My old rose bush in it's 2nd blooming. So pretty! It was planted by the woman that lived here for over 5o years before I bought this old house 6 years ago.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday my quilt guild had Caren Betlinksi in for an all day class to learn some tricks to thread painting. Thread painting is just that..."painting" with thread! It is free motion stitching on your machine, using different shades of colors to get a painterly effect. The class was wonderfully orchestrated by Caren...her supply packet included plastic templates for the flowers, pre-fused fabrics for the flowers, leaves and stems, practice pieces with stabilizer all ready for us to do a few exercises before we put this technique to the test on our own works. We all appreciated her preparation and thorough explanations and advice. It was a very busy, fun-filled day and I know I learned much! Thank you Caren.
One of her pieces.. pretty pink flower.
Tigerlily...all those shades of orange!
Caren showing us her coneflowers.
This is my piece after I added the accent strips which is also part of Caren's lesson. The background is a hand-dyed FQ from a woman in Florida. Melanie was wise to bring more fabrics than she needed and generous enough to let me have the bright pink fabric! Thanks Mel!!
Close-up shows how Caren uses unexpected colors to create depth and interest in the yellow on the petals of the Black-Eyed Susan's. Notice the magenta veining on the leaves.
Caren's work of art that was the lesson for our class..it is gorgeous! You can see her years of practice and experience. I just love her work.
I have the mid tone yellow stitched on all petals and plan to add a little magenta and a certain shade of green. Caren also had a grey-blue in hers. The centers are done in free motion zig-zag which is fun to do...very textural. I still need to add a light tone brown and a darker brown to show a light source. (always difficult for me to perceive a light source!) Caren advised us to add another layer of tear-away stabilizer where needed. (the entire thing has 1 layer already) I found out (too late!) that the brown centers needed more stabilizer when my first one puckered the background fabric. I am thinking a bee will enter the picture right on that pucker!
Some of my thread painting on the leaves and petals.
I spent a few more hours at the machine "painting" the leaves and Black-Eyed Susan's. I am not finished yet but it sure is fun! I really like this process and can see it being useful in other ways and for many projects. 
Here are 9 of the 19 that took the class showing their progress. These are all fused down and ready for threadpainting. I love seeing how each person's fabric choices and layouts make them all different and interesting!
One of her pieces.. pretty pink flower.
Tigerlily...all those shades of orange!
Caren showing us her coneflowers.
This is my piece after I added the accent strips which is also part of Caren's lesson. The background is a hand-dyed FQ from a woman in Florida. Melanie was wise to bring more fabrics than she needed and generous enough to let me have the bright pink fabric! Thanks Mel!!
Close-up shows how Caren uses unexpected colors to create depth and interest in the yellow on the petals of the Black-Eyed Susan's. Notice the magenta veining on the leaves.
Caren's work of art that was the lesson for our class..it is gorgeous! You can see her years of practice and experience. I just love her work.
I have the mid tone yellow stitched on all petals and plan to add a little magenta and a certain shade of green. Caren also had a grey-blue in hers. The centers are done in free motion zig-zag which is fun to do...very textural. I still need to add a light tone brown and a darker brown to show a light source. (always difficult for me to perceive a light source!) Caren advised us to add another layer of tear-away stabilizer where needed. (the entire thing has 1 layer already) I found out (too late!) that the brown centers needed more stabilizer when my first one puckered the background fabric. I am thinking a bee will enter the picture right on that pucker!
Some of my thread painting on the leaves and petals.
I spent a few more hours at the machine "painting" the leaves and Black-Eyed Susan's. I am not finished yet but it sure is fun! I really like this process and can see it being useful in other ways and for many projects. I am very pleased about this project, which doesn't often happen for me when I take a class. This will definitely be one I enter in our quilt show next year! I have plenty of time to finish!
Today I learned:
- Thread painting of course!
- I can download SCRABBLE to my phone!
- There is a way to knit 2 socks, a pair, at one time on 30" #2 circular needles. Mary Lee is going to send me a tutorial she found online.
Here are 9 of the 19 that took the class showing their progress. These are all fused down and ready for threadpainting. I love seeing how each person's fabric choices and layouts make them all different and interesting!
1 comment:
I have been checking on and off this afternoon and just before heading to the sheets, there are pictures and comments about yesterday's class. Caren is most creative and really uses the stablizers. I enjoyed seeing the group picture at the end. The amazining fact is that all of you used the same general flower pattern and no two projects are alike. I am sorry that you could not capture Christy in the picture. Thank you for sharing what appears to be a wonderful experience.
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