So this is an experiment. In the latest Quilting Arts Magazine there was 5 day challenge. Day 1 you paint fabric. I love my green squigglies. I don't like my flowers but that's ok cause this is an experiment. Day 2 you layer this fabric with organza and quilt it with rayon thread then you use a heat gun on it and see what happens. So I am on Day 2 today. I'll post the results when I get it done. Also working on a Mother's Day gift for my mom. I'll have to post it after I give it to her. I must say it is GORGEOUS! I can't wait to make another one.

So if you don't know what Lutrador is, I'm sorry! It's so fun! I have had a piece of it in my studio for over a year and didn't know what to do with it. I finally watched a DVD from Quilting Arts.com on using it and it was so inspiring I didn't even watch the whole thing before I started playing! So it's polyester that they put on the bottom of box spring mattresses. It's quite stiff, transparent and it melts.

I started with about 18"x 12" piece and colored with oil pastels. They didn't blend well so I packed up my 3 kids and ran to Lowe's after dinner (cause I was on fire!) to buy some mineral spirits. That did help them blend a little better. I wish I had pastels that you could blend with water. Someday. I also used my Tsukineko inks to add color. The white spots on the picture are where I dropped more mineral spirits and it was like bleach. Cool.

They I used a leaf from my own sycamore tree as a stencil. I used a stencil cutter to burn/cut the Lutrador around the real leaf. Then I placed the real leaf underneath my colored leaf and did a rubbing with a gold paintstick to get the veins on my leaf.

Then the picture on the far right is a heat gun that I used on the Lutrador leaf. I placed in on a cookie sheet so it wouldn't burn anything else. It burned holes in the lutrador as it melted. Thus the picture on the right.

Here is the finished quilt. I wish I had made it a little larger and maybe put borders but this is all the fabric I had and I really wanted to use it. I did make one yellow leaf. I am really happy with the leaves and hope to play more with Lutrador soon.

I am still learning this whole blog thing. So my words and my pictures don't match up exactly how I wanted. I hope you get the gist.

So I know it's been a while since I posted. I really want to be more regular with this. This month the challenge from my group was aerial view. I wasn't excited about this at all until I learned about reverse applique. I instantly was inspired to do a view of the Snake River, which I grew up next to. So this is my first "draft" of the quilt. Already it is changed. I took off the rocks. I am going to put on real bead rocks that are smaller. I put up two pics with differing backgrounds. I want opinions on which one would be better. My plan is to quilt the fabric on the bottom and attach the river quilt on top. Haven't had a lot of time this week to quilt with kids and being sick. Leave me a comment on your opinion.