Category Archives: Thoth

Smoky Fall

Hello,
It is a gray and cloudy day here with the smoke from western fires mixed in our air.     I am not complaining – I am just surprised at how far the smoke has traveled.    My sympathy goes out to the folks in the fire area .    The  burning   wildfires continue to bather me.   I want to make a third quilt noting these destructive events .     I tried to dye, reds, oranges, yellows and blacks  last Friday with that in mind. I was not successful! I am not sure exactly why, but Liz did mix lots of new dye last time. Hopefully tomorrow when we dye again I will get what I want and can start the work.

 

 

 

 

Textile Artists Stitch Club started a new assignment on Saturday with Clarissa Calksen. She showed us how she creates potatoes and puffs and how she suggests we assemble them. I am still building my forms and I have yet to embellish them. I seem to be working slowly on this new project, but I really like the challenge.

The Pixies had a meeting this week and we are going to continue to work with crows. My flags were a success.
FAB also had a Zoom meeting and it was stimulating.

Progress Report: Monkey Dancer- Mayan Series This piece is 21.5″ X 23.5″. This series continues to fascinate me

Golden Garden    This work is 38″ X 49″.       It is made completely from fabrics   I have altered in some way.   Some I did with Liz an some in the QBL class in the summer of 2019.  There is silk folded dyeing, silk screen, direct painting and a bit of shobori in this one.

 

 

 

I am enjoying using my fabrics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turtle Dancer- Mayan Series I finished cutting and placing all the parts for this work yesterday. Now I need to begin the outlining in black.

 

 

 

 

Green on Green I finished assembling  and quilting on this work  this week . I am ready to do the hand work of stitching down the binding now.

 

Squares a Dancing. I finished seven more of these fellows this week I now have 168 done. I also cut into 5 inch squares the last pair of Eric’s pants.   With these last squares, I   thinks I am nearing the end of this project.

 

 

Wool Rug     The work is 29″ X 36″ . This project is now on the floor in the entry to the studio.   It is made from wool scraps form shirts and extra’s from a jacket.    Lots of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

Thoth  Pillow       I finished this pillow this week too.  I like to make a form and stuff it with the extra batting that I cut away from projects.   That is what this one is full of.   I made the stencil  of Thoth  for a quilt that I did for my husbands  office   years ago.   The quilt is hanging in the living room now.

 

 

Childhood Memories: Grandpa Merritt’s Domain

    Grandfather Merritt was a farmer who used diversity to make himself successful.    He was a short  round man, who wore a straw hat in summer and a felt hat in winter.  The only time one did not see him in a hat was indoors or on Sundays at church.   He had the perfect farmer  tan.   For work days he wore a blue shirt and blue and white striped  Oshkosh Bygosh bib overalls.   Sunday was a brown suit, white shirt and tie.      We went to church on Sunday morning and came home for  lunch and a quiet afternoon, that often included a nap with an occasional Bible story  from   Grandmother’s  Bible story book for  Children. The “Blue laws”meant that nothing was open any way.  We then went back  to Church for the evening service .   Grandpa raised a variety of live stock and the land beyond the door yard, with the exception of the chicken yard was his kingdom.    He did visit the chicken yard when, he cleaned the manure  out  of the chicken house and when he chopped off the heads of chickens for our chicken  dinners .      The barn  yard surrounded the house on three sides and the  forth side was the road.   Next to the house on the south was the two bay garage.    A turquoise blue ford occupied the first bay and Grandpa’s green ford pickup occupied the other.  There were windows along the back of the garage with a work bench under them. There was also a set of stairs that lead up to the top of the garage were lumber was stored.   Farmers have to be able to repair machinery so he often had odd stuff on that work bench.   Grandfather used lots of bailing wire to “fix” stuff too.

    Beyond the garage and across a gated lane was the sheep shed and a small pasture. I remember one spring job for Dad and Grandpa, was to sheered the sheep. Gene and I had a job too and that, with the help of Snookie- a white maxed breed dog, was to separate the lambs and move them to the barn yard. Snookie could also cut out one ewe at a time and herd it into the pen for shearing. Dad and Grandpa would select a ewe and after turning it over would tuck it’s head  under and between their legs  to hold it still. They then would begin shearing  at the throat,   and cut the wool as close to the body as they could down to the flank of the ewe. They slowly turned the animal as they worked from top to bottom until they reached the other side. Keeping the fleece in one big piece was the goal. When they were done shearing they released the ewe into the farm  yard to find their lamb again. There was lots of bleating. Grandfather put a tight rubber band on all the lambs tails when they were born. That rubber band cut off the blood circulation and the tails would eventually fall off. This was done for sanitary reasons. As the shed and pasture emptied. Gene and I would collect all the lambs tails. After shearing 75 ewes, both Dad and Grandpa always had blisters at the end of the day even though they traded the electrical shears and hand powered ones back and forth. Snookie, Gene and I heard all the sheep back into their pasture and barn when the shearing was done. It was a full days job.

Stay safe

Keep Creating

Carol

 

May 9, 2013 Enjoying the Spring

Hello,

This is the fourth and final entry of the “Noting Natural Changes” assignment.  I am amazed at how much the leaves have come out on all the trees this week .  This branch is so full now that I hardly recognize it from the first one I drew on the 18 of April.   There are even blooms of the lilac on the higher branches of this bush now.  I love the fast daily changes that are every were.     When I showed my “Before the Bud” quilt at the QEG’s meeting on Tuesday  and   I explained that I had started it because I was starved for leaves on the trees- I  got a bit of a chuckle.  How soon we forget.

 

The lecture and gallery guided tour of the Kendell Show was Tuesday too.  It looks great.

The pale  quilt on the left is all hand dyed silk and it is by Liese.  The center one  is beautifully pieced and quilted by Ruth White.  The colors really make the eye dance.     I look at this show and feel delighted by the wide variety of styles and techniques that the other artists in the group display.   There is so much talent !

This work is called Hand Made and it is by Mary Diamond a very good quilting teacher.   I really like all the tones and shades of color she used in this work.

This shot shows the work of three different quilters, Sally, Sharon and Cheri are represented here.  Sally’s work ( far left) is a paper, fabric  and paint quilt.   Sharon’s work( middle) has raw edges on both sides of all of those vertical cuts.   She makes her tops cuts through and washes them before she  assembles the quilt.  The two leaf works ( far right) were items that Cheri felt were unsuccessful until she cut freezer paper leaves and ironed them to the surface.  She then added more paint over the whole thing.  When she removed the freezer paper units she was happy with the work.  There are so many varying ideas and techniques in this group it is almost too much some times.

Progress Report:  Thoth    I am still struggling with this work.  I can not seem to get a layout pinned to the wall that works for me so I can even put two pieces together.   I tried creating a new image of Thoth- and that does not seems to solve the problem either.The attempt in gold may give the image more a feel of “god “- but I think it may be too pale on the fabric……   I  have covered it with white paper and moved on to other things and hope my sub conscious will keep working away on this and the solution will come to me.

 

Nebula – 1 Mean while I seem to be fascinated by Nebula of late.  I have found lots of new images of the heavens in Pintrest and so many are wonderful Nebula that I just had to try to create some of my own.  The back ground fabric is hand dyed material that I purchased at QBL.   I felted green and gold wool on top to create the feel of the nebula.  I will now go back into the surface with stitches and beads to fill it out and add more definition to the work.

Nebula 2  Being true to the way I work and having such a good time with the felting machine I started a second one as well.    There was lots of warping of the fabric with the green nebula so I also tried felting the wool into some red paper like material that came wrapped around  my valentine flowers.  The felting part worked, but the red “paper”  melted when I tried to iron it and that created a problem.  After cleaning the iron and the non stick matt that I had wisely put on top before ironing- I put the whole thing on gray felt and ironed it down.  I think the red “paper”  made the nebula too sold and so I am going to felt more darks on top to make it feel more open.  I also got a little carried away with the yarn on this second work so I plan to tone it down as well.   The love the layering of the process as I feel I can always add to the surface.

Notebooks      I use three ringed binders to keep my stamps and stencils organized. Pictured here are two three ring notebooks with quilted covers.  In the front and under the notebooks are stencil and stamped fabrics that did not become parts of quilts, but are destine to become the next notebook cover.  These two books are full and I am ready to create a new one so I pulled some altered fabrics and put them together.  I keep the works inside the note books in the plastic page protectors that one can purchase at office supply stores. I did this to keep the like things together.  I was surprised at how the gals in my stencil workshops over the last few weeks have responded.  They thought this idea was a good one so I am passing it along.   Making a soft cover out of leftovers is just my way of using things up.

I hope spring is adding life to your step and all is good in your world.

 

Keep Creating

Carol