Quilters Threads Newsletter
November 15 2007

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Announcements

Hints From Diane

For those of you who have complained that I do not have a printer ready version of the newsletter, if for some reason you cannot print with the Print Page version under File on the bar above, then try one of two things. Hit the Prt Sc key. It looks like it has not done anything, but it has put the screen image on your clipboard so you can paste into a Word document or notepad. An alternative is to highlight the text you want and use the Control-C keys to copy the text and then paste it in as above. Control-V pastes items from the clipboard.

Embellishing Your Quilts (Part 2)

First of all, let me tell you that this series of columns is actually excerpts from my Capturing the View in Fabric Class that I offer in our online classes. This is the picture we have been making and it is full of embellishments. There is a lot more in the class notes.

Let me know if you have any questions about the little bit of thread painting we tried last newsletter.

I promised you painting last time, well I will do one better and give you painting and foiling.

Painting

There are a number of ways to paint fabric. I will cover a few basics. You will find a number of fabric paints at a craft store. These are the ones I like to use.

• Setacolor Fabric Paints
• Jacquard.
• Lumiere And Neopaque

Most of the time to paint fabric you dilute the paint at about 1 part of paint to about 6 parts of water. There are some cases when you might want a very strong line or something very opaque and you would use the paint full strength or half strength. . before I paint, I use a spray bottle and wet the fabric so it is very damp but not so wet that you could wring water out of it. Sometimes I use paintbrushes, but I really like to use those little sponges on a stick you use for applying eye shadow. If the paint is diluted and the fabric is wet, the final result is going to be a lot lighter than it appears when you are painting it. Buy some sunset color paints. Dilute them about 10 parts water to 1 part paint. Paint a fabric, you might want to use a blue like a a soft blue batik. Wet the fabric with your spray bottle. In this case you might want to use a child's watercolor brush for faster coverage. Paint your pinks, oranges, purples, or whatever over your sky fabric. Remember it will look a lot brighter than it is going to be when it dries.

Alternative Method of Painting

To paint and add texture, use a sheet of Steam a Seam 2 Lite. Take the paper off one side. Spray the fusible web on the attached sheet of paper so it is very wet and then paint it with a brush with the diluted paint. Let it dry (you can speed it along with a hair dryer). When it is completely dry, cut a piece the size of the area that you want painted and, with the fusible side down on the fabric you want painted, press with your iron for a few seconds. If you want a rough texture, then scratch the adhered web with your fingernail or brush with an old hairbrush for the effect that you want will it is still warm.

In the above picture, the end of the barn is painted with a dry brush, the side of the barn has painted fusible web adhered to it. Just be careful not to iron it now. The light pink fabric has very diluted chartreuse sponge daubed onto it.

Sun Painting

Setacolor Paints are excellent for sun painting. This is a favorite activity of grandkids of all ages. Paint PDF fabric (prepared for dyeing fabric) with Setacolor, then place objects on it and put it out in the sun to dry. The paint under the objects does not develop and stays light. There are PDF cloth, paints, and great instruction sheets available at http://www.dharmatrading.com

Foiling

I love to foil. The barn roof above has foil on it, but you can also do more formal designs. Take a piece of foil (we carry it if you  have trouble finding it). You are going to adhere your foil to fabric in one of the following ways:

Sprinkle some Bo Nash powder on your fabric and your foil, colored side UP on top of that. Put parchment paper or an applique sheet on top of this and lightly press with a hot iron.

Instead of the powder you can use a glue. This is one way you can get a very formal design. You can apply glue with a brush or special pen in something like Celtic knots, then proceed as above for a lovely effect. In addition to a light press with an iron, you can just scratch the foil with your fingernail.

You can also cut fusible web in the shape you want to have your foil applied in, maybe like a heart, and proceed as above.

If you get too much foil on your fabric, warm it up a little with the iron on the parchment paper and scrape the warm foil off with your fingernail.

OK, back to the coloring page you were doing earlier, paint your horse and give him a foil garland around his neck.

How about more thread painting next newsletter?

Money Making Offer for Guilds

Quilt of the Month

Quilter of the Month

I live in Washington State with husband Russ, 3 dogs, 2 cats and assorted chickens.  We have 5 children and 11 grandchildren...10 girls and 1 super boy!!  I am retired/disabled and unable to drive, so I take quilt classes online. 

This piece was done after taking an online class through Joggles with Susan Sorrell**.  It was done  using the Broderie Perse technique.  I used a very light weight fusible so it would be easier to do the embroidery and beading.  The base is a quiltlet made by layering backing, batting, and the top.  Fold the backing over to the front, tucking under the raw edge.  I then whip stitched it down using embroidery floss.  It was such fun to make...and I have made several since then.

**Susan will be teaching a color theory class for us starting in January

Block of the Month

Among my many pastimes is genealogy. My brother, Bruce, who you met earlier in a newsletter, and I decided after my parents died to make their years of genealogy research available on the web. Seeing what was available on the web, I decided to fill in the few gaps I had and extend it a bit. Well, a couple of years later I am still extending. I have researched much of our extended family. The many links we have done are available off our family web site at http://www.buffalums.com. In addition to the dates and names I have included a number of essays. One of the most interesting is my other brother Ken's tale of his service in Vietnam. After years of silence, he decided his grandsons should understand what it was like. My father also wrote the story of his life and we have just got a little bit of the story online so far, but you will find a photo album of a trip his family made across country in a car in 1917 - from Maine to California. That was truly roughing it. No motels, or real gas stations, just ranches to stop at. My grandmother was not thrilled with the experience. They followed wagon trail routes on what was to become the Old Lincoln Highway. My brothers and I had a real blast getting these pictures scanned in, comparing stories we each knew about theme and getting them posted. You might enjoy seeing what Santa Monica looked like in 1917.

One of the reasons I like genealogy is that it has really made history come alive for my husband and me. I have traced some of our ancestors back to Roman times and sometimes I read history books to him in the car and I can say, he or she was a relative or whatever. Our family is probably typically American. My ancestors were in New England since Mayflower days, My husband's parents came from Ireland and Sweden, one of my son-in-laws parents was third generation Czech immigrant and the other side was old New England that became Mormon and participated in the earliest treks. Another son-in-law's great grandma was apparently an Irish mail order bride. When I do genealogy, to me that person comes alive once again, and is remembered and their life pondered upon. My children's grandparents on the paternal side came from Lithuania and Poland. One of them through Ellis Island the other over the border from Canada. I am trying to write this up for my children as a history, showing how their ancestors fit into Western European and American history.

I recently got handed a variation on this research when my son's friend asked me to research her family farm in Colorado. It was homesteaded in 1879 and was originally in the bison hunting area of the Cheyenne Arapahoe tribes. It was in an area rich in coal and thus the area was covered with railroads even before her ranch was recorded. This search has taken me to a family that homesteaded the land and lived there for many years, building the core of the house she now lives in. Unanswered questions so far. Why did they leave the farm around 1920? When was her barn and magnificent brick silo built? Wonderful mysteries of history to explore. 

When you study genealogy, you wonder why people took such chances and left everyone they knew knowing that they would probably never see friends and family again, and traveled to someplace they had never seen. Would you have had the courage or been foolhardy enough to sail on the Mayflower or come west in a covered wagon? I am fairly sure I would not and yet I  am somewhat of a risk taker. What drove our ancestors to  be on the move so often?  A branch of our extended family literally moved to the raw new country every generation or two until they came to Oregon and could not go any further west. The women were often unwilling participants in these migrations just as my grandmother was to hers and yet they took care of their families, cooking over an open fire. They nursed sick family without a doctor, birthed their babies in between long walks. Their diaries often mentioned that they had not felt well that day and then that a baby had been born that evening, Sometimes they pieced quilts as they walked. When they got to their destination it was often very isolated. There might be no new fabric for several years. When they had new fabric, they made quilts from old clothes if they were in any condition to be reused. Sometimes letter from home included a precious scrap of fabric as an example of a new dress or of what was being used in a quilt, and these scraps were also hoarded for future use.

My maternal grandparents came from stock that lived for generations on poor Maine farms. They made quilts from old clothing and often used an old blanket or quilt for batting. These quilts were made simply to keep the family warm, but there was often an effort to make the results beautiful too. My grandmother made quilts for most of her life just that way, but after World War II fabric became more readily available and her daughters saved pieces from making family clothing for her. Her quilts became journals of the clothes we wore when we were growing up.

When I see quilt displays of historic quilts, I think that none of the women in my family ever saw a quilt like that, much less made one. Although my grandmother probably would have given her eye teeth to have had the resources to make one. Their quilts for the main part were made out of necessity and not for show. That was just too much of a luxury. There is a common thread among quilts. A quilt takes a long time to make and the maker was filled with thoughts of love for the people they were made for, just as most quilts today are made too. When I have a needle in my hand or sit at a sewing machine I know that I am part of a long line of women providing for their family out of love and I feel part of the stream of their lives.

I  love the internet and having so much information available. It has truly enriched my life and made me feel much closer ties to the family that came before me.

Surgery went well on my right eye cataract, the doctor said perfect. Vision still not clear due to swelling, but should improve quickly. I will be scheduling my appointment for my left eye sometime next week to take place in a couple of weeks. Thanks for all the good wishes.

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