Category Archives: On the Road to Dry Falls

November 14, 2013 Fall’s Bounty

CabbageHello,    

 Fall always brings a riot of color in so many ways.  Not only the trees and all their hues, but in the harvest of all the fruits and vegetables is also a color filled part of fall.   Barbara could not resist the wonderful colors of the cabbages and I love them too.  I visited her Turquoise Street Studio this week and was impressed by this wilting still life.  I can hardly wait to see the pastel that grows out of it. 

There also seems to be a bounty of events to attend in the fall.   I went to Julia Graziano’s lecture on machine quilting at the Schwienfurth on Sunday. Julia  This photo shows her in front of one of her Arches quilts,althouth this one is not in the show.  She said she did this series to learn how to sew curves.   I think she is successful.

 I also went to an opening at the Art Rage Gallery this week.  The show  “Spoken Threads” displayed many different fiber and thread related work.  There were several  quilters among the many artists in this show. Sharron   Sharron Bottle Souva is shown here in a detailed talk with one of the many people at the opening.   Sally Dutko also had a piece in this show.   She made this quilt as a personal response to the shooting of the school children earlier this year.    Sally I  along with Sally and several other fiber artists  had spent an earlier part of the  day  visiting the Delevan Center  Open Studio event.  It was a very stimulating time going in and out of studios of all sorts of artist and talking with them.   Even looking at the many ways they organized themselves was an education of sorts.

VictoriaI am just home from a meeting of the “Fab” group.  Fab stands for fabric.  It is very small at the moment and we are mostly getting together to support each other and share our pursuits.  Victoria is working on these wonderful mini squares using a limited pallet of only seven colors all form the Cherry Wood collection.  The other gals in the group  gave me some encouragement about  how to improve my Oak Leaves quilt and I am going to follow through before I share it.   I am sure it will be completed by next week.

I also spent a day with my friend Cherri this week.painted-canvas  We were playing with painted canvas in a style like Katie Pasquini Masapust taught us in her workshop.   After painting the  canvas one adds fabric units and then a second coat of paint.  The next step is to place the two works on top of one another and free form cut through them both and reassembel.   This is a shot of one of my pieces at this point.  I am enjoying the process.   

       So with the visits to studios, the galleries, the lecture and the group meetings, I am enjoying the full bounty of fall.

Choosing Cherry 12.5" X18" $60.00
Choosing Cherry
12.5″ X18″
$60.00

 

Progress Report:  Paper Quilt – Choosing Cherry  I am delighted to say I finished this quilt after a long delay.   I was missing the filler for the biggest opening so I did not complete it.  The plastic printed images that appear green and red are from a seasonal food bag. When it appeared again this fall, I purchased the fruit and enjoyed sharing it with my friend Barbara last week.  With the bag empty, I cut it up and added it to the back of the work and completed the project.BN14CLGreatG    From the close up, it is easy to see the thread bridges and the plastic bag parts  behind them.   I had not done a paper quilt in such a long time I had forgotten how much I enjoy Carol Weib’s process.    So now I am all revved up to do another. Choosing Cherry cl 2  From the second close up one can see that I mix fabric and paper in my quilt as well as the plastic.  

 Green Nebula  This was the project that I worked on at the Turquoise Street Studio. Green-Nebula I am done with the bead work now and into the  quilting.   It a great project to carry around as there is very little material involved.

LongstitchesLong Stitches   This is a new project that I am experimenting with.  I read about doing stitches on “wash away” and them doing free motion machine work on top.  I did not have any “wash away” on hand, but had some nylon netting – so I stretched it in a hoop and did long stitches that crossed one another over and through the netting.  I then took the work to the machine and did the free motion work that the book suggested on the surface.long-stotches-with-mach   I think my solution will work for a “moss like” look on  a rock surface – my ultimate goal- and be more stable too.   I always like to alter ideas to fit my apporaches and this does that.

On-the-road-to-dry-fallOn the Raod to Dry Falls

I have finally gotten back this work too.  I started it at QBL last summer and it got put in the box with the leftover fabrics when I packed up from that adventure.  I thought I had already completed all the starts from those two weeks- but here was another.   I am ready to start doing the free motion quilting on it now and look forward to that process this next week. 

 Daily'sDaily’s   I continue to work away on the Daily’s.   I think they are getting a little more complex with time.    It is very calming work for me now too.

Keep Creating

Carol

September 19, 2013 Harvest Moon

beadshow Hello,

Last evening the harvest moon rose round and orange as a giant pumpkin.  It was beautiful!  I tried to capture it with my camera- but I am not happy with any of the shots so I am going to leave the idea to you imagination.Barb creating  The Harvest moon is the last full moon before Autumnal Equinox.

This week has been a full one as they all seem to be.  I went to the Bead show here in town on Sunday and managed to keep from purchasing  too many new beads.

Friday was the Explores day to play with Fused Silk.  I think I can speak for everyone in declaring it a big success.    This top shot is of Barb spreading the GAC* out on her silk.

Liz-ans-Corriene  Liz and Corinne working on step one- spreading out the silk fibers.

 

sue ellenSue Ellen concentration on  her work.

We all had fun and Angela even go far enough along with her fibers to add them to a top.  I think we all took home at lease four pieces of fused silk.  Liz even experimented with fusing the silk directly to the fabric with the GAC and that seemed to work too.

fused Silk  I make mine very thin- only one layer of fibers to use with my rock wall stuff  in the future.   It was a fun day for all of us.

Progress Report:  Pumpkin Lichens

Pumpkin Lichens 36" X 40"  $375.00
Pumpkin Lichens
36″ X 40″
$375.00


This work had given me fits when it comes to being square and it still looks off kilter to me.   The work measures true though.  I did have a good time using more of Randy’s wonderful fabric .    There is also a bit of the discharged fabric that I did with Marty this summer in this piece( the light orange cream in the middle)Punpkin lichens close up.   I used the  curves of Randy’s images to get me started with the quilting patterns too.  They were so organic and the lichens I used for part of the inspiration were also irregular like that.   Pumpkin Lichens Close up 1    This second close up show one of the areas where I started reflective quilting when I got away from the  “lichen ” centers.

 

On the Road to Dry Falls

I worked on this piece this week and all the fabric it attached.  I did not shoot it because it does not look any different than last week.

 

 limb  Oak Leaves   This is the same limb that I was working on last week from the other side.  It also shows the limb all frapped in a second layer of  black textured yarn.     I plan to get to the background work this week and start putting it all together soon.

 

Rounds     I started this work before QBL – eight weeks ago now.Rounds sliced Working through my stack of UFO’s it finally came to the top again.    I sliced the work vertically  into seven units.  Then I pulled out some solid blue fabric and stamped on it with one  of the stamps that I cut in my “one a day for Rounds  blue insertscl230 day Challenge”.   I did the stamping in a purple/pink that works with some of the fabric in the circles.    I have ideas for more additions,but will wait to work on them until I have all the units added together.  Make the visual decision based on what I see.

 

New Worknew-work   This one got some hand work and some paint this week too.    The leaves are just pinned on- auditioning so to speak.  I like the idea of them, but feel they are not strong enough to work with all the little units of this piece.  I think I got a bit carried away with the paint step here.   But errors show growth is taking place.

Enjoy the wonders of the season

Keep Creating

Carol

* GAC is a Golden Product used to thin down acrylic paint.  GAC 900 is what we used and it is designed for fabric so you keep the soft hand.

September 12, 2013 Fall Rains

falls Hello,          Today in my part of the world it is raining again.  We need the water, but I am tired of  the gloom that the gray skies seem to bring along too.  It makes me want to take a nap.    This photo is one I took on my way home on Tuesday after taking down the “Sticks and Stones” show.  As you can see from the image it was  gray  that day too.

Progress Report:  Pumpkin Lichens
I am not showing this  work  this week because I had a bit of a disaster with it .   I though I had trimmed it all up and I was adding  the sleeve  when I realized that one side was a good inch longer than the other….. I have not done all the deconstruction that needs to happen before I can correct that mistake yet, but I will do so and  show that next week.

  On the Road to Dry Falls Dry Falls full      I made progress on this work this week.  I am doing more of the tron  and  free motion stitch down work on this surface. I used this technique with the fused silk, some taffeta and some nylon netting.  I like how it allowed for a  feeling of shadow and texture.dry fallcl

 

Oak LeavesOak Leaves
I started this at Quilting by the Lake.  The leaves are free floating and made with a top layer of silk and a bottom of cotton.  I have been looking at it in this state for a few weeks now and it finally came to me that It needed a three dimensional limb too.  So I pulled out some roving and frapped it with  a dark patterned fabric.BS12Limbcl    In this closeup you can see how the  fabric is wrapping around and creating a new texture.  There is a little of the roving showing at the bottom of this shot.

Limb full  This second shot is of the full limb as it is now.  I need to create a background  and stitch the limb to it before I add the leaves.

I though I might add fused silk clouds to this work as well.  I will at least create some clouds for myself in the fused silk workshop that I am teaching on Friday.

explorationsNew Work
I am doing pure explorations with this new piece.   I took a class with Valerie Goodwin at QBL in 2012 and she suggested  we use all the different way we knew to attach fabric to the surface to add texture.  I had not really applied this idea before but when I came across my class notes I though I would give it a try.  So with this small piece I have used flip piecing, raw edge and hand stitching.    The next process is to add paint…..  I am having fun as I am not at all sure what I am doing and  the class notes are not as complete as I had though.  A year plus is a long time  and one does forget  details.explorations detail

I hope fall is sending you visual joy and creative time.

Hugs

Carol