Thanks to a member of the Quiltart email group, I finally got a little creativity going again….  I answered a call to join a Weekly Journal Quilt group, committing to make one little journal piece each week. The timing of it’s start was perfect, it was just a few weeks after my birthday, so I thought it might be what I needed for me to “start over” so to speak.  I did pretty well in the beginning, keeping up with weekly pieces while finally doing a good job of organizing my studio.  When wreath making season arrived, followed by Christmas and I didn’t get any new pieces made for a few weeks, but I did get into my studio…. either organizing things or making more items to sell at a show and a local shop, and have now been spending creative time most every day….. Finally!

While I have no idea what this coming year will bring (2011 brought a lot of surprises), I feel that I may be finally back to creative playing and blogging about what I do.  So far, I have ideas for a few tutorial posts, and hope to add something new here at least monthly… No promises, but I have found that I Need the time I spend in my studio to help me keep my sanity and deal with my daily pain (something  that I have allowed to get me down too many days)…. I am looking for my 51st year to be a new beginning of sorts…   And maybe I will even get some online classes finished and ready to teach!

The first tutorial type posts of the year will introduce you to my new die cutting machine and what  it has helped me to do….. I have been doing some experimenting and playing!  Hopefully I’ll be back writing here soon!

Painting and Sunprinting with Black

Above- fat quarters of fabric dried and ready for removal of items used for printing. This summer, my kitchen is where I have to paint my fabrics before taking them out to the sunny table.  Not as handy as the tent I have used out front, but the painting and placing of leaves, etc. needs to be done in the shade so the fabric doesn’t start to dry too soon.

Sunprints 8-31-10

This photo above shows some of the fabrics I have printed using mostly black paint and some with other colors added. In the past I have use mostly textile or other medium bodied acrylic paints thinned with water to do my sunprints with. When those paints are thinned with water, the colors become lighter. This group of fabrics were printed using Dye-Na-Flo paints by Jacquard. These paints are very thin and act much like dye on the fabric. They have a much higher pigment content which will result in deeper colors with very little paint “feel” after drying. In the past I had added extra pigments to my thinned paints to get deeper colors. This type of paint makes things much easier, saving steps.

Batiks for Printing

The first step in the sunprinting process is wetting the fabric and smoothing it onto vinyl covered boards. Above, I decided to see what would happen if I sunprinted on bright batik fabrics instead of white fabric. I first painted the wet fabric pieces with the black Dye-Na-Flo right out of the bottle.

Batiks with Leaves

The above photo shows the painted batiks with leaves and flowers placed on the wet paint, sprinkled with coarse sea salt, and placed in the sun outdoors. My original tutorial was done during the winter, but the easiest time of year to sunprint is during warm, low humidity days of summer and early fall. I have a table outdoors in the sun that I place the paint boards of fabric on to dry. If the weather cooperates, the fabric will dry in less than half an hour and result in fairly sharp prints. Higher humidity, breezes, lower temperatures, or clouds can affect your results. That’s part of the fun of sunprinting, or fabric painting in general…. you never know how things will turn out until the paint is dry.

Sunprints Black over Batik 1

This is what the right piece from the first photo ended up looking like after the drying process. The colors ended up muted a bit from the black paint, but they show up pretty well where the leaves were. My husband wondered why I was “ruining” perfectly good fabric by painting it black…. This is what I wanted to see… if the batiks would allow prints to form as well as the white muslin that I usually use. It worked pretty nicely, and I like the results.

Black Paint on Fabric

Here is a piece of white fabric painted with the black paint, ready for the leaves to be added.  Pressed leaves, foamie sheet cutouts, flowers, confetti, and more can be used to produce prints. Anything that will lay flat on the painted surface will cause a sunprint to form. The prints are formed during the drying process, the paint exposed to the sun dries first, then the moisture is pulled out from under the items placed on top, which pulls the paint along with it, causing the color to be partially or totally removed depending on conditions.

Ginkgos on Fabric 1

This was the first time I was able to use Ginkgo leaves for prints. I have always loved the look of them, but had not been able to collect any until last summer. I was lucky to find a little collection of the leaves and stored them between layers of newspaper as I do with all of the leaves I use multiple times. I did run across a problem that I have also had when using my other favorite leaves, the Maples. The leaves tend to curl up while the wet fabric dries underneath them. They are both leathery leaves, but tend to want to “do their own thing” when they are in the sun. I finally found the fix…. I soaked the pressed leaves for a day or so in a solution of glycerin and water. Here is a post showing the process of preserving the leaves with glycerin. The glycerin helps the leaves to remain soft and pliable even after a few times in the sun while the fabric dries. Now I am able to keep using the few leaves I have numerous times.

Fabric with Leaves, Etc

Here is a dry piece of fabric ready for the leaves and other objects to be removed to reveal the resulting prints. You can see that one Ginkgo leaf has been removed in the upper right corner. If untreated leaves have been used, I need to spray them lightly with water and let them soften a bit before peeling them off. Ferns, Queen Ann’s Lace and others can get really brittle in the sun. I carefully remove the leaves, foamies, etc. before brushing the salt off the surface. the salt is placed in a small plastic container and can be reused on more fabric.

Black and Blue Sunprint 2

Here is a piece after the leaves and more have been removed. Some prints are brighter than others, and you can see where the large fern above lifted off the surface of the fabric a bit, causing more of a ghost image than a sharp print. Now the fabric is ready to be heat set by ironing, then it will be ready for cutting up to use in various projects.

Salt and Butterflies

I not only do fabrics with leaves and flowers, but try to be sure I have some fabrics that will be good accent fabrics for the larger prints. The photo above here shows one of the pieces I sprinkled butterfly confetti and then salt over before drying. The butterflies and salt were brushed off when dry, and the butterflies separated from the salt so they can be used again and again. I added water to the paint to get more of a gray.  The more water that is added to the paint, the lighter the color will be, and I need lights and mediums as well as the darks. I also did some pieces of fabric  with no sunprints, just salt or scrunched for different textures. To see more of the fabrics I printed during this session, and what I did with some…. check out this post on my Main Blog- Back to Sunprinting and New Book Covers

Set of 3 Book Covers

Fabric from this week’s painting sessions will be used in various art quilts, book covers, and other items. Here, above, are a few notebook, journal, or memo pad covers that I made with some of the prints. One of the gray textured fabrics is used to set off the sunprints on the two left ones. These are available for purchase in my Andrus Gardens Gift Items Studio on Artfire.  The full size Composition Books are available here, while the Mini Composition Book with Lizard is available here.

Black and Gold Blooms

Here is one of the Mini Art Quilts that I made using a sunprint grouping from one of the fabrics. This has been dressed up with metallic thread quilting, a gold bow, shimmery fabric on the left, and metallic letters. “Black and Gold Blooms” is 12.5″ high by 8.5″ wide, and is available for purchase in my Andrus Gardens Quilts Studio on Artfire. When I lay out my leaves and whatever, I sometimes try to create arrangements that I can be the focus of my quilts or gift items. Other times, I just lay things randomly without too much thought…. either way, the fabric can always be used.

Curling Ginkgo

This is what the first Ginkgo leaves began doing… the edges curled up. They don’t print or keep as well if they get too dry and curl. Maples also like to curl while on wet fabric in the sun, causing them to be caught and carried away by slight breezes.

What you need:

Glycerin-  available in pharmacies in small bottles.
Hot water
Low container with lid
Pressed or partially dried, pressed leaves… Maple, Ginkgo, Oak, Linden, Grape, and even ferns can be done.

Mix the solution with one part glycerin to two parts very hot water and mix well.
Pour some of the solution into your container. I used a low plastic container with a tight fitting lid.

Layering Leaves in Glycerin

Begin layering the leaves in the container, making sure you have both sides of each leaf covered with the glycerin solution. Keep adding more leaves and solution until you have all your leaves submerged. Place a lid from a smaller container with a weight on top of the stack of leaves to keep them submerged.

Weight on Leaves

For my container, I used a plastic lid with a glass coaster to keep the leaves under the glycerin. Place the lid on the container, and let sit for 24 hours or more. I found that no more than  2 days gave the best results with my fairly dry leaves. The solution will turn darker in color.

Treated Leaves

Above here is my first container of leaves.  Remove the leaves carefully and place on layers of paper towels to dry them. After blotting the solution off, I Press the leaves with a dry iron between paper towels, then press them with waxed paper to give them some additional protection. The pressing flattens out most of the waves in the leaves, but some may still remain. The leaves are now ready for sunprinting or leaf printing. Note that the veins on the backs of the leaves are nice and plump. This is even after the leaves were stored for a couple years before treating with the glycerin. It seemed to rejuvenate them nicely.

Treated Ginkgo

Here is a treated Ginkgo leaf being removed from a dry sunprinted fabric. The untreated ones would have broken if I had tried to bend them like this. Treating the leaves like this has made sunprinting with many types of leaves much easier. Maple leaves no longer curl and blow off the fabric much less. Now I will be able to reuse more of my leaves with better results. The ferns I treated didn’t break as I pulled them off the dry fabric. Definitely a plus!

Leaves in Newspaper

So far I have been storing my treated leaves in the newspapers as I always have. I know others store them in the freezer. I am not sure if that will be needed…. time will tell. Now that Fall is in the air, I will probably be collecting more leaves, and preserve them this way, too.

I have finally been getting in some productive studio time. I love to incorporate my flower photos into my work, and transferring them onto fabric from transparencies is one way to do that. You can see lots of my flower photos here in my Main Blog. This is the technique I have found that works best for me…. there are many methods that I have tried, but this is the only way that works for me. It might not be the best for everyone, but here is my process.

Transparencies

I begin by printing the photos I want to use onto Transparencies made for inkjet printers. The brand I am using is Hammermill… What I found at Staples. I print with an Epson inkjet printer that uses DuraBright inks. These inks are archival, and I can print directly onto fabric if I want to. This transfer method gives a more antiqued or aged look to the transferred photos. Above are a selection of photos printed according to the transparency directions. I set my printer for “Best Photo” printing and plain paper. With my tests, this has worked the best for me. The printed transparencies are placed over dyed fabrics that I am thinking of transferring the images to. I can see what will and won’t look good before I start anything.

Dyed Fabric Base

Above are a couple of pieces of fabric I dyed that didn’t really turn out just like I wanted, but will make for good backgrounds for the transfers. I lightly dampen the fabric, then apply a coating of very thinned Heavy Bodied Gel Gloss Medium. I am using Golden Brand for this batch of transfers, but I have used Liquitex  Soft Gel Medium with similar results. The medium helps to seal the base fabric so it is not so porous to take the transfers better.

Wax Pastel on Fabric

To add more interest to the pieces, I have added Water Soluble Wax Pastel to fabric while the medium is still wet. I have just scribbled various colors on.

Wax Pastel Brushed Into Fabric

The above photo shows the fabric after I blended the  pastel into the medium.

Dyed Fabric with Chalk Pastel

Here is another piece of fabric… another dyed piece that didn’t have much color, so I added more with chalk pastels this time to start. I decided to play with some wild colors here…. they look really bright on the wet fabric, but will soften after blending and as the fabric dries.

Chalk Rubbed In Wax Added

Here is what the chalk looked like after being blended in. I then added some wax pastel for even more color in scribbles that I then blended in also.

Fabric with Transparency Images

Here is one of the fabric pieces after it dried and was ironed between parchment paper. The photo above shows one transfer already done, and images on transparencies cut out and placed where I want to put them.  You can see how the colors of the fabric will change the image colors.

Soaking Transparency

When I am ready to do the transfer, I soak the image on the transparency in lukewarm water in a shallow container.

Image Soaked in Water

I let the image soak for about 10 seconds, then take it out and hold it over an old towel to catch the runoff. You can see in the photo above, the ink is beginning to “bubble up”. When all the ink has begun to bubble, the transfer is ready to be applied. Darker ink colors seem to take longer than others to be ready for placement.

Rubbing Transfer

I lay the image ink side down on the fabric, then burnish the back of the transparency with a spoon until totally covered.

Removing Transparency

Once the whole back has been rubbed, begin to peel the plastic off slowly. If the ink sticks to the transparency, it may need more moisture and rubbing.

Finished Transfer

Here is the transfer after the plastic backing has been removed, the ink and coating on the transparency sticks to the prepared fabric. On this transfer, some small bits of the image stuck to the plastic, this gives the aged look to the transfers.

Another Transfer

The above transfer is one that didn’t soak long enough… the deeper colors didn’t stay on the fabric very well, so this one really looks distressed.

Group of Transfers

This photo shows the whole piece of fabric that I did with a number of transfers ready to dry. These will probably be used on various covers for mini composition and brag books, or standard sized composition books. I will combine the transfers with different dyed or painted fabrics to coordinate with the images. These will be available for purchase in my Andrus Gardens Gift Items Studio on Artfire when I finish them.

Mammocumulous Cloud Transfer

This is the largest transfer I have tried so far… it is the full length of the transparency, nearly 11 inches. I used the fabric with large yellow areas to pull the color down from the image. I removed some of the ink from the image’s lower edge to help it to blend into the fabric. I then added more pastel for more color below the transfer. This will become a small art quilt based on one of my photos of the stormy skies just over a week ago.

Once the transfers dry, I cover them with parchment paper and iron things well. This flattens any rough edges that sometimes occur from the coating on the transparencies. The image can melt and stick to your iron, so be sure to use the parchment.

Weedy Garden

The construction process of this site has been a lot like the progress in my gardens….. I have dealt with some technical issues, in addition to issues with my own body. With Fibromyalgia, I get really frustrated when I get knocked down by it, and when my outdoor gardens start looking like the above photo, I don’t always listen to my body. It tells me to take a break, and I end up paying dearly with exhaustion and pain when I keep working, which adds to my frustration.

Front Garden a Month Later

My gardens are the source of many of the flower photos and inspirations for my quilts and fabric painting.  I also use many flowers and leaves from them to create the designs in my fabrics with sunprinting and nature prints. They, like the website, are a lot of work, but give me a lot back in the end. I really hope that this site will contain a wealth of information that will help many others with new ideas and more.

I will continue to move posts from my previous blog as well as posting new ones. If you find a post or two missing photos or with other problems, check back… I will be working on things slowly….

UPDATE: June 26… Thank You to my Tech Geek son who fixed most of my photo problems!!

Things Changed

The piece in question is in the upper left of this photo…. an attempt at getting my work out of the box, or frame, etc…. It was pointed out to me that I tend to most always frame or box in parts of my quilts. This has been a huge challenge, to use mainly my flowers without boxing them in!

I took this home as it was, and put it on my design wall, but something really seemed off…. I loved the colors and the flowers, but it just seemed like a “jumble of stuff”…

Testlayout2B&W

I then took a photo of the piece and changed it to black and white in the computer…. It still looked like a jumble to me…. The colors that looked strong to me, fade out when just looking at the values, not colors. The white and pale pink flowers seemed to jump out. The flowers are printed onto cotton fabric that I have backed with Wonder Under. The piece is being arranged on a large piece of backing paper saved from a large piece of Wonder Under that was used earlier for anther project. I keep all of it… you never know when it will come in handy.

Testlayout4

Another idea was to add some bits of color with narrow strips of bright pink fabric, and I also draped some deep colored batik to see what would happen….. I changed this to B&W, and still had problems with values… the bright pink didn’t show at all, and the batik seemed to take over- too dark…. back to the design wall….

I had been tacking flower pieces onto the paper base with the iron, but ended up moving things so much, that I started pinning everything in place- easier to move around on my foam design wall.

Testlayout6

Besides flowers, I have been drawn to old architecture and have taken photos of quite a few old houses, sheds and barns. I printed a couple on fabric, and added them to the corners. I still had the bright pink pieces in the piece….

Testlayout7-8

In the left photo above, I changed one of the lower pink strips of fabric to white- Too much- yuck!… Right above- lots of moves later… The pink Peony flowers seemed too heavy for the center, so I moved them to the bottom. A bunch of others removed and moved…

Testlayout10-11

Filling in some of the holes with more flowers.. I began to remove the colored strips and experimented with more changes… The white Iris and Peony switched… Peony is bulkier… I also began cutting out the backgrounds from the flower prints. This makes things look more natural.

Testlayout12-14

Left above- lots removed, and the white schoolhouse cut into two pieces and moved- it seemed to make things top heavy…… Right above- I thought about having Morning Glory flowers, so I took some new photos one morning while they were still in bloom, and printed them to add. Getting closer to having the space filled…

Testlayout15-17

Now what to do with the upper left corner….. Sky?? Too stark… Took my Water Road house photo into Photoshop and changed the sky to blue and some added green tree leaves to the photo, printed it onto fabric…might work… Those pink Daisies stick out… the Hydrangeas upper left aren’t working….

Testlayout24-25

Hmmmm… Daisies at the base of the old shed…. few more holes filled…. Peony flowers don’t grow sideways… cut the flowers apart and repositioned them… added a couple more small ones… Hydrangeas still stick out….

Testlayout26

Hydrangeas kicked out…. Maybe ready for fusing?.?.?  If you look close, you can see lots of yellow headed pins. I now let it sit over night and looked at it the next morning, still looks OK…. later in the day… Time to fuse….

Look MA No Pins

All fused to the backing paper!! No more pins! I had to do a bit of cutting out of fabric pieces under light colored flowers. Now I have to figure out what I am going to do as far as quilting and stitching on it…. Probably clear thread to hide the stitching and not take away from the flowers.

Testlayout30

Still deciding whether I will border this a little or not… A narrow black border photoshopped in. I am running out of time for finishing this… I have entered it into my local quilt guild’s quilt show coming up the last weekend of this month…. just less than two weeks and counting…. hopefully the worst is over…. One problem…. fairly minor, I thought this would end up bigger than it is, but adding more than a tiny border just didn’t seem to look right. I guess I’ll just let the gals in charge of the show know what the final size will be…. I’m not the only one who enters unfinished quilts Having the deadline, gives me a reason to keep working on this and not cover it up and forget about it.

Flower Garden Finished

Well, here it is…. The finished quilt.  Bordered with a narrow black border and quilted with clear thread. The photo here may not show the quilting really well, but there is a lot of it!

UPDATE… I thought I had things up and running…. After a site crash, I lost all photos from my posts, and just got things running again here in JUNE…. I will now be working to reload the missing  photos that got lost.

I am still learning more every day about all of this.

Pink Potentilla

Hey, I now even have a photo in a post!!  Actually this is a new photo in the post…. No longer snow, but a flower.

THIS POST ALONG WITH THIS SITE IS AGAIN A WORK IN PROGRESS

Wisteria in Progress

Here is another photo…. It is of one of my new “Stones and Walls” pieces in progress. Once I get things settled a bit more here, and get busy writing lessons, this (or a similar piece) will be a part of one of my planned Online Classes that can be taken right from the Online Classroom area of this site.

Fabric painting and sunprinting have fascinated me for years. There is so much to learn by playing with fabrics, paints, flowers, leaves, and much more. There will be classes for fabric painting basics as well as for more advanced classes involving sunprinting, nature printing  and other fun techniques.

If you are familiar with my work, and are interested in learning new techniques, let me know in the comments what your would like to see me teach.

(Please pardon the “dust” and possible scrambled look of things while I am in the building process)