Category Archives: Dusty Roads

Light Thinking July 10, 2014

Self....page  Hello,

This week I seem to be very aware of light.  It all started on Thur eve when I went to dinner with my fellow artists Barbara.  We sat outdoors as the evening was perfect.     With awe< Barbara said “We have reached the Golden Light time of day.”  Then she took this photo of me to prove her point.  I so agree – I look like I am painted in gold.  I was reminded the next evening of the power of light when I sat and watched fireworks exploding above my head for the fourth of July.   The following evening I watched Mother Nature’s own firework display as the lighting bugs put on a show for us.  The quarter moon moved across the sky and presented us with reflective light that night too.    If that was not enough of a study in dark/light contrast, I saw one more example of the power of light and dark  when we experienced a powerful thunderstorm with many streaks of light  crossing  the dark sky, on Tuesday.   We  need light to

Dusty Trails 22" X 29" $225.00
Dusty Trails
22″ X 29″
$225.00

BJULY10Dusty-Trails-Cl3see color.   I think I was taking it for granted and not really paying attention.  But, this week I was reminded how many forms nature can present that wonderfully  powerful tool to us.

Progress Report: Dusty Trails    I have enjoyed working on this project.    While I was doing the quilting I realized that almost every technique that I do to alter the surface of my work was  represented here.     There is liquid dishwasher  soap drawing  in line work on  the dark browns.    There is hand carved stamp work in the copper  colored paint on the dark brown  shown here too.  I have an example of silk screen printing  -Dusty-trails closeup1in the cream and brown section.   The blue is hand painted inner facing  and the skinny strip at the top of the first closeup and the thin strip at the bottom of the second one show, soy wax batik work.     I do enjoy altering the surface of the fabric as well as embellishing the surface of my work. Regina's-Lace

Regina’s Lace     This is a “saved work”  for me.  I did all the piecing of the white, purple and turquoise  over a year ago.  I did not feel it  worked as a top that I wanted to put any more time into, so I had set it aside and it became buried in a stack of other pieces.  I had even moved  it to the scarpe bag to be cut into strips and turned into a part of a Scrap Happy project.   But while looking for a place to use  Closeup of Regina's Lacesome wonderful lace pieces Regina  had cut from old samples and then given to me.  I came across the back ground piece and the two seemed to work together very well.    I am now have a good time doing free motion flowers in the quilting part of this project.

  Rafter Room step-oneRafter Room    I have an opening into a  rafter room just off my bedroom and it needs a new cover  so I started this project.  When I begin a project I select the fabrics first.  Then I choose one to be the feature.  In this case that is the bold black and white print.  I cut as many images as I could out of that fabric and loosely pinnedRafter room step-2 them  where I thought they might go in the composition.    The measuring tape is pinned along the top and  side to help me keep the size in mind as I am working.      In this case I added the purples to the starter pieces to square them off as my beginning step of assembly.   Then I add  strips of fabric to the blocks along one side or another building my blocks.  I try to work across the entire surface so I am looking and checking the color balancing as I go along.  I continue to add and build the sections getting bigger and bigger with each addition as I fill in the blank spaces.  This process means getting up after each seam, walking to the ironing surface , pressing and then pinning the pieces back on the pin wall.   I then step back and check how the top is coming together.   rafter room step3 The pieces start to connect to one another and grow larger as the process continues .  I just keep repeating the process until the top comes to completion.   rafter room final This process works for me and I enjoy doing it.  It took me about three and a half hours to put this  24″X 60″  top together.

 

 

 

  Sandstone-church fuOld Sandstone  Church    I will be starting Quilting  By The Lake ( QBL) on Sunday , and I am excited about that.  I will have a class with Valerie Goodwin during week two.  I enjoyed working with her before two years ago and think this class on Color will benefit me as well.  I pulled out her new book  “Art Quilt Maps”  and worked through her recommended steps this week to start this piece.  I only have two of the Stone-Church-Drawingtechniques she suggests here.  I  have  a  sketched out  the building that will be the next step of the process.   I will not get this completed until after QBL- but I am glad to have done a refresher before the class so I will get the most out of the experience.

BJULY10DN2 - Copy Daily News 2


 

Daily News   daily's 2 BJULY10DN2 - Copy I am still working away on turning and stitching shut the Daily’s for this piece.   It is fun to change the work every morning with the squares that  I have completed the evening before.

Let me know what you think  by adding a comment.

Keep Creating

Carol

Choices June 26, 2014

Flowers Hello,

It is  another  gray and rainy day here.  There are lots of reasons to feel down.  I am having trouble with the tension on my sewing machine.   It is very humid  and my hair is droopy. The sky is gray and all this rain even makes the Martha Washington  Greniums  hang low.  In my effort to empty some of  the excess rainwater from them , I accidenty spilled it all over my feet and my sandels are all wet.  Inspite of  all this stuff I still  feel happy.  I am making progress on my projects even with  the thread problem, because all the rain keeps me in the studio a bit more.  The birds are singing and I even saw one taking a bath in one of the mud puddles on my walk in the rain.  I noted too Dusty-Trailsthe circular patterns of falling rain in one of the puddles and thought it might make a good starting place for a quilting pattern.      So why I feel so good?   I believe it goes back to what my Dad always use to say to me as a kid” It ‘s not what happens to you that matters so much as what you THINK about what happens to you that matters.”    I am choosing to be happy about the possibilites of today.

Progress Report:   Dusty Trails    I am to the quilting stage of this project now.  I was tempted to just quilt in the ditch, but staying in the seam lines with the quilting  seemed like a cop out.  So  I am using is wandering stitch pattern that  reflects the seams instead.  My title has more to do with color than the stitch pattern. New Iris

 New Iris  I am all done with the hand applique of the new leaves and flowers.   I was considering adding some of the fuzzy trim to the flowers as the beards of the iris.   The color has more red in it than the existing flowers but I really like the texture.   I guess it is again a  decision I can only make after I try it  and see how it looks.   That  really is the best approach any way.

baby-quilt New project-Baby Quilt   My niece had a new baby last week  and so I am busy creating a baby quilt for the new child.  He as an older sister so I am putting two teddy  bears on this one.   The three butterflies allow me to add quilting for stability in the sky.  One might also be able to teach a little counting to a little one with this work.

 New work- East Window    I am creating a new window cover for the east room window.     WhenEast-Window I work on these types of quilts I   first  do a wrogh  layout of where I think some fabrics will end up.      I am trying to start quilts now using fabrics I have altered in some way.  This time I used some marbleized  fabric, a piece from the soy wax class, and some painted fabrics.  When I have selected these materials, I chose  things that work with them.     I think of  the second choices as fillers and I cut them into strips of one and a half, two and a half and three and a half inch startssections and sew them into long mixed units.   This method  means I can just add the units  to the fabric sections as I go along and do not have to keep stopping and cutting new fabric.  This method does create some unused material at the end of the assembley.  But I always just add that to my scrap basket and it becomes part East windowof the material I use in my scrap happy quilts that I give as fund raisers .          I always enjoy my time doing the assembly process of quilt construction.

 

 

 Daily News  I have finished the base for the Daily’s now.  It is a black rectangle with 30  black velcro  units on it.   I put the quilt on the door to my studio so I see it first thing every day and my new habit has become to change the layout each morning. Daily-News1Daily News2    Its a fun exercise and it means that I finish  several more  blocks every evening during the news like before.

Daily News2 Keep  Creating

Carol

 

Quarter Moon June 19, 2014

Hello,

This evening we will view the last quarter moon for this month.    I have always wondered why the  cookies that are half choclate and half white are called Half Moon cookies?  silk paperQuarter moon would be more accurate.  Oh well, I know they are all good to eat no matter what they are called.  The other seasonal event this week is Summer Solstice.  That happens on Saturday .  Hurray! Bring on Summer.

I spent last Friday with my friend Susan.  We made silk paper.  Susan is very interested including  text and words in her work,  so I did some experimenting that I might not have tried other wise.   The 3’s are letters on tying paper that are tarped between layers of silk.  Then I thought why not just write words – so I tried my Topsname as you can see.   It is doable.  I will use my name  to make a new name tag to put over my work area at QBL.

Then on Monday I drove down to visit Regina.  She is amazing and I had a wonderful day.  She gave me this stack of sample l dress tops  to play with.  Her techniques is to cut off all the beads and use them in other work.   I do not know just what I will do with them- but I love the challenge.  Regna  lovesSweet-bag texture almost  as much as I do.  This wonderful  little evening bag is a good example of that.     She weaves rag rugs that are all over her house.  She has an embroidery machine and has wonderful examples all over the place too.     I went home with my head spinning full of ideas and aw.

With all my travel I have not done a lot of work in the studio this week, but that seem to be the nature of summer.   I want to be out of doors and enjoy my environment.

New-IrisProgress Report:   New Iris’s     I am adding applique iris on the surface of this quilt now.    I am going to add the greenery first and then the flowers.    I may need more blossems – but I will only know that with lots of looking and thinking.

 Dusty Roads    This was formerly labeled as new work one.   I can see where I am going with it now so it has a name.  This is a good example of many of the surfacing altering techniques I like to use.  There is rust  work,  eraser Dusty-Trailsstamping, silk screen printing, direct painting,  and fabric from the soy dye class in this piece.   The dark brown with the white lines is drawing done with liquid dish washer detergent.   Most of the blue areas on this work are painted interfacing pieces.   I sure had fun mixing all of them  and it made me realize that I do work in color families most of the time.

Daily News   I am working away on the back unit to put my little squares on now with this project.  It is all black so I did not do a photo of it- not very interesting at this point.    When it is done I will start to shoot it with the various squares velcro-ed  on the surface.

Enjoy the beauty of the season.

Keep Creating

Carol