A Mini Wedding Art Quilt for a Wonderful Niece #2 of 2

 

The one on the right, was shown on previous blog.

Here is the second of the two Mini Art Quilts that I made for the niece who got married this year.

 What I used to make this 11” x 9.5” mini art quilt:

• Laser printed transparency sheet with picture pulled from the computer (printed in black and white) 
• Coordinating cotton fabric for both frame and handmade fabric flower
• Peltex batting sandwiched between  the fabric to help make the mini art quilt stiff
• Ribbon
• Found decorations
• Opalescent “pearls” sewn onto store-bought fabric flower embellishments
• Silver crystal seed beads

Opalescent “pearl” sewn onto store-bought fabric flower embellishment
I also frayed the edges of the frame, and used white decorative stitch on the ribbon around the frame 

Handmade ribbon rose embellished with silver crystal seed beads sewn onto handmade cotton flowers

Back
(Names and date covered up for privacy)

Mini Art Quilt - Yoga Sticks Sun Salutations #1

I really like my yoga instructors at FreeSpirit Yoga, here in Long Beach, Ca. They are my friends now, because they are so wonderful!

I am in the process of sewing gifts for each of them to show my appreciation. So far, I’ve made this Mini Art Quilt - “Yoga Sticks” Sun Salutations for one of them, Jenni Brandon. As well as being a wonderful yoga instructor, she is also an award-winning composer, conductor! Please go visit her website .

Now, I am not an artist at all. No. No. No. No! I leave that up to my Childrens’ Book Illustrator Daughter, Christina Forshay, who certainly didn’t take after me in the art department. In fact, I can barely draw stick figures—really! But I used sun salutation stick figures to make this 11½”x 10” small art quilt for Jenni B. As usual, it took me far too long to make it. 

To determine what type of “Yoga Sticks” I wanted, I drew a few on the back of an envelope to see how they would turn out to see if I in fact, could draw stick figures.

Not bad, but if I wanted them to look more consistant, I had to use a Mac drawing program, Pixelmater to help draw my “Yoga Sticks.” Hey, for someone like me, who literally cannot draw, I need all the help I can get. Period.

I tried three different methods of using the drawings of my “Yoga Sticks” to see which one I wanted to go with, as far as designing the mini art quilt. I’ve used all three before.

One was to print a mirror image from my laser printer, then transfer the printed image onto fabric using a blender pen or Citra Solv. It works really well!

Second, was to print an image from my laser printer onto a transparency sheet, then place it on top of fabric.

Third—and this is the one I used, I printed the “Yoga Sticks” from my laser printer, then placed the printed sheet under white muslin and traced my “Yoga Sticks” onto it. I then sewed over the tracings a few times using the regular utility straight stitch set at 2.0. I didn’t do any free-motion, as I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sew staring lines. I did have a hard time sewing the traced oval/circle heads on my “Yoga Sticks,” so I filled in the heads and tried to make them better shaped using a Sakura Identi-Pen Dual-Point Marking Pen. It is permanent and works well on fabric. It didn’t bleed at all on my muslin.

After I sewed over the tracings and filled in the heads with the marker, I dyed the white muslin. It came out a greenish blue color.

I put the rest of the mini art quilt together with home dec cotton and cotton ticking with extra firm stabilizer sandwiched in between.

Items I used to decorate this mini art quilt were: a vintage earring piece, different size “pearls,” ribbon, buttons, and a couple of decorative stitches.

I really hope my friend Jenni B enjoys my “Yoga Sticks” mini art quilt. I enjoyed making it.