Painting on Fabric with Acrylic

My quilt studio looks like it was hit by a tornado.  

I blame it on my friends who keep inspiring me to experiment with new and diverse things.  Besides continuing to use scraps to make art quilts, I have started making texture tags, stab books with found papers, and using acrylic paint to make my own fabric designs. I thought my acrylic paint days were pretty much over, except for painting the odd doll table or chair, so I was way down on my supply.  I had to go buy some acrylic paint, but it was well worth it. 

 

There is a tutorial on YouTube, by Deborah Boschert, that inspired my thorough attempt at painting on fabric with a paint roller and toilet paper tubes.  See her amazing video here, Rolling Paint On Fabric, and do get hooked!  

My crafty daughter is currently making tissue holders that can be hung in your car.  They are amazing!  She lives on the eastern side of the country.  She wants to make me my own custom Fiat tissue holder, so I was tasked with designing my own fabric.  I have sketched my Fiat before, but decided to do a new sketch, then I did another sketch based on the second sketch and took all the details out and made it much smaller.  It is small enough to cut out of sticky-backed craft foam and adhere to a toilet paper roll.

I measured around the roll and made a paper template to place my design on.  This way I know it fits before I stick it to the roll.  I am glad I put those dots at the top, because they became a reference for placing repeats on the fabric.

But of course, I practiced first with a different tp roll that I put a line design on, just to play and figure out the ins and outs of the process.

I used a cheap vinyl placemat, from the dollar store, to put my acrylic paint on.  I also, decided to use a little textile medium in the acrylic paint, so it will not wash out of the fabric after it is heat set with an iron.  I do not expect to wash any of my art quilts, but I may need to wash something like a bag that holds tissues.  Above is the photo of my first two pieces of printed fabric.  The one on the left is a solid blue, that I rolled the lines onto, in purple, then I stamped on it with a stamp I made from the same craft foam.  I just squeeze a little white paint into my purple.  It has my own custom "Fiat" design on it.  It is mounted on the end of a thread spool.  The fabric on the right, was my first try.  It is rolled over a pink fabric that has white swirls in it, but you would never know by looking at it.  I like how the paint gets paler as you roll. 

This is my final Fiat print.  I used orange acrylic paint, with textile medium in it, on white muslin.  I lifted the roller off after each section and applied more paint, then lined up the dots and rolled another section.  It took a little longer, but I love the somewhat consistent result.  My daughter has it now and she is making me the coolest thing for my car.  

Quilted Pillow Case

This is not a Kawandi.  It did use up some of my scraps, however.  I love how it looks, but I know when I wash it there will be threads galore.

This is one side of my pillow case.  It has a travel sized pillow form inside.  I started by measuring the width of the pillow and adding about 1/2", then I cut it from WOF, then lay the pillow on it and rolled it end-over-end to determine the length.  I left about five inches extra on one selvedge end, for the piece you tuck over the end of the pillow, once you put it in there.  Then I made a backing the same size, from the same fabric and I cut the batting about 6"shorter.  I sandwiched them and adhesive basted the layers, so they would not shift while I added all the raw-edged scraps on top while I quilted back and forth.

Then I surged around three sides.  This is what it looked like before I folded it to make the pillow case.

This photo shows the back side aka inside.  I just sewed down the two sides that have pins, and it was finished!  The selvedge edged flap will be on the inside, once it is turned right-side out.  SMILEY FACE!!

This is the other side of my pillow.  Once I got started sewing the quilting lines, with my walking foot, it went pretty fast.  All the pieces are raw edged.  Some have selvedge edges on them, some are flannel, some are batiks, but all are scraps, some from Jane's recent Hatchi quilt tutorial.  Just click on any photo to enlarge it.

Eyes of the World Shelf

I never imagined being alive in 2025.  It had always seemed so far off.  I am retired and have time to do many things I have always wanted to do.  I have recently discovered I have been making art quilts longer than I thought.  I love making quilts and trying new techniques.  I do not always have someone in mind when I make a quilt, so I keep it for me.  I have a lot of quilts. After a while it gets tricky to store them.  I decided I needed to make a special place to store my quilts.  The lion's share of my quilts have been stacked atop my arch top trunk, which was given me when my grandmother passed away in 1973.  Quilts are "heavy", even the doll quilts get heavy when you stack 70 in a pile.  

This cannot continue.  I took my friend, D-F, out to lunch in November and then we stopped in at "Eyes of the World" just to have a snoop around.  It turns out they were having a sale, due to the owners retiring.  All the fixtures were marked to be sold.  They had marvelous fixtures, and one massive metal curly one really called out to me, but I knew there was no way I could ever get it home.  So, I looked around and found a very sturdy, solid wood unit with adjustable shelves that was painted lavender and purple for the awesome price of $24.  I paid for it, and they put my name on it.  They said they would call me to come in get it just after the new year; after they closed.

Last Friday they called and said I could come on Monday.  We took the truck down and they loaded it in.  I was worried about how the two of us were going to get it into the house, down the hall, and into the master bedroom.  We did just fine with a very minimum of cursing.  I wiped the whole shelf down and replaced the shelves.  I spend the rest of the day, folding most of my large and medium quilts to fit on the 22" wide and 14" deep shelves.  I love how it smells like Eyes of the World.  

It has 36 quilts in it, with zero space for any kitty wanting to repose on any of them.  I could not find my bandana quilt, so after the shelf was full, I went on a hunt and located it in our walk-in closet with two other gianormous quilts.  I decided they could stay there.  I started a list of locations in our house and noting how many quilts were in each location (i.e., hall closet, my office, quilt studio wall, under the cutting table, etc.)  I have 184 quilts in my house, not counting a handful of small art quilts that I know are mixed in with the doll quilts.  The quilt that was on my design wall in my November 25 post (below), is with my long-arm quilter.  When I get it back, it will be #185 in my house.  That is a good name for a quilt.

My grandmother's trunk is a lot less stressed now.  It has 25 small quilts on it, mostly wall hangings/art quilts, and of course, the wonderful rug my quilting niece made for me.