Issue #9

In this issue of Quilting Arts Magazine® Embellishments you'll learn about art quilting trends for 2007, how to make a fabric holiday card, and 10 great stocking stuffers under $5 for your favorite fiber artist.

Five art quilting trends for 2007

Peering into her crystal ball, Quilting Arts Magazine® Editor-in-Chief Patricia Bolton, foresees the following trends:

  1. Machine needle felting – New machines and attachments have made this a hot embellishing trend (see our how-to article coming in the February/March issue).
  2. Art with a heart – Witness the success of Fiberart for a Cause, through which Virginia Spiegel and scores of other fiber artists have raised more than $110,000 for the American Cancer Society in 18 months, and Hollis Chatelain’s quilts calling attention to the need for social change worldwide.
  3. Younger quilters – According to a recent Time Magazine article, the number of home sewers is up more than 15 percent since 2000 and sewing clubs on high school and college campuses are flourishing. The majority of these new sewers are making fashion statements, a la Project Runway, but it’s inevitable that many will be drawn into the exciting world of art quilting, and we welcome them!
  4. Making art every day – If Creative Quilting: The Journal Quilt Project, taught us anything, it’s that making art frequently—even art-on-the-fly—improves not only our art but our moods, and maybe even our lives.
  5. Sketchbooks aren’t just for painters – Part of the everyday art trend is creative sketchbooks for fiber artists, little journals or blank books in which we can jot down words, scribble images, attach bits of fiber, and even stitch—providing inspiration for future work or becoming little works of art in themselves.

Watch Quilting Arts Magazine® for more on these trends in 2007

Holiday fabric postcard using Abaca tissue

Lots of fiber treats can be found in the Oliver Twist Experimental Packs including bits of abaca tissue, silk throwsters waste, silk carrier rods, sundry cotton and rayon threads, and colored wire. Abaca tissue is fairly strong and when back with felt, provides a superb paper base for stitch, collage, and embellishment.

MATERIALS

DIRECTIONS

  1. Fuse each of the 2 sheets of Abaca tissue to a piece of black craft felt.
  2. On one of the fused sheets, stamp your tree or leaf motif. Take it to your sewing machine and free-motion stitch the stamped design with metallic thread.
  3. On your other fused Abaca sheet, take your acrylic paints and stamp or stencil designs onto the background in two different colors. Cut this sheet to 4" x 6".
  4. Cut the free-motioned piece of Abaca tissue down to size and glue to the larger 4" x 6" piece.
  5. Machine-couch yarns with metallic threads to add a grid-like structure.
  6. Stamp the music sheet, cut to a desired size, and machine stitch it to the base Abaca tissue.
  7. Add a holiday saying with your alphabet rubber stamps and embellish with beads and seed stitches.
  8. Back the fabric postcard with cardstock by adding a dab of glue, then take to your sewing machine and zigzag-stitch the edges closed.

Find Oliver Twist Experimental Packs in our store.

10 stocking stuffers under $5

Check out our online store for 10 treats you can tuck into your favorite fiber artist’s stocking:

  1. Silk Cocoons $4.95
  2. Silk Rods $3.95
  3. Angelina Film $3.95
  4. Angelina Fibers $4.50
  5. Treenway Silk Ribbons $4.76
  6. Treenway Silk Threads $3.60
  7. Lutradur®, $4.50
  8. Copper Mesh Tube, $3
  9. Tim Holtz Distress Inks, $4.95
  10. Emboss It – Clear, Acid-Free Embossing Pad, $3.95

Magazine subscribers receive an additional 10 percent off these great prices.

 

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