Vikki Pignatelli

Quilting by Improvisation was a class at Symposium with Vikki Pignatelli.
Here is the sampler I worked on in class to try out her techniques. I was trying to create a splash of water. I found Vikki’s technique of curves extremely useful. I am much more confident now of using curves, and want to finish a larger improvisation piece for our quilt show (June). Vikki’s technique of using strips, and pleating them, also created great textural appeal to fabric, and I will put this in my larger piece as well.

Having fun Dye-ing

After taking a class with Shirley Goodwin at Symposium, several of you have been asking to put some pictures up of what I did, so here they are:

Toilet Duck Leaves

I have been experimenting a little with the Toilet Duck discharge method of printing on fabric.

The Janola Duck is easy to control, and after squeezing a little of the cleaner into a plastic container, I painted the cleaner onto leaves, and stamped them onto dyed fabric. I don’t know the names of the leaves, but I love the look of the fabric once it is finished.

String and Sun
I painted the fabric with textile paint, and laid it outside (out of the wind), I randomly cut lengths of string and just let them fall / drop onto the painted fabric. I let the sun do it’s work, and came back later and removed the string. Voila. Fantastic technique.

Happy Accident
You know, sometimes things don’t go according to plan. I was attempting shibori, and working outside my comfort zone, by using black. I used rubber bands, and just randomly bound the white fabric. Added black dye and let it rest for a while. I removed the rubber bands, and left the fabric outside to dry. Another member of the class, hung their shibori above mine, and the wind flapped it, causing droplets of dye to land on my black fabric. I just love the natural looking “rocks”. The accident created an almost organic feel to the fabric. I would really like to duplicate this feeling and imagery in the future. It will take much more experimentation, but that is what I like, learning from my mistakes.