We had a few days of sunshine and warmer weather last week, just enough for my spring fever to kick into gear. Since it will be months before I can poke around in the garden, I’ll have to be content to poke around my studio and play with flowers indoors.

When it comes to flowers, I don’t get too far without thinking about the Primrose stencils that are tucked into the back of my Design Magic book. I created the Primrose design for a segment on Quilting Arts TV. I stenciled the images on fabric with my paintstiks and turned it into a tote. Personally, I think it was the very best segment I did for the show, and I was thrilled with the process I used to create the stencils.

When I finished taping the segment, I was so excited about that I decided I had to turn the process into a book. Less that a year later, Design Magic was back from the printer and flying out the door. What an adventure!

I have one more little story about this set of stencils. My initial name for the design was Squiggle. Very descriptive, but not particularly elegant for a product name… So I picked up my book on perennials and looked for the simplest flowers in the book. The primrose was on my short list. Given that I live on Primrose Road, it was an easy choice!

Now let’s take a look at what YOU can do with the Primrose Stencils.

Design Magic: Primrose Projects

Design Magic is a really great way to make your own designs, turn them into freezer paper stencils, and add the designs to fabric by stenciling with paintstiks.

Freezer paper stencils? Yes, freezer paper stencils. While they don’t last forever, freezer paper stencils are much more durable than you think — I really pushed one set and used it more than 50 times before it was truly worn out.

As a matter of fact, I used freezer paper stencils to make most of the samples in the book, including the queen-size Woodland Flowers Quilt. Here’s a photo of the quilt. The instructions are included in the project section of the book.

The construction of this quilt is really simple (other than the fact that it’s BIG). It’s all made from squares and 4-patches. Some of the squares are painted with the primrose images, but most are not. When you put it all together, the primrose images all come together.

If you are new to Design Magic, this is NOT the first project to tackle. Try one of the smaller projects first and make sure you want to do that much painting.

I created this quilt and included it in the book because I really wanted to see how well I could integrate the Design Magic concept into a traditional quilt.

I love the quilt and enjoy it every day, but I’ll be the first to admit that it was a really big project. Here’s a detail shot from the border.

Moving Beyond Freezer Paper

Now as much as I love freezer paper stencils, there is an outer limit to how long they last, and that means you have to make multiple sets of stencils for a very large project. I like making stencils (it’s really quite easy), but there’s a limit to how many times I’m willing to do the same thing. I decided there had to be a better way.

It took a few months and a series of samples from my very patient and understanding stencil company, but I figured out a way to make pre-cut mylar stencils from Design Magic designs. And I liked them so well that I decided to include one set in the Design Magic book.

So, you get the best of both worlds. If you like the idea of designing your own fabric, the Design Magic book gives you a neat method for making your own designs, creating stencils, and transferring your designs to fabric.

If you just want to paint, you get a set of pre-cut mylar stencils that can be used to make any of the projects in the book — as well as any that you can dream up — without the work of making stencils.

Here’s a photo of the Primrose Stencils and the images stenciled on Gradations fabric by Benartex.

As you can see, the Primrose stencils form a stylized floral motif when they are painted in a repeating pattern. They can be painted in a single color or multiple colors. I really like painting on the Benartex Gradations fabric with a single paintstik. I used a blue/turquoise variation of this fabric to make the tote (see the photo at the top of the newsletter.)

If the fabric is not changing color, I like to change the color as I am painting. Here’s a piece in progress painted with a lot of my favorite colors.

This bright and cheerful fabric will make a wonderful wall quilt or pillow cover for a room that needs a splash of color!

Show Off Your Primrose Projects

I know that a lot of you already have a copy of my Design Magic book. What have you done with your Primrose stencils? The easiest way to share your projects is to post them on our Facebook page. See you there!

Get A Free DesignPack With Your Book

If you don’t yet have a copy of Design Magic, there has never been a better time to buy one. For a limited time, we’ll send you a free DesignPack when you purchase a copy of the book through our online store. No coupons, no codes. Just place your order and the DesignPack will come with your book.

To take advantage of this special offer, follow this link to our Online Store. (If you no longer see the item titled Design Magic + FREE DesignPack, you’ll know the offer has expired.)

In the middle of December, I holed up in my studio for a weekend and started playing with the suede I got from Bella Nonna Design Studio. Jayme and Megan have a new line of leather and suede, and Megan came to see me at the Houston Quilt Market to see if our Shiva Paintstiks would work with the leather.

I found that the finished leathers were not terribly interesting — it’s difficult for the paint to adhere to the smooth finish. But the suede — oh my goodness — it’s nothing short of fabulous! You really have to give this a try. It’s beyond fun and the possibilities for the finished suede are endless.

Paintstiks on Leather

The first thing I learned is that suede soaks up a LOT of paintstik color, so you need to be generous with the paint. Applying color to suede it the ONLY time I actually apply paint with the paintstik directly on a stencil and then smooth is out with a brush. Yes, you need that much paint!

Scrub the paint into the suede with our short-bristle brushes. Suede has a lot of nap, so I had “scrub” the paint in a circular motion, both clockwise AND counterclockwise. It’s a little bit of work, but the results are just gorgeous!

I used shapes from our Celebrate, Ornaments and Snowflakes stencils to cover this purple suede. Now that it’s dry, it’s ready to become a series of bookmarks, a set of coasters, a checkbook cover, a cell phone cover, or whatever else tickles my fancy!

I recorded my first experiments with suede in this blog entry. At that time, I cut the suede into one-inch squares because I was playing with an idea I saw in Quilting Arts Magazine. My first thought was to make these into a little quilt. Here are my one-inch patches.

And here are some of my patches arranged on a background.

After looking at it for a while, I decided I wasn’t crazy about this in a small quilt format. (That’s why we let projects “age” — or at least that’s my excuse…) I changed my mind and used some of the pieces to embellish a pillow.

To make the embellishments on my pillow, I used embroidery floss to attach the suede pieces to felt, then stitched the felt pieces to the pillow top with decorative threads and a blanket stitch. I found it too difficult to do a lot of stitching through the suede by hand, but it’s very easy to stitch by machine. I didn’t do anything fancy for the pillow front, just a light layer of Hobb’s Thermore batting and diagonal channel stitching. Simple!

I did one more experiment with the suede to get things ready for a Quilting Arts TV segment. I’ll post those on another day.

We’re getting a bit of a thaw here in Minnesota this week. The sun is shining and it looks great outside, but we are far from “outdoor weather” just yet. On the bright side, winter days motivate me to hibernate in my studio with a warm cup of tea and experiment with something new.

Unfortunately, trying something new can leave me feeling a bit like Dorothy in Oz. There’s a yellow brick road in front of me, but I’m not sure where I’m going. If you feel like Dorothy when it comes to Paintstiks, click over to our Learning Center and you’ll find everything you need to get started. Even if you have a pair of ruby slippers, I think you’ll find your mouse more helpful for this little adventure.

The Learning Center – A Great Resource Just For YOU!

When you are looking for how-to information related to Shiva Paintstiks, our Learning Center is the place to go. You’ll find everything from paintstik chemistry information and Material Safety Data sheets to free projects to videos.

Just click on Learning Center near the top right corner of our home page, and you’ll find these selections.

I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow report of what you’ll find. Really, it’s pretty clear. (And if it’s not, send Toto over to bark at me!) If you spend just 10 short minutes cruising around the Learning Center, you’ll be familiar with what’s there and ready to start playing with your paintstiks.

That’s the last of my tips for finding great stuff on the new Cedar Canyon website. We’ve packed it full of learning opportunities to help you discover the magic of paintstiks and our accessory products. I hope you take advantage of the site and all it has to offer.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know it is my personal playground for posting ideas, answering questions, and occasionally ruminating about life in general. I started posting articles about 3 years ago, and over that time I’ve posted a treasure trove of information.

When the blog was new, it was easy to scroll around to see what was available. Now that it’s several years old, it can be intimidating to look back and find things. (Even for me.) Fortunately, when our new site was launched, we added a Search function to this page. I’m finding this function really helpful – and if it helps me, it should help you too! Here’s how it works.

First, go to the new Cedar Canyon website and click on Blog (near the top on the right). You already know this – you’re here, right? Read on… the Search function really is helpful.

Enter the term or terms that you want to search on in the box, then click on Search. In return, you’ll get a listing of every page on the site and every blog entry that contains the search term.

If you click on Rubbing Plate Portraits, you’ll go directly to the blog entry that explains how to make a single image from a rubbing plate that can be turned into a quilt block (or whatever you want to do with it). If you click on Clean-Up Tips, you’ll get the blog entry that discusses my best ideas for cleaning up brushes, stencils and rubbing plates.

Keep in mind that searching for “rubbing plate” will yield different results than “rubbing.” The more detailed the search term, the less you see. In this example, the search results for “rubbing” include a link to the Video called Top Tips for Better Rubbings. The search for “rubbing plate” does not include this link.

Search results are sorted by date, with the most recent higher up in the list. To find older blog entries, I had to get down to the 2nd or 3rd page of the search results, but that was still much faster than trying wander through the archives. And I like finding things fast!

I hope you enjoy reading my Blog. If you want to read the articles as soon as they are posted, you can subscribe to our RSS feed. (Click on the link right under the search box and follow the instructions.) If there is a particular topic you would like to see covered in the blog, send me a note. I’d love to know what’s on your mind.

With all the activity here on the new website and online store, I’ve been hearing a lot of questions, some more than others. I thought I would take some time to answer one that has come up a number of times related to my latest book, Design Magic for Paintstiks on Fabric.

For those of you who are new to our community, Design Magic is my second book, published in the middle of 2010. The book covers 2 main topics. The first is creating your own design that can be turned into a repeating pattern on fabric. The second is the process for stenciling those images on fabric with Shiva Paintstiks. The Design Magic book also contains instructions for 5 projects, ranging from placemats to a large quilt. And for those who are not ready to make their own designs, one set of pre-cut mylar stencils is tucked into the back cover.

Now, on to today’s topic…

What is a Design Pack?

“What is a DesignPack?” and “How do I use the DesignPack with my Design Magic book?” have been asked enough lately that I thought it time to post the answer in my blog. It may look like a bunch of paper stuck in a bag, but it’s a huge time-saver when it comes to making a little (design) magic! Read on…

The DesignPack is a convenience item that we put together for readers and teachers. It contains pre-cut and pre-printed templates that allow you to jump right into the design process without taking the time to make templates. Each DesignPack contains:

• 6 pre-cut 4″ squares of black paper,
• 6 pre-printed Design Pages, and
• 6 pre-printed freezer paper stencil templates.

The DesignPack came to life after I taught my first test class for Design Magic. While we made it though the process just fine, it was clear that we spent a lot of time making templates that could have been better used making the actual designs. Personally, I’m a lot more excited about making designs than making templates – I like to see results now! And I figured that a lot of you think the same way, and therefore, we have a DesignPack.

To answer the question about how to use a DesignPack with the Design Magic book, let’s do a quick review of what Design Magic is all about. The best way to do this is a high level overview. I’ll point out how the DesignPack contents are used along the way.

Design Magic – the Short Course

Design Magic is a simple process for creating a design, turning it into a pair of stencils, and then transferring the design to fabric with paintstiks. All of the lovely details are in the book, of course, but here is the high-level overview.

1 – Start with a square

All designs start as a simple square. I prefer to use black paper because it’s easy to see the contrast between the black paper and a white background. If you don’t have black paper, choose the darkest color you can find.

All of the designs in the Design Magic book (and our pre-cut mylar stencils) start with a 4″ square. The DesignPack contains 6 pre-cut 4″ squares. You can, of course, work with squares of a different size if that works better for your project.

2 – Cut shapes from the square

Cut one or more shapes from the square – and save all the little cut-outs. The only real rule here is that the shapes have to start and end on an edge of the square. (You can’t cut a hole out of the middle.) This example has a lot of shapes cut from the square, but some of my favorite designs are done with a single shape. Don’t go totally crazy cutting itty-bitty pieces from your square. This is actually one of the more complex designs that I created – simple is good.

3 – Make a Design Page

The next step in the process involves arranging the shapes that you cut from the square onto a Design Page. While it’s certainly possible to make your own Design Page templates (the instructions are in the book), it’s really convenient to just grab a page from the DesignPack and start getting everything arranged.

I love making Design Pages. This is where I can first see the positive and negative images that I cut from my squares and how they interact. If a Design Page is put together properly, the white shapes on one side will be the mirror image of the black shapes on the other side.

4 – Create a repeating pattern

With a Design Page in hand, you can actually test a design on paper rather than making stencils and testing the design on fabric. All you need access to is a copy machine (or one of those lovely printers that makes copies). If you make 5 copies of your design page and cut out all the squares, you can do a cut-and-paste exercise and make a repeating pattern from your design.

5 – Review design and make changes (if needed)

Once you have created a repeating pattern from the Design Page, you can review the design and make changes if you wish. There is an entire section of the book dedicated to the review process along with tips on small changes that can transform an “ok” design into a really great design.

6 – Transfer the design to freezer paper

The next step is to transfer the shape from your Design Page to freezer paper. You can either make your own freezer paper templates or use the pre-printed templates from the DesignPack.

One note about freezer paper – it shrinks! It took me a while to figure this out, but freezer paper really does shrink when pressed with a warm iron. (And since we press our freezer paper stencils to fabric before painting, it’s important to pay attention!) So whether you make your own freezer paper stencil templates or use the templates from the Design Pack, please read the information in the Design Magic book about pre-shrinking the freezer paper. It can save you a few headaches before you get further into the process.

7 – Cut equal and opposite stencils

With your design copied on one stencil template, you are ready to cut a pair of equal and opposite stencils. Using the process detailed in the book, it’s really fast and accurate. It’s more than I can explain in a short paragraph, but the result is that you cut away the main shape in one stencil, and cut away the background in the other stencil. The pair of stencils should look just like the design page.

That’s it! You’re ready to paint!

As you can see, the process of making your own personal designs is not exactly rocket science. It’s more a matter of sitting down and doing it. The Design Magic book gives you a recipe and the DesignPack puts you in the fast lane for making great designs. DesignPacks are great for anyone who wants to make their own designs – and a huge time-saver for teachers. I know I’ll never teach another class without them!

Show us your Design Magic

Have you been experimenting with Design Magic? If you have, please send pictures! I would love to see what you are doing. The easiest way to share is to post pictures on our Facebook page.

Special Offer: Free Design Pack with purchase of Design Magic book

If you don’t yet have a copy of Design Magic, there has never been a better time to buy one. For a limited time, we’ll send you a free DesignPack when you purchase a copy of the book through our online store. No coupons, no codes. Just place your order and the DesignPack will come with your book.

To take advantage of this special offer, follow this link to our Online Store.

I just got a lovely note from a friend to tell me that Bernina is featuring my Magic Mats in Issue 4 of Through the Needle, a free online publication. I knew the article was coming, but it’s always a thrill to see one of my projects in print. Happy me! Because we have so many new people in our community, I want to share the Magic Mats tutorial that I posted last summer. Enjoy!

Here’s a great little project for our DesignMagic stencils – or one of your own designs! My Magic Mats pattern is the simplest way to make a placemat that I can think of. All you need is two pieces of fabric, some interfacing, one paintstik, one brush, and one pair of DesignMagic stencils. It’s easy!

Fair warning – this is a long post with a lot of pictures. If you want the short version, visit the Learning Center on our site and download the instructions as a PDF. The instructions are posted here.

Here is a photo of three finished Magic Mats.  As you can see, you’ll need one piece of fabric to be painted and one that will serve as the borders and backing. Let’s get started!

Material List (for one Magic Mat)

• 1 (9″ x 17″) rectangle focus fabric (to be painted)
• 1(18″ x 17″) rectangle of border/backing fabric
• 3/4 yard medium weight fusible interfacing, such as Pellon ShirtTailor
• 1 set DesignMagic stencils
• 1 or more Shiva® Paintstiks
• 1 stencil brush (more if you use more than one color of paint)
• Grip-n-Grip no-slip mat [Bear Thread Designs]
• 404 spray adhesive [Spray and Fix / JT Trading]
• Removable chalk pencil

Step 1 – Fuse interfacing to fabric

Cut two rectangles of fusible interfacing slightly smaller than the fabric rectangles. (I cut mine about 1/8″ smaller so I don’t get fusible stuff on my ironing board cover.) Fuse the interfacing to the wrong side of the fabric rectangles using the manufacturer’s instructions.

The interfacing adds body to the fabric and eliminates the need for batting. The placemat stays thin, but it’s not wimpy. I used Pellon’s ShirtTailor interfacing, which is a nice medium weight product.

Step 2 – Prepare fabric and stencils for painting

Mark the horizontal and vertical center lines on the focus fabric with a removable chalk pencil.

Place your stencils right side up on your work surface. Clearly mark one as Stencil-A and the other as Stencil-B with a permanent marker.

If you are using pre-cut mylar DesignMagic stencils, place the stencils wrong side up on a piece of newspaper and spray the back side of each stencil with 404 adhesive spray. (I prefer to do this outside or in the garage so I don’t stink up my work area.) I like to call 404 spray “post-it notes in a can.” Once the stencils are sprayed, they stay where you put them and don’t move around as you are painting.

If you are using your own designs cut from freezer paper, do not spray them with 404. Use the information in the Design Magic book for alignment tips and adhere the stencils to your fabric by pressing with a warm iron.

Step 3 – Paint DesignMagic images on focus fabric

Place your focus fabric right side up on a Grip-n-Grip mat (if you have one.) The mat will keep your fabric from moving around while you paint.

Remove the film from the end of your paintstik, rub the paint on a piece of freezer paper, and load the paint onto a stencil brush. For more information on stenciling, visit the Learning Center and download the document on Stenciling.

To paint the first image, position Stencil-A so that two alignment guides are even with the registration marks on the fabric. Paint the fist images using paintstik color and a stencil brush.

Lift the stencil from the fabric. Place the stencil on scrap fabric and gently wipe away any excess paint before using the stencil again. (I don’t usually worry about wiping my stencils unless it’s very messy or if I’m using several colors and don’t want to muddy them up when I paint the next image.)

To paint the second image, position Stencil-B next to the fist painted image. Rotate the stencil until th eimages on the stencil match up with the painted image from the previous step. Use the alignment guides and the registration marks to make sure the stencil is in the right place. Paint the image, lift the stencil, and clean the stencil if necessary.

Continue painting images, alternating between Stencil-A and Stencil-B until you have painted 8 DesignMagic images on the focus fabric.

Step 4 – Allow paint to dry and heat set paint

Allow the paint to dry for 24 hours and then heat set the paint to make it permanent. To heat set, place the painted fabric on an ironing board, right side up. Cover the painted fabric with a piece of muslin or scrap fabric. Preheat a dray iron to the appropriate temperature for the fabric. Press each section of the fabric for 10-15 seconds.

I usually heat set paint by placing the fabric paint-side down on parchment paper and pressing from the back. But in this case, I’ve already fused interfacing to the back, and I think it’s better to press from the top with a pressing cloth.

Step 5 – Assemble Magic Mat

Use a 1/2″ seam allowance for all seams on this project.

Align the long edge of the painted fabric with one 17″ edge of the border fabric, right sides together. Pin as needed and stitch the full length of the seam with a 1/2″ seam allowance. I don’t have a good 1/2″ seam guide, so I actually marked the 1/2″ line on the back side of my painted fabric.

Open the fabric and check to see that there the seam allowance covers the unpainted portion of the fabric. You can always make an extra wide seam allowance if you have unpainted portions of the focus fabric showing at the seam. Press the seam allowance toward the border fabric.

Fold the remaining 17″ edge of the border/backing fabric 1/2″ to the back side a press. After pressing, open the fold for the next step.

Align the second long edge of the painted fabric with the remaining 17″ edge of the border/backing fabric, right sides together. The fabric should form a tube. Pin as needed and mark the seam allowance 3″ from each side. (See red arrow in photo above.)

Stitch a short 3″ seam from each end, leaving the middle of the seam open. You will turn the Magic Mats through this opening later.

Here’s what your Magic Mat should look like so far. The two pieces should form a tube, and there should be an opening in one of the seam.

With the tube wrong side out, flatten the tube so one of the long seams is 1.75″ from the folded edge. Do NOT press the tube flat while it is wrong side out – we’ll press it flat after turning it right side out.

Pin the ends of the tube together and stitch a seam along each end using a 1/2″ seam allowance. Peek inside the mat to make sure unpainted portions of the focus fabric do not show at the side seams. Trim the side seams to 1/4″ if desired.

Gently turn the Magic Mat through the opening in the seam. Use an awl to pus the corners out for nice square corners.

Flatten the placemat and give it a good pressing.

After the mat is pressed flat, top-stitch along the edge of the focus fabric to secure the layers together and to close the opening in the mat. I also top-stitched along the grid lines in the painted fabric. The stitching gives the illusion that the fabric is pieced, but is far less work.

Enjoy your Magic Mats!

Magic Mats really are easy to make, and they are a fantastic way to play with DesignMagic images. They are big enough to show off the repeating designs, and small enough that they can be done quickly. It takes me about 25 minutes to paint one of the panels and less than an hour to assemble a mat. Now that’s what I call magic!

Make Magic Mats for your own home – or make gifts for your friends and family. If you prefer runners to placemats, simply make a longer version of this project. It’s easy!

Download a free copy of the Magic Mats pattern

Visit the Learning Center on our website to download a free, printer-friendly version of the Magic Mats pattern. The pattern is posted on the Design Magic Resources page. You are welcome to make copies for your friends.

Learn more about Design Magic

If you like making Magic Mats, you’ll love Design Magic for Paintstiks on Fabric. Learn to make your own designs, turn them into stencils, and transfer the images to fabric. With Design Magic, you really can design your own fabric!