Friday 15 April 2011

Sweepstake for free online courses

Julie Prichard is running a sweepstake to win free access to all her online courses. I have done quite a few of her courses and have enjoyed them all. The latest set have been taught with Chris Cozen. I find the videos easy to watch and detailed and they are both really responsive to comments and quick with useful feedback.

Here's the little video that Julie has created for this sweepstake

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Mixed Media Art Quilt



I have just finished a small (8x8) art quilt for a swap. I used the techniques from Angie Hughes' Inspired Velvet DVD.

The background is velvet that is sprayed and bleached to get the pattern. I used a stencil instead of printing with blocks. I didn't have colourfast silk paint as she uses but I wondered if it would work with other colour sprays. Because the inks weren't colour fast they turned an orange colour from green so I think I'll use the recommended silk paints next time. It looked fine though so I used it to create the art quilt.

I added some metallic foil to create the plant trunks and some chocolate foil for the squares. I added small squares of red fabric. I then covered the whole thing with black organza and free motion stitched on the top. I finished the back off with pelmet vilene and added a gold cord border. I had stitched a hanging pocket onto the backing before attaching so I could just thread a black cord through to hang it on the wall.