Fabric paints to the rescue

Our biannual quilt show is this weekend, so I have been working to finish my entries to the show.  ah, but this one looked so sad.  It is a mini and up close it was so pretty, but when I took a picture it was just blah except for the blast of dark blue cross-hatching.

So I went to my drawer of paints and pencils and just started in on it.  Above, the green radiating lines have been started - on the left is without and on the right side I used an inktense pencil with aloe vera gel as my medium.  Looking a little better....

so getting braver, I used lumiere pink paint on the unquilted outlines of the pink leaves.  wow, dayglo!  but still better than blah...

then I used the inktense to make those inner lines green too.

Here is the finished mini wholecloth quilt, not bound here but I did get that done too.  This is about 14 inches square.  A little blinded by the colors...

Now on to my big piece that I called Shangri-La.  Except I forgot what name I put on the entry form months ago when this quilt was just a top, and I put "Arabesque" on the label...  duh, one of these days I will make copies of my entries and keep them somewhere I can find them!

Here is how some of the light thread showed up yucky in the purple sashing strip.  Well, this is an easy one...  I got out my fabrico marker.   it is tsukineko fabric ink in a double sided marker.  I love these and have them in many colors just for these kinds of touchups.  

Here is the same portion of the quilt after I touched it up with the marker.  Now this may seem like cheating, but the integrity of the quilt is intact.  I just consider this fabric art.  I am changing the color of the thread in specific areas.  Right?  

Here is this quilt that I entered in this weekend's show.  After quilting it, I rinsed and spun it in the washer and laid it out on the back porch to block.  Then I noticed some of the vines in the center block had become dull and lost their vibrant green color.  

Here is a closeup, sideways view.  That fabric totally lost color in the rinse cycle of my washer.  oh what to do??? 

I dug around in my fiber arts arsenal. (I have bought so many types of fabric paints and markers over the years) and found some tsukineko ink paints.

And look how good it looks!  yea for tsukineko...  the vines on the bottom have not been painted yet, and the ones on top have been inked.  I also had a few leaves made from the same fabric.  Oh wow, I was so happy with the result.

Another picture of the quilting, which I am proud to say, I did on my Innova longarm.  I am traditionally a sitdown quilter and the transition to a track mounted longarm has been difficult for me.  I have struggled with control, and there are many places in this quilt that I am not thrilled with the quilting, but I am definitely improving.

 

and here is ShangriLa hanging at the quilt show.  If you are near San Antonio, Tx this weekend you should come out and see our 300 beautiful quilts and shop at our 40 vendors.

Look at that vibrant green vine!

So if your fabric or thread is not exactly the color you had hoped, don't despair,  fabric paints can be your salvation.  

Painting is by nature a luminous language." - Robert Delaunay