How boring to be updated on an apple tree….!!!!!
Well in fact NO, I've had an interesting day and this little apple tree has given me a wonderful idea.
It's a small drawing and the leaves were quite fine. the point end on the Tsukineko pen is much thicker than I would like, so I used a new brand, a fine (pigment pen – so I was told)
It looked great, I manged to get quite a few colors in the leaves and I was happy with the illustration.
I sandwiched the quilt and I thought, I'll just press it before I quilt it…. and the batting shrank about half an inch…. I've never seen that before… and this is a small quilt !!!!! so I had to pull it undone and re-sandwich it. It was 100% cotton pre shunk batting, so I'm going to contact them on that.
I first quilted with mono filament around the tree image and all the leaves… it looked great. Then I changed to fine cotton thread and began quilting around the border.
Half way through the quilting, as I often do, I decided to press it to re-shape it…the iron wasn't quite hot enough and water spilled from it…. and voila, I had one heck of a mess…. the new pens bled into the fabric…
I looked at it with disbelief… I've been working on this darn tree for days and I should be able to do it in a few hours…!!!!
Now I had to re-do it….
"Oh darn it" so I washed it and the offending ink came out with a concerted scrubbing effort.
I dried it and all that was left was the black pigment ink pen I always use and the Tsukineko ink…. that will never wash out.
Dried, I re-colored the image with Tsukineko ink and the black pigma pen…..
BUT, I want a finer look.
So the object of this project is that now I have an idea to present to Japanese Pen manufacturers… and I know it will work..I won't go into any more detail, but trust me…. I'll organize it.
Oh no! What a mess! The final project looks great from the photo.
Hi Pam,
A friend on our Facebook Fan Page listed your blog as her favorite quilting blog so we had to come for a visit. You have great projects and a lovely blog, keep up the good work- we hope to see more from you in the future!
http://www.aqsquiltnews.blogspot.com
Thanks so much, your comments are appreciated.
What a handsome piece. No one would ever guess about your problems with the batting and ink.