I've been busy this week rearranging and consolidating things in the back room of my studio. It has been used this past year for storage of all sorts of things and I decided I needed to make the most out of this wonderful area.
I managed to carve out an entire corner for ME. I've always done my drawing and designing in a little corner of the spare bedroom with everything jammed into cubbies and boxes. Now I have wonderful space for my drafting table, a place to hang all my tools, places for the pencils, pens, rulers and compasses and an extra space for a sewing machine for getting all the new class samples done. YAY!!!!
So I came up with another great idea! I am going to start providing design tutorials using my Ultimate Stencils, Ultimate Shapes and Ultimate Backgrounds. Schedule permitting, my goal is to do a couple a week for you.
My drafting table is set up with the Ultimate Stencils masters...the circle and the square.
I have some thick vinyl that I bought from Joann's and this lays over the top. I can draw to my heart's content with a dry erase marker on the vinyl using the stencil grids as my guide. This is exactly what the transparencies do that come with The Ultimate Stencils. You draft your designs on the transparencies first with a dry erase marker.
So let's try a basic star which is the first design I teach in my stencil classes.
I recommend drawing a circle outlining how large you want your star to be. It can be as large or as small as you want...you are the boss of your star!
It's easiest to draft a design working from the inside to the outside. Using every other line, I marked the middle of my star.
Again, using every other line, I created the outside of my star. Notice it's almost like connecting the dots!
With hardly any effort at all I've just created an eight pointed star on my transparency! This looks good as it is but why don't we have some fun and add some more details? Easily done!
I decided I wanted some more points in-between the star points and I only had to use every-other-line to connect to. Love how this is working!
If you decide you want to add even more details why not add a little star in the middle? There's no end to what you can create just using the angled lines and circles as your guide.
Once you've come up with a design that you are satisfied with on your transparency, place the circle Ultimate Stencil on your quilt and draw your star right on your quilt top with your quilt marking pen using your drafted design on the transparency as your guide.
When you are transferring the design to your quilt top you may only mark a "dot" where a design line needs to go. Once you lift up the Ultimate Stencil you can take your ruler, connect your dots, and mark your lines.
I hope you've enjoyed this little tutorial! I'm excited about this new project and would love some feedback. If there is something specific you would love to see drafted in a future lesson please let me know. Hugs, Cindy :)