Three Little Birds

"Three Little Birds" 18X24 copyright Karen Mason 2011

This quilt was created in 2011 for the MArQ challenge "Name That Tune II". The quilt needed to be inspired by a song and have music somewhere in the quilt. The song I choose was "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. The kindergarten students at my school sang the song at a program and were too cute wearing their tie-dyed t-shirts.  The quilt evolved from there. The musical notes are in the quilting next to the little bluebird.
This was my first attempt at whimsy and I liked it.  There are a few technical problems in my opinion with the pieced background showing through the birds, but I think I have corrected it in my last bird "Happy", that I shared in my previous post.
I see a series forming. "Bluebirds of Happiness" will continue to evolve. I have big plans for these crazy little birds.

Meet Happy

"Happy" 8X8 Copyright Karen Mason 2012

"Happy" is a small quilt that I created for the Quilting Arts Magazine challenge "What's Your Signature Color?"
My color is blue. The entire quilt is made from various colors of blue with the exception of the orange beak. Orange is the compliment of blue, so I am ok with that.
When I look at my shelf of hand-dyes I see lots of blue. Sky blue, turquoise, blue-greens, navy, and blues that are so subtle they look like white.  Even my bead collection is filled with different shades of blue. I love blues.
This quilt gave me the opportunity to try a new technique. I like to piece my backgrounds, and in my opinion fusing onto a pieced background creates a huge problem, the texture of the piecing shows through the fused piece. I am very picky and don't like the way it looks. In this piece I used fusible interfacing on the back of the applique piece bird, sewed it down and then trimmed away the background from behind.
The photo is not that great, I realized it after I completed the quilt, I will take better photos next time I use this method. The interfacing is on both the bird applique and the background. The other thing I like about this method is that the quilt is not as stiff as a typical fused quilt. I still like to fuse, I am just going to use it for the smaller elements in my quilts. In this quilt the eye, beak, legs and grass are still fused. If I were to do it again I would use the interfacing on the grass too. I am starting to look to whimsy in creating my designs. I am having fun with this series and will share the first "Bluebird of Happiness" quilt in my next post.

Photo Transfer

MArQ (Milwaukee Art Quilters), a group I belong to, is near the end of one of our yearly challenges. I have been working sporadically on my idea. (I have been very busy with a new job and have not had much time and have been very tired when I get home.) I have a little extra time today and have been working on my base fabric. Up to this point I have bleach discharged, used Tsukineko inks, and today I tried photo transfer with Citra-solv. I really like the results! The hardest part was getting the toner-based copies. I called a few places, one actually told me that laser and toner copies were the same thing. I explained that they were not, and went somewhere else. It worked and was VERY easy!I will definitely do more of this in the future. It is a very cool process! I have been learning a lot since I began reading blogs. I can't remember where exactly I found these techniques, (possibly Lyric?) thank you to everyone who shares their process!

Photo transfer directions:

Create a TONER copy of your original drawing or clip art(copyright free).

Cover work surface with newspaper. It protects the surface and adds cushion.

Place image face down on well pressed smooth fabric.

Brush on Citra-solv onto the backside of image. Please do this in a well ventilated area.

Burnish with a spoon or possibly a bone folder.

Iron through the paper. Use a press cloth to protect your iron.

Washout Citra-solv residue.

Next I need to add some paint, quilt, and add my copper embellishments. Hopefully I will finish in time.