Fashion a Frame

                                                    Fashion a Frame

Use reverse applique as a way to make a frame to create a focal point for an embellishment, special stamp, unusual fabric, photo transfers or any number of other possibilities. It's easy to do and makes a statement.


Framing - Claire
I sewed the suggested four-patch and cut a square, off center, to place a piece of Dupioni Silk in the opening. I have been collecting small pieces of this silk for a long time and never seem to use in anything. Instead of stamping a design on the silk, as shown in the book, I chose to sew two clock faces to it. Then each of the four squares needed embellishments. Beads, rings, a small piece of shot cotton with a diaphonous leaf and a "Believe" sign added those embellishments. The traditional binding has a decorative yarn sewn to the inside edge. I may still add a printed ribbon to the lower section, time will tell.

Claire

Framing - Joyce
Joyce used a larger "window" to frame a fabric with a bee on it and then embellished the piece with buttons and bee-related signage. She edged the inside section with rick-rack.

                                                                    Joyce


Framing- Kathleen
Kathleen framed a butterfly that was cut from a printed fabric. She added several different beads and some quilting to the squares. An envelope treatment and a narrow jute trim finishes the piece.
 

Kathleen

 

 

Framing - Donnie

Donnie has framed an image of a cat and successfully made the piece into a pillow.

 

Donnie

 

Rubber Stamping

                                  Rubber Stamping

The use of rubber stamped designs adds a personal touch to the surface design of your quilts. Instead of using commercially available stamps, we have chosen to create our own stamps using several methods at our disposal.

                                                      
Stamping - Candy
Candy started with the blue fabric and added the green textured stamp before placing her swimming fish and starfish in place. The little swimming fish adds depth to the piece.

Candy

                           
Stamping - Donnie
Donnie has stamped alternating squares created by tucks that she has sewn into the fabric. A great combination of the two techniques!

                                                                                  Donnie


Two more versions of stamping by Donnie. This is Donnie's finished piece and she went back to her (traditional) roots and made a pieced basket. The piece below the basket was made by using a yellow square as the first layer, then the larger green triangle followed by the pink circle - three layers in all.

Donnie

Donnie

Stamping - Claire
I made the background stamp by cutting strips of foam sheets and sticking them to an acrylic block and then stamping the design onto the fabric in an alternating pattern. At first, I was unhappy with the fact that the stamp did not produce an evenly inked design across the surface of the fabric, but now I like that sort of shabby-chic look. The yellow circles are stamped with a foam circle. I finished by making stamps of the two flowers, leaf and stem and imprinted them on the background. A traditional binding brings it all together.

Claire

 

 

Stamping - Sue

Two floral designs encased with a row of pearls. Upper flowers were made with a handmade heart-shaped stamp, clustered in four prints to create one bloom with detail line showing the petal's veins made with the end of the foam brush. The pine-like boughs around the flowers were also made with the tip of the foam brush. The lower flowers pictured are made with the wedge end of a foam brush and a leaf stamp cut out of foam and adhered to a lucite block.

The black frame around the flowers is a "Fashion Frame" made out of a felt square. Sue finished her piece with an edge of pearls around the outer edge.

Sue

 

This is a Block Print in assorted colors. As I have only three colors available, pink, purple and green, all color blocks are mixtures of these paints (including the green which gives a bit of a brown shade to the other colors). I then made a "sandwich" from the printed fabric, a piece of batting and a backing fabric and quilted the piece. The block print became my quilting pattern. I am calling this piece "Underlying Love". You may need to see it for real to get the point. I am not happy with the green frame, it needs to be replaced.

Sue - Unquilted

                                                                                      

                 Sue- Quilted

Stamping - Annette
Annette has shown three examples of her stamping technique.

Annette

Stamping - Joyce

Joyce has mastered the layered approach to stamping with the yellow and lighter green as the background stamp designs and then continued with the darker green leaves from a stamp that she carved and finished with the rose which she also hand carved. She finished off with a yarn to frame and edge the piece.

 

Joyce

Stamping - Kathleen
Kathleen stamped in shades of pink and green and used a zigzag stitch to attach the stamped fabric to a pink background that was finished with and envelope binding.

Kathleen

 

 

 

Crazy Quilting

                                                           Crazy Quilting

There are two types of Crazy Quilting techniques to address in this section - Traditional Crazy Quilting and Deconstructed Crazy Quilting.

The Traditional approach relies on irregular piecing, often starting with a five-sided piece of fabric, ornate embellishments and fancy hand embroidery stitches.

The Deconstructed version takes elements from the traditional approach but puts them together in a new and different way. You can fray or pink the edges of the fabric pieces for a more organic look, add embellishments and use the sewing machine for the fancy stitching. The fabrics are arranged more randomly and laid on a piece of fusible interfacing and when positioned to the quilter's satisfaction, the fabrics are fused to the interfacing before the embellishments and decorative stitching are added.


Traditional Crazy Quilting - Annette
Annette is an amazing hand embroiderer and her work shows well here. There is an elaborate center motif that looks as if it includes silk ribbon embroidery as well as thread embroidered elements.

                                                                               Annette


Deconstructed Crazy Quilting - Sue
Four fabrics with frayed edges sewed, leaving raw edges exposed. Wandering lines of black embroidery floss with tiny snail shells along the way.

Sue

                                                          

Traditional Crazy Quilting -  Sue
Four fabrics in varying shape pieces Hand work includes rock glass and gold bugle beads in "broach" design. Rock edge border. Black and orange hand embroidery work. Brown vine with white beads and leaf outlines. Gold strands bound to fabric to create frames between pieces of fabrics.

Sue

 

Traditional Crazy Quilting - Joyce

Joyce has pieced this traditionally, starting with a five-sided center, and added hand stitching, hand embroidery, laces and trims, ribbons, a silk ribbon rose in the upper right and a swatch of scalloped lace in the lower right. Note the small elephant in the lower right corner above the scalloped lace. Somers NY, Joyce's hometown, is the cradle of the American circus and a statue of Old Bet, reputedly the first African elephant brought to the USA, stands as a memorial to her. The elephant is the town symbol and Joyce has remembered her as well.

Joyce

 

 

 Deconstructed Crazy Quilting - Joyce

The fabrics have been randomly arranged with some edges frayed and some edges pinked. Joyce has employed several patterned machine stitches on this piece, notably the scalloped line of stitching on the left side, next to the deconstructed patches. She has a stitched tree in the lower left corner, trimmed with beads, she outline stitched the center flowers, added leaves to the machine stitched tree in the lower right corner. She added interesting stitching on the patch on the upper right along with short bugle beads. Pinked edges adds to the organic feel. Buttons, beads, charms and an edge finish with yarn completes this piece.

 

Joyce

 

 

Traditional Crazy Quilting - Kathleen

Kathleen has used a variety of decorative machine stitches to set off her fabric pieces and added two large buttons as a decorative accent as well as some smaller beads and ribbons, finishing with a traditional binding to complete the piece.

 

Kathleen

 

 

Deconstructed Crazy Quilting - Kathleen

Kathleen used programmed machine stitches, added beads, sequins and small buttons to embellish the piece.

 

                                                                          Kathleen

 

 

 Traditional Crazy Quilting - Claire

I used a variety of buttons and beads, a fancy ribbon yarn, some charms and a leafy trim as well as a hand-embroidered daisy and line of embroidery along a seam line and finished with a traditional binding edged on the inside with an eyelash thread. I love the doodads!

 

Claire

Deconstructed Crazy Quilting - Claire

I pinked all the edges of my fabrics used in this piece, then stitched them down with a gold colored thread using a wavy machine stitching line in both directions across the quilt. I stitched the sinuous line of leaves down the left side and sewed funky (organic) buttons across the bottom. I sewed the butterfly to the top right section and used Gel Medium to glue the assortment of red buttons on the top left, the bird in the center and gears on the right side. Gel Medium works really well as an adhesive, a little bit goes a long way. I found a little acrylic block with a saying on it that I particularly like - "The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step" and as a bonus, the back side of it has a strong adhesive so I could just press it in place. I felt the quilt needed one more element and I wanted something different than what was already there, so I tangled some threads and couched them in place on the left side.I stitched a black and gold ribbon around the outer edge to finish the quilt.

                                                                              Claire

 

 

Traditional Crazy Quilting - Donnie

This is a combo piece with traditional pieced crazy quilt with hand embroidery added. I was inspired by a cloudy, snowy day in Stillwater, with the embroidery all in white to represent snow. 

 

 

 

Decontructed Crazy Quilting and Lutradur - Donnie

Donnie has combined her deconstructed piece with Lutradur flowers for a lovely combination of techniques. Her yarn edging finished the piece off well, and with flare.

 



Donnie

 

Bubbles and Wrinkles

                                                    Bubbles and Wrinkles


Here are more ways to add texture and dimension to your fabrics - wet your fabric and make bubbles by poking the fabric through the holes of a grid (like a baking rack), and get wrinkles by wetting and twisting a piece of fabric into a tightly wound rope.


Bubbles and Wrinkles - Annette
Annette added square glass beads to her bubbles, both to embellish the piece and to further stabilize the bubbles.

Annette 

 

Bubbles and Wrinkles - Candy

I loved the bubbles!  My first attempt was no good because I used a heavier fabric and the bubbles burst! I tried again with cotton and the results were great.  My wrinkles are still drying - hard to get things to dry in humid Florida where are temps are in the mid 80's. Makes my hair curly and my wrinkles damp!  

                                                                                                                                           Candy

The wrinkles are the background in this Dove pillow and give good texture to an otherwise plain background.

 

This Egret quilt is based on a photo taken in The Everglades by a friend. I am waiting for fabric I ordered to do the finishing work. The water is the wrinkled fabric. To secure it to the batt, I used beads. I didn't want to compromise the wrinkles

                                                                                   Candy

Bubbles and Wrinkles - Donnie
Donnie randomly stitched across her wrinkles to hold them in place and add more surface design and texture.

Donnie

 

 

 

 Bubbles and Wrinkles - Kathleen

I added sashing and traditional binding. My embellishments are tiny buttons on the bubbles and machine-stitched circles on the wrinkles.

 

Kathleen

 

 

 

Bubbles and Wrinkles - Sue

"Blue Berry Waffles"  (quilt on the top) I French knotted the centers of each bubble in the brown fabric.  I learned after a bit that you need to anchor the French Knot to the bottom for best effect. The rows are tacked down so the 'valleys'  couldn't pull up. It makes a nice texture. The bubbles are tougher then I figured they would be. The blue 'waffle' is anchored with a long stitch in both direction. They need to be bolder.  

 

Sue

"Plantings Done"   (quilt on the bottom) The brown wrinkle fabric jumped out to me as a newly plowed field. So I seeded it and the sprouts are coming up. Great approach to roads, grass. rocks, etc. 


Bubbles and Wrinkles - Joyce
Joyce has embellished her bubbles and wrinkles sections with beads and decorative machine stitching, adding a yarn fringer around both sections and finishing with a traditional binding.

                                                                                  Joyce


Bubbles and Wrinkles - Claire
I sewed sashing around my bubbles and wrinkles very simply, layered and quilted around the three blocks and through the center of the border, bound the piece and then added buttons and beads to finish it.
The bubbles are held in place with a couple of rows of hand stitching between the bubbles and the addition of several white beads, sewn through all the layers. The wrinkles have lines of machine quilting through them for stability and texture, and then buttons were sewn to each wrinkle panel for embellishment.

I really liked both of these techniques and look forward to using them in an art quilt in the future.

 

Stitches and Bits

Add some fun laces, trims, yarns, ribbons and a variety of threads to the tucks from the previous lesson and you have a quick and easy embellished result. Make the tucks as deep as you need, or no tucks at all when you apply flat trims to the surface. 

Stitches and Bits - Sandy
Sandy added a variety of trims on top and in tucks, as well as decorative stitching to make this piece.

                                                                                    Sandy


Stitches and Bits - Candy
Candy has looped a variegated yarn in the top tuck, added pleated fabric and some interesting trim and zigzagged stitched along the edges.

                                                                                 Candy



Stitches and Bits - Claire
In addition to adding tucks of different depths depending on what was being placed in the tucks (lace, pleated fabric, crinkly trim, rick-rack), I also added yarns and ribbons flat to the piece for more surface texture and then included the fringe of beads at the bottom.
I quilted across the folds in three places to securely hold the layers together and after stitching the three layers together around the edges, I couched a piece of narrow yarn on top of that stitching to finish it.

                                                                                      Claire

Stitches and Bits - Annette
Annette tucked ribbon and tabs into the folds and draped a strip of lace across the bottom tuck. The tabs bend up and down from the tuck. She hand-embroidered the upper section in a decorative pattern and sewed square glass beads to the tabs to finish the piece..

                                                                                Annette



Stitches and Bits - Donnie
Donnie has used two sizes of rick rack, several decorative machine stitches, a few different trims sewn into tucks and finished with a couched yarn edging.

                                                                      Donnie


Stitches and Bits - Joyce
Joyce has added some interesting "bits" into the sewn tucks on her piece. She has a piece of lace that is dimensional, leaning forward on the top row, difficult to see in the photo, some flat laces and trims, a three flower arrangement tucked into the center, two feathers poking out further down and more pieces of flowers. She took a ribbon and pleated it and tucked that in to add more texture and dimension.

                                                                                      Joyce


Stitches and Bits - Sue
Sue combined techniques with this piece. She used a nice variety of trims and stitches and used a pleated gold ribbon tucked into the top row. The leaf fabric shows the stencilled fabric on the reverse side of the Stitches and Bits, combining two techniques successfully.



Sue - front

Sue - stencilled back

Stitches and Bits - Nancy
Nancy stitched her piece in two sections, joined on the diagonal and incorporated trims, lace, ribbons, yarns and embellishments to successfully complete this piece that is edged with yarn.

Nancy