Adding More Pattern to Painted Fabrics

                       I decided to add more pattern to the painted fabrics I made last week. These fabrics are to use in the modern improv quilt that I have started, so I carefully mixed colors that will complement the ones already in the quilt. 

I used a stencil for the one above. It's actually a piece of plastic

 used for catching leaves in your roof gutter.

On the one above I used a stamp.

On the one above I used a roller stamp with squiggly lines.

On the one above, I placed a rubber silicone hot pad under the fabric

and rolled ink on top using a spongy roller.

Dendritic Monoprint Art Quilt

I cut up my latest dendritic mono prints into four inch blocks and used them as a border to the smaller blocks previously. The creating of any art fabric is the most exciting part for me.  This is my piece for  the "Tradition with a Twist" challenge that my Cutting Edge Fiber Art Group is doing. 

I feel the traditional part is the cutting of fabric into blocks and sewing them together like four patch or nine patch quilts, etc. The 'twist' is in using non-traditional hand-printed fabric

 for the blocks to create an art quilt.

I machine and hand quilted the blocks and am adding some hand embroidery

 here and there to further enhance the quilt.

New Photoshopped Art Quilt Project

Ever since I took a class from Susan Brandeis http://www4.ncsu.edu/~brandeis/  at the U of  Minneapolis in 2009 as part of the Splitrock Summer Arts Program, I've been wanting to make another quilt from one of my pictures enhanced through the magic of photoshop.  So finally, last week I played with this picture of rust on metal.

I played with it in photoshop until I created something I liked and then I enlarged the image to approximately three times its size.  I printed it out onto nine,  8" x 10" pieces of treated fabric for printing (I especially like Betty's Photos on Fabric cotton Twill)  http://www.bettysphotosonfabric.com/ and then sewed them together.  The sewing didn't go as smoothly as I wanted due to some of the pieces printing out too close to the edge on four sections.  I had to fuse additional fabric strips to those, so I would have enough of a seam allowance.  The fabric must have moved a bit in going through the printer.  Here's the sewn together version.

  In Susan's class I made the quilt below, using the same methods, but only doubled the size.  It was printed on four pieces of silk, I hand-sewed together.  I also printed a leaf on organza as an overlay.  I then embroidered and beaded it.

Here's the original photo that inspired it.

Do you have a favorite pre-treated fabric you like for printing?  What about any tips for "tiling" photos using a Mac and Photoshop, or even even using Spoonflower or another commercial fabric printer.  I tried to work with Spoonflower's website to find out how much it would cost to enlarge one photo to approximately a yard but couldn't figure out how to upload the image  without them thinking I wanted zillions of reprints of the same pic.  Has anyone else tried using them to print one enlarged image?  Maybe you'd be so kind to share your tips with me. They tried to help me with some info via email, but I just didn't get what they were saying.  Sometimes technology and I don't see eye to eye.

Wishing all my readers a very happy Thanksgiving!