Tutorial ...Thread painting scenery and animals.

Here are examples of thread painting bushes, trees, etc. on pictorial landscapes.




Below are a few examples of thread painted fish and
animals that are thread painted .

If you click on the picture you can see how I thread painted these animals.

`Header- Hummingbirds'

The header photo I just put in, was one of my first thread painted wall hangings.

I was so pleased with it as I had always been wondering whether I could do it.
I mention it because if you look at it closely you can see how I thread painted the flowers and the birds. I thought I would show you close ups of other thread painted projects I have done over the years. Some have been put on my blog but rather than having to scroll down I thought I would put them in again. I am finishing up the ongoing thread painting class
this next month where we do a thread painted landscape, including buildings etc.

About 20 years ago I saw some pictures of some wonderful faces in the National Geographic and painted them with
oils, and then with watercolors. I did them in thread painting a few years ago.

One is a Mali Princess, the other is an Australian Aboriginal Man and the third is an
Aussi Shepherd. If you click on the photos they will enlarge and you can see the stitching.












The next picture is part of my Christmas thread painting series. It shows the shapes and colors of a pointsettia -- I use this pattern for lots of different things. A table topper edging - I thread paint the blocks around a border - and make a bouquet in the center. I use it for
coasters, etc.
The next is a bouquet of thread painted tulips. This wall hanging was lots of fun to do - the shading is very important, and a great way to practice. If I remember correctly, one of the members of our group won it a couple of years ago.

I will be teaching a Floral bouquet using many different flowers on April llth & 12. As we are limiting the number of members on the learningfa group , if you are interested in signing up for the floral bouquet there is still room in the group to sign up. Just click on the yahoo icon in my sidebar.

The peacock has beades on the crest and was a fun project.

click on the pricture and you will see how it was done. notice the different stitches I used.


This is a thread painted house I did for a wall hanging. I used a 'different' basic fabric' it was upholstery fabric and worked very well. You can see how the thread painting hi lighted the sides and roof

I used thread for everything included the windows. This was only one of 4 buildings I made for this wall hanging. Notice that I lay the brown fabric on top of a piece of timtex and thread painted the house. This is a great way to do it as it never puckers - I then cut it out close to the outside edge after going around the outside of the house 3 times with a very fine zig zag stitch, and then appliqued it to the piece.


The last picture shows a thread painted wall hanging on pure silk I brought home from
China - I painted it with fabric paints after soaking the fabric and diluting the paint - this gave me the background - then I thread painted it. I hope you like it.

I hope you will find these pictures of help with your thread painting - It is a matter of practice - practice - practice. To start you could also print a building, or an animal onto a sheet of printing on fabric - I sometimes use Crafters images or printed treasures. then I place the subject on a piece of timtex and thread paint over the subject using the colors that show up in the image - this is an excellent way of thread paint a focus animal, house, flower, etc. If any of you want to see more examples just comment and I will put more in. Shirley

Tutorial - Winter scene Part 3

Here is the Winter scene ready to be quilted -- I have really enjoyed doing this wall hanging. I will be able to use it as a class for the learningfa group sometime in the next while. I have a backlog of pieces that need binding so once I get this one bound with a backing and sleeve - I will finish it and then use my will power and finish of at least 3 of the landscapes that are waiting. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Shirley

Tutorial -Simple land scape

Here is the quilted landscape for the simple landscape class -- it just needs a binding and backing. Shirley

Good Morning

I was invited to join in as one of the guest bloggers in the Quilting gallery

click on the icon in the side bar.

and my work will be shown tomorrow. It is rather fun, as my good (very very good) friend Deb is featured today (neither of us knew the other was being featured). I do hope you will check out the gallery today and tomorrow. There are some interesting blogs there and I know you will enjoy it.

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Once again it is bitter cold out - I am so tired of winter. Oh well - I should not worry as I live in the part of the world where winter happens- EVERY year!
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I haven't accomplished much since my last post as Hayley spent the day with us and
I don't get much quilting done as we 'play' a lot. She is such a sweet natured little girl.

Hope you will check out the above mentioned posts! Shirley

tutorial part 2 Winter scene -

I have done some more on this wall hanging - I finished up the background and added snow to the foreground as well as two large trees - these are larger than the back ground trees and help put the background further back.

I then finished thread painting the bushes in the foreground and added a coyote -- I used steam a seam lite and then appliqued the animal with invisible thread .

I then sprinkled the whole scene with white paint using my toothbrush and a piece of card board to do the snow.
I put the acrylic craft paint on my toothbrush and spattered it on a piece of dark paper until it was the consistency I wanted and then carried on spraying the whole scene. I did this 3 times lightly and it looked good.

I squared off the scene, and started adding the first border in medium brown. I Still have the top and bottom to add and then will add a dark blue border 3" wide for the outside.





















I will put the last portion of this tutorial in a post when I have added the other brown borders as well as the outside border - Shirley

Tutorial- Winter scene Pt. 1

I have been working on a winter scene and have managed to get the center portion nearly finished. I decided I wanted to change my seasons as the last few wall hangings have represented summer. I decided to do another snow fall.

When I start a landscape I never know where I am going to end up - and this one was
no different!

I started with a dark blue batik like fabric for the background of the whole scene.

I cut a piece of muslin to use underneath the piece to give it body and also keep
the thread painting from puckering too much. The actual scene is quite small in comparison to my other pieces - it is 12" wide by 18" tall.

I then cut out some l/2"strips the length of the top l/3 of the scene and attached them to the dark blue sky to represent trees. I placed 6 of these strips across the top with a couple of them at an angle -- I then thread painted with a thread that was slightly lighter than the strips - some branches - These will be the background of the forest. I then placed a slightly lighter shade of blue for the background bushes. Then laid some snow across the scene,
adding more noticeable bushes along the snow line. I found a very interesting batik from my stash and cut slightly wider strips (8 strips) and placed them with the bottom on the snow setting them into two groups. Some of them were laid on an angle. I also started adding different shrubs along the snow line - and attached them. I then sprayed the background with light grey splatters to represent distant snow.













I then thread painted branches on the 8 trees in the front after finishing the bushes and the snow. I then used a dark brown thread, and thread painted some bushes along the tree line I then cut the snow shoreline and placed a dark blue fabric with a slight pattern under the snow about 6 inches wide to represent the water. I will continue with this wall hanging in my next posts. I hope it helps to see how I 'build' my pictures. I intend to have some snow in the foreground and place some larger trees there, as well as possibly putting an animal in the foreground.

More Southwest

Here are some pictures of my pine needle baskets and the canvas plastic bags I taught at the park. Also shown is the class example of a southwest wall hanging that I taught on learningfa. Enjoy! (I hope)

Winters in Arizona

We spent 9 winters in a wonderful Park in Mesa, Arizona. It was perfect for Pat and I, as he was a hiker, and spent many days hiking through the Superstition Mountains with the Park Hiking group. We went on lots of outing with the group and had a great time.

Meanwhile, I learned so many wonderful things. I learned to hand build clay, make
brass,copper, silver and gold jewelry of my own design, stained glass, (I ended up teaching 'One of a kind pieces" every Thursday (see the candle holder with the little people) evening and teaching stepping stones on Saturday Mornings. I also taught fabric painting, canvas plastic bags, original knitted sweaters, and other things during those years. I was teaching the quilt group how to paint on fabric and casually mentioned to the 25 students there that "I would love to have a quilt of my painted work' They jumped on the idea and offered to help me make one. That is how I started doing fabric wall hangings and painted quilts. It changed my life.
Most of the work I did consisted of Southwest scenes and 'little people, as I was so taken with the area and the wonderful cliff dwellings, jewelery etc.

I did scenes on plastic canvas and have them framed and in my living room.








The mirror is one of my classes - The Nun was done by my friend Nilma who worked with me in t he Stained Glass class and became an expert in 'fusing' glass. She has done a wonderful series on
'Whimsicle Nuns" her page is on my links on the side bar- check out her other Nuns.

It was a very happy time for us and we still miss our friends at Valle del Oro, the park where we lived each winter. I hope you like these samples of my southwestern work. Shirley

My thread painting classes.

I teach a thread painting class on the learningfa group and the first four lessons are to teach the student how to shade. As you can see, they are fun subjects and I am very happy with the results that the students achieve.

Judy S. just posted these pictures of her thread painting to the learningfa group and I wanted to share the work with you. We start with the rosebud, then the hummingbirds, the chickadee and lastly the robin.

Once these are completed, we go on to learn about trees and buildings, and we finish off the class with a small thread painted landscape where we use what we have learned. I have an ongoing class, once one is completed, we start another -- it is absolutely wonderful how much the girls have accomplished .














It is amazing how each student manages to make her own work original, either by the thread she uses, the direction of her stitches, the background etc. I am so happy with what is happening in this class.

I will be starting another series this summer so if you are interested, join the learningfa group (click on icon on side bar) and join us for this and lots of other classes.

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I spent the afternoon making a crochet hook holder for my dil who has just taken up
crocheting. I tried all over to find one , and couldn't so I decided to make one myself.

I had some nice suede leather so used it for the holder. She travels a lot so I think this will be handy for her and will fit into her suitcase without taking up too much room.

Alberta Scenery

Here are some scenes of Alberta and the East part of British Columbia --- Enjoy!

Good Morning!

I have been doing quite a bit of crochet this past couple of years and thought you might be interested in seeing the little round rug I made for my grand daughter's room.
I cut 3" wide strips of inexpensive fabric and fabric I had in my stash that would never be used. If I had or saw a heavier fabric I cut the strips 2.5" instead of three. I have a size l0
hook which is very large. I then crochet using a double crochet stitch, a large circle. I used to do long chains and then sew them, but this worked out really well. The first pictureis the finished mat - and the second one shows Hayley sitting on it when I finished it l8 months ago. She 'helped' me by pulling the strips apart once I had started the cut. She would grab the end where I cut it and then go backwards pulling the strip from the original fabric - Papa would catch her when it finished separating. I would then crochet the strip.

It is in her bedroom and she tells everyone that "Nana and I made this rug and I sit on it when I play with my toys" what a sweetie she is. As you can see from the pictures, the rug is very scrappy and as her room has a seascape mural around the bottom half of the walls, it blends in nicely. I did the mural before she was born so some of me is in her room, and she does know it.
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She just turned 5 in January, so soon I will be able to teach her how to sew-
She doesn't seem to care much for dolls so I am not sure whether a doll quilt is in her future or not.
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It is a very sunny and bright day, but oh so cold! it is -13 C so I am going to stay in and finish the simple landscape for the learning fa group - I am quilting the border and seem to want to put it off. I love doing the art part, but the border quilting and binding seem to drag on for me. Talk to you tomorrow! Shirley