Garden Lady #5 - Part Three

This is a continuation of two previous posts about the making of Garden Lady #5.

The arms, legs and face were made from a couple of flesh colored fabrics.  After they were interfaced, they were fused to Steam-A-Seam II and put together on my Teflon covered board.  I made the face and colored in the lips, then made the mistake of using water to activate the ink.  Needless to say, the red lips bled into the face and I had to toss that piece in the garbage.  This picture shows the 2nd face without any of the details, nor the red lips (yet).

I decided to use colored pencil after trying both the Inktense pencils with aloe gel and some Fabrico ink pens.  The pencils were the only thing that didn't run.  I think I was having this problem because the fabric was interfaced.  In previous pieces, the skin wasn't interfaced and both of those other options worked just fine.  Here are some of my trials on the first face and the final face.  I love how youthful the face ended up looking.

I hope you like it so far.  Stay tuned for a couple more blogs about the making of this art quilt.

Garden Lady #5 - Part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post about the making of garden lady #5.

I turned the edges underneath on the "garden" pieces and stitched them into place on top of the path and the two top background pieces.  I used a zig-zag 1.8 stitch width and 1.0 stitch length.  

I noticed that, since the background wasn't continuous, I was having a difficult time keeping the background flat and intact.  So, I added some stabilizer into the areas without fabric.  Here is what the background looked like after those steps:

I traced the pattern for the dress and hair and pinned them in place and here is what they looked like:

I could see that the back leg was going to cover up some pieces that were 3-dimentional, so I moved the location a little bit.  It'll take some of the dynamic nature out of the piece, but it's better than ending up with bumpy legs.

The next thing I worked on was the dress.  I decided to fuse some interfacing to the back of the purple material, and will do so with the arms, legs, face and hat.  Some of my other art quilts had see-through that I didn't like, so fixing that problem in advance made sense.  I used Pellon interfacing meant for lightweight clothes  (I don't know the specific number, because the paper insert covered 6 different types.)

I used a Dark violet Inktense pencil and water to paint the shadows on the dress  The freezer paper pattern was cut to reveal the areas to be inked.

And here is the dress with one arm pinned in place and the cuff and color pinned in place.

I hope you like it so far!

Garden Lady #5 - Part One

I got the inspiration for this quilt from a greeting card that was designed by Jane Newland.

I thought that it was really sweet.  I decided to try for a more natural face, arms and legs.  So I went hunting for inspiration and pictures.   Here are the sketches of the arms, legs, face and hat. My intention is to use the hat to cover the eyes. (I'm not that great at making realistic eyes!).

I decided to work on the background first on this quilt and wanted to use fabric and fibers that were already in my stash of supplies.  Here's the patterns pinned to the green and brown background fabrics that I selected.

I pulled out yarn, thread,  fabric, vegetable bags, antique trims, and doily pieces and put them all in a pile.

These were all snipped and layered onto the green background and covered with green tulle.  Here are the pieces all ready to stitch down.

I put a tear away stabilizer on the back and stitched the pieces with green thread - just enough to hold the things in place.

I hope you like it so far.

Garden Lady #4 - Part 4 and the final quilt "Don't Bug Me"

This is a continuation of 3 previous posts about the making of garden lady #4.

I added more bugs and things:

A couple of embroidered snails that my friend, Linda Taccolini, made for me.  She machine embroidered the snails onto white fabric with a tear away backing.  I inked the edges with Fabrico markers, added a little fray check, trimmed them, and stitched them onto the quilt with dark invisible thread.

A couple of caterpillars, also made by Linda.

And a few hand embroidered lady bugs.

The piece needed a little more flowers on it, so I hand embroidered several more in shades of pink, and did some stem embroidery too.  Then I hand embroidered a few more stems.

It's 32.5" W x 50" H.  I'm calling it "Don't Bug Me".

I hope you like it! 

Garden Lady #4 - Part Three

This is a continuation of two previous posts about the making of Garden Lady #4.

After making all of the foreground components, it was time to make all of the flora and fauna.  I used pictures from my garden to photoshop the echinaceas, which were printed onto prepared for printing fabric, then fused onto the background.  I added French knots in 2 colors on all of them.  The rest of the flora and fauna were randomly cut from quite a few fabrics and fused into place.  Finally, they were all stitched around the edges.

 One of my granddaughters said that I needed to add a butterfly and maybe a bird too.   And one of my friends, who is an expert in machine embroidery, suggested a snail, a butterfly, and I thought about a caterpillar and a ladybug.  I'll have to figure out when to stop coming up with ideas and finish the piece!  Here are a couple of the birds that were inked into the sky and a bee that was hand embroidered into the flowers.

I used 3 templates from Quilters Apothecary to stitch the arcs and free styled the circles here and there.  It's hard to tell, but I used several shades of green thread to do the quilting in the background, several shades of blue, gray, yellow, peach, pink, and metallic threads to do the quilting on the lady, the hose, and the water.  

So far so good.  Stay tuned for the finale.

Garden Lady #4 - Part Two

This is a continuation of a previous post about the making of Garden Lady #4.

I felt like I needed a little more definition on the face, so I took a picture of my friend and sketched it up.  I also felt like I needed to define the pants a little more, so I downloaded a few pictures from the internet, and sketched the pants onto the pattern and used it for the pattern.  Here are the pictures and the results:

It seemed like it was about time to pick the background and start working on getting that into place.  In addition to the hand dyed material for the pants, I had a hand dyed green fabric that seemed like it would work for this art piece.  I didn't have quite enough of the green, so I pieced in another green and plan to use the remnants of both to scatter the greens throughout the flowers to come.

Next was the hose and water.   I used another of my hand dyed green fabrics for the hose.  A gray and turquoise fabric was used for the nozzle.  

The water spray was made with 3 shades of Angelina fibers (white, gray, and gold).  I put the tracing of the pattern underneath the Teflon pressing sheet, laid the fibers on top, pressed them, and used the pattern to cut it out.

So, here is the background with all of the components in place.  I can't wait to start on the flowers that will make up the garden.

I hope you still like it!

Garden Lady #4 - Part One

I found a picture that I wanted to use for my Garden Lady series.  This is #4.  It'll be named when it is complete.

The inspiration is from a watercolor designed by Lois Dahl.  It really spoke to me and the artist gave me permission to use it as an inspiration for my garden lady series.  I loved the ethereal nature and all the green shades and flowers in this piece.  

I traced around it and had it blown up to 50" H at the Rose City blue print shop in Portland, Oregon.   There was a huge "For Lease" sign in the front.  I looked panicky when I got up to the counter, but the people there assured me that they were not closing, but that they had gotten close to it before negotiations made it possible for them to stay.  (It is run by only 2 people).  This is my absolute favorite place to get my sketches blown up.  They are quick, courteous, privately held, and very inexpensive.  I don't know where I'd take my sketches if they closed.   Anyway, here is the pattern from the print shop.

For the shirt, I collaged hand dyed material, lace hem tape, rick-rack, organza, thread and Angelina fibers; all in multiple colors.  I quilted it with pale green thread, cut it out with the pattern on top and turned under the edges.  Here are some progress pictures.

Layering the materials on an off white batik. 

Showing the quilting on the back side of the sleeve.

Sewing the pattern to top of the collaged sleeve.

More detail on the layers of the body of the shirt.

The shirt with the sleeve pinned onto the pattern.

A pile of the components.  Angelina fibers, 3 colors of organza, purple and green hand dyed material, antique rick-rack and hem tape.  Not included is the thread that was snipped and dropped into place.

I hope you like the progress so far!