding : 

Back view just for fun  - I do love colour but this is inspiring for a maybe-future piece

In the end I decided a flat binding that you didn't see on the front was best. I cut my normal 2" wide binding, ironed it in half and stitched it on as usual.

Then overstitched the seam into the binding.

Folded around and hand stitched to the back.

I had to attach the hanging sleeve by hand-stitching beneath the top binding. It is too much bulk to include in that seam as is my usual practice. The finished quilt size is 18" x 22". I am so VERY happy with how she turned out ♥

Quilted

Second week of school holidays...I wish I could share more creativity but I decided there were some things I had to make myself do this week before I was allowed to be rewarded with fun creative pursuits! I've done necessary but boring things like cleaning the oven and the fridge, and a family member asked me to quilt a top as a favour to a friend of hers. I said yes without seeing the quilt and then regretted it. Not my style or colours at all and I was a bit stumped to know what to do. 

In the end I decided on simple loops - grey on top and pale apricot in the bobbin to match the backing fabric.

 

Thank goodness it's now checked off my "to do" list and I'm free to do something that makes me really happy...

More soon ♥ 

Mixed Media Fabric Lap Top Case

So excited to finally be able to share this project with you. It's been completed for a little while but only got delivered this weekend. Recently my niece asked if I would make her a lap top case - "Anything you make I love" ♥ So completely up to me for the design..... First a brainstorm - she absolutely loved my "On a Lark" fabric folder which I made a couple of years ago. 

This made me think that mixed media fabric book covers I've made would also be good inspiration : like this fabric bookwrap 

and I really love the cover I did for a friend's travel journal : Paris Book 

She is moving to Canada to study, so I wanted to theme my colours around NZ Paua shell - turquoise and purples - along with black and white, and I also wanted to use a variety of fabrics including sari ribbon, braid, ribbon, scrim etc. I took the measurements of her device and cut a large rectangle of black batting to make the cover AND a zipped case to hold her charger/earbuds etc. I won't line it, because the black will be nice and soft and I will stitch with variegated thread so even when you see the inside flap, it will look funky. Fun part - beginnings of gatherings ♥

This was my initial play and then I decided the black/white wasn't soft enough. I swapped them out for more creams and grabbed some more batiks. I included some extra meaningful fabrics like music, french language, and swirly sea...

Then I bonded iron-on interfacing to one side of the black batting and laid the fabrics down again before stitching with my signature free-motion swirl in variegated rayon thread on top with plain turquoise rayon on the back

Once stitched, I cut the large rectangle down to make the lap top cover, and the extra small rectangle will become an accessory pouch (earbuds, charger).

The swirly stitching left the edges unfinished - these will fray more with use and I hope she enjoys that. Click on any photo to see it larger

It's truly a mixed media piece. I printed the spots on some of the fabric above with metallic paint. After that initial stitched layer, I added other elements on top

To add the zipper to the accessory pouch I did a bit of a cheat and sewed it to the 2 edges using an ordinary seam (right sides together)

Then I added the edging stitch down each side. It worked just fine.

Then it was time to put the lap top case together. I used the same variegated thread to edge stitch

And I added a line of straight stitching inside the edge to reinforce those seams.

The main challenge was that with such a large button I had to find an alternative to my automatic buttonhole - the instructions HERE were very helpful.

Here are both the case and accessory pouch together

and some lovely close-ups 

I could have happily had this project continue to live on at my house, but I'm pleased to report it's been delivered, the device fits inside 

and she loves it ♥ I hope it accompanies her on many new adventures.