Fantasy Film Art Quilt....No Sewing Required! – By Laura Fraedrich

I recently developed a love for art quilts, and even though my sewing is less than stellar I am crazy about making them. I recently moved and have yet to unpack my plethora of art and craft supplies, but I was jonsing to be crafty this past weekend so I put up a folding table, grabbed what paint and supplies I could easily find (miscellaneous fabric paints, Art Glitter Institute's Fantasy Film, some fabric and a few tie dyed paper towels I had in my stash) , and went to town...I didn't feel like unburying my sewing machine so I used the next best thing to put my quilt together with...Pellon's Wonder Under®! This stuff is great. With nothing more than an iron and a sheet of parchment paper, you can turn anything into an iron on transfer. The Fantasy Film was so much fun to work with, and it brought a whole new life to my finished quilt. I'm going to start putting it on everything from now on!

Supplies I used:
Tulip® Brand Fabric Spray Paint™, Beads in a Bottle™, Slick Dimensional Paint, cotton broadcloth (approx. 18" x 24"), paper towels, Art Glitter Institute's Fantasy Film, Pellon's Wonder Under®, acrylic paint.

I started by spraying the broadcloth with various colors of the fabric spray paint.  At this point I didn't know exactly what my finished product was going to be, but I knew I wanted to make a sunset so I sprayed blue at the top and faded it into the purple and orange. Next, I drew out my picture with a pencil so I knew where to place the pieces I was about to cut out. I then cut three same size pieces of yellow Fantasy Film, layered them on top of one another, sandwiched them between two sheets of parchment paper and ironed for a few seconds. I repeated this process for the pink and blue Fantasy Film. Next I applied the Wonder Under to the ironed Fantasy Film pieces according to package directions.  I cut 7 triangles out of the yellow, 3 cloud shapes out of the blue and 12 petals out of the pink. I did all of this freehand since I'm not exactly a stickler for accuracy.

I arranged the shapes I cut out onto my quilt, covered it with parchment paper and ironed them on. Viola! They were stuck and no sewing was required. I applied the Wonder Under to the tie dyed paper towels in the same fashion, cut out mountain shapes and ironed those on next. A whole landscape was starting to form!

To finish the project, I used acrylic paint to color the faces of the sun and flower, enhanced them by outlining them with black and green dimensional paint, and used Beads in a Bottle™ to create some texture in the sky and in the mountains.

I have yet to decide how I'm going to finish the quilt.  I will probably add complimentary fabrics around the edges and make a wall hanging out of it, that is once I find my sewing machine!