Printing Your Own Abstract Quilt Block Fabric

I love the mid-mode movement or the atomic era artwork and modern art. And I'm always looking for ways to bring a little bit of that into my work. I had seen some pieces of artwork that had really cool angle lines that were kind of broken up and deconstructed, and I was trying to think, you know, how how could I do that? So I experimented with a few things and realized that I could do it by using cardboard and both the corrugated cardboard that has the wonderful little zig-zaggy design in it. And when you cut that cardboard in the opposite direction you end up with a stripey, the outer piece on either side and then the stripe and the inside. And then I found some other really thin cardboard that I could barely even see the zigzag. And when I cut the other side, it felt just like two that kind of red as one. So I thought I would play with these things and that's what I've done here. I simply dip the edges into paint and make all these waterfall angles. And then when those angles are dry, I go in with my fabric markers and color in wherever I want to color in. I mean, I could come in here and just color all those sections if I wanted to but I wanted it to be kind of spare, like so many of the modern artists did. So I'll show you how easy this can be. I've got a piece of fabric, that's got a stabilizer on the back and I tend to stabilize my fabrics or by the stabilized fabrics one or the other, because it keeps the fabric from moving so much and it's just easier to use. I'm gonna take a little bit of fabric paint. This is Neo Peg, which means it's opaque and it's just a black fabric paint and just run a bit of a line there on a paper plate. And then I'm going to take my cardboard, the edge of it and run it through that paint a bit. Now I don't want it to be a really harsh line. So I use a piece of paper towel to kind of get some of that paint off. and then I print. I can usually get a couple of prints out without having to re-ink. And this is just one square. So I'm probably not going to do that too much, but I'm gonna turn now and I'm gonna use this other edge, do the same thing, whoops, and put in a few more lines and we get that wonderful double line look. I might do this a bit more because it's not as fancy as the corrugate or the side that has the angles in it. And I like some of them to be not as bold or as complete as others. And then I'm gonna use this one because it's another scale, but it's also shorter. So I can get some shorter lines in there. And I wanna make sure that as I'm using this one that I am closing up a lot of the angles and forming triangles, because that's where I'm gonna be able to put in some nice color. And I'm gonna use the shorter side too so I can have some shorter lines. And I'm really going to concentrate on making those closed in shapes. And you see how some of the lines are incomplete? That's really nice because it just kinda gives you a more abstract look. And I think one more down this corner and I'm gonna be done. Let's see. What direction do I want? Here we go. Okay, so I've got my black lines in. I'm gonna take a, because I'm in a hurry all the time. I'm gonna take a paper towel and kind of just very very gently press off any excess black so that it will dry real quick. Here we go. And I'm gonna come in with my markers. So these are just fabric markers by Fabrico. You can use any type of permanent fabric marker that you wannna use. And I'm going to come in and just fill in any little triangles that I want. So I'm gonna do this guy blue. I generally try to repeat a color several times, two times, three times whatever. Markers you often have to go over the area twice. If you want it to look like it's got a complete fill but you can also make it look somewhat watercoloring if that was what you wanted by doing a light coat. Let's see. I think I'ma do this itty-bitty triangle right here. Move to yellow. And then I finish up with my red. I'm gonna string these together sort of by putting red here. And I'll probably do more red than I do anything else. This little guy up here looks a little lonely. So I'm gonna put some red up here too. And I always make sure I have at least one or two triangles that have a line that bisects it. And then I think I'll bring the red down here and then I'll be done. And look how fast I put together this very fabulous block. I now have four. I can do a four patch if I want to or I could do some more and end up with a nine patch or I could do it in a long linear piece. But I've got a wonderful block to piece with. So I can make this into a four patch, make it into a pillow, do whatever I want to with it, but that's a lot faster than appliqueing or piecing a funky block. And it's very original to me. It's very cool. So give it a try. I think you'll have some fun with it.