Back to Fabric

I'm Home!!  We were in WI for a week and Christmas, and in MN for a week and New Year's Eve.  The family in MN were all virused up, daughter with pneumonia.  My husband brought his own personal virus from home and guess who avoided all of them.  How?  No clue, but I am not complaining about not getting sick!

I did not take my sewing machine because my quilt was in disarray with a nasty surprise.  I made a slight change in the pattern and somehow my block pattern on the computer grew bigger.  It took me a few tries to figure out why the new blocks didn't fit to the old blocks.  Probably pilot error, but the pilot has no idea how the error occurred.  That has now been remedied, but 12 blocks must be redone.   Now that I am home all is stitching up smoothly.  Then I ran out of paper to piece with, and am still waiting for it to arrive.

I did take a new project on our trip because I knew I would be spending a day with one daughter at her weekly Sew-In.  I am doing another dog and have to fuse all the fabric pieces before I need the sewing machine.  Those of you who have followed me for awhile read about creating a fabric rendition of a dog in the summer of 2016.  I had a lot of problems due to the materials used in the class I took.  Well, I am doing another dog, a different dog, and I have developed my own method.  Based on two classes I have taken I am combining techniques which I believe make it much easier and less confusing.  I will share and you can be the judge.

Lea McComas does beautiful, photorealistic paintings in fabric.  Her technique requires a lot of time drawing a pattern according to value and detailed labeling on each piece.  She avoids dark fabric under light fabric.  Her method is very precise and her fabric choices are the "real" colors of the photo from which she starts.  She does mostly people.  See her work here.  She fuses her pieces onto a background and thread paints heavily on her long-arm machine.

Barbara Yates Beasley specializes in animals.  Her animals look like the photo with which she starts, but her fabrics are abstract and fun.  A black dog may be done in blue or multiple colors.  Her method also requires a drawing based on value, but her labeling is less intense.  She teaches you to use double paper fusible, trace the pattern piece in reverse on the back paper.  This had me standing on my head and making many mistakes. She quilts moderately, not thread painting, on her domestic machine.  You can see her work here.

Now for my method. Here is how to prepare a photo to turn it into fabric art.

Step 1: Create a black and white photocopy of the animal photo.  This is to show the values from lightest to darkest.  You can do anything with color, but must have the values right or the creature won't look right.  In a photo editing program you can posterize it to separate 4-5 values.  I don't think I did that with this photo because the dog is pretty much black and white already and the values are clear.

Step 2:  Blow up the black and white photo to the finished size.  I taped together a magnified version, but you can take it to a professional printer to do the job too.  Print an 8 x 10 color version to remind you of color variations.  This dog has a little tan on her so I find the color version a big help.

Lady the Collie (we lost her in 2013)

Step 3:  Fasten the full-size black and white picture to a foam core board with masking tape or office clamps.  Overlay that with a piece of clear mylar.  Using a fine, black Sharpie pen draw around the different values and label each one with a number to define the value.  #1 = lightest to #5 = darkest.  If you make a mistake you can erase with rubbing alcohol on a paper towel or Q-tip.  Redo when dry (quick).  When the drawing is complete remove the photo.

Pattern for fabric pieces (12" x 16").

Step 4:  Secure the mylar drawing to the white side of the foam core board.  Cut two pieces of freezer paper a little larger than the drawing.  Dry iron it shiny side down, pull it up and iron again. This shrinks the paper.  Secure one piece of this freezer paper over the mylar drawing and trace it with the Sharpie.  You can easily see the lines and numbers through the paper.

Step 5:  Repeat with the other piece of freezer paper.  You can trace this one with either pen or pencil.  You will be cutting it apart.  I know this is a lot of tracing, but it goes pretty fast.

(Stay tuned for the next steps next week)

Now you are ready to gather some fabric.  By all means check your stash.  All your pieces are going to be smallish so you can use up odds and ends.  It works nicely to add some extra color with prints.  For my black dog I threw in a few blue pieces and some black and brown prints.  They add sparkle.  A couple of inches of shiny, dark gold was more than enough to add a glow to brown eyes.  White-on-whites are great for white fur.  For a white dog, light blue can be used for shadow.

You also need fusible material.  My choice is Soft Fuse (I buy it by the roll), which has paper on only one side.  Beasley uses Steam-a-Seam II, paper on both sides, but that gummed up my machine and made a mess when I went to do the quilting.  That may be a function of my own machine, but I will not use it again.  Maybe your machine will handle it.  No clue.

Work on the prep this week and I will lead you through the rest of the process next week.

Sew or fuse some happy seams this week.  I wish you fun time preparing to quilt an animal.