Piece 'C' - Fabric Confetti

It is done by layering very small pieces of fabric on a backing to create your design.

International fibre artist Noriko Endo uses toothpick sized fabric pieces to create landscapes on cloth that invoke the feeling of Impressionist paintings. Her book Confetti Naturescapes is in the Vernon library.

Confetti is used to add texture, fullness or just to highlight an area.

You can embroider on the confetti and sheer toppings with a design.

There are no limits for using confetti.
 

Cathy G B showed us how to make a forest scene with confetti. She uses very small pieces of fabric, batik, silk etc. (anything that you can use either side of is best).

Cut fabric for confetti

Cut batting the size of your finished quilt, cut backing 1” larger.

Cut the fabric for confetti into larger strips about 20” x 1”, you can layer up to 4 fabric pieces at a time. With your rotary cutter cut the strips into toothpicks, 1/4” squares or totally random shapes.





Put each colour into a different container, ice cube trays work well or small dishes.

Noriko places confetti directly onto the batting, which takes a lot of confetti. Cathy prefers to place the confetti onto a background fabric.

Layer the confetti onto the background until your design is complete. In this demo some solid tree trunks were added as well. A skewer, chopstick, tweezers or similar tool help in moving the confetti into place.

 

Cover with tulle, try different colours but black often works well, pin well and free motion quilt. Match the thread and bobbin to fabric colour you are stitching. Stitch however you free motion stitch, and zigzag on trunks of trees in a highlighting colour.

Noriko Endo often covers her piece in tulle, adds more confetti and then another layer of tulle before stitching.

Discussing which elements of good design are found in the pieces

 Mary M discussed using confetti to make a piece and then appliqué it onto the quilt top. She had a cheerful snowman scene with the tulle behind the confetti appliqué piece and used a sheer over the confetti that gave a gauzy effect.

Cath P covered ‘snippets’ - larger pieces backed with fusible web and carefully placed. These can be random cuts or more specific shapes, e.g.: feathers, flower petals, leaves etc. Tulle can often be omitted with this technique. Parchment paper or a Teflon sheet is recommended when fusing the pieces down, you never get them all the right way up!



A work in progress

 

Tools for making confetti

Decide on picture, sketch it out onto your background or batting.

Add background fabrics if you wish. Spray baste or Misty Fuse can also be used on the background with larger pieces. Or you can work on the Fusible Fleece.

Place confetti, building up layers until you are satisfied.
Pin well and stitch around outside edge to hold confetti in. Then free motion stitch over top.

Confetti can also be used with dissolvable stabilizer. Sandwich fabric confetti, ribbons etc. between two pieces of stabilizer. You can make it very dense for tree tops or just a few pieces for the last autumn leaves.

Confetti tree

Free motion or zigzag over top. Be sure to stitch through all the pieces
Rinse out well and let dry.
You can pin it to a Styrofoam meat tray to shape it as it dries.
The piece can be cut to smaller size and shapes.
Sew on to quilt top.

It is a great way to add some dimension to trees and flowers.

Websites to check out:

Noriko Endo norkioendo.com

Subversive Stitchers subversivestitch.blogspot.ca July 2009

Confetti Backgrounds for Art Quilts Quilting Daily Blog March 22, 2016

www.quiltingdaily.com/blog/confetti-backgrounds-for-art-quilts

Cathy Geier’s Quilty Art Blog: Making confetti patches

cathygeier.blogspot.com/2014/05/tree-is-done-kind-of.htm

TQS Tutorial: Ricky Tims' Big Stitch Over Confetti

youtube.com

Now that you know all about confetti you are ready to create the "C" block of your project.  .

See you next month when Lorraine will present the yarn technique plus information about using tulle in your projects.