Standard Mat, Low Tack Mat, or Mid Tack Mat??? Fusibles and the Brother ScanNCut

Remember the collage trees I have made in the past? Like this one, named "Branching Out"? I really think my new Brother ScanNCut machine would be great for cutting the bark pieces I use to collage the trunk and branches.

The fern project I made a few weeks ago went smoothly because I used the old Steam a Seam Lite fusible web (the one with only one backing paper). It had just the right stickiness (not that much) for the Standard Mat. This fusible was discontinued, so I've been experimenting with Steam a Seam Lite 2 (two backing papers). It turns out that this fusible is far too sticky to use with the Standard Cutting mat. It actually left a layer of fusible web across the entire mat that I had to scrub really hard to get off. 

It then occurred to me that cutting with the Low Tack Mat (instead of the Standard Mat) might be a good idea. I was right, that worked just fine. I repeated the experiment today, and yes I have concluded with certainty that the Low Tack Mat is the one to use with Steam a Seam Lite 2 fusible web. You can see here how well it cut.

One thing I have finally learned is to run a test cut before committing to cutting an entire sheet of shapes. That way if you get the settings wrong, or you choose a mat with more or less tack than you need, you will only gum up or slice through part of your mat. So today I drew only one piece of bark and scanned it in.

I still have a fair bit of Pellon Lite EZ Steam from two years ago when Steam a Seam products were unavailable. The Pellon product is way too sticky for the Standard mat too, and it did not work very well with the Low Tack mat either. So I have concluded I will not be using the rest of this fusible web as I do not like it for this, or any other purpose..

I also noticed when cutting bark that some of my shapes weren't fully cut out, or had wiggly edges. That would be because in my original drawing that I scanned (below), I did not close in all my shapes with my marker, and some areas almost had a double line where two lines met. I redid my drawing today and re-scanned it.

I also tried a few other fusibles today. Because it doesn't have that sticky re-positionable adhesive like Steam a Seam products, Wonder Under works well with the Standard Mat.

I cut a beautiful sheet of bark using Wonder Under fused fabric and the Standard Mat.

Here are the pieces after I pulled them off the mat and laid them on the release paper for storage.

I also tested TransWeb with the Standard Mat. It did not seem to stick to the mat enough, so you can see that the pieces were lifting off the mat while they were being cut, and this did not result in a clean cut. I won't be using this fusible with the ScanNCut either.

I gave another try at cutting bark with the Low Tack Mat and Steam a Seam Lite 2. It worked beautifully, and for this I am thankful, as it is my fusible of choice. I need the pressure-sensitive, re-positionable adhesive for the works I make that are comprised of a lot of little shapes. The design sticks together while you are building it. The ScanNCut can cut these shapes faster than I can. You will notice that I made sure to create a variety of sizes and shapes because I want this to look natural.

Despite a good cut, you will need to keep your mat clean. There will always be little bits of fabric and sometimes a smidgen of fusible, left behind. I read on-line about using baby wipes to clean the mat. I tried them, and they do work well. 

I opted for the unscented ones because I just don't want a lot of perfume circulating in the air in my small studio.

I am now through a lot of the experimentation with fusibles and mats, and am ready to tackle another project and confident the Brother ScanNCut can handle my preferred fusible, Steam a Seam Lite 2. Oh, and by the way, there is also a "Mid Tack Mat". I haven't needed that one yet.

Free-Form Curves

I am really enjoying being home for the month of January and not having a lot of pressing deadlines. So I've just finished dyeing 32 meters of blues, blues/purples, and purples in preparation for upcoming teaching travels. Half of them are soaking in a cold water soak, and the other half has been washed out and is drying on the line in my basement.

The other thing I've been enjoying doing is updating class samples. It is fun to make things using the methods I teach, without any pressure to make something that is show worthy. So in the last couple of days I've turned out two little samples for my "Free-Form Curves" class. I intend to make new samples for all my "free form" classes. Each is a one day class, and I teach all five methods in my week-long "Serendipity Strips & Curves" class at Haliburton School of the Arts.

The two little samples I made were inspired by this photograph I took at Antelope Canyon, Arizona. I was not expecting the pieces to look like this, but rather be an abstraction of what I see there, and I also wanted the colours to be inspired by this photo.

The first piece I turned out looks like this. I wasn't totally happy with the orange ending up to the left and right of the yellow, but I'm not unhappy with the piece. It's just that the result isn't quite what I envisioned.

Such is the nature of free-form piecing. One has to be open to what one gets to a certain extent. In my second piece, I addressed the orange on both ends of the yellow by making the orange more central.  I'm happier with this one.

I've also been experimenting with cutting tree bark for tree collages, using my Brother ScanNCut. I learned a lot during that exercise that I am going to share in my next blog post.

Oh, and remember the negative shapes left when I cut out all the circles for my fern quilt? I've fused them to a multi-coloured hand-dyed fabric, and now I'm going to cut it up and play at a design. However, it does make me happy looking at it just the way it is.

The Partial Reveal & A Hosta Bag

I just finished building the fern fronds for the design I revealed in my last post. Here are the fronds with all the parts on them that were cut on my Brother ScanNCut. In this photo they are just hanging on my white design wall. This weekend I will find a suitable background. This project is an attempt at working in a more graphic and abstract style. If you have suggestions for background colour/s, I am all ears. I was initially leaning toward white to further enhance the graphic qualities. I am not sure at the moment. My design wall looks a little off-white here and that may be why it isn't pleasing me.

This week I received two photos from Virginia Miller. She took my Hosta Leaves 101 class last year at Textile Traditions of Almonte. She chose the Hosta Trio pattern, and instead of making a wall quilt, she cut hers up and turned it into a bag. Pretty cool and clever I would say.

If you are in the Ottawa Valley, I will be delivering a lecture and trunk show on Monday night, January 16 for the Kemptville Quilters Guild.

Creating with the Brother Scan & Cut

It is the first week of January, and we are in the deep freeze here in Ottawa. I am in my studio, and it feels good! So I'm working on this idea I posted about late last year. It started with an up-close section of a photograph I took of ferns on Vancouver Island in June of last year. I played around with some settings and filters in PhotoShop that emphasized these little black circles on the fern fronds and made them look more 3D. I have no recollection of what the setting or filter was. I was playing that day. I loved how the little black circles had value variations through them, darker on one side than another.

Here's the design worked out in my sketchbook, I will make the centres of the fronds less yellow, probably a lighter value of the same green I'm using for the main part of the fronds.

Late last year I also dyed a value gradation of a neutral black.Now I ask, why are we dyers always trying to find a neutral black/grey? Well I know why ... because when we go to paler and paler shades we tend to find greys that look more blue or green or ... but we want just plain grey. However, after the painting class I took a few weeks ago, I've come to the conclusion that greys are more interesting when you CAN see a bit a colour in them. Very little in the world is a neutral grey. However, for the purposes of this project, I'm sticking with my neutral black/grey.

Here's my design enlarged. I traced it to transparency film and projected it to the wall with an overhead projector to enlarge it. I did not draw out all the dots on the leaves. I just drew a few different sizes.

I thought this was the perfect project to try out my new Brother Scan & Cut Machine that I purchased 7 months ago from Ottawa Sewing Centre since there are so many repetitive little dots that need to be cut. When I purchased the machine, I thought it would be great for cutting tree bark for my tree collages, and I was excited about the possibilities of cutting shapes out of organza without using fusible web, and thus retaining the sheerness.

Then I traced my dots onto a piece of paper, one or two dots in each size.

I scanned this into my Brother Scan n' Cut.

I knew I should be able to reproduce the dots to fill an entire space the size of the scanning mat. It took a bit of fiddling and reading (I hate reading manuals). However, you can see here I did manage to figure it out. 

Hard to photograph the screen without it showing a glare, but I think you can see in the photo below, that I've now managed to fill the entire screen with dots. This gets saved into my Brother Scan & Cut.

I've taken a piece of fabric that is approximately 12" x 12" in size, and ironed fusible web to the back of it. I still had some Steam a Seam Light in my stash. Better use it up before it gets old.

I've pulled the backing paper off the fusible that I ironed to the back of the fabric, and I've positioned the fabric on the mat meant for cutting. Except I made a mistake and used the scanning sheet that I'd affixed an extra tacky sheet on way back when I bought the machine. I used that extra tacky sheet to cut organza without any fusible on it. Alas I erred here, and cut through the really tacky sheet, such that it became permanently attached to the back of the dots I was cutting.

Here you can see the first sheet cut. I then figured out I had used the wrong sheet, didn't need the extra tacky one, just the mildly tacky one.

Once I used the correct cutting mat, everything worked wonderfully. So here I have a table full of dots in a variety of sizes and values. I'll go and buy a couple of new mats at the Ottawa Sewing Centre. I purchased my Brother Scan n' Cut from them.

I now also have these cool sheets of fused fabrics that have holes in them.

Actually an entire little wall of them attached to my design wall. There must be a fun use for these?

For the rest of the design (the leaves themselves), I used my usual method of tracing them in reverse onto the fusible web, ironing the web to the back of fabric, and cutting them out.

Here's my first leaf. What do you think? I dunno why, but I am craving a white background, but we shall see. Am I going modern or what?

A few more leaves to go. The big reveal should come in a day or two.

Quilts = Art = Quilts 2015

I am pleased to share that this year I had a quilt accepted to the Quilts=Art=Quilts show at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, New York. The opening reception took place this past Friday, October 30. Yes, "Encore" is back from its travels in Europe, and will be hanging at this show until January 3, 2016.

More information about the show is available here. There is a video of the show at this link.

My teaching schedule is slowing down at this time of year, so I am going to have some time in the studio. So far this past week I've gone through a lot of images and pulled a lot of fabrics for possible use. It has been so long since I've made new work that I'm feeling rather paralyzed. Yes, I have lots of ideas, but all of them either feel overwhelming or too similar to what I've done before. Hopefully I will get warmed up soon :-) On the other hand, taking a rest isn't such a bad idea, is it?

On Saturday I'll be teaching a workshop for the Upper Canada Quilt Guild, who meet in Prescott, Ontario. Then stay tuned for new work over the next few weeks.