Fabric Collage on Hand Made Paper

 Pre-Covid, I was planning to go with Devora to a paper-making course near London, Ontario.

We never got around to actually going but during Covid, I decided to order home-made paper from "Papertrail", the company which ran the paper-making course.

And in a spurt of creativity, I don't exactly know when because I didn't blog about it at the time I made four collages using 5" X 7" paper and fabric scraps.  the purples were from Alana and Michelle's , some pieces from a dress of Elsie's and other purple bits and bobs in my stash. I still have a small container full of purples so maybe at some point I'll make more purple collages.  I actually saw a tryptich on an 8 1/2" X 11"sheet, but I digress.  I am assuming I made the collages in the summer of 2024 because I photographed them on September 14, 2024 after I had framed (Dollarama frames) and hung them on the wall.

 

 

Recently, while looking for fabrics for another project, I was reminded that I have a bin of blue small pieces and white wedding gown small pieces.  So I am going to try for another 4 collages in blue and white.  I must admit that I am trying to recreate the same or similar designs in case I am not inspired to create something totally new in design.  So sue me.

And here are the 4 pieces I made.

 

And now I am moving onto browns, golds, beiges and whatever else seems to fit.

 

 

 

B Textiles

 While Carmit was here, Honey, Devora, Carmit and I went to see an exhibit at the Koffler Art Gallery.  I was not impressed.  Carmit managed to 'splain the concepts but wallpaper, torn sheets and staples did not do it for me.  I know, I am both a snob and a boor.

The second part of our outing was a trip to B Textiles.  That's the fabric store on St. Clair West which was closed for 20 year and reopened fairly recently, under the same family ownership.  A treasure trove of 60s and 70s fabrics.  We were impressed but too overwhelmed to shop.

          A really rotten selfie, I am short but not a foot shorter than Carmit.  For historic purposes,             it  shows we were there.

I decided to return by myself this week, looking for a particular fabric.   It is a piece from my wedding dress.  Said wedding mini dress, was made from a remnant about 3/4 yard of fabric.  I have since used pieces of it in various textile art works, but am running low (55 years since the wedding and a good 40 years of sewing since).

 

 Alas, they did not have it.  Lisa (of the B family) told me that a wedding seamstress had come and bought up most of their white fabrics.

I decided to buy some fabric and got a half yard of each of the following.  They are all synthetics but exactly what is a mystery.

The first, because I liked the paisley pattern.  It is not cotton but a silk screen with the selvage "Carsilca International Screen Printing". And it has a paisley pattern.

 

The second, because it is so out of my comfort zone.  Flower power, also synthetic.I can see it paired with a peach fancy fabric someone gave me years ago and a deep pink/magenta dupionni silk in my stash.  What exactly I will do with them, I don't know.

 

And the third I bought because I intend to cut it up and use the individual silver circles with frayed edges in other pieces.

And before I forget, at the Faigie Estate "sale", I picked up a bag of what I thought was quilt batting.  Turns out it was white wool felt. Carmit said to wash a sample to see how much it shrinks.  A 12" square turned into a 9 1/2" square. So I won't be using it for bed quilts butI can use it for my wallhangings.  The texture is quite nice.  I may finally try some needlefelting on it.  This is what it looked like before washing.

This is what it looks like after washing.  Lovely bubbly texture.

 

And again, using up stuff

I made crazy quilt blocks years ago.  I had one which I finished but never "framed".  The colours were not my usual pinks, purples and blues but rather browns, rust, oranges.  Looking through "stuff" my mother gave me, I came across an Israeli made tea towel (shows you how old that one was) and decided to use it for the frame.  ?

Long story short, I had a strip left of about 8 cm wide and 36 cm long.  I wanted to make something like this, a ceramic piece Inbal had gifted me from a trip to Arizona.

 

I tried my hand at air dried clay. Total failure.  So not my medium.  So I decided to try making something from fabric.  Several years ago, POM had a workshop using flexi-firm stabilizer.  After the workshop, I noticed that people had used a small piece of it and thrown the rest away.  I went garbage diving and pulled out the leftovers, for "future" use.

I cut the pieces into squares and rectangles, and sewed them together into larger pieces.  So I have a bunch of 8 cm pieces. 

I figure if I make a sandwich with an embellished top, two 8 cm flexi-firm pieced pieces, back it with felt and zig-zag the edges, I should have a comparable small art work. 

On top of each tea towel piece, I centred a diamond shaped piece of, what else, fabric from another old project.  Then I attached a metal bird and several beads, et voila.   Still have to figure out how to hang it but I digress.

 Three more and I'll be done.

Update:  not sure I'll make them into little hangings.  May just make them into fridge magnets.

And I whipped up some more, also from bits and pieces.

Final decision.  Fridge magnets.

Next UFO, WISP or whatever you call it

 This is part of a crazy quilt project I started years and years ago.  I had made abut 8 of these blocks, intending to do the seams with the embroidery stitches on my machine.  After I had done most of the stitches, I didn't like the feel so I painstakingly unpicked them and dismantled the quilt.  

I went to Fabricland and bought fabrics which contained blue and other colours and made separate crazy quilt blocks, using the additional colours in the borders to inform my embellishment colour choices.

 

While searching for something in my stash, I cam across this unfinished block.   I also came across a sleeveless cotton blouse Inbal had left behind.  I decided to make a shidduch.

I will now (starting December 15, 2024) embellish with some of the below.

December 19, 2024 - Finished (with triangle corners on back for hanging).

I really enjoyed this one, auditioning the reds, blues and beige/peaches.  The fabrics are mostly from wedding dresses and the findings I have accumulated along the way.  I find that I really like embellished crazy quilt.  Shaking hands, however, do not make for easy needle threading.

 

 

Fabric Bowl

 Not much to tell here.

Susan Rose demonstrated at L&S how she made fabric bowls for her guild's sale at the Calgary Film Festival.  I took her instructions and improvised in keeping with my commitment to use what's in my stash.

Long story short, this is the bowl I made.

Front

 

Back

 

Side view. 

 Quite fiddly because of the stiffness of the flexi-firm.  Might try it again with regular quilt batting.

If you want more explicit instructions, contact me.

 

Everthing Old Is New Again

I actually started this post on November 19th and worked an hour here and an hour there until completion.

Shellie noticed this wallhanging in the background on one of our Zoom Lunch and Shmooze meetings.

This was a piece I made as a monthly 12" square challenge I made in a quilt art group I belonged to several years (perhaps already more than a decade) ago.  I discovered this one while =-for something else.  I know I made at least one more - it was shades of mauve and purple.

So I am about to revisit the technique, make a new one using materials from my stash, and make a demo post for anyone interested.

It starts with 16 3.5" squares.  I am using duppioni silk from my stash and I am backing it with lightweight fusible interfacing to minimize fraying.

I cut out the interfacing 3.5" squares

  and ironed them onto the duppioni silk.

 

Then cut out the silk squares and laid them out in a 16 patch (4 rows of 4 squares).

The exposed squares will be a 9 patch.  Decide which squares will be the 9 patch.

 

Sew the squares into 4 rows of 4 squares.  

 

Take the row which is not in the 9 patch and cut it in half lengthwise and place one half above the 9 patch rows and one below the 9 patch rows.

 

Now sew the five rows together.

You are almost there.  Once you have the block, cut the right hand column in half from top to bottom and place the 2nd half to the left of the 9 patch.

You have now completed the base block., with full squares in the middle and half squares around the perimeter.

Of course, measure twice cut once didn't work.  When I cut the side piece in half, I didn't take into account the 1/4" seam already sewn so the side pieces were out by 1/4".  I remedied this by cutting 1/4" inch off the other three sides et voila - an 11 3/4" block...

Next step is batting.  I had some pieces of batting cut from other projects and sewed them into a square slightly larger than the block.   They were a little wonky but I don't think it will affect the finished piece.

 I placed the block on top of the batting.

 I then cut a piece of organza (I think it is synthetic organza) also slightly larger than the block and placed it on top of the block.

I then sewed this sandwich along the seam lines in a grid.

Now the fun part.

The organza is cut in each square along two sides and then folded back into a triangle.

 

 

 I used scissors to cut so the organza edges are a bit rough.  Better to use a seam ripper, but make sure not to cut into the under layer or through the stitches.  I guess a bit of masking tape could make a stopping point and then easily removed.

The direction of the triangles is not that important.  If you alternate so the triangles are on the top or the bottom, to the left or to the right, great.  If you screw up (like I did on the last piece I made) no one will notice (I didn't notice my screw-up until today...)

And here is the piece with organza triangles folded back.

I spent about an hour auditioning bits and bobs to place in each exposed triangle.  I have findings which I purchased and pieces of deconstructed jewelry.  This part is time consuming because you don't want one triangle to overpower another or the items not compatible one to the next.  I tried the buttons but they didn't look good (too big).

And this is the layout I decided to use.  

 

 

 Some of them are not terribly visible on the lighter fabrics but I will attach them with embroidery thread and/or beads and that should make it better, I hope..

Triangles tacked down.

Revealed triangles with findings attached with beading or threads.

Chose a backing fabric from upholstery samples picked up at Guild meeting years ago.

Then I quilted the quilt sandwich with zigzag stitching.  I first tried the zigzag in a contrasting thread but decided that less is more and just used a silver grey thread.  I zigzagged on the previous seams except for the outer border.

I quilted before I stitched the perimeter  because I wanted to add triangle corners on the back so a dowel can be inserted for hanging.

 I zigzagged around the perimeter, twice.  Unfortunately, there are some places where the batting shows to the front.  I will look for a grey Sharpie to colour them.

Finished front.

Finished back with hanging triangles.

 

Then a "haircut" to cut off any organza frays or other fabric fraying.

Et voila - onto the next project.