I spent the weekend in my studio challenging myself to make a mini quilt to match a paper project we had done for Ranger. I used the same stamps for both project. I was curious about what I could come up with. The paper project was stamped directly on to painted chip board. But for the cloth project I filled a 9.5" X 11" sheet of paper with Artgirlz inchie stamps and then I copied that onto fabric using my ink jet printer. To truly make your own fabric, you can add paint to the cloth it at this point. I use plain old watered down acrylic paint. It gives a nice water colored effect.

You can stamp directly onto fabric but it is really difficult to get a clear clean image. The fabric I used in my inkjet was a heavier weight and so it absorbed a lot of ink giving the stamps a greyer look. So I would suggest using a finer, lighter weight fabric to get a real dark, clear stamp and it will also go through your printer easier. I backed my stamped fabric with a fusible web. I cut them into tiny squares and ironed them onto larger squares that were also backed with fusible web and then ironed them onto a piece of Patchy fabric. I added a backing, did some simple quilting and attached a binding using my Bernina aurora 440.

To add the finishing touches I ironed a little Artgirl on to the front and added her arms and legs and of course a sparkly petticoat. You can add color to our metal charms with a good gel pen. I used Sakura.
Voila, my mini quilt was done!

Well Baby Beth is visiting Tracy in RI. I wish I was there. But Midge and I are packed and ready to head off to Venice on Thursday. That's not too tough to take.


What are you up to?