Progress on the t-shirt quilt

I finished step two today which was to cut out all of the t-shirts into their exact size for the quilt.  I used a square ruler to help make this easier.  All the squares are cut and prepped with the fusible interfacing.  The next step will the the sashing between the squares.  I have not purchased that yet so, a shopping trip to the fabric store is in order.  Just have to get my hands on a coupon and I'm ready to go.

24 squares ready to go

I have also worked on some artist trading cards.  Here are some of my latest:

 More to come on the quilt
Happy crafting!

New T-shirt quilt

I started another quilt project recently.  I'll be making another T-shirt quilt.  I have previously posted a different t-shirt quilt and my plans are to follow the same basic procedures.  I started by giving the designs of the t-shirts a rough square cut a little larger than the final version.   I then iron on a very light weight interfacing to give the fabric some better weight for precise cutting and quilting.  Here are a couple of pictures:

Rough cutting the shirts

Ironing onto the fusible interfacing.  I just keep laying down one after the other.


The next steps:  precise cutting of the squares using the rotary cutter.  More to come!

More ATC's

After working on ATC's for about 1 year now, I'm see that my favorite things to do are mixed media art, watercolor, and drawing with markers.  On the watercolor, after numerous attempts to paint without ink, I decided to stop trying.  I just seem to produce a more pleasing picture with the ink.  I've also decided that pastels and acrylics are not my thing.  I use them occassionally in mixed media but mostly just for back round paint on the acrylics.

Here are some of my recent cards:

Mixed Media

Markers and Ink

Watercolor and Ink

On the markers, I've used Prismacolors, LePlume and Copics.  My favorite of the 3 remains Copics.  Copics blend so well, plus offer a wide range of colors.  The bad part is the expense which is why I've tried other brands.  My second favorite is LePlume.  The pens are nice and moist with great colors.  The also blend well but not quite as nicely as the Copics in my opinion.  The Prismacolors are good because they are easy to find and you can pick them up on sale every once in awhile.  I really dislike the pen with the broad angled tip which is sometimes the only kind I can get.  I find that difficult to use but since they all come with 2 different types of tips, I can work around that.

Art Journal Page - Tutu's

I really had fun making this page.  Pink is one of my favorite colors so, I just went to town with it and created this somewhat silly but pretty page.  It says "Someday's I wish I had a Tutu".

I started this page by gluing down a piece of pink paisley scrapbook paper.  After it was dry, I put on a light coating of gesso.  I wanted the scrapbook paper to show through.  When the gesso was dry, I used stencils and modeling paste to apply the bird cages and the dimension in the lower right corner.  After the paste dried, I inked it with pink and then again with a little black.

The tutu is a piece of tulle that is a rectangle shape and I gathered it at the top and tied a ribbon around it.  I glued the tutu in place at the top and then at just a few places throughout it to somewhat hold it in place.  The top was made by drawing out a pattern on scrap paper and then using that to cut it out on glitter paper.  I inked the edges of the top and held it down with pop up squares so it went over the tulle nicely.  The hanger is a thin wire I had on hand that I bent into shape.

What fun this was to make!!

Here is a picture of the 2 stencils I used