Cover Page For Cycling Album

If you have been following this thread in my blog, you know that I have been working diligently on a fabric album devoted to my love of bicycling.  Today I finished the cover – Hooray!

The center panel was given to me by my friend, Kelly.  She found it on one of her journeys about 2 years ago and I was just waiting for the right project for it.  The side pieces are silk dupioni with a little cotton detail.  The top letters are fused and hand stitched,  The botton letters are the foam stick-ons that you can buy at the local craft store.  I spray painted them gold and then anchored them with metallic thread.  Glass button are the final embellishment, wrapped with some thread.

Cycling Album – Last Page

Day #6 and this is my last page – except for the cover. 

For this last page, I wanted to try and do a collage piece.  I first used a fabric marker and wrote cycling vocabulary on the background fabric.  It’s a whole new language that I’ve learned since riding in my adult years.  You need to stabilize the fabric first with either contact or freezer paper.  After heat setting it, I layered it with batting and quilted it. Then using an actual bicycle chain ring, I prepared the fusible facsimiles out of black organza.  I very carefully fused it to the background.  The balancing act was using a setting on the iron that was hot enough to activate the fusible, but not too hot to melt the organza. I stitched around the chain rings.

Then the square were fused in place and stitched down with metallic thread and then adding toothed locker washers from the local hardware store that remind me of gears.

Day #5, Page #5

Continuing my album journey.  I have finished my 5th page in 5 days.  This is so doable  when you break it down this way.  So, for my 5th page …..drum roll please:

This page is about my cycling travels.  I have prepared for this ever since I started taking my bike on trips.  I try to pose my bicycle, sometimes with me and sometimes without me – to show off the locale.  I have been so lucky and have ridden my bicycle in so many wonderful places.  It is an exciting way to really see our country and other countries.  I pieced these photos with the black fabric. 

Technorati Tags: shrink film,EQ Printables

The rectangles are shrink sheets .  You put them through the computer, cut them to the desired size/shape and then shrink them in the oven.  (Like the old fashioned shrinky dinks.)  I know of 2 companies that make them:  www.grafixarts.com and www.janlynn.com.  You may be able to find them in your local crafts store.  I have also printed photos on them.  I punch holes in them before I shrink them and use the holes to sew them on.

Day #4, Page #4

I devoted my 4th page to my hero, Lance Armstrong.  To watch him ride up those hills during the Tour de France is so inspiring to me.  I cannot imagine how his legs are burning, and how his body is telling him to just get off the bike, but his brain is telling him to keep going and that he can do it and he  just continues to turn those pedals.  Inspiration to get out there and just do it!

The photos were printed on EQ printables with my computer.  The bicycles across the bottom were screen printed with Print Gocco.  “Hero” was designed with my word processing program and then fused on.  The Livestrong bracelet is real.

Day #3, Page #3

So far, 3 days and 3 pages done

I used a photo from my bicycling trip to Girona, Spain and printed it on EQ Printable fabric. The orange fabric was overdyed bicycle fabric. And then I printed words onto commercial fabric with my Epson CX4800 using durabrite ink, which is permanent. Embellished with beads.

Cycling Album – 2nd Page

Day #2 and page  #2.  I’m on a roll.

This project is a great opportunity to practice machine quilting.  The pages are 8”x10” and are so easy to maneuver.  For this page, I printed the small tags with the computer and fused them to the background.  Then I layered the background and the batting and machine quilted it, making sure that I secured the fused words.  Then on top of all of this I fused and hand stitched the bicycle.

New Project

I have always wanted to make a fiber journal. I have a workshop coming up the middle of May and I have decided that I could use this format to demonstrate a lot of my techniques to personalize a quilt. I knew the perfect theme would be my love of cycling. I have been saving stuff for just this opportunity.

My goal is to do a page a day for 7 days and on the 8th day, construct my album. So, come back and visit daily to see each page.

1st page

I used a quote by John F. Kennedy and printed it on fabrics using my computer. Ric rac is framing the quote and sequins were attached with beads. I stitched the “pennies” onto silk dupioni with metallic thread, by hand.