Thursday, December 23, 2010

Humbags

What is it about having a list of things that you should be doing
that makes you want to do things that you shouldn't be doing?

I seem to have that problem...
I was supposed to be putting finishing touches on Christmas gifts,
cleaning house and doing some laundry.
Instead I picked up a few pieces of fabric that I had worked on a couple of months ago
with the Fiber Freaks.
Deconstructive screen printing fabric.
Yummy.

I saw a video of Laura Kemshall (Design Matters TV) making
a "humbug purse" from quilted scraps.
(I call it a "humbag")
The colors of her bag reminded me of the screen prints that I had done.

Bingo...

That's all it took.

I rummaged around in the room that used to be my studio
(that is presently taped off due to some type of implosion)
and found the smallest of the prints.
I made up some quick quilt sandwiches and
zipped through some (messy) free motion quilting.
Did a little fabric painting in a couple of places and

viola!




Look at this wonky cool bag!
I even put a zipper in it.
And I hate putting in zippers...


But, that wasn't all!
I couldn't stop (as usual!) myself.
I had to make another deconstructive screen printed, quilted, fabric painted pen case.

This one is a little more conventional than the triangle one...


You can barely see the marks from the screen printing
so I added larger quilted images.
I used Lumiere fabric paint (copper) and Stewart Gill "Alchemy" (celestial).
I have never used the Stewart Gill interference paint before
and I LOVE it!
The color I used is so bold. 
It does not change the hand of the fabric like some of the fabric paints I've used
and is really easy to use.




Yeah, did you see that I put a zipper in that case too!?
A record for me I'm sure.
Two zippers...
two days...
Several chores ignored...(not a record).

4 comments:

Robbie said...

I got addicted to making these as well. I only made three and gave two away as gifts. They're the best. I love your different designs to the bag! Very cool!!!

Emmy said...

very beautiful

Joanne Huffman said...

I love these bags. My hands are itchy to get to my sewing machine (currently away from home for Christmas with relatives).

susan said...

I love your bags! I love free motion stitching but have never thought about painting afterwards!

You sound just like me ... a list of "to do"s and I do everything else!