Today we're joined by two talented artists.

First, Pat Bishop creates improvizational stitched shapes that suggest subjects that are entirely free form.

Next, learn how Lisa Chin carves her own prints that serve as a base for her quilted projects.

Bask in the artistic inspiration on today's episode of Quilting Arts.

Quilting Arts TV is brought to you by.

The Bernina 990.

If it can be imagined, it can be created.

Gentle fuse fusible web made for quilters from Maywood Studio.

[Upbeat music] Pat Bishop makes a lot of her beautiful quilts using a process you call intuitive abstract piecing, right?

Yeah, tell me about that.

- Well.

The thing I like about it is there's really no measuring you kind of it builds as you go.

So it's piece by piece.

You start with a some kind of basic idea like a leaf or a building, or in my case, I'm going to be continuing in my She series, which is about strong women.

So this is an example of one of those pieces.

Oh, great.

And you can see there's a lot of contrast, but it's very abstract.

Mostly straight line stitching on this one.

So I can definitely see the figure of the woman here.

Right.

- Yeah.

And I use all different textures of fabrics, some silk hand-dyed, some commercials.

And I started basically with her body and then built the arms and so on.

So that's what I'm going to be showing today - Okay.

- is how we come up with that.

Great.

So I'm started.

So I've got another she here.

So you've got some of the pieces sewn together already.

Right.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, to save some time.

So how I started was with I cut a random shape for her basic body.

Then I added this arm, which was three pieces, and I knew before I attached it to her body, I knew I needed some background.

So I added the background to those to that arm and then made sure that this was straight cut.

So then I sewed those together.

Okay, two tips while you're making something like this are always press after every seem.

So you know what you're working with and cut your chunks of fabric bigger than you think you need so that you don't have to piece in another another piece.

So even though you know you're doing a quarter inch seam, it might.

Yeah.

It ends up being smaller than you thought it was going to be.

Yes.

- Yeah.

- Always.

Or it may be at a different angle.

As you can see, this is not, you know, squared up.

So you really don't know how it's going to end.

So it's better to give yourself extra fabric than not enough.

So the first after I've got the arm in this other piece of background, I'm going to stitch these two pieces together.

And you've already prepared these so that both of those edges either curve or the straight, whatever it is, they're going to match up.

- Right.

So we can sew those together right now.

- Okay.

That sounds great.

So let's take it to the machine.

All right.

- Okay.

- Let's go to the machine.

All right.

So you're getting them nice and lined.

Yeah I've got my edges together.

And I use either a quarter of an inch or an eighth of an inch, but like, in this case, a quarter of an inch will work fine.

If I was doing a curved piece, I would probably use an eighth of an inch.

And that's so that the curve will open up more cleanly and be smooth.

Right.

Right.

And these are gentle curves - Yes.

- That you have in your piece.

- Yeah.

- So not too much.

- Right.

And there we go.

So normally you would take this and press it really well.

Right?

- Right.

Normally I would in this case I'm just going to finger press it.

And then we'll add the next piece because I know those are lined up.

Okay.

There you go.

Now she gets her head sewn on.

- Yep.

So this one I You're not thinking about lining up the ends.

You're thinking about where the elements are going to come.

Right.

I'm thinking about where her head is going to go on here, and then just kind of, you know, it's this is abstract and nothing is perfect in this.

And it doesn't have to be.

And that's that's one thing I like about it is it's intuitive and you kind of surprises along the way.

- Right.

Right.

- You know, get good surprises.

And if it's bad you can take it out.

- Right.

- Yeah.

So this is a gentle curve now.

- Yes.

So I'm using a little smaller stitch than or a little smaller seam than I would for.

- Oh I see.

It's more like an eighth of an inch seam allowance.

- Yeah.

But you got to make sure that with that small seam allowance that you don't, that they're lined up.

- Right.

So I think I'm lined up.

We'll see.

And you don't worry about pressing your seams open.

No.

- You usually press them out to the side like that.

- Yeah.

Yeah I press them how they want to go.

Is it important to you to press them in a certain direction?

If you've got the figure, so that the figure will be standing out from the background?

I've never thought about that.

You just sew them together?

Yeah.

- Okay.

Maybe I'm not being Intuitive enough.

- Intuitive enough.

Right.

Okay, so.

I'm planning it too much.

All right.

Great.

There we go.

Let's take her back and see how she looks.

Okay, let's see her.

Nice.

- Okay.

And I'm going to just give her a press and that'll.

She'll feel better then.

Is the iron hot still there?

I think so.

Yeah.

So you want your seam to go all in one direction?

I really don't worry about the seam so much.

Okay.

There are no quilt police in art quilts.

Well, there sometimes are.

Even if you don't want them - Maybe.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

But that's the great thing about being an art quilter.

You can do it.

Do what you want to do.

I do what I want to do.

I think of myself more of an artist than a than a quilter.

Yes.

That's great.

Okay, so now we're sewing on the other pieces.

I think they're up here.

And so now what's the next step here?

So now we want to add her feet.

And this is we need to match up this seam with this seam.

As you can see this is there's excess here because I like to leave on as much as I can.

So you have choices.

And in case I needed something there.

So I'm going to line those two up and then take the rotary cutter and cut one seam.

I'm going to get out of your way out here.

So you're going nice and carefully.

- Yes.

And you've got to get a curve.

- Right.

And I'm cutting through.

Both.

- Both layers As I need to.

There.

That worked out.

- Okay.

And then you kind of double check it before you would sew that on.

- Right.

See, make sure it lines up nicely.

Ah I see.

Okay.

And that looks great.

- Yeah.

So.

- Great.

And then sew that one on you do the same thing for this seam.

And so that one.

- Right.

So that's how it would look then.

Oh terrific.

Well I want to see your fish too or no I keep calling the fish.

I think they're leaves right.

Yes.

Their leaves.

- Okay.

So they could be fish.

This is so.

That's if you have one subject.

This.

This is taking multiple motifs.

Like if I've made these, I like leaves.

So I made several of these leaves.

And I want to put those together in a piece.

So I've made this part first.

And then I will add background fabric with some curve piecing on there.

And.

Oh this is going to be a beautiful piece.

Yeah.

And I had like I added the a section here just to make a little more interesting.

And this piece here is going to go like that.

So I've made the initial leaves.

But if I want them taller or like one lower then I will add pieces at the top or the bottom or cut something off.

I love how you use all these different black fabrics and they still read as a black background, but there's so much more interest.

- Right.

They add a lot of interest.

There's some there's some hand-dyed again and some velveteen or velvet and some commercial fabrics and some linen.

The linen type looking fabrics.

And this, this is some sort of a velvet in here.

And then those pops of black and white really add a lot with that.

You know, in contrast to that black background.

Yeah.

It gives it so much energy.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Right.

So if you were working at home and pull your other leaves in, what should talk to me about your thought process, about how you're going to put it, maybe think about putting it together.

I would probably start with this one down here.

And I would add a different kind of some sort of different back black or even maybe another section of something, maybe just a straight section of green.

I really like this one.

I think that looks great on that green black background.

And so you're kind of trying to tell what things play well together, right.

And it takes takes a little time to figure out what you like.

And you know, how high do you want to put this.

And, you know, do we need how many do we have.

Do we have six, which is an even number.

I would go with five.

So would maybe pull one out, and maybe I would take that one out and just put this one in because I really like this one.

But I think the red next to the this green - Right.

- One would be better.

- And you do complementary color schemes a lot.

- Yeah I do.

- Yeah.

- And I like green in a Oh and there's silk in here of course.

And some of the components like this section here was from another piece.

So if you have sections that you've already made and they're just they didn't work out in the project you were using before.

Try them in this.

- Yeah.

It's a good scheme works.

- You throw it in there.

Or start with that and build from there.

And then as you commit to a section, it looks like this.

You've already decided and you've sewn this all together like that.

- Yeah.

And then get them in chunks.

And sew it all together.

- Right And this one, I thought it would be kind of neat to have this section coming off.

So, you know, I had the red, but I thought, oh, it would look kind of cool to have that poking off to the left.

- Right.

And you've got strong red lines and a couple of spots.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, it's going to be great.

- Yeah.

Well tell me about this piece over here.

So that's kind of similar to this piece that I'm working on here.

You can see there's like three leaves.

But then in this part here I've overlapped a bit.

So it's covering one of the leaves.

Oh right.

Right.

And there's not as much black in this one.

Then there's more color in the interior of it.

And the quilting you sometimes will go around this.

This curved - Right.

- Quilting is lovely.

Yeah.

Especially on these shiny silk fabrics too.

- Yeah.

I think the curves help a lot.

I love this little bit.

Tell me how you did those.

Well, let me tell you about this.

This is a recycled cuff off a woman's blouse.

- Oh.

And that's where the the buttonholes or the buttons were that got cut away.

Isn't that great?

- Yeah.

It's really, really wonderful.

And then here's some damask.

I love to dye damask.

I have a lot of old linens that I need to dye like that.

That'd be great.

They really work out well.

Okay.

Wonderful.

I'm looking forward to trying this.

Good.

- Thanks so much.

You're welcome.

- Thank you.

We'll be back in just a minute.

Surface Designer Lisa Chin is with us today, and she does amazing carved blocks and prints them on fabric.

That's your starting point, right?

- Correct.

I am so glad to be here.

Thank you for having me.

So that I can share my love of relief printing and putting it onto fabric.

I will take pieces of board and carve them, as well as other materials, and put it onto the fabric and then stitch them all together.

We've got.

That's great.

This this board here was part of a project.

It was a community project, and it was a head for a giant snake.

And so this is just my one portion that I have done.

So this is the actual block, the darker part.

- Correct.

And then you extended some elements out into the.

- Correct Yeah.

Just gorgeous.

- Thank you.

And then all this amazing embroidery too.

- Yes.

And it's you can get such fine detail in the wood so that makes it even better.

This is MDF board that I use that you can just get at your local hardware store and comes in giant sheets, and if you're really nice, they'll cut it down for you and make smaller pieces.

And so.

I wanted to show here's the fish up here - Yes.

and then and here we got another one.

- Right.

And the fish here.

- And you can see that it's backwards.

Because when you print it it's going to go the other direction.

Right.

Okay great.

So I'm going to get this out of the way.

- Okay.

So we have space to print.

- Okay.

So I generally use three different materials.

The first one that I started off with is 100% rubber.

Recycled rubber.

Is that like eraser material?

- Yes.

- Okay.

It's very much like an eraser material, a little bit sturdier than most erasers.

And it's nice and thick, so I could carve both sides if I wanted to.

- Nice.

And I can buy that online.

I've also used this other material that's called PVC board.

It's similar to foam core, but It's much sturdier though.

Yes.

- Yeah.

- Much much sturdier.

And you can carve into it.

- Neat.

And so that makes it like this piece here so that it's very easy to carve.

You can even take just something that's very pointy and draw into.

It like a stylus that you can dig into it.

- Yes.

- Okay.

And because any small mark you make on there is going to print.

And then as I said, I also use MDF boards.

And I was going to show you how I transfer.

Oh I. Love that images onto these because that's the biggest thing is not everything that I'm going to make.

Can I draw directly onto it?

Sometimes I'm not talented enough to draw what I want.

Yeah, yeah.

You want to be able to work out all the kinks before you transfer it onto the block.

- Exactly.

- And so a lot of things, I will draw my tablet and then transfer it onto my materials.

So two different processes for different materials then.

Correct.

- Okay.

And so this on the MDF board.

I I've got my images that I drew on my tablet and then printed them out with the laser printer.

And that's important that it's laser toner.

Yes.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

Because that will transfer.

So one way that I could transfer it is to just put the paper on top of this with some transfer paper that has chalk on it.

- Okay.

And, and dried on that way.

But sometimes I don't want to take all that time.

So it's more time intensive to do it that way than this way.

Yes.

- Okay.

- And so this is just acetone, 100% acetone.

And we just take this and brush it on the back.

So it's interacting with the laser toner.

Correct.

- Okay.

And you do have to saturate it.

Yes.

- Okay.

- And being you know in Utah tries really quick because - So dry.

Yeah.

So I have to make sure I saturate it really well.

With acetone like nail polish remover.

It is.

Exactly.

- Okay.

- I'm gonna keep my nails away.

Except.

Yes, except this is 100% acetone.

The stuff that you would buy, maybe at the grocery store has a little bit of other stuff in it, - Okay.

- But you can see that Oh, great.

It's transferred.

Fast and really nice and dark, so you can see what you're carving.

- Yes.

Exactly.

And this is you're just using a bone folder.

Yes.

And, you know, or it could use a credit card or, you know, anything that I could use my fingers if I need it to.

Kind of a thing.

But it transfers.

- Oh that's amazing.

Yeah.

- Really easily, which is wonderful.

Yeah.

- And when I'm using rubber, I will often draw the images onto tracing paper.

Just with a graphite a regular pencil.

- Correct.

- Okay.

And and then it just transfers really easily onto my rubber.

I can line her up.

Do you need to be really dark or like.

It's helpful?

Yeah.

It's helpful, but she just barely fits on here.

And then again, we can use the bone folder.

Or I could just use my fingers.

And actually, she's a little big for this.

But we can see that.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

That's transferring great.

It's very dark.

Which is here you get all the detail that you need to once you start carving.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

Okay.

So that's a simpler thing.

Right.

- Yes.

- Okay.

It's transfer so nicely.

And and then we, we get the right tools for the right job here.

So I have many different types of carving tools.

Most people start with a very simple carving tool that you can get at your craft store.

And they come with lots of different tips.

- They do.

There are six different tips, and I recommend getting different handles so that you can put your different tips into each handle and not have to spend all your time transferring tips.

Right.

Worth the investment.

Exactly.

- Yeah.

And and but if you're just starting out, just one works great.

And then there are other tools that you can invest in as you upgrade into carving wood.

And they are a stronger steel.

Okay.

- That's the main difference.

You might need different tools than for that.

- Correct.

The main difference is the strength of the steel.

And so these you can sharpen them but they won't sharpen as long or as well as these tools will.

So and these tools are just a little bit more of an investment of course.

- Yeah.

So this is a sharpening tool for that.

For any of them - Oh for any.

Okay.

I think I need to do this because I have these tools and I feel like they're getting dull.

- Yes.

Okay.

- You can also buy new tips.

- Yeah.

But maybe sharpen them first.

Okay.

So show me how we carve.

- Okeydokey.

So when I start, I always try and decide first what I want to be positive and what I want to be negative.

Because I'm going to carve away anything that I don't want to print.

- Right.

So I will often start at the edge.

And go around.

And this.

Is full and deliberate.

- Correct.

And this is the smallest tip that I have.

It is a v tip.

There are v tips and u gouges.

So v is more of a pointy and u is more rounded.

Correct.

- Okay.

And I always like to start with the smallest and get myself around there.

And then after I do the the smaller edges then I can take out a little bit more.

And I'm noticing you're bracing your hand on, on the piece of rubber too.

- Correct.

And I am always going away from my hands.

Now I have a really bad habit, and that is of putting my hand.

Oh, yes.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Special gloves.

It's a wood carving glove.

And it's made out of a metal knit.

Oh, so it protects you.

So I can stab myself and not hurt myself.

Oh, wow.

- So - A lot of people using rotary cutters probably should use too.

Yes, it is very good.

You know.

Or you could always get one of the gloves you use for shucking Oysters.

Because it would also protect your hand.

So this way I can put my hand in front and.

But I'll try to always carve away from yourself.

Yes.

- Let's get to the printing Okey doke.

I know there's a lot more you can share with that, - Yes, yes.

but let's talk about the printing.

So this little girl got carved.

She has lots of detail.

And you've inked her up so that you can see it.

- Yes.

You do that a couple of times while you're carving, right?

Yes.

- Make sure that you have cut the parts out that you don't want.

- Correct.

Yes, I will use an ink pad and go over the top.

Okay.

- Or the other way is to take a piece of paper and lay it over the top.

Take my pencil and rub it.

- And double check it that it looks good.

- Exactly.

You can see that it's great.

And so in order to print her, we are going to use a fabric block printing ink.

And those are available just at local craft stores.

Correct.

I often use a professional ink for some of my bigger prints, like the octopus.

I sweat a lot in gloves.

I don't know if you do this.

- Yes.

And so these are cotton gloves that you would buy for putting lotion on your hand.

And they help to absorb all of.

- Oh what a great idea.

The sweat.

Inside of my gloves.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so you often print on to hand dyed fabrics to like this one.

Right.

- Yes.

- Okay.

I love to dye fabrics.

We have a dye Dye party at my house every summer, and so we'll put this on.

The biggest thing with the ink is I've got a piece of glass here, and I put tape on it so I can see it.

And I want my ink to be kind of like runny peanut butter.

And the biggest problem with the fabric is that it can dry out quickly.

And so we have to work fast.

Yeah.

Especially in some climates.

- Yes.

Are you spreading it out?

And then you use a Breyer.

Then the breyer.

- Okay.

Comes on top here and I'm going to roll it.

I want it to be rolled so that it's kind of velvety.

I don't want it to be too thick.

When we're printing on fabric does need to be a little thicker than when you do it on paper.

But we can roll her up.

Going both directions and making sure - Yes.

the ink is good coverage on there.

Get her all covered.

Right.

And we just have a few more seconds left here.

And then we're going to put her on to the fabric.

And we use our Barron to press it down so that it's even.

And you've got layers of batting under here to cushion it so that all the ink can be pushed down - Correct into the fabric.

We'll do the big reveal and then look at that.

Wonderful.

- She turns out beautifully.

This is so fascinating.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

We'll be back in just a minute.

From applied design theory to innovative technique, learn what fellow artists are up to within the art quilting community.

Join us for finishing touches.

Hey, Marcia, you brought some beautiful vintage pieces today.

I did.

Yeah, the first one I have here is just amazing because it has a vintage theme, and its title, not surprisingly, is grateful.

And it's showing three generations of, I don't know if it's all women babies in this this artist's family.

And this is an actual real little baby jacket, probably from I would say, what do you think?

It's a 1904 or 1956 or 1927, or maybe all the babies wore it.

Maybe.

It's terrific.

And then this next one is has a Japanese theme, and it's also sort of vintage, but really I just love it because of the color and the variety and the story it tells about this woman here having a little tea ceremony and she's got her suitcases ready to go.

- Yeah.

Look at the padding on the kimono up towards her face.

Really nice.

And the little objects that are incorporated, the hairpin and this lovely stitching is that it might be a machine motif, but it really - Yeah.

it looks almost like wallpaper in the background.

- Yes.

She's made wallpaper in the background.

It's great.

Remember, make time for contemporary quilting every day.

Visit our website QuiltingArts-TV.com for access to selected project instructions, ideas, tips and techniques from this season of Quilting Arts TV.

If you enjoyed today's episode and want to see more contemporary quilting techniques and inspiring guests, a digital download of the entire Quilting Arts TV series is available for $29.99 or receive both the digital download and a subscription to the magazine for $59.95, available at QuiltingArts-TV.com Quilting Arts TV is brought to you by.

The Bernina 990.

If it can be imagined, it can be created.

Gentle fuse fusible web made for quilters from Maywood Studio.

[Upbeat music]