Art Play on Fabric

We still have several inches of snow here in Minnesota and I’m getting Spring fever! This week I used a variety of art supplies to create this Springy Dragonfly Pillow.

Making ruffled muslin ribbon.

To create the “grass” on my pillow, I tore a 1” piece of muslin the width of the fabric, added color, then ruffled by pleating at my sewing machine. The color was added using my Derwent Inktense Blocks.

Stenciling the background with stencils and Derwent Blocks.

I created the background on a natural colored muslin. These makeup brushes work great to push the color through the stencil. The makeup brush is wet to activate the Intense color.

Adding another layer with stamps.

Next I added stamping to fill in some of the white space. Archival Inks by Ranger are waterproof and permanent. Perfect for fabric!

Using a Sizzix Bigz Dragonfly die for the appliqués.

This Dragonfly/Flower Bigz Die is new to me. I really like the size of the dragonfly and was excited to use it. Heat-n-Bond Lite was attached to the back of the fabric before running it through my Sizzix BigShot.

Using free-motion stitching to apply the appliqués.

Using an all-purpose black thread, I attached the appliqués with free-motion stitching. Detail on the wings is easy to do. It’s like drawing with thread!

All stitched.

It’s almost done. The pillow is now stuffed with fiberfil and the opening closed. I show how I finish my pillows in this short video:

Here’s the YouTube video showing the process in making this whimsical, springy pillow! I hope you are inspired to break out some of your art supplies and have a “play on fabric”!