Creating a Quilted Banner - Finish

Ok, so the lighting of this photo is terrible, but I'm just glad to have it finished and I'm not going to angst about getting a perfect picture!  All that is left to do is to hand stitch down one long edge of the hanging sleeve, and that's an evening job for when I'm sitting in front of the fire conversing with the love of my life ;-)

These are the process photos since you saw it last.  I filled in the background with neocolor water soluble pastels.  Being crayon-like, you can turn them on their side and use them to block in colour quickly.

Out came the fabric medium again and I began to paint thin layer of it over the pastel.  I applied the pastel and the fabric medium in thin layers to try and avoid a 'plastiky' feeling.  (And how on EARTH do you spell plastiky - plasticy - plasticee....?)

I've had a few people asking me what fabric medium I use.  I picked up some Jo Sonja's fabric medium from Spotlight (probably equivalent to Joanne's in the USA).  You can use it to mix with acrylic paints to turn them into textile paints.  I haven't used it much because I also have specific textile paints.  But it can also be used to set coloured pencil and water soluble pastels.  I did a post here on my experiments:  http://theslightlymadquiltlady.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/experimenting-with-coloured-pencil-on.html

I would also like to experiment with some other brands as this is the only one I've used so far.

Here it is fully painted.  You need to heat set textile medium, so I ironed it using a pressing cloth.  Be careful!  There are a couple spots where I lightly scorched it and slightly discoloured the pastel (it matches the cat paw prints and I'm calling it 'texture').

You can hardly see it, but there are Kerikeri street names written lightly on the background.  Again, they were done in coloured pencil.

I had the appliqué letters in the middle originally but they were lost against the foliage.  With a bit of shuffling and auditioning I found they sit perfectly against the darker stripe that I had painted on the bottom edge.

I fused the letters onto the background (they are cut from my hand-dyed fabrics) and then free-motion quilted/appliqued them onto the background using two rounds of black thread.

The binding is machine stitched.  I made a hanging sleeve and pinned it along the back top edge, then applied the binding on the back side first (so I'm sewing the binding and one edge of the hanging sleeve in one go).  Then I flip the quilt over, fold the binding over the edge and onto the front, and pin it so it sits just over the line of machine stitching that shows from where I sewed it onto the back.  Then I straight stitch from the front side, about 1/8 inch in from the edge and this catches both the front and the back neatly.

That's a really short explanation of how I do my machine bindings - leave me a comment if you want me to do an expanded explanation with pictures.

Now I have a week left for my next quilt deadline.  I'm not so optimistic about getting that one finished, but I'll give it a go.

Stay tuned for a Cerego renovation update tomorrow!

Creating a Quilted Banner

First up, I need to apologise.  My answering of comments got a little behind, and then a little more behind and then I got completely lost.  So if you've commented on the blog recently and I haven't answered you by email (if you are a reply-enabled commenter), sorry!  And I'm sorting it out.  I'm going to set up a separate email account just for comments so they don't get jumbled into my every day emails and then lost in the clutter.

It's a busy time for us at the moment with trying to renovate Cerego to liveable standards and I'm trying to downsize a little everyday so there isn't a mad scramble when we move.  Plus this month I'm working as a locum midwife, so a lot more hours than I usually work and I'm still doing my normal work shifts too.

Then I sat down and wrote a list of quilts and projects that I'm working on at the moment and checked all the deadlines (for the ones that have deadlines).....and took a huge gulp.  I have two projects with scary deadlines - one in just over a week and one in just over two weeks.  Both of them I want to do and the first one I also feel obligated to do because it's for my local club.

So I've set to with a vengeance.  The first project is a banner advertising my quilt club.  We are having a regional day in July and it's our turn to host.  The three other regional clubs are invited.  We will have speakers, show and tell and vendors.  We provide a lunch and we participate in a challenge - and this banner is the challenge.  It must fit within a metre square, have three layers and be quilted and have the words 'Kerikeri' on it somewhere.

I took white fabric and stamped some background designs on it with my own made stamps and fabric paints.  Then I traced some foliage designs on it that I've used in a previous quilt.  I basted it and quilted these designs in black thread.  Can you see the dirty cat paw prints on it?  Don't leave anything lying around...

I also quilted some curves in the background to provide a bit more stability and some structure for where I'm going to appliqué the words.  This morning I spent the whole swimming lesson then playground session with my coloured pencils, filling in the quilted foliage.

Then tonight I've started painting over the pencil with fabric medium.  It sets it, stops it rubbing off on the rest of the quilt and makes it more intense and a bit more like watercolour.

I'm not investing a lot of design time on this, I'm aiming for finished rather than perfect.  It is a challenge and there will be a winner picked but I'm entering more to support my club rather than because it's something that really speaks to me.  Hopefully I'll get a whole lot more progress done on this soon!