Garden Quilts

I have a plethora of art supplies I need to use up.  I had two tubs of those little paint tubes you get for a dollar – most of them had been opened and partially used, and they had been sitting for at least 3 years.  Not the kind of thing you can just pass on to someone else.

I was thinking about the big quilts people paint on their barns, and I decided to make small quilt signs to hang in my garden.  Fortunately I also have a ton of wood scraps and spray paint, so I got to work.

After I spray-painted the wood pieces and let them dry, I measured one board and then divided it into equal size squares.  I wasn’t worried about the measurements being perfect, because this isn’t anything that will be looked at close up.

I picked Jewel Box for the first design.  It seemed easier to create in paint than in cloth!  I outlined the sections with a three-dimensional line of paint, and let it dry overnight.

Then I traced around an old plate for a String Circle pattern.  I divided the circle into equal wedges, and then drew random lines across the wedges.  I outlined this with a three-dimensional line of paint too – sort of like making a stained-glass window design.

After the outlines had dried overnight, I just filled in the sections with different colors of paint.  My favorite was the Plaid “Keepsake Color” gel paint – it spread easily and looked translucent when it dried.  I didn’t do all the colors on the same day – I painted about a third of the sections at a time, and let them dry overnight each time.  I probably could have hurried this along, but I usually only have a few minutes to work on something anyway.

This project is quick in that it doesn’t take much hands-on time at all.  I probably spent 10 – 20 minutes on it each day for 5 days.  But it does take a lot of drying time.    I didn’t use up all of my paint tubes, so I will probably make a few more!  They’re not masterpieces but I think they add a little something cute, that will make my weeding time more pleasant.