Crayon Quilts:

For my quilt group this month - it's September already!!! - I had planned to do strip piecing following my theme of teaching a new technique that could be done in more than one way.  Then I found a blog and a link about making batik fabric using crayons as the base for color as well as the wax resist for the black dye.  And with school starting and boxes of crayons on sale for 50 cents each, I decided we would all go back to school.  A little bit of fun never hurt anyone.

The learning curve was certainly there and as I slaved over a sauna of boiling water used to keep the crayons melted, I wondered if it wouldn't be easier to just go back and teach about strip piecing.  But I persevered and the results were rather fun.  First you melt your crayons.  I used a six muffin tin tray for the crayons and filled a dedicated electric frying pan (can't use it for anything else ever again) with water.  Once melted you paint away.  Above is one of the examples I'm going to show to group on Thursday.  

The next step is probably the most important one, you crinkle up your painting to make cracks in the crayon for the black fabric dye to enter and adhere to the cloth.  You'll see below how I went overboard on this maneuver and the results were a bit too much batiking  (is that a word?), but that was part of the learning curve.

Then you spray on black fabric dye.  As this must be cold so the crayon colors won't melt again, this was my best option.  I sprayed and then used a paint brush to coat the fabric and let it sit overnight.  Below is the end result of this little exercise.  I love it!!! Just the squares of different colors in a larger piece would be so fun.

Here are the end results of a few paintings I did for the class.  I am no artist

and except for the flowers in the middle these were all taken from online sites and then copied for my needs.  I'm going to applique a few birds on and around the houses to add more detail to this one.

Below are the flowers I drew, painted and then scrunched way too much before adding the dye.  I learned a lot as I toned it down for the next two, above and below the flowers.

The house painting was "stolen" from a needlework site, downloaded, enlarged, manipulated a bit and then traced on white fabric (prepared for dyeing) and then painted.  I will admit that the best part of this process is the first ironing to remove the wax and you see what is underneath the black dye.  So much fun.



Was it a lot of work?  Yes.  Am I done with it?  Not yet.  Ana and Livi have each drawn me a picture with crayons that they want placed on a bag of my making.  When they are done, I can put my crayons away.