I made this quilt for the Queensland Quilters 2020 Challenge,
I painted and pieced the sky; then appliqued the mountains and tree trunks. The tree trunks are painted and thread-painted. I painted the gum leaves with a sponge, using five different colors – greens and yellow.
The water is painted and quilted.
The crow is screen printed. I created a digital thermofax screen.
It was a lot of fun to make and I really like the end result.
It was awarded Judges Choice. Exciting!
I played with increasingly complex mandala designs some time ago. Life got in the way, as it sometimes does, but I am now ready to finish them and get them up on the website.
This is a free design for you to play with.
I have stitched it out on calico (muslin) in white thread, so it was very difficult to see in the photo. I am now going to color it, using water soluble coloring pencils. I will use some textile medium with the pencils (Jo Sonya, Liquitex…)
You are welcome to download the design and stitch it.Please send me some photos of your designs when you have colored them.
I dyed all the fabrics for this quilt – Procion MX dyes, low water immersion.A progression of shades from cool Yellow to Red to Blue and then a second progression from warm Yellow to Red to Blue; then the same progressions replacing the Yellow with Black.It’s difficult to see in the photo, but there are some absolutely beautiful colors in reds, purples, plums, chocolates.It was a really interesting and worthwhile exercise in dyeing fabrics and done in such a way that I can reproduce any of the colors whenever I want.
I have used some of my hand-dyed fabrics, but you could use any fabric that you like. The patch is raw-edged and fused to the cover, then the bird outline is embroidered in the hoop.The bird could also be done as a raw-edge fused applique. I have added a strip for the spine, incorporating a tab for your pen or pencil. There is also an elastic strap, holding the book together, when it is closed. The notebook that I am using is a spiral back A5 Visual Arts diary that I occasionally use to sketch ideas. Any A5 notebook will fit; it is also very easy to adapt the size to any other notebook. The leaves are lantana leaves, painted on the back with Silver Lustre paint from Genesis Creations, an Australian company that specialises in Liquid Radiance fabric paints and conducts wonderful workshops teaching how to use their range of products.https://www.genesiscreations.com.au/The leaves are placed on the fabric, painted side down, covered with a sheet of paper and then rubbed to transfer the lustre to the fabric.
This is the first of my Postcards from Australia series – featuring our ubiquitous Laughing Kookaburra (sometimes called a “jackass, or jacky”).
I am going to fine-tune it a little before it goes on the website, but I am quite happy with the way it is shaping up.
I’ve taken a photograph of a kookaburra, played with it in Photoshop, added the background and the text, then printed it on an EQ Printables cotton sheet.
I have added the sketching embroidery on the bird and digitized the Airmail, Postcard and stamp, so that it can all be done in the hoop.
Not happy with the stamp; I think I am going to replace it with a stamp featuring gumnuts or gum leaves.
I went to a workshop with Kathryn Harmer Fox a few weeks ago. She inspired me to work on this series of Postcards. In her workshop we made postcards, using small pieces of fabric, netting and free motion embroidery.
You can see Kathryn’s work on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kathryn.art/
She is a very talented lady and a great teacher.
I have taken a different approach, working with a photograph, adding texture and color to the background in Photoshop, so that you can print the image on fabric and then add the embroidery in the hoop. The embroidery on the bird does not cover the image completely, but rather sketches over it loosely.
Reflections is my latest art quilt. It was juried into Qld Quilters State of the Art Quilt Exhibition 2019. I really enjoyed working on this quilt.
It is currently on display in the Gympie Regional Art Gallery in Queensland; later in the year, it will be displayed at Surat in Western Queensland.
Materials Used | White fabrics – calico, silk noil, silk habotai, organza, satin, cotton, hessian |
Techniques | Painting, dyeing , stamping, screen printing on white fabrics. |
Artist Statement | Reflections is my visual representation of the way our lives are layered and overlaid with experiences and events that we often have little control over. Yet through it all there is a constant core that shapes the person we become. |
I have just finished making these journals.
The covers are from fabrics that I hand-dyed and the images are photos that I have taken. The poppy and the tree leaning over the water are from Monet’s Garden in Giverny (France); the third photo features Bunya trees from the Bunya Mountains (South-East Queensland)
I played with the photos in Adobe Photoshop Elements program and added layers so that they look more like paintings or art images than photos. Then I printed the images on fabric.
I used my Simplicity Rotary Cutting and Embossing machine to deckle the edges of the images, before adding them to the covers of the journals.
I used 4 threads and twisted them together for the ties.
The inside pages are made from tea-dyed paper.
I lined an oven tray with Alfoil and then placed a sheet of paper on top of the foil.
Then I made up a bowl of black tea, using 3 or 4 tea bags.
Obviously the stronger the tea, the darker the stain on the paper.
I didn’t make mine too strong.
I used a paint brush (about an inch wide) to paint the tea on the paper.
After the first side of the paper is coated in tea, I lifted it very carefully and turned it over.
The paper gets quite wet, so be careful turning it – it can easily tear.
After heating the oven to 120 degrees Celsius (248 degrees F), I placed the tray in the oven for 2 minutes.
If you work with 2 trays of foil and paper, one will be ready to come out of the oven when the next one is ready to go in.
I left the sheets to dry overnight and then ironed them with a dry iron to flatten them.
These are the complete Signatures, ready to be sewn into the journal covers.
A Signature is the little booklet of pages that goes to make up a larger book.
I used 5 sheets of paper for each – lay 5 sheets on top of one another and then folded them in the middle. Ironed the fold.
I used 4 Signatures to make each Journal.
Hope you are inspired to make some tea-dyed pages!
Cheers, Lyn
I enjoyed making these rope bowls. I saw them first when a friend from Queensland Quilters had some to show. She also did a demonstration for us later in the year.
I bought the cotton rope from Bunnings and added some paint splashes to it before stitching it into bowls.
It looked a lot better after it was stitched.
These bowls are so quick and easy to make.
I gave some as Christmas presents.
I have made some more bowl wraps! Just love these fabric bowls! They are so useful.
I am using them to put bowls of soup or pasta in the microwave, collect the eggs from the chickens. I have given several away for presents. Also use one on the kitchen bench to hold assorted stuff.
They are quick and easy and fun to make!
I used batik fabrics and backed them with cotton batting/wadding. They work beautifully!
The quilting designs and the instructions for making these easy fabric bowls are up on the website.
https://www.kennykreations.com/Bowl-Wraps
In the Southern Hemisphere, we are now well in Autumn, the weather is turning cold and I am making lots of heart-warming soups – pea and ham, apple and pumpkin…
When we heat the soup in the microwave, the bowls get quite hot, so I am making some Bowl Wraps for them.
I digitized a quilting design for the wraps, and stitched it on the red fabric. I think the pattern is a little too tight, so revised it and made it bigger for the colored bowl wrap.
I used batik fabrics and backed them with cotton batting/wadding. They work beautifully!
You can download the quilting design and instructions here!
You will find some additional quilting designs for sale on our website.
https://www.kennykreations.com/Bowl-Wraps
Bernina Australia has provided KennyKreations with a copy of Bernina Embroidery Software – Designer 8.
I am working on a set of quilting designs, using the Bernina Software. The quilting designs for these Bowl Wraps were created in Designer 8.
Update:
I have stitched some more quilting designs for Bowl Wraps
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