Deanna's Quilt - Finished - and an Art Quilt

I don't have much more to share today other than a finished photo of Deanna's quilt!  :)  It turned out really pretty - though I didn't have time to take great pictures as I finished it late last night and it was picked up this afternoon.  Today was eventful as my youngest had a doctor appointment out of town - and as soon as we got out of town my van broke down!  Boo!  It is being fixed and should be ready for pick up tomorrow, but wheew it was quite the afternoon.

After a stressful day I just needed to veg out a bit.  I cleaned for quite a while and then fiddled with the Juki.  I have a frozen screw in the needle plate that I messed with for about three hours.  I still haven't gotten it removed but I was able to clean under the needle plate so I went on and sewed for a while.  This was the final product...

I am really pleased with it for the most part.  I am always trying to find ways to which I can translate paintings onto quilts.  Painting is a passion second to quilts...I would love to incorporate the two without fussing with fabric dyes.  I do like to hand dye fabric...but not for the painting aspect.  I used my favorite Jaquard Lumiere paints with acrylic artist paints.  I need to add binding to two of the sides and maybe some beads as well.

I am looking forward to getting my car back tomorrow.  I'll be loading up Cindy's quilt for a quick all over quilting and then it's on to Bobbie's halloween quilt.  :)  Can you believe it's almost the end of July already?!

Jaquard Lumiere Paints on My Quilts

My art quilting friend Nina-Marie Sayre asked me recently how and why I might want to paint on my quilts!  :)  I shared a few photographs on Facebook of this miniature quilt I'm working on as sort of a practice piece to work out some quilting I would like to do on a larger project I have in the works.

You can click on the photographs to see them larger if it helps - each plume has been lightly painted with an irridescent water based fabric paint to add a little shadow and dimension to the quilting.  I'll share a photo of what the feathers looked like before painting them:

There is a pretty dramatic difference between the two!  Of course I have added more quilting to the photos of the painted version, but there is still quite a difference when you stand back and look at the two.

Nina is an art quilter so I know she totally gets the need for creative experimentation...but I am more of a traditional quilter who fiddles around with art quilts.  So why might a traditional quilter want to paint her quilt?  Well I personally have a major love for whole cloth quilts.  When I began machine quilting I discovered that my ultimate joy comes from the quilting process.  But they totally stink to photograph!!!  I want to make whole cloth quilts where the quilting can be SEEN...and not just in good lighting.

I also really love whole cloth quilts made of bright colored hand dyes and tie dyed fabrics...but you often cannot see the quilting.  So that is why I started fiddling with paints to see what I could achieve.

I first heard about painting on quilts to highlight definition from Master Quilter Diane Gaudynski.  She uses Shiva Paintstiks - an oil based paint but in a stick form - and lightly paints her quilting to add defintion and shadow.  I LOVE the look - but when I played with the Shiva paints I had a really difficult time keeping it from looking grainy and controlling the amount of paint applied.  I tried applying it directly from the stick as well as with a paint brush. 

So after a few failed attempts with the Shiva paints I decided to try Lumiere paints by Jaquard.  I originally bought the paints to use with stencils - but the cool thing about these paints is they are water based...so you can water them down and just use a touch for a hint of color and definition.  Also they are sparkly....and I like just about all things sparkly.  :)

Once heat set the paints are safe to wash when used on fabric - though the kind of quilts I generally make that are painted are rarely if ever washed outside of a damp cloth.

I love these paints!!  I love the way it turned out so much I am even doing some painting on my big white applique quilt...eep!  Pictures to come!  :)

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!  :)

Linking up with Nina-Marie for Off the Wall Friday!!  :)