Quilting Arts Blog

Stash Winners, Current Projects, and 2010 Quilting Arts Calendar Contest Rules

I want to send a heartfelt thanks to everyone who stepped up and answered my burning question.  I am blown away by the sheer number of responses and in awe of all the diverse gadgetry you have in your stashes! And now what I really want to know is… when are you going to invite me over to play?

If you are one of the winners of this drawing, please email me your full name and shipping address so I can mail these fabrics to you next week. And this is important––please put in the subject line (in caps): I'M A STASH WINNER!

Congratulations to:

Dorothy  Cochran
Karen South
Ann in Georgia
Cyndee
Jackie K.

I have piles of screen-printed fabrics and other supplies/books to offer over the summer, so I will be hosting a few more drawings within the next eight weeks. I do have some challenge ideas and questions for these drawings, but if there is a burning question you'd like me to ask or a challenge you'd like us to host, please post your thoughts in the comments area.

In the meantime, I am very curious what mixed-media or quilting project you are working on at the moment. Care to share? If you have pictures on your blog, please make sure to link your blog address to your answer.

What are we up to here in Stow?  Despite the fact that it's about 90 degrees, humid, and the calendar says it's June, we are immersed in the holiday season as we're in between shoots for our Quilting Arts GIFTS issue, which goes to press next month. So while many of you are sitting poolside, picture us calling local nurseries, asking them if they have a potted Christmas tree we can borrow or by chance a poinsettia in bloom. Joking aside, the GIFTS issue is quite an undertaking, but it is a joyful process. I am really pleased with the quality of the projects this year.

Lastly, if you're looking for something to stitch while winging in your hammock this summer, we have posted the 2010 Quilting Arts Calendar guidelines online. We have not yet published these in Quilting Arts, so you are the first to see them.

Happy creating!

Dog Days of Summer and a Giveaway

Did you know that not only is today the summer solstice but equally momentous is the fact that it's National Take Your Dog to Work Day?

We, at Quilting Arts have truly gone to the dogs. Today we have four of man's best friends here sniffing around desks, barking at the UPS man, and generally harassing all of us for dog cookies.  (Don't worry, the pooches wont wipe their paws on the quilts as we have placed them all on high tables.)

Meet some of our canine guests:

Louis Bolton, Min Pin, age 8. He is the loudest, most disruptive of the bunch. The smallest of the four, he gets into everyone's business and wont leave you alone unless you feed or pet him.

Maggie Bolton, Italian Greyhound, age 6. She hates having her picture taken and nearly jumped off the second-story porch when I took my camera out. Shy but very lovable, Maggie likes to spend her days sleeping underneath the bed covers at home.

Cody Delaney, Black Lab/ Newfoundland Mix, age 7. Laid back and easy going,Cody loves to find the nearest swamp to dive into (much to his mother's dismay).

And last but not least, our resident Quilting Arts dog:

Sophie Bolton, our lovable rescue mutt, age unknown. We got Sophie from Bernie Berlin, and Sophie is dearly loved by all of us at Quilting Arts. She is the gentlest, sweetest of creatures (...not that I'm biased or anything).

Speaking of visitors, last Friday we were very fortunate to have Frances Holliday Alford pop by the office. (She came by to drop off her project for this year's special Quilting Arts Gifts issue.)

As some may know, Frances is currently the cover girl of Quilting Arts. Her smile says it all- Frances possesses a strong joie de vivre  and is such fun to be around.

OK, time for the fabric giveaway!

As mentioned recently I'm a tad obsessed with screen printing, and have found it a wonderfully relaxing activity to help decompress after a long day. I've amassed so much screen-printed and hand-dyed fabric lately, I'd like to give some of it away to you.

Here's how this drawing will work. Please answer the following question in the comments area, and I will randomly choose five winners to receive a plastic baggie of screen-printed fabrics. The drawing will close Monday, June 23 at 6:00 P.M. EDT, and I will announce the five winners on Tuesday on the blog. It is then the responsibility of those five winners to email me their shipping address so I can send the fabrics.

My Burning Question:

What has been your favorite quilting or fiber art gadget/notion/tool that you have used this past year? Why do you love it so much?

Thermofax Screen Printing

A sample of my hand-dyed and screen-printed fabrics.

What would you do if you had a month off and could do any one activity?  If I could take this kind of time, I'd scamper off to some secret destination (preferably a small creekside cottage in Sedona), and shlep plenty of Procion dyes, Jacquard and Golden paints, squeegees, rags, and my thermal imaging machine, one of my new favorite toys.

An alternative to traditional silk screening, Thermofax screens can be made quite easily with images that have been copied using a copier machine. (You need the ink from a copier machine to successfully make the screen.) There are new thermal imagers on the market, or you can buy a refurbished Thermofax machine from Welsh products or go on eBay and bid against tattoo artists who use them for transferring tattoo designs. If you don't want to buy a Thermofax machine but want to have something transferred to a screen, there are also people who will provide that service for you.

Claire Fenton gave me a brief, impromptu lesson  on how to make Thermofax screens ths past January at the last QA TV taping, and I've made about 100 since. It's so simple, and I am utterly addicted.

Since I've gotten this machine, I've become more aware of patterns around me that I want to use to transfer to fabrics. For instance while sorting through my drawer of quilts in progress, I found one quilt block that I had free-motioned with an interesting pattern. I flipped the quilt block over on my copier machine so the back side of the free-motion work would copy, and here's the resulting printout:

To make the Thermofax screen from the copy, you need a carrier to securely feed the screen and the photocopy through the Thermofax machine. Put the copy on the bottom, facing up, then with the smooth side of the screen facing down on top of the copy, run them through the machine. It's the heat from the Thermofax machine that impresses the image onto the screen.

Isn't this exciting?

To find out if it worked, carefully lift one corner to see if the Thermofax machine heated the photocopy enough to make an impression on the screen. If not, run it through one more time.

Above you can see the impression on the screen as I peel it away from the copy. Now the only thing left to do is secure the screen to a frame or place duct tape all around the sides so the screen doesn't curl, and it's ready for use!

Thick fabric paints work really well for this process, and I simply slap on some fabric paint along the top edge of the screen. (To make sure I've got the right side of the screen facing up, I put an arrow on the top--another trick Claire taught me.)

Here's what the screen looks like after you pull the paint down with a squeegee:

And here's a yard of fabric created from my free-motion screen, using white fabric paint.

I used this fabric for the base to create some fabric ATCs with a musical theme for the upcoming Long Beach show:

I hope this post demsytified the thermofax screen process a bit. As you can see, I'm having a lot fun with it!