Lazies, My friend Shelly Stokes, owner of Cedar Canyon Textiles, made a ‘Safari’ themed Margo Handbag using her fabric Shiva Paintstiks and new stencil technique from her Design Magic book. The safari design is a paint embellishment using simple square stencils. Safari Margo was on display in Shelly’s booth at Market and it is even more fabulous in person.

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‘Safari’ Margo Handbag by Shelly Stokes
Click image to enlarge.

Shelly devised a simple technique using a set of two square stencils to create a repeat design over a large (or small) piece of fabric. The stencils are a positive and negative for the same design. Much like a doughnut and doughnut hole, one stencil is the doughnut and the other is the hole. In this case, one is the stripe and the other is the space between the stripes which happen to be different stripes. The stripes in the photos below are the same design. The stripes that are dark in the first stencil are light in the second stencil.

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Stencil 1 and 2

Shelly used grape colored paint on yellow/orange fabric below.

Block 1 and 2

You can flip the stencils over to the backside to create a mirror image, too. To create an overall design, simply flip and paint, alternating stencils as you go. Easy and beautiful! You can use the stencils for an overall design or do smaller pieces and trim for individual blocks and work them into your projects.

Hop over to Shelly’s Cedar Canyon blog ^[3] to read a bit more and catch a glimpse of the beautiful quilt she made using theses smart stencils.

Read more about Shelly’s new book ‘Design Magic’ at the Cedar Canyon website here ^[4]. It is shown with a funky and fabulous chunky wave stencil. The wave stencil won my heart at Quilt Market recently. I hope Shelly will post a few more pics of projects made using these smart products.

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Great job Shelly!

Enjoy!
Joan

Tags: embellish ^[6], fabric paint ^[7], stencils ^[8], Shiva Paintstiks ^[9], paintsticks ^[10], paint sticks ^[11]