Tea Bag Art Info and Hibiscus Quilt Fabric

First, let me say that in spite of my perfectly good intentions, no sashing strips or borders got sewn on my hexagon quilt yesterday; it might happen later tonight or possibly tomorrow since it is supposed to be a rainy day.

A reader asked about my tea bag art pieces, so let me start by telling you the sources that I initially found while recuperating from my recent second adventure with breast cancer. I had quite a bit of time on my hands and Pinterest can certainly help eat up lots of time! When I came across tea bag art, I was intrigued and began searching for more info. Here are some of the sites that I found helpful. Judy Coates Perez has a very good tutorial, "Tea Bags Revisited", and another  good site is Studio Saturdays: Tea Bag Art.  If you search Youtube, you can find many tea bag art tutorials. One you might like is "Mixed Media Morsels, Dessert 9 - Altered Tea Bags." One more thing . . . there is an artist Ruby Silvious who even paints true mini masterpieces on used tea bags. Definitely check out her work here as it is truly, truly extraordinary. Warning: tread lightly as tea bag art might become addictive!!!

I do follow one piece of advice that I found somewhere. I put a small square of muslin behind my stitching or painting to give the teabag more body, and I also forgot to mention in my previous post that I use Inktense pencils and watercolor pencils.

Now . . .  I am sure you were dazzled by the incredible piece of modern art at the top of this post. . .  No . . . oh well . . . it's fabric that I painted to use in the hibiscus quilt. I have plenty of fabrics I can use for the leaves and inner part of the flower but nothing quite right for the petals. On Show 2407,  MJ Kinman on The Quilt Show last week demonstrated how she paints cotton sateen fabric for her stunning gemstone quilts. How serendipitous was that!!! I followed her example, modified it a bit,  and now have this piece with which to work. I will probably put misty fuse on the back, and as I get working on it, it will look like Swiss cheese. I wasn't happy with the yellows so I painted an additional piece today. Here's what my set up looks like in my studio. . . okay . . . no studio . . . this is my cellar and I was kneeling on the concrete floor with the frame resting up against a work bench. :-)

I also toned down a piece of fabric that I had bought for the background. In the original the veining was much more pronounced. (FYI: I mixed Golden matte medium with white acrylic paint and then dabbed it on with a sea sponge.. After it dried, I had to repeat the process.) The fabric is a bit darker than it appears here.

In my next post I'll talk about the finished pattern which is all set to go, but I won't let myself start this new piece until the hexagon quilt top is done. :-)

One more thing, at yesterday's meeting of the Herring Run Quilt Guild we had a wonderful speaker, Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill from Whole Circle Studio.  Besides having a colorful, fun trunk show, what I found most interesting was her explanation about the creative process she used to design each piece. I came home with her "Up and Away Mini Quilt" pattern. After all, what's one more pattern to add to the pile!    :-)

Have a stupendous week.