Creating Stencils

For most of my quilts I've used freezer paper stencils with textile paint, paintsticks or oil pastels.  Some designs I've drawn or traced then cut with a blade.  While I've become quite accurate with my cutting it takes time and is difficult to get precise small pieces.

Earlier in the year, after some research, I purchased a Silhouette Cameo.  With the combination of the Silhouette software and the magic little blade my world of cutting freezer paper has become way bigger.

For my current project I wanted to repeat the technique that I used in my quilt 'Out My Window' using freezer paper stencils with paintsticks applied over the painted background (the swirls).

'Out My Window' detail

The Silhouette Cameo uses a 12"x12" carrier mat, whatever is to be cut is 'stuck' to the mat and feeds into the machine and the design is cut.  

trimming freezer paper to fit the mat

smoothing the freezer paper to the sticky mat

  






 
After a bit of use the mat looses its stick.  To 'clean' the mat a quick way is to lay down printers tape then remove the tape - this returns some of the stickiness and removes all the stray pieces of paper or whatever else has been cut previously.



This is my first mat - still working well despite the interesting cut patterns.

Using the Silhouette software the design is created then 'sent' to the machine for cutting. I'll explain a bit more about the Silhouette software in a later post.

completed cutting

 

slightly better view of cut images

 




















The cut pieces easily peel off ready to be used ...

A quilting event

On Saturday the Wellington Quilters Guild hosted the 'Coast to Coast' quilting event.  The five Wellington region quilting guilds usually have a quilting event every two years.  

It was held at Wellington Girls' College and there were merchants, show and tell, jelly roll competition, speaker and three challenges.

My entries for the challenges:

Cat not included

Flag - to redesign our New Zealand flag.

Bloke's block - circle of jandals
All the blocks will be joined into a quilt/s and donated to the Wellington City Mission.

Child's block - noughts and crosses on blackboard fabric
All these blocks will be put together as a quilt/s and donated to the Women's Refuge.



I won first prize and viewers choice for my flag.  Hmm there were only three entries!  My prize included a New Zealand flag and a voucher from Sawmillers Quiltery which I redeemed for some Aurifil thread.  

The flag was created with freezer paper stencils and coloured with paintsticks, textile paint would have been easier and faster.  To get the colour more intense required quite a few applications fortunately we had a few sunny days.  I find the paintsticks a bit messy for using inside. 

paintsticks, freezer paper (white)

Selection of the challenge block entries ...
 

 kids blocks








blokes blocks












Interesting to see the final quilts.

Quilts on show

Quilt Symposium Manawatu is currently on in Palmerston North.  I can now show my four entries - the rules stated that quilts couldn't be shown before the event.

Aqua Panels

Now Sew HSTs

Harakeke

Market Fresh

As well as the Symposium exhibitions, Aotearoa Quilters' (AQ) also has exhibitions.  The 'Growth' Challenge makes an appearance as it tours the country, so I'll see 'Increasingly Modern' again.

Increasingly Modern

Out my Window II

AQ also have a Silent Auction, I've donated 'Out My Window II'.  This is a bigger version of 'Out My Window' that was part of the 'Beneath the Southern Sky' travelling exhibition.

The purpose of the silent auction is to raise funds for AQ, while showcasing quilts from well known (!) NZ quilters.  Not sure how I managed that, maybe because I know one of the organisers!!

 




and finally AQ's Purple 12x12 challenge.  The triangles are painted iwth textile paint and the ric rac is coloured with oil pastels using freezer paper stencils.  The scooters piece is commercial fabric, quilted and trapunto-ed.

my three entries

Secret Santa

Every Christmas my stitching group make a secret santa present for one of the other members.  Each year I try and do something different and a bit me.  I have a great collection of handmade Christmas decorations. 

what I made with a tin of Whittakers chocs

what I received - checkout the beading!

 












This year my first effort was a disaster!  The more I kept going the worse it got.  So a couple of days before the Secret Santa handover I abandoned it and started something new. It had to be something achievable in a rather limited timeframe!   

I mostly followed the instructions for nesting bins here (the smallest one), adding a bit of decoration - making it a bit obvious as to who the maker was!  

One very good tip was to iron the Pellon batting to the lining and not to the front fabric.  The front is a linen mix so I wasn't confident that I'd be able get the Pellon to adhere evenly.  So if the Pellon doesn't adhere evenly or comes away, it doesn't matter as it won't really show.

 

stencil, paint and PearlEx pigments

For the pattern I used some of the elements of the lining fabric to create a freezer paper stencil.  

The paint is Pebeo Setacolor Shimmer Gold mixed with PearlEx pigments and the stitching is Madeira gold holographic thread - that just sparkles.

painted and stitched

closeup

Increasingly Modern

Aotearoa Quilters has a travelling exhibition called 'Growth', entries were due by 1 July.  My quilt 'Increasingly Modern' has been selected along with 19 other quilts.  Its first showing is at the Percy Thomson Gallery in Stratford (Taranaki).

Increasingly Modern

At first I struggled with this challenge as I couldn't get past kids growth charts!  The quilt was a bit of a last minute effort, I had been looking through some photos and came across my quilt, 'Painted Chocolate Blocks'.

Painted Chocolate Blocks

That sparked the idea of using the same technique to some how (!!) create a quilt representing growth.  I eventually decided to represent, as a graph, the growth of modern quilting.

 

I drew a diagram to work out the layout, there is even a bit of Fibonacci series in the sizing of the squares.



 
The shapes are painted using freezer paper stencils and Pebeo Textile shimmer paint - the glittery ones.

painting in progress

Then the quilting, this was a slow process.

I quilted around each painted block in a similar colour - the advantage with this is if there are any imperfections in the painted line the stitching sort of blends it out and the eye only sees (hopefully) the straightness of the stitched line.  

I mostly used my current favourite thread - Madeira Polyneon.  I've found I can't finished off the threads using the machine either with its knotting off stitch or several small stitches together.  It leaves either a noticeable blip of threads or they unravel - mainly a problem with these shiny polyester threads.

quilting and all those threads

I start by pulling the threads to the top when I start and finish each piece of quilting.  Then threading to the back and burying the threads later.  I tend to do some quilting then threading off and a bit more quilting, etc.  instead of leaving the whole lot to the end.   




As I quilt (and thread threads in) I often listen to podcasts on my iPad - one I'm following is Charlotte Scott's click here to listen.

For the white quilted area I wanted a wonky look that matched the painted squares.  While the blocks may be wonky they need to be vaguely straight.  To help with the 'straightness' I tacked horizontal lines and then quilted the squares mostly within these lines.  When I'd nearly reached the top I did check that the top row of blocks would line up with what would be the top edge of the quilt.  

angled closeup

 










The purple line is a piece of ribbon, hand stitched then machine stitched.

And somehow more purple is creeping into my work!

Txting

Earlier in the year my quilt "Caveman Txts" was selected for SAQA's "Text Messages" Exhibition.

This week I've been preparing to ship it off to the US.  The first showing is at International Quilt Festival in Houston from 31 October until 4 November.  I wish I could travel as much as my quilts do!


A wee glimpse ...
 










 
The fabric is rusted (using equal amounts of water and vinegar), the various images have been lino printed or painted.  Having a farmer FIL with an almost endless supply of rusty objects has been very useful.