September Sunflower

This is another one of my quilts from the Journal Quilt Class that I am currently taking at Colorful Quilts and Textiles. A couple of months ago, our class teacher Susan Stein showed us some really cool samples of what you can do with the cheapo sheets of acrylic felt that are available in every craft store on the planet. The technique involved distressing the felt by melting it with a heat gun. So I went out and bought a sheet of felt and it sat untouched in my sewing room until the day before the next class. This quilt is the result of what I did with the felt.
First, I tore up some random pieces of printed scrapbook paper and glued them onto the felt with watered down PVA glue. Then I glued down two layers of crumpled tissue paper on top. Next I painted the tissue paper with dyna flow paint in shades of yellow and gold. I let the felt dry and then I pulled out some rubber stamps and stamped all over the painted and papered felt. I wound up with a stiff piece of felt paper that looked like this:I cut petal shapes out of the felt using my soldering iron, which gave the edges a neat melted look. For the center seed part of the sunflower I used a tyvek mailing envelope that I painted, sewed and steamed with my pressing iron. Tyvek is cool stuff to play with. It takes paint beautifully and melts easily with a heat gun or an iron. I set a pressing cloth over the back of the tyvek and pressed with my steam iron for a few seconds and voila! The tyvek bubbled up to form three dimensional 'seeds' (or gecko skin in the case of this quilt). I used some fabric that had I dyed earlier this summer for the back ground and leaves. I quilted the blue background first, added the stem and quilted that and then added the leaves and quilted them. The stem and leaves are fused to the background using wonder under. I wanted the sunflower seeds to be dimensional so I layered several circles of cotton batting underneath it before I stitched it to the quilt. Next came the petals. I began laying them down and stitching them onto the quilt, leaving some space in between the petals. After the first layer of petals was stitched down, I tucked some petals under and over those until the flower began to look dimensional. My sewing machine was not very happy with me as I was sewing down the last few petals. It balked at stitching through several layers of glued and melted felt paper.I glued some fuzzy yarn around the center of the flower to cover up the edges of the petals and then added backing and binding. Lastly, I colored the center stitch lines on the petals with a brown ochre water color pencil. I am really happy with this little quilt. I am so glad that I didn't blow off the melted felt technique and not experiment as I was so tempted to do. This class has been very good for me. It has helped me to think outside the box and to try new techniques that I wouldn't have otherwise. Normally, when I read about a clever fiber arts technique in a magazine or a book I'll think 'how cool, I need to try that!'. But then I never do. With this class, I always experiment with the techniques at home because then I have something for show and tell the following month. As an added incentive, if you bring show and tell to class you get to put your name in a basket to win a fabulous prize each month. So there you have it, dangle a reward in front of my nose and I'll try anything! I am the quintessential Pavlovian dog of crafting. Bribe me with a treat and I will perform. It just occurred to me that I have yet to win the monthly prize and the year is almost up. I wonder if Pavlov's dogs turned on him when he failed to reward them? This could get ugly....