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The sewing needle is the fiber artist's pencil: you're simply drawing with thread. When you hand stitch, you can guide the direction of the thread to make a design. And when you lower the feed dogs on your sewing machine, you can stitch in any direction, too. In The Art of Thread Sketching: Free...
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Whenever a new batch of commercial fabric samples arrives in our offices, everyone gathers around to ooh, aah, and dream about how they would use this or that pattern to make a quilt, bag, accessory, or baby item. I'm always first in line to see what's new, hungrily eyeing every stack of new...
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Where I live in New England, it gets dark at about 4:30 p.m. in the depths of winter. So when Daylight Savings Time kicks in and the snowbanks start to melt, I'm itching to get outside and do some fabric painting and dyeing. Sun printing with stencils. (Photo by Pokey Bolton.) I have always admired...
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One of the joys and privileges of working on Quilting Arts Magazine is that I get to talk to a wide variety of quilt artists and find out what makes them tick. 'Masked Self-Portrait,' 24½ " x 19", quilt art by Kate Themel. In the April/May issue of Quilting Arts I have an interview...
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If you want to give your art quilts or fiber art a unique design, one of the easiest ways is with fabric painting and surface design techniques. And one of the simplest ways to apply fabric paints or inks in a unique way is with monoprinting. Margarita Korioth made a monoprint on fabric with a collagraph...
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Recently, I shared Marcia Derse's tips for making your own fabric stamps for resist dyeing . The way that Marcia came to surface design and incorporates fabric painting and dyeing techniques into her quilt art fascinates me so much, I thought I'd give you some insight into her thought process...
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Art quilting can be an expensive hobby. A good-quality sewing machine, specialty threads, and stacks and stacks of fat quarters, are just the beginning. It always seems like there's some new gadget, tool, or surface-design supply I absolutely must have. But I come from thrifty New England stock,...
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I just love the Fall. If I had my way, it would always be Fall. Perhaps I'm so enamored because I grew up in San Diego, where Fall is more a designation of time than an actual season, and now the beauty of the New England Fall has enchanted me. Maybe it's because I love the feel of the cool,...
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I have taken many classes from fiber artist Rayna Gillman. I love her warm, giving approach to teaching and I have acquired many skills from her lessons. The results of Rayna Gillman's "therapy sewing" using many fabrics she made more interesting with Thermofax screen printing . But maybe...
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One of the differences between art quilting and traditional quilting as that in art quilting, thread is almost always part of the design. The choice of thread in machine embroidery , in particular, can affect the look of the quilt. Selecting a single color thread, a variegated thread, a thread that contrasts...
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A note from Vivika: Today our topic is mixing fiber art with wet media (specifically watercolor) to use in surface design . So, I called in my mixed-media colleague Cate Prato, Editor of Cloth Paper Scissors Today , to serve as guest blogger. Take it away, Cate! I don't know what it is, but whatever...
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Note from Vivika: This is the fourth in a series of blog posts by Candy Glendening showing you how to create unique functional pieces with artistic flair. Now that you've dyed a spectacular piece(s) of multi-colored fabric ,it's time to show it off. What better way than to make a one-of-a-kind...
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When I think of fabric painting , Mickey Lawler's Skydyes and the wholecloth quilts of Hollis Chatelain and Judy Coates Perez come to mind. Mixed-media fabric painting by Sue Pelletier. But now that I work in the same office as the Cloth Paper Scissors magazine editors, I've been exposed to more...
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One of the things I'm looking most forward to as editor of Quilting Arts Magazine is learning more about surface design . Surface design fabrics by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. Techniques like fabric painting, dyeing, printing on fabric, and foiling are all familiar to me and I admire other artists'...
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The Quilting Arts/Cloth Paper Scissors crew and my quilt full of surface-design love. On this Thanksgiving Day I am in transition. I'm settling into my new Houston digs in preparation for my fresh adventure with Quilts Inc. while still consulting for Quilting Arts and preparing for the next season...