Learning About Felting

This month we learned about felting wool and we got to experiment with felting.  We tried needle felting since we didn't want the mess that wet felting can create.  Dorothy did a great job explaining  how to felt and getting us started playing.  

We even had a couple of felting machines to try out if we wanted to, thank you ladies for sharing the machines.

Here are some of our creations.

We had a great time this month.
Next month we are going to try fabric painting.  Here is the supply list.

You Bring:

• Something to hold water for rinsing your brushes
• Paint brushes if you have have them (for acrylic paint)
• $4 to cover cost of supplies

I will have the paints, painting medium, foam plates, extra paint brushes, pieces of fabric, cardboard to attach the fabric, and anything else we will need.

If you have a fabric landscape you want to bring we can discuss how you can enhance it with paint.

Until next month, have a great holiday break.

Accidental Landscapes

We had a great afternoon quilting during our November meeting.  We made a small landscape quilt using techniques from the book Accidental Landscapes by Karen Eckmeier.  This time we made a seascape quilt.  This method is quick and easy and so fun.  We are all challenged to take a beautiful scenery photo from a calender and using the same techniques, make a quilt from the photo.  (We will share those at the February meeting.)

I forgot to bring my camera to this meeting, so I only have cell phone photos to share this time.  Please excuse the lower quality.

When each of us gets our mini quilt done and shares them at the meetings, I'll take more photos.

Next month we are going to be exploring needle felting.  Here is the supply list:

I hope to see all of you next month.
Janelle

Bad Art Day- October meeting

We met this past Tuesday for our second meeting.  We had show and tell first this month, which we will have each month.  If you have something you have finished or a project in process please bring it and show the group.  We all love seeing what everyone is making.

Jan led us in an exercise designed to get us thinking outside the box and to think about using design principles in our quilts.  The exercise was called bad art~ we weren't trying to make complete projects, but to play and have fun while thinking about our designs.

We focused on a few principles such as unity, focal, point, using the color wheel effectively, and composition to name a few.
 
Here we are hard at work and thinking quickly.

Here are the bad art pieces that we came up with.

Next month we will be making a landscape quilt.  Please bring your sewing machine, basic sewing supplies, and the supplies from this page: 

Have a great month!

A New Art Quilting Group is in Town

We are a part of Pieces and Patches Quilt Guild Jackson Michigan.  We wanted to start a small get together for people in the guild who are interested in art quilting.  We had our first meeting yesterday.  We decorated composition notebooks to use as a place to keep inspiration photos, sketches, swatches and keep notes for our art quilts.  We had a lot of fun with collage and paint, which some members had never done before. Now we all need to start filling our notebooks with ideas and start making art quilts.  I didn't get pictures of everyone's notebook, but I plan to get photos at the next meeting.  Then I'll share them here. In the meantime I'll share the notebooks that I created for examples.

Here is the supply list for this project:
 composition notebook

·        scrapbook papers two or three different papers- you don’t need a whole page of each

·         old book pages and music sheets

·         words from magazine or printed text

·         Stickers or other embellishments that you love

·         two or three colors of paint ( I like Liquitex Basics)

·         paint brushes

·         gesso

·         gel medium, Collage Pauge, or Mod Podge

·         stamps and stamp pads

·         heat tool or hair dryer

·         freezer paper

     

      Here are the basic directions for decorating the notebook:

·         Lightly sand both covers and wipe off with a damp paper towel.

·         Put freezer paper under the covers with the book opened to the middle to protect the pages

·         Brush a layer of gesso over entire cover and let dry or dry with heat tool.

·         Cut and tear the papers that you want to use.

·         Brush a thin layer of gel medium onto part of the cover.

·         Lay down papers to cover gel medium.

·         Brush gel medium over the paper and smooth out to get rid of bubbles

·         Continue this way overlapping papers until the outside is covered and all the papers have gel medium covering them.

·         Let it dry completely or dry with a heat tool.

·         Brush a thin layer of paint onto papers using all your colors and mixing them where they overlap- make sure that you let bits of the paper show through.

·         Let the paint dry completely or dry with a heat tool.

·         Add stamped images, stickers, and embellishments until you are happy with the result.

·         Brush on another layer of gel medium or varnish to protect the cover and let dry.

Use this notebook to draw quick sketches for inspiration, write notes, attach color swatches, fabric swatches, and anything else to help you along on your quilting journey. 

Here is the supply list for our October meeting:

We hope to learn and share our quilting knowledge thorough this group, so that we can all grow as quilters. 

Thanks,

Janelle