Act ll of the Macro Leaf

My next step in making this little art quilt was hand painting the little pebbles to reflect a fall leaf color on the surface of the leaf. I used Seta color and Lumiere metallics specifically made for painting on fabric. I achieved the look I was after. Tiny orange crystals were fused in the few pebbles I did not color. Next will be beading and then I can fuse the turned edge down for a clean edge. I'm still liking the idea of the resin faux ivory piece along the bottom of the leaf vein. When this is finished it will be mounted on a 16x20 painted canvas.

A Little Time on My Hands

I had a little extra time on my hands yesterday in the afternoon. My morning was filled with giving tips, tricks, and some longarm lessons to a friend. With that little bit of extra time, I decided to work on a macro leaf project. I pressed a brown piece of hand Cherrywood dyed fabric and some fancy poly/nylon fabrics. After chalking a spine on my fabric, I trimmed some of the poly/nylons into thin strips and placed them on the marked areas. I layered some of the dress fancies, stitching as I went with the longarm. After I felt there was enough surface fabric, I switched threads to a warm orange and pebbled parts of the brown. I switched thread out again to a darker brown for areas to mctavish.

After trimming, I pulled out some fabric paints to paint the pebbles to get a fall leaf effect. As you can see, I'm midway on this project. I plan to hand paint all of the pebbles and then add surface embellishments using a piece of faux ivory, copper colored beads of varied sizes, and then a few fall colored crystals.

To finish the edge, I will probably turn the outer edge under for a blind hem.

My intent is to mount this on a painted canvas.

Altering Hand Dyes

After having a slightly busy day and not able to get a quilt on the longarm, I decided to spent a couple of hours playing and prepping fabric for future projects.

I dug through my huge stack of hand dyed fabrics that I've made, for pieces to over dye using Tumble Dye which is a spray-able heat set dye. After a short trip to my back yard to find some large leaves with good veining and selecting an assortment of fat quarter fabrics, I pressed my fabrics. Laying the fabrics on a sheet of plastic and placing the leaves vein side up, I sprayed the outer edge around the leaves and spritzed the veins so the dye puddled a little. Then I flipped the leaf over onto the unsprayed leaf spot and pressed the leaf into the fabric with my hand, being certain to press all of the puddled dye into the fabric. This makes the veining prominent.  I then pressed the dyed piece without steam to heat set the dye.

Ingredients to replicate what I've done:

Hand dyed fat quarters in assorted colors.
Tumble dye
Leaves with prominent veins or fake plastic ferns.
Old towel to place under dyed pieces while ironing.
Iron and iron board.
Paper towels to sop up over spray.
Plastic for work area.
Rubber gloves


I've used this method many times and it creates a very cool shadow effect that I love for my art pieces. I hope you have fun.