Results of Shrink Plastic

Susan added her shrink plastic embellishment to this piece that was made earlier. The colored buttons were printed onto inkjet plastic, cut out and shrunk. She had punched a hole for easy attachment with beads.

This Tic-Tac-Toe game is Jamie's piece in her alphabetical series for "X" - Xigua. Xigua is Chinese for watermelon. She has printed the watermelons on the inkjet plastic, using a full sheet. Once shrunk, they are attached to the red blocks. The blocks with the X's and O's are attached to the background quilt with velcro - the extra X is attached on the back.

Results of Positive/Negative Stenciling

Sue created her positive/negative stencil from actual oak leaves and they provide the focal point of this art piece. Her strip piecing, beading and machine quilting add a great deal of detail and interest.

Susan separated her positive/negative circles to form strips within a scrappy pieced unit. She has named this art piece "Hugs and Kisses" because of the combination of O's created with Paintstiks and X's created with the machine stitching.

Jamie designed a positive/negative stencil and painted a piece of fabric which was then cut up and used as the skin of the Winter Squash. Thread painting blends the prints and adds texture to the squash. Watercolor pencils were used to give dimension.

Sue Anne has created a beautiful fall scene and has used a number of techniques to color her fabrics. The blue background is her positive/negative stencil. In order to create a subtle background, several areas were left unpainted. The side border leaves have been printed and stamped. The dimensional leaves were cut from a commercial fabric, lined and sewn with invisible thread which puckered slightly when steamed.

Results of White on White

Jamie's piece using texture features her next vegetable in the alphabetical series - V for Vates Kale. The background muslin was machine quilted first. Embroidery stitches were added. The clamshell section was painted with acrylic paint. The photo of the Vates Kale was printed in black and white onto Extravorganza and mounted on a piece of fabric which was then placed on the background. The white edging was hand-crotcheted.

Susan's textured piece is simple in design. She machine quilted the background Osnaburg in straight lines. Placed over the top is a weaving which she made from all the threads and yarns in the kit.

Results of Sun Printing with a Grid

Sue Anne used her orange fencing sun print as the center of her composition. She then embellished the quilt with applique, an old house number,ovals cut from the Folger's metal foil seal, and beads.

Sue must have had the most fun of all! Her three distinctly different designs used a sun printed background that was integrated into each composition.

Jamie's gridded composition uses the ugli fruit as its center motif. The background blue was sun printed with a diagonally gridded screen with the center block cut away. Laying a foam sheet cut-out of the ugli in the center while the fabric dried left its sillouhette almost white. The fruit was then sponged with watercolor paints.

Susan experimented with sun printing organza. While there isn't a great deal of contrast left by the squares on the organza, there is enough to add interest and pattern to her composition. Her addition of resin beads and a layered focal point complement the sillouhetted squares.

Results of Fused Collage Kit

Susan has created an attic window variation for her composition of a mother and child. She has fused hand-dyed cheesecloth and the cut out picture to a hand-painted background. Individual flower motifs are added for interest. The one in the foreground has been fused to felted wool and placed over the tulle which covers the entire piece.

Sue used her picture in its entirety and placed it over her other elements: hand-painted background, hand-dyed cheesecloth, and Angelina. A layer of tulle covers the entire piece which is machine quilted and hand-embroidered. A silk flower and bead have been added as embellishments.

Sue Anne used her picture on the background in the upper right corner. To enlarge the image area, she fused snippets of fabric to match the picture and thread and silk ribbon to cover the bottom. An Angelina cloud masks the left hand seam. She then bordered the piece on two sides with printed fabric and beads.

Jamie used a piece of fabric that had been screen printed with turnips, leaves, and diagonal shapes as her background. The hand-dyed cheesecloth is laid over the Misty Fuse, with the other elements placed on top. The leaves were cut from several silk philodendron leaves and thread painted before Misty Fuse and black tulle were laid over the entire piece. Minimal machine quilting has been added.

Stacked Silk Results

Jamie used the four different silks in this piece call "Illuminated Snowpeas". The center is the painted raw silk which was stitched by machine and then shaded with watercolor crayons. The other silks form the patchwork around the perimeter of the piece.  A seed stitch has been added in the areas between the snowpeas to provide the quilting.

Sue Anne has used the raw silk piece for the background of her quilt. In order to subdue the bright colors of her original plaid, she over-dyed the silk with a light version of the orange Dyn-a-Flow. It is now a more muted and subtle background. The silk used for the side panel and the flower petals is an hand-dyed charmeuse silk.

Sue cut her stacked and painted silk into strips for the wall that her frog is climbing. The piece is embellished with beads.

Molding Paste Results

Sue has used the molding paste to create her poppy petals. Each petal was shaped onto a piece of coordinating fabric, allowed to dry and cut out to become an applique. Each petel was applied individually to the pre-quilted background. Because of the multi-layers, she was unable to sew through the center to apply the beads. They were sewn to a black piece of fabric and then appliqued on. The single bugle beads were hand sewn to the petal directly. See the following photo for a closeup view.

Susan has combined two tart lessons into one quilt. She applied each section in a quilt-as-you-go manner, starting with a previously quilted piece made with flour resist. Each section is individual in its style. The molding paste was shaped to resemble river rocks or stepping stones. The grey squares at the bottom are raw edged applique. The narrow gold piping connects each section. She embellished the stones with gold foil and the piping with beads. See the following close-up.

Jamie completed her next alphabetical fruit/vegetable using the molding paste for the raspberries. She cut a stencil in the shape of the raspberries and applied the molding paste directly to the background fabric which is a photo ink jet printed onto cotton. Paint and machine stitching were added around each cell of the raspberry. Adding the blue strips and squares for contrast, the quilt was then machine quilted.

Sue Anne spread the white molding paste over the surface of a large piece of muslin and let it dry. With gel medium she glued bits of paper and fabric to the molding paste and when that was dry, she added a wash of color. Stitching and embellishments were added lastly to finish the piece. The bird is molding paste applied to a separate piece of fabric.

Sue Anne's second piece was made to improve her collage process, but generally it was constructed as described above.

Metal Tags Results

Susan had alot of fun making tag after tag! Each one is different and Susan used a variety of materials and techniques. See the following photo for a close-up of a portion of her quilt. Her presentation of the tags on her gridded quilt gives the viewer a slight optical illusion.

Sue Anne's metal tags fill a small booklet. She has incorporated text, charms, paper in creating little works of art.

Jamie used her tiles to spell out Quince - her latest in the ABC's of Fruits and Vegetables. Each were painted with silver paint and rubbed with Lumiere paint. Painted and glittered cardboard letters were glued to the tiles. The quinces were paper-pieced.

Results of Pantry Dyeing

Jamie's piece this month uses a pomegranate as a motif as well as the "dye" for some of the elements. She used a pomegranate tea for dyeing cheesecloth and embroidery floss; the light background fabric was simmered in pomegranate juice; and the halo around the fruit has been painted with cold pomegranate juice after the piece was quilted.

Sue says her kitchen was a regular chemistry lab as she tried to find just the right red for some of her leaves. She has dyed used dryer sheets and wool as well as using commercial fabrics overlayed with organza. The yellow wool is a combination of tumeric and dry mustard. The dark red is a combination of paprika, chili pepper and other red spices. All the leaves have been machined stitched prior to being placed on the background which was created by spritzing a bleach and water solution over a maple leaf stencil. Sue has achieved her dimensional piece by also using her heat tool to melt the organza and dryer sheets.

Sue Anne dyed her family memory quilt with tea and coffee. By letting the coffee-dyed crotcheted dry in a warm place, she was able to get a very dark color. The background is an old huck towel with its own stains plus some that Sue Anne added by spritzing with coffee and tea. The floral applique is from old drapes. A piece of mica covers the photo in the center. Trims and threads used for embellishment have also been dyed with coffee and tea.

Susan combined two Tart techniques in this piece. After quilting the striped background, she added two used dryer sheets: one dyed with black cherry Kool-aid and the other with paprika. The two-toned circles have been cut from her painted and embossed bamboo batting. Bead embellishment highlights the entire piece.

Results of Embossing Bamboo Batting

Sue Anne used her embossed batting to make appliques for this bright and springy piece. The batting was embossed before she colored it. After cutting out the shapes, she painted the edges to eliminate the uncolored batting. The background uses raw-edge applique, quilting and stamping to add layers of interest. Sue Anne used a number of embroidery stitches and beading to attach her appliques.

Jamie's piece is a combination of textures:  pieced and quilted background, embossed and painted batting, thread painted olives and leaves, and smooth wallpaper bottles. The bamboo batting was embossed lightly and misted with several colors of paint.

Sue's batting was embossed purposely with a tree shape. She built her texture plate using old silk flower stems and cording. The background around the trees was painted with a golden brown paint and set into the blue background. Believe it or not, the tree looks like it was made to fit the background branches, but wasn't! The beading represents leaves and bluebirds.

Gelatin Plate Printing Results

This is Jamie's finished piece using gelatin plate printing and reverse applique. Squares of white fabric were printed with paint sponged onto the gelatin plate. Amounts of orange and yellow paint were used in varying amounts. The black fabric was backed with fusible interfacing before cutting out the shape of the nectarine. After fusing the black fabric over the printed fabric, the squares were skewed and sewn together with the green background strips. The entire piece was machine quilted. Jamie then added watercolor crayon and Shiva paintstiks highlights.

Sue's piece was very well planned and sketched out before starting in order to combine the gelatin plate printing and the reverse applique. The orange and green colored areas were printed on the gelatin plate. But before printing, Sue ironed a freezer paper pattern to the white fabric so that the trunks were masked to prevent being painted. The black fabric was fused to the painted background after removing the three large areas. She then "connected" her tree trunks by painting the black fabric white. By using the brown thread painting she tied it all together so that it appears that the birches are appliqued over the entire piece.

Results of Bedazzling Beads

Susan added her beads as an icicle embellishment to her snowflake scene. After piecing the background, she used a Cedar Canyon stencil and a silver Paintstik to add snowflakes to lower part of the piece and the upper right corner. The sky area is covered with an embroidered organza that she embellished with silver thread by machine. The white snowflakes were made by her mother though Susan added glitter and a few glass beads. Her silver icicles in the upper left corner were made with netting and organza and melted. In the photo you don't see the last snowflake which hangs below the quilted piece.

Sue has altered gold netting for her little piece. The background squares behind the beads are red netting that she painted and embossed with gold powder, giving them a metallic look. The same red netting has been rolled and melted to make the beads. She also used red organza to make additional beads, which have been coordinated with glass beads for the background texture.

Sue Anne created a grid of squares, text, and beads over a hand-painted background to make a quilt describing marriage. She has used lutradure and Tyvek to make the narrow beads and Kunin felt for the larger ones. All have been embossed with gold or copper embossing powder. Many of the beads have been embellished with small commercial beads. The text was taken from an old book and adhered with matte gel medium. The quilting was done as the last step.

Jamie's quilt is the "M" in her series of Fruits and Vegetables; although Morel Mushrooms are neither, nor did she use beads! Instead of rolling the Kunin felt and organza, she sewed these fabrics to a background of black felt in a random pattern. She then melted the felt and organza between the stitching to give the illusion of depth. The mushrooms were attached once the background was quilted.