 One of the perks of my work is getting enjoy seeing what others are creating, and helping them explore ways of bringing their pieces to life. Recently, I had the opportunity to work with another local quilter on a project she was making from a photo taken in Bari, Italy. She had done quite a lot of work in her composition already, but was looking to add some more contrast and find ways to blend the areas of light and shadows more seamlessly. I invited her over to play with some Inktense and to get familiar with how to use both water and medium on fabric as well as explore blending a number of colors to create the shades she was looking for.
 Finished Project! Made by Janet Hoyt
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This morning I received a lovely text letting me know that someone I quilted for just won Best in Show for their quilt at their local show. "Your feathers in the background flew it over the top. Thank you for a great job" It is such a pleasure hearing that something I shared a part in was appreciated and acknowledged by others' enjoyment. Huge Congrats to Anne!  Made by Anne Duncan Part of the joys of quilting for others is getting to play on the canvas they create. There isn't enough time in the day to make all the fun quilts that I wish I could, so at least in this way I have the opportunity to quilting on the fruits of their labor.  Made by Denise Wright Eckhardt In this fun quilt called Bunny Town from The Quilt Company, I explored creating different textures in the backgrounds of the cute whimsical blocks. I mean...who doesn't love a quilted carrot?
I've managed to sneak in some time to continue adding color to my landscape on fabric this week. I've got some more blending and shading to do yet, and then it will be time to add some thread!   I've been wanting to explore creating some larger scale painted art quilts and recently started a new landscape piece with this in mind. As the fabric canvas is over 3' by 4', coloring the scene in using Inktense pencils would take a lot of time to achieve full saturation of color, as well as the added challenge of blending out any hard lines from the pencils as I worked. So instead I've gotten my Inktense blocks out to play. While a bit more messy to work with, their shape is much better suited to laying out a large amount of color across larger surfaces. I started by sketching out the basic shapes of the landscape I'm using for inspiration and then working on a layer of freezer paper to protect my table surface from becoming stained, I wet the sky section using a mister (most often found in greenhouses) and began to layer in different colors of blue. The best way to make your landscapes appear as if there is depth is by making sure that the color fades to a softer hue toward the horizon line. I let the sky dry completely and then began to work on the mountains, started with a base layer and then adding colors on top until I began to achieve the blend I was looking for.  So far I've worked my way down toward the water line, but now it's time to let what I've got dry completely so I can work the bottom sections without them blending together.
Being patient and waiting is the always the most difficul part of the task! Stay tuned for more :) As some of you know, it has been a rough year...but I'm making it through (thanks to much support and love from so many). As I start to catch up on orders and quilting for customers, I have also found a few moments to get some time to play in my studio again. One piece that I've been working on is this owl. It started as a sketch on fabric using inktense pencils. I followed that with some thread painting to add some texture.  Next I auditioned it on this little woven background that I created a while back that reminded me of a tree. I still felt that my owl was wanting something, so I got out some roving and played with couching some of the fibers into the mix. Ahhh...just what he was wanting!  I don't often frame my textile pieces, but this one seemed to want to be in something sturdier than its full fabric form...so I found this little barn wood frame in which my owl can live.  It was fun to see his progress and watch his personality change as the different layers were added...and I am super grateful for time spend creating again. Here's to some more playtime in the near future!
Part of the joy of quilting for customers is getting to play on quilts that I don't have the time to piece. Here is some progress made on a custom king sized quilt using the pattern Nautical Dreams by Linda McGibbon     In between filling orders, teaching classes and quilting...here are a few new little works that are starting to come alive in my studio... Coloring with Inktense: The birds have been busy and happy to pose (for nuts) for me to create some fun new twice painted wall hangings...soon it will be time to add some threads!  And playing with creating some skys inspired by Gloria Loughman, I am working on making a landscape for my latest needle felted bison to wander freely...   Next up is to focus on adding some texture to the foreground
before he decides if he will be happy enough to hang around! As the seasons shift to autumn and long days of summer become shortened by shadows, the trees take up the mantle of infusing the landscape with their own internal light source. Every year I look forward to seeing them glowing like candles on the hillside in the evening sun.  Using some photos that Bob and I took from a drive along Hwy 2 a couple years ago, I wanted to see if I could create a thread piece celebrating the glow of my favorite season. I love the texture in this batik fabric, but the color is too bright to showcase my glowing trees....so time to get out the soft body acrylic! (I love this for fabric as it doesn't change the hand of the fabric like normal acrylic paint does.)
While my background fabric was drying I printed my chosen photo on ATP (artist transfer paper) and placed it face down on a piece of muslin.
Using a hot dry iron I heated the ATP until the transfer moved from the paper to the fabric, pealing up slowly to make sure that as much of the print was releasing as possible.
 Now it's time for thread! My background fabric was finally dry, so I gave it a press and did a little audition to see if I was happy with it's new color.   I got out my oil pastels next to add some wispy clouds on the background where I planned to place the treeline. I softened the color of by rubbing the pastel into the fabric and then before it was fully dry, putting a pressing cloth over the top of the piece and pressing my hot iron on the top to pull up a little of the extra color.
Trimmed, bound and ready!  |
Monique KleinhansTextile Artist Archives
February 2026
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