Category Archives: Slicing Through

April18, 2013 Natural Changes

Dear Friends,

It really feels like spring today.  This was the third day this week when I ate my lunch out on the patio  and enjoyed the out of doors.  One of my favorite sketchbook assignments that I did with my eight graders was what I called ” Noting Natural Changes”  and I started it this week with the drawing on the left.  I when out into the sun shine and selected a branch and tried to draw it life sized in my sketch book this morning.  I will follow up next week and draw the same branch- again life sized  and in so doing note the changes a week makes for growth at this time of year.   My students always were suprised by the change a week can make at this time of year and I feel like paying attention to that myself.      This week has been as busy as they all seem to be.  I went off to visit with my friend Ethel again yesterday and we had great fun making silk paper.  Silk paper is created from silk threads that have not been spun.  They come in great long hanks that one gently pulls apart and lays down on nylon netting.  Three  layers of thread in alternating directions  is the usual lay out. then a second piece of nylon netting is placed on top.  The whole thing is gently soaked with water and then a mixture of fabric medium and water is applied to first one side and then the other side  of the sandwich.   After the sandwich is all dry  the nylon netting is carefully pealed from both sides and ironed.  The top image shows the pre-dyed silk drying on the line and it is still encased in the nylon netting.  Pictured on the left are two others we did in the morning with the netting removed.  The blue and purple piece is made of what are called silk hankies- a group of squared off silk layers that can be pulled apart as apposed to a hank of silk.   We dyed both of these two pieces before we added the water and fabric medium to them.   We had such a good time that we are going to play at this another day next mouth.  I already have an idea of things I want to try next time.

Progress Report:  Spot On

Spot On
22″ X 34.5″

 

This quilt is done now.  It is one more of my piece that grew out of  my ” Use the old materials” push.  The marbleized fabric in the upper left and the center bottom are both old materials.   The light blue with the natural shapes in purple and white near the center left are from an experiment that I tried last fall.  I was attempting to do shobori with paint instead of dye.  This piece is the most successful section.    The tyvek is painted on both sides and I did  that last winter when I first started going to the Turquoise Studio.   The pink color  is painted on the back side of the tyvek.   I have used tyvek several times before and not been to  happy with the results.  But this time I quilted it before I applied the heat.  I also waited until I could go out of doors and I wore my respirator while I did this process.   I like how the heat gun distressed the tyvek and  how much the stitching controlled the distorting too.

Golden Rain.    This quilt is all quilted now and ready for the embellishment.  That is the part that will add the rain running down the surface.    I wrapped gold pipe cleaners with two different yards.

They will become the rain when I hand stitch them to the surface.   I still need to tack the facings on both the left and right sides as well.  The copper ribbon really shows up the quilting patterns and adds to the flow motion down the quilt that I was looking for.

Slicing Through:   This quilt is moving along although very slowly.  After Sue Ellen’s tutorial on how to make those little cuts and sew them in I feel I am successful with that part of the process.   Now to work out the design part.    This work has gotten away from me as far as size is concerned- the rule says 18″ X 24″- and this is bigger than that already….. I am not sure how to go forward, so it is fermenting under white paper and two other starts, on the pin wall.

About to Bud:   This piece is basted and ready for quilting.   It too has some marbleized fabric in it, ( Use the Old Materials)although this is a newer experiment then  Spot On.   It also has some of my foam stamp work in the dark turquoise fabric.    The off rounded long forms are from a commercial stamp and come from my play day where I was trying to use every stencil I had in my note book that I had never tried before.     After letting this work hang on the wall over night I decided it needed  to have a machine drawn/quilted bare tree added on top of it.   I will do some sketches before I stat that part of the project.

Silver Slivers:  I have had these silk triangles for several years. ( More Use the Old Material )  On Monday when it was so rainy and gray I pulled them out and added the gray to them at the end of the day.   Now there irregular shapes means that I can not keep the full silk shapes and make traditional connections.  So the following morning I though I might insert silver slivers between the units and in so doing  sort of square them up.      If and how that works remains to be seen,but I do like a challenge and this is a good one.    It may also help when it comes to doing Dawn’s fabric form the DMC   challenge because the colors are the same.

New Work:     This one remains to be named and completed. True to my solution when I am frustrated I start something new-  all this wonderful hand dyed/ printing fabric  in a discarded pile on the cutting table …. put it together.    Only time will tell if it becomes anything.  I go off on these little seaming sprints some times- knowing that it can always  become a part of a Scarp Happy if nothing else….   But is spring and anything is possible.

Keep Creating

Carol

 

 

 

April 4, 2013 Blue Sky

Hello Friends,

 I hope blue sky and sunny days are filling your lives this week.  I will admit that it has been so gray and cold that I am really enjoying the beauty of this sun filled day here.   The sky so attracts my eye that the old song about Blue sky Smiling at me keeps running through my head.   There was a play day for the Quilt Exploration Group last week.  Angela shared Jane Dunnawald’s interfacing and paint altering silk screen work this time.  She is explaining the process here and she has made three pulls through the screen.  You can see all the  dye colors she has mixed for us to use in the cups to the left in the first photo.  This second photo is of Linda doing a yellow and green bit of printing using the process.   We all enjoyed the day and went home with fabric to batch.  Then at the group meeting on Tuesday we shared our work.  This shot is of Linda’s other color piece.  Sue Ellen did not go to the workshop, but she had been busy working away on her fish series and shard them.   She had several others and folks suggested she will soon have enough variations to do a book.    Barb had a fine piece that she shared as well.   She  had modified an antique  print panel of three figures buy cutting them out, moving them and applying to her own idea of a better background.    She plans  to embellish it with beads and hand work before it is done. It sure has a lot of movement and grace  to my eye.   I will be playing the leadership roll at the next play date for this group and I will be teaching stenciling with oil sticks.   So in my typical over do act, I have been cutting  bug stencils.   I will print out a few before the workshop.

Forest Pookas
25″ X 37″

Progress Report : Field Pooka
This quilt is complete now.    I change the name from Forest Pooka  to Field Pooka because of the colors.  I though this quilt was far to light to be a forest piece.   It has lots of material that I have altered in it.  The brown on brown sections are a graffiti stencil that I printed last fall and the light almost white areas are a silk screen dye printed fabric that I did several years ago.  It was not real successful as the dye was too old so it came out very light.  But it works here as almost a texture.  The biggest  blue and green panels are from an even older class and are painted  canvas.   The piece  of white and turquoise in the bottom right is one of the pieces I did in the winter when I was in the print with all the plates you have created but never used -frenzies.    This close up shows the quilting that includes machine drawn Pookas  and the brown and  stencil work too.   I really am quite pleased with how this piece turned out and I well may do so forest Pooka in the future.

Blue Bugs
18″ X 24″

Blue Bugs        This quilt is done now. It  my be what has lead to all the bug work as there are bug stencils on it.  I felt it needed an additional  bug so I made the dragonfly.   But when I went to try out that stencil I discovered that the body and antenna were too slender to allow for the stamping ink applicator I was using to get to the color on the fabric.  So I used a dye pen instead on the dragon fly.   The   detail also shows another  one of those pieces of fabric from the print frenzy adventure.

The purple loops fabric and the little bit of spiral and turquoise on the top are both form that day.   The bottom edge of the photos also shows a bit of fabric that I had added paper to and them painted over with interference paint.   I am using all that exploration stuff in my work and I feel good about that.  

Slicing Through– working title.   I a few weeks ago  I  said I was unhappy with the work on Purple Trees( March 4) and so I put it aside.   This new project  is one of the other fabric groups from that challenge.  I am still struggling with the slender cut- but Sue Ellen did a little tutorial at the QEG”s meeting and I think I have it now.  I will explore that as soon as I get some time in the studio again.   Anyway this is a start on a new top for that challenge.

Cracked Up     This new  top is all based and ready for quilting.  Again I am using altered fabrics together with some commercial ones. The marbleized fabric is mine as is the salmon colored stuff with the ink on it.  The magenta fabric has decolorant  designs on it that I did two mouths ago.

No Title This is the very beginning of a new work.  The textured gold fabric has been kicking around the to do containers sense fall and I decided that if I at least pinned it to the wall and cut a few bits that I would get some attention.

I hope your days are sunny and full of creative efforts.

Hugs

Carol