Guest Designer Frieda Oxenham

In essence is printing on fabric using a gelli plate exactly the same as printing on paper. In this case I’m using dedicated fabric paint as it’s much easier to stitch through than acrylics and also makes the end product washable. My fabric paints are Opaques and Metallics by Colourcraft and I’m printing on silk.

1.     Add a mix of colours to your gelli plate (8 x 10”) and take prints. Add one colour to your gelli plate and add a stencil on top, take a print on your printed fabrics. Remove stencil and take another print. Overprint on some of your fabrics if you like. I used the following stencils: L301 Circles Circles, L320 Batik, the large stencils of the June 2020 StencilClub, the January 2017 Club, the October 2014 Club and the August 2015 Club.

2.     Cut all your fabrics into 1” wide strips. I used a rotary cutter and cutting mat. You can also use scissors.

3.     Cut the strips into approx. 1” squares. I do this step freehand, without a ruler.

4.     Sew the squares together using a sewing machine and chain piecing i.e. sew one pair together, then without lifting the needle the following pair etc. Press the seams open with an iron. Then sew the pairs together into fours, then eights etc, till you have a long strip of sewn together squares.

5.     Select your background. I used black wool felt and alternated between black fabric and my pieced squares. Put a small strip of black fabric (also 1” wide) to the centre of the wool felt. Tack it down if you like. Then sew a length of your pieced squares to opposite sides of the black fabric.

I did the vertical strips first, then the horizontal strips, so that the black strip is enclosed by the pieced squares strips. This is improv quilting so I am not aiming for straight lines in this case although you can if you like.  Repeat the sequence with black fabric strips. This pattern is known as Courthouse Steps.

Repeat until your black felt background is covered up. I like to tack my strips down before sewing on another strip but that’s an optional step. It takes more time but makes the sewing easier.

6.     Once finished hand stitch the piece with black running stitch on the black fabric strips and a variegated thread on the coloured strips.

7.     Sew on gold beads along the edges of the coloured strips.

8.     Use another of your painted fabrics from step 1 and iron on a piece of Bondaweb (WonderUnder) to the back of it. Using stencil S298 Deconstructed Single Lily Mask and Stencil and mark it out on the Bondaweb. 

Cut out the flower and mark the pattern of the lily on the front with a permanent black marker and outline the pattern with black hand stitching.

9.     Add black binding around the quilt

10.  Add the lily from step 8 to the quilt and stitch it down using buttonhole stitch and a variegated thread. Outline the lily with gold beads and also add beads to the centre of the flower.

© Frieda Oxenham 2024

Creating Collage Paper Quilts with StencilGirl® Stencils

Hi, everyone! Jennifer Wilkin Penick here! I have always loved the look of quilts, so it shouldn't be a surprise that as a collage and mixed-media artist, I finally thought of making paper collage quilts. It then took just one more step for me to realize that using stencils with a gel plate could create the most wonderful fabric-like papers to use in my paper quilts.

I'm going to walk you through all the steps of making some gorgeous paper quilts, using "paper fabric" made with StencilGirl® stencils.

Step 1: Gather your materials:
gel printing plate
StencilGirl® stencils
acrylic paint
scissors
glue
optional templates (download here)

Step 2: Print your "paper "fabric". 
I like to use a variety of patterns -- some with big patterns and some smaller ones, that replicate the kinds of fabrics that I may choose if making an actual quilt. You will have fun choosing these or other similar StencilGirl® stencils that make an array of different "paper fabric" that is pleasing to you.

I have used the following six StencilGirl® stencils (you can see the names indicated in the photo, too):
Doodle It Tornado Bloom Stencil
Tapestry
Mermaid Scales
Fishscale Brick Stencil
Stockinette Small Pattern
Lila Stencil

The following photos show how I first print a solid color using my gel plate and then the results of making 4 different prints with each stencil using a second color of acrylic paint on top of the first printing. 

If you are new to gel plate printing with stencils, you can also check out this video to see me printing some papers using these same StencilGirl® stencils. Actually, even if you are NOT new to gel plate printing, you may find my simple two-step printing process interesting to check out. 

Step 3. Assemble your quilt
Now it all comes together, and I will use some gorgeous papers that I have made to assemble my collage paper quilt. To help you get started, I have provided a simple quilt block template in two sizes. 

You can use a large piece of paper and have your quilt block repeat several times (for stunning effect!) or you can start out by making maybe four or six and gluing them into your sketchbook or piece of paper. 

In the three photos below, you first see the result of me using my template to cut out the quilt pieces from my lovely stash of new stencil-printed papers. In the second photo you see me laying out the pieces into a pattern of repeating quilt blocks, and in the last photo you see the pieces glued down into the final collage paper quilt.

Since sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video tutorial is worth even more, you can see me putting a paper quilt all together in this video:

I hope that you try this tutorial and have fun either using the templates that I have provided OR making up your own quilt block pattern. If you've admired quilts before, you know that they can be made using many (many!) different patterns, and many of these are quite simple to replicate. 

Last of all, please consider sharing your collage paper quilt artwork on social media. On Instagram you can tag both @stencilgirl_products and @jenniferwilkinpenick so that I can see them. 

Thanks for your time,
Jennifer 

Jennifer Wilkin Penick is a practicing collage and mixed media artist. She teaches art for children and adults at her home studio located in a renovated 18th-century carriage house in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. She also teaches at the Arlington Arts Center in nearby Virginia, and is an artist-in-residence at the Medstar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC.

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Circuit Board Journal Quilts with StencilGirl® Stencils by Frieda Oxenham

Every year Grosvenor Shows organizes a Journal Quilt Competition where every participant is asked to contribute 2 A4 sized Journal Quilts. For 2020 the theme is Connections. That made me think about the different way humans now communicate with each other compared to times gone by. Mostly people met in person in the past, then came letters and finally the phone. Now we all have a wide variety of computerized devices to keep in touch.  Whether you use a computer, laptop, tablet or phone they all use circuit boards to keep us connected! So they became my inspiration for the journal quilts.

Here is how I made them:

1.      Using plain white fabric tear it into roughly A4 or American letter sized pieces.

2.      With an 8 x 10” gel plate add color to the pieces using either one color or a mixture of color on your plate. You can also take partial prints and gradually color your sheets that way. I used So Soft fabric paint for this step and set it by ironing.

3.      Now again add color to your plate, one color for each print. I used Colourcraft Opaque fabric paint in various colors for this and also one blue metallic one. Put one of the following stencils on your plate and then pull the print onto your sheets from step 2: large stencil from March 2018 StencilClub , large stencil from October 2016, large stencil from October 2014 StencilClub, Ancient Marks and Buildings. As I’m using fabric paint I set it by ironing. You can skip this step if you use acrylics.

4.      I’m aiming to make 2 A4 sized pieces but made approx. 25 sheets during step 2 and 3 to give me plenty of choice for the next step.

5.      Cut up the pieces into 1 1/2” strips. I used a rotary cutter and mat for this step, but you can also use scissors.

6.      Cut 2 pieces of wool felt about 1” larger on all sides than the size you want the finished piece to be (A4 in my case). I am using one piece of black felt for one of my pieces and a piece of red for the other.

7.      Cut pieces of double sided adhesive sheet (such as WonderUnder) to match the felt in size and fuse one side to the felt. Remove the paper layer so that the adhesive side is exposed on top of the felt.

8.      Pin strips (from step 5) at the top of the felt, running vertically next to each other, then weave in strips horizontally going under and over the vertical strips, alternating over and under  in each new row of strips. Once you’re happy with the weaving, adhere permanently to the felt by ironing following the manufacturer’s instructions.

9.      Layer up the woven pieces with a background fabric. Pin together.

10.  Machine quilt the pieces using straight stitching with a walking foot on your machine (if you have one). I used red thread on one piece and blue on the other and crosshatched doing the vertical lines first and then the horizontal ones.

11.  Cut down the pieces to the desired size, A4 in my case.

12.  Add binding to each piece. I added red to the red machine quilted piece and blue to the other.

13.  Now bead along all the different shapes on your pieces. I used a mix of size 15 and size 11 seed beads and also added bugle beads to make each piece look even more like a circuit board.

© Frieda Oxenham 2019. To see more of Frieda's work, please visit her BLOG.

Windows Journal Quilts by Frieda Oxenham

Hope everyone enjoys entering a New Year filled with art and creativity. If so, you’re in the right place as StencilGirl®Talk is full of it every day of the year. I count myself very lucky to be back as monthly Guest Designer!

I’m starting off the year with a stitching project. I have been making journal quilts since 2004 and thought it was about time to share 2 with you here. Journal quilts are quite simply small quilts (usually A4 or American Letter size) that tell a story. Here is the UK Grosvenor Shows organize a yearly competition for Journal Quilts that travel with their shows to venues all over the country. Each year there is a new theme and for this year that theme is: Windows. I’m sharing the process with you here.

1.      I began by sorting through my collection of mopping up cotton sheets. As you may have guessed by now I’m not a tidy worker (and that’s an understatement!) and I always have sheets of plain white cotton to hand to mop up any overspill of paint or to clean up brushes and brayers. I found some that I really liked. Here is an example.

2.      Once I selected two pieces I wanted to use, I cut them about 1” larger on all sides than A4 using a rotary cutter and board.

3.      Using Window Ledger 9 and black spray ink (mine was by Liquitex) spray through the stencil onto one of your pieces of fabric and then quickly turn the stencil over and press the sprayed side onto your other piece of fabric. You now have the stencil image on one piece and the mirror image on the other.

4.      Layer up the pieces with batting and a backing fabric of your choice. There is no need to tack on pieces this small. I simply pinned them together with large pins.

5.      Start outline stitching along the black lines with a running stitch and then fill in all areas using a seed stitch. This is simply a running stitch but done in random directions. I used black cotton thread as well as space-dyed threads in matching colors.

6.      Applique on a bird to both journal quilts. I used ones from a fabric I had. WonderUnder or similar was ironed onto the back of the bird fabric, then the birds were cut out and positioned into place on the journal quilts and ironed on. They were secured by machine zigzag stitching using black thread around their outline and additional stitching was done following the lines of their bodies.

7.      Size 11 seed beads were stitched into position in clusters, using Silamide beading thread. The idea was to give the windows some sparkle.

8.      Stitch a black binding onto both journal quilts.

 © Frieda Oxenham 2019. To see more of Frieda's work, please visit her BLOG.