Buttons and Things- Discharge

Quilt #28

Buttons and Things

A New Year's resolution - 2007.

At the beginning of January, 2007, I decided that I would try to make one journal quilt a week to experiment with different techniques on a small scale.  I had made a few journal pages (see previous posts) and really enjoyed the process but hadn't made any since September, 2006.

 

I had fallen on some ice and broke my wrist on December 2^nd, 2006, my arm was still in a cast, but I needed to do something “quilty”. It could not be too complicated as cutting was a challenge, but I could use the sewing machine.

Samples

For this quilt page, I opted to experiment with discharging (removing colour from the fabric). I chose bleach (Javex) and a dishwashing gel (Cascade) as a discharge medium.

I chose some blacks as well as couple of coloured fabrics and found that some discharged better than others and some do not discharge at all. 

 Also, although most fabric discharged to a brown and/or beige, a few provided surprises discharging to other colours.

detail

I added a bit of water to the bleach so it wouldn't eat through the fabric, but used the dishwashing gel as is.

I found that the bleach gave nice crisp straight edges and more even colour while the dishwashing gel, being thicker had softer, more mottled and uneven edges.

I made a couple of square stamps from a sweet potato, and using the bleach, stamped a grid on a black and dark blue print that had discharged nicely. When I thought there was enough dye removed, I rinsed in clear water and dried.

I added some embellishments to the squares, clothes labels, small bright scraps of fabric and yarn. A rummage through my Mom's button tin produced some old worn metal buttons and odds and ends like a little buckle, a snap and a zipper tab and a dismantled earning part.

Back - this is the original fabric that was discharged on the front

A simple grid of metallic copper thread between the squares and a buttonhole stitch for the binding completed the quilt.

NOTE: I have discharged more fabric since and have used vinegar or a product like Bleach Out to neutralize the bleach.

Made on January 6, 2007.

I think spring has finally arrived in Kenogami, we still have ice on the lake and patches of snow here and there.  I'm really ready for summer, it has been a long winter.

Off to work in the garden,

Have a nice day,

Terry

Dyeing to Play 3 – Birdhouse

Quilt #27

Birdhouse

One of the customs of our quilting guild is for our president to issue the members a challenge before the end of her 2 years term.

Birdhouse was made in response to Helen's Crayola Challenge in the fall of 2007, which entailed picking three crayons from a bag. The three colours chosen had to be used in a small quilt and one more colour could be added.

My colours were brown, green and orange, I added yellow (gold) as my fourth colour.

I also decided to only use my Dyeing to Play fabrics as a further challenge to myself.

I appliqued the birdhouse onto the brown background and then stitched in the lines for the bricks. The “mortar” and shadow details were coloured with a marker. The light spots on the bricks and the roof were discharged with bleach.

3-D Leaves

Some of the leaves were appliqued while the 3-dimensional ones were made by fusing two layers of fabric together and stitching in the veins. They were then applied to the quilt by sewing through the centre line of each leaf.

Birdhouse won the Guild Crayola Challenge in October, 2007 and was displayed in the Kirkland Lake Mile of Gold Quilter's Guild 2008 annual show.

back of quilt

This quilt measures 13 ¼” x 17 ¾”.


Have a great day,


Terry

Dyeing to Play 2 – Pembina River

Quilt # 26

Dyeing to Play 2 - Pembina River

This quilt was made in response to Abstract Art Quilt Reader Challenge by Quilting Arts Magazine.

The challenge was to create an 8 ½” x 11” abstract quilt from a representational photograph based on principles and elements set forth by Liz Berg in her two-part article on abstract design in Quilting Arts Magazine

It was inspired by this photo that my son took while fishing on the Pembina River in Alberta, Canada.

inspiration

Dyeing to Play 2 – Pembina River was made in July, 2006 and a picture of it was published in the February/March 2007 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine.

Quilting Arts Magazine

This is the second in a series using only fabric from a group of hand-dyed muslin and over-dyed prints.  See this post.

I cut six fabrics into 4 pieces and dyed each group of six, golden yellow, burgundy, turquoise, and brown.   A few fabrics from the turquoise and yellow groups were used in this quilt.

Three sizes of rectangular shapes were cut and fused to a background piece, narrow strips for water and trees, wider pieces for the sky and riverbank and chunky rectangles formed the rocks.

The leaves on the autumn tree are represented by triangles.

Free motion quilting adds dimension and the design of the quilt carries through into the binding.

back

Since this quilt was page size, I fused the back to a piece of freezer paper and printed the label right on the quilt back. The fabric was first treated with Bubble Jet Set which makes the printing permanent.

label 

Have a great day,

Terry

Dyeing to Play - Cosmic Games

Quilt #25

Dyeing to Play - Cosmic Games

Cosmic Games was the first quilt I made using the Dyeing to Play fabrics.

I made the centre section using all the fabrics. The multi-coloured gold was cut in wavy strips and woven with all the brown fabrics, except for the multi-coloured brown which was woven with the turquoise fabrics, and so on (turquoise with burgundy – burgundy with gold). Hope this makes sense.

sketch

Once this section was made and appliqued to the gold background, I made the quick sketch above, which also contains ideas for a title for the quilt, none of which I used.

A friend thought that the centre section looked like a game board, so Cosmic Games it was.

Cosmic Games - detail

Some of the shapes got rearranged as I played around with placement of each piece.

Cosmic Games - detail

The tendrils were fused and then quilted. Comments from the judges at the Houston Quilt Festival suggested that the edges should have been stitched down before being quilted. Other comments were positive.

Cosmic Games - tendrils & quilting

Variegated thread was used to quilt the top and gold on the back.

back showing sleeve and label

back detail - quilting

This quilt was juried into 2007 “Quilts: A World of Beauty, Houston Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas.

label

Hope you have a nice day,

Terry 

Documentation

Quilt Name: Dyeing to Play: Cosmic Games

Description: Abstract

Pattern: Original

Size: 38” x 38”

Fabrics: hand dyed muslin, overdyed cotton prints

Predominant colours: Gold, Turquoise, Burgundy, Brown

Construction Techniques: Woven wavy strips, circles, triangles– all fused and zigzagged along the edges, tendrils were fused only

Back: Four wide strips of dyed muslin

Batting: Hobbs 80-20

Edge finish: Double Fold French Binding

Quilting: Machine quilted on domestic sewing machine

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve: yes

Label: yes

Date completed: 2006

Quilt History: juried into Quilts: A World of Beauty, Houston Quilt Festival, Houston, Texas in 2007 -- won Canadian Quilters Association Viewers’ Choice Ribbon - Kirkland Lake Mile of Gold Quilter’s Guild’s Annual Quilt Show in 2007 -- accepted into First Annual Contemporary Art Exhibit – Museum of Northern History at the Sir Harry Oakes Chateau, Kirkland Lake, Ontario in 2008

Maker: Terry Whyte

Dyeing to Play

In 2003, I decided that I wanted to make a series of quilts using only the 6 different fabrics that I had dyed or overdyed in 4 different colours.

six colour bundles

The 6 original fabrics were:

an unbleached muslin,

a black and white check,

a small floral print (light yellow background – yellow, red, blue flowers),

a large pink floral,

a blue, orange,green and yellow wavy stripe,

a large piece of my own multi-coloured hand-dyed that still had a lot of white showing.

large floral and stripes

My idea was to used 3 fabrics in primary colours, a multi-colour fabric and 2 neutrals and dye them in 3 primary colour and a neutral.

multi-coloured and muslin

Each fabric was divided into 4 equal pieces. One piece of each was dyed in each of the following colours:

Golden Yellow (yellow)

Turquoise (blue)

Burgundy (red)

Soft Brown (neutral)

Here's a page from my notebook showing the original striped fabric and the four colour samples.

The size of the pieces were anywhere from slightly larger than a fat quarter to one and a half metre.

This is what the multi-coloured fabric looked like after being over-dyed with Turquoise

turquoise

And with Golden Yellow

golden yellow

So far, I have only made 3 quilts, using these fabrics and I really think it is high time to kick in a few more.

The next three posts will feature Dyeing to Play I, II and III.

Come back and see.

Terry

Ice Floes

Quilt # 24

Ice Floes

Ice Floes is a scrap Spider Web Quilt, and one of my favourites.  I like making scrap quilts and I like the looks of them.

Before starting this quilt, I went through my scraps and anything with any amount of blue in it was fair game.

detail

One common fabric was used to start all the triangular shapes and this ended up making a ring around each circle. This stripe fabric has red and green and many other colours as well as blue. This served to connect all the blues and any other colour that showed up.

quilting

Muslin was cut using a template to make a foundation for the strips. The common fabric was used first and then blue strips were added, stitching and flipping.

Flannel was used for the back of the quilt.

back, binding, label

The quilting is stitch-in-the-ditch and stippling in the muslin areas.

A couple of muslin borders on either side of a border made up of blue strips were stitched together and mitered at the corners.

The common fabric binds the quilt.

Have a great day,

Terry

Documentation

Quilt Name: Ice Floes

Description: Scrappy and muslin quilt

Pattern: Spider Web

Size: 63” x 73”

Fabrics: Cotton and some polyester

Predominant colours: Blue, white

Construction Techniques: Stitch and flip on foundation template. Mitered corners.

Back: Blue Polar Bear & snowflake flannel

Batting: Polyester

Edge finish: Double fold french binding

Quilting: Stitch-in-the-ditch and stippling on domestic machine

Quilted by: Terry Whyte

Sleeve:No

Label: Yes

Date completed: 1997

Quilt History:  This quilt was used as a class sample

Maker: Terry Whyte

NOFA Meeting – Apr 2, 2011

The Northern Ontario Fibre Artists recently held their second meeting for this year.

Members have been working on a Monochromatic Round Robin. Each member supplied a 14" x 14" background fabric in a colour of their choice.

The pieces were then passed around to each member in turn to work on, adding appliques or embellishments as they pleased.

This was great for trying out new techniques but working in one colour family proved to be challenging.

The pieces are now back in their owners' hands to be quilted and bound.

This is what they look like at this stage.

Karen - Marie - Terry

Kit - Silvia

Marnie - Jane

The Englehart's Museum will feature Expressions II from June 1st to the 19th. An Open House will be held on June the 5th from 1 to 3 p.m. 

You will be able to see the following pieces and many more by Marie Black and Karen Pilch as well as by the other two members of the group,  Silvia Bos and Betty Lafferty.

Marie

Marie

Karen

Karen

Have a great day,

Terry