Tag: Cheesecloth Dying

Now what??

Yesterday I showed you all of the cheesecloth that I had dyed, but now what was I going to do with it??

I started videoing this process, but after I spent about 10 minutes just staring at the area and not really doing anything, I decided that it might be a fairly BORING video……

I kept on picking up pieces of cheesecloth, laying them on top, and then saying…..”nope”!!

I had an “AHA” moment when I laid this piece over the painted fabric……

OKAY…..that can be my starting point!!

My first thought was to start with the tree trunks that were coming up from the meadow so I cut off a piece of brown/grey and laid it down…..

Then I added some more……

…being careful to wrinkle the cheesecloth up so that it wasn’t just a flat piece of fabric.

Okay….I was on a roll now!!

It didn’t take long to get all of my “tree trunks” in place.

Since some of the straight pins were getting in my way, I decided that it was time to permanently attach these tree trunks.

I once again used my “applique quilting foot” which does a wonderful job of keeping the edges in place as I stitch…..

I thought about the palm trees that I had seen when we were in this area and remembered that they had a rough texture to them, so I added a bit of filler stitching in as I went…..

When I placed Sadie over the top, I was thrilled with how it was looking…..

Now to add more!!

I looked at the picture and realized that there were more brown trunks on the right-hand side of the photo so started throwing even more cheesecloth at it…..

I had worked REALLY hard to get a super dark green cheesecloth, but when I added it to the piece, it was way TOO dark!!

I fixed it by over-painting it with some lighter green…..

…and eventually putting light cheesecloth on top of it…..

It didn’t take long to get all of the cheesecloth in place…..

And look at how much I had left over……

If you need dyed cheesecloth…..shoot me a message 😎😎 !!

We are nearing the end of this project, so be sure to come back tomorrow as I work thru the thread painting and quilting of this great quilt.

In this blog, I post DAILY stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.

Cheesecloth fun!!

I am enjoying working on “Sadie” but each step has provided a different set of issues.

Now that I had all of the meadow grass done…..

….it was time to tackle the trees/leaves at the very back of the photo.

Since the focal point of the photo was Sadie, it meant that the background was blurred out…..

….and I really wanted to accomplish this on the quilt as well.

BUT HOW???

I knew that fabric would be too stark and that painting would be too different from the intense thread of the rest of the background!!

While racking my brain, I hit upon the blog post I had written about making the “Botero Flower Garden” quilt….

In it, I talked about dyeing cheesecloth and using it as the background.

WOULD THAT WORK??

There was only one way to find out….. head to the garage and do some dyeing!!

I pulled out my box of “Set-A Color” Fabric Paints from Pebeo……

….and grabbed some supplies out of my “painting bin”…..

I pulled these colors for the greens…..

….and these browns and greys……

I had one piece of cheesecloth already on my shelf and found two other types in my local store. It was interesting to see the different textures and colors…..

I had a fun hour and dyed LOTS of pieces of cheesecloth.

I am NOT a person who carefully measures her dyes but rather I throw in what I think will work and go from there.

In each case, I put one of each type of cheesecloth into a bowl and poured in the paint……

I then added water to the bowl to give more liquid volume……..

….and proceeded to dip and squeeze until the cloth was completely covered in paint…..

I continued this process until I had a bunch of pieces in greens and browns…..

When they were dry, I headed back to my studio and carefully ironed each piece…..

Now that I had LOTS of cheesecloth to play with…..

…..the question was how to use them!!

Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you what I came up with!!!

In this blog, I post DAILY stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.