Try It Out Thursday : Working To A Theme

Today's post is not quite what I'd intended; I've had a couple of domestic crises, today, leaving me unable to actually make the piece... but I thought I'd talk about the thinking process for something like this.  Well, okay, my thinking process; you may approach working to a theme quite differently.  And that's as it should be.

Of course, you begin with the basics; what do you want the journal for?  What size does it need to be?  I talked about the basic process of making a cover in Tuesday's post, so I won't repeat it, except to say that you can decide for yourself what size you want the inner flaps! 

What theme?  I try to start with the bigger picture, and then work my way down into the detail.  My current interest is flowers, so I thought I would make that my starting point.  I have made a number of garden themed quilts and paintings, all with mixtures of bright colours.  As it is springtime, I intend to make a background of greens, yellows and pinks as a base, using transfer paints, in a similar way to my earlier works. Once I have transferred the colour to the base cloth, I will start to think about how to add some specific floral shapes onto the background... so watch this space...

Wondering Wednesday : Paints Or Dyes?

I am often asked what is best for colouring lutradur, paints or dyes.  I usually answer that with another question... what are you trying to achieve?  A lot depends on how you are going to use the cloth.  If the transparency of lutradur is the most important thing, then thick paint is not a good idea, as it blocks the little holes that create the transparency.  I recommend transfer dyes or paints when transparency is important, or fluid silk paints (not the thickened variety), remembering to have something underneath the lutradur, as some colour will inevitably leak through those little holes. 

Of course, this isn't a hard and fast rule.  Sometimes you might want to have partial transparency on a particular piece, so paint would be a useful thing to use to block out the background (if you see what I mean).   Combinations of paint and dye are good to experiment with; we might try a project based on that in the weeks to come. 

The quilt above, 'Forgotten Flights' is a good example of a combination of paint and transfer dyes.  The overall colour was created by layer upon layer of transfer dyes.  I then stitched into the base, emphasising some of the 'flying' shapes I could see.  Stitch on its own, however, wasn't strong enough a contrast to make those flying elements stand out, so I added blue acrylic paint to them.  That made a powerful statement.  Try it yourself, next time you need to add emphasis to a piece.

Try It Out Tuesday : A Simple Lutradur Journal Cover.

Well, simple was what I was after...and I think I've achieved it.  This is the kind of journal cover you can knock up quickly as a gift for someone.  I had a journal lying around, well, several, actually, having intended to make journal covers for my Etsy shop.  So, I took a small one, and, in a fit of enthusiasm, measured it for a cover.  I decided to have an approximate 2.5cm overlap front and back, so simply took a cloth tape measure, and, starting at the back, inserted it into the journal, allowing 2.5cm for the back flap, then measured around the book from back to front,finally adding on another 2.5cm for the upper flap.  Are you with me?  It looked like this... and gave me a measurement of 29.5cm.  Sorry, to those of us who work in inches; it's a lot easier to measure this kind of thing in centimetres...but you can see that that's roughly twelve inches.

Then, I measured top to bottom, finding that the book measured 15.5cm, so I added 1cm top and bottom, making a total of 17.5cm.  And then... I totally ignored the measurements, and did everything by eye.  Well, it's just not my thing, all this careful measuring... but for those of us who like working that way, what I should have done at this point, was to cut a bit of lutradur 100 or 130 to that size, and worked with it.  As it happened, I worked with a piece that was a bit bigger, as it was already coloured, and I thought it would make a good journal cover (we'll make another one from scratch on Thursday, and I'll try to stick to the measurements, okay?). 

So... I positioned my slightly too large cloth around the book, as if it was covering it.  That let me see just how the front and back would eventually look, and I positioned it carefully to maximise the impact of the pattern, trimming it as I did so.  This image was taken about half way through the process; I was able to cut away the nasty marks in the top right hand corner, as there was sufficient height in the piece to allow it.  I then carefully pressed the creases for the flaps, so that I could easily see them.

Now for some stitch.  I machine stitched the four corners down, and tried the fit out on the book.  Too neat.  So... I took it out and did it again, using a scant seam allowance of roughly a quarter inch (who says you shouldn't mix your measurement scales?).  I wouldn't have done that with a cloth that would fray, but it's fine on the heavier Lutradurs, which are strong enough to tolerate it, and which won't fray in any case.  Finally, I zigzagged along both long edges, making sure not to overlap the original stitching.

 It was at this point, I realised that I really should have measured... the flaps are too short in this version, about 1.5cm.  So, I used double sided tape to hold them in place; glue would have been just as good.  Remember that book covers are usually glued down, and there's nothing wrong with doing that.  
With hindsight, I'd have liked my inside flaps to be about 3.5 to 4cm...but that's for next time. 

This is an ideal process for trying out journal making with printed Lutradur that you might have lying around.  Next, we'll look at creating a themed journal cover from scratch. 

Inspiration Monday

A natural quilt block!  I'm fascinated by the textures in this photograph.  What does it make you think of?

Tip Of The Week

Run out of interfacing?  Use lutradur, with or without fusible.  Works beautifully.  I have been known to use Lutradur XL instead of batting; it has the additional advantage of being capable of running through the printer, and/or being able to accept transfer dyes, giving an extra edge to the piece.

Mellow Yellow....

Yellow isn't always as strident as we think...I love the subtlety of this image.  The April challenge ends at the end of the month...

Photo Friday : Ticking Clock

I was really struck by this piece, by Angela Huddart, when I saw it mentioned on her Facebook page, so I asked her if we could share it here, as well as the International Quilt Challenge blog, for which she made it in the first place. She was kind enough to agree.


 She says of the piece;

 'Ticking Clock' features a dandelion seed head.  As a child we used to 'tell the time' by blowing the seeds off the plant.  Depending on how many blows it took, that was the hour...only it was never correct!!

I used two weights of Lutradur, 8" x 11", one heavy (130) and one medium (70).

On the heavy one which would be underneath, I used a white Inktense block to cover the sheet in white, then when it was dry painted an iridescent sparkly paint over it.

On the medium sheet I used two or three different shades of green Inktense blocks and blended them.

With a fine pencil I drew the outline of the dandelion clock onto the green Lutradur and used a soldering iron to slash & burn on the design.

When laid on top of the heavy Lutradur the white showed through. 

I finished it by stitching the seeds using Madeira Rayon thread in bright white and embellishing the background with a Madeira metallic thread. 

This is the first time I've used Inktense blocks and found the colour amazing.  I don't have the facilities for dying here so this is the next best thing for me!

 

For those of you who have not heard of Inktense blocks, they are water soluble ink blocks, which you can use with brushes or directly onto paper or fabric.  Made by Derwent, they were originally produced as pencils; for more information, have a look here.