Category Archives: Fabric Flowers

Making a bit of Order

Sunflower Hello,

The last fling of summer is over and the kids are all back in school.    I find that this time offers me a great time to reorganize as I prepare for the fall and up coming winter.    I need to sort a bit as I put away the shorts and summer tees.  It is also  a good time for me to look critically at what I really use.  Like that wonderful divided basket that I thought I would use to carry dinner things to the patio that I never even pulled out of the cupboard this summer.   The back end of my station wagon is full of items like that- all perfect ally good, but not necessary to my life that I Show1am now passing along.    It is very easy to pile up too much stuff- so now I feel a bit lighter and look forward to doing a bit of wall painting next week.

I hung a solo show at  Man in the Moon Gallery in Kings Ferry on Friday last week. Show2  There  are about a dozen works in this show all featuring  the golds, oranges and browns of fall.   I had a good time preparing and hanging the show.

Angela's-workTuesday this week was the first Tuesday of the month and so I had meetings.  The QuEG’s  had wonderful things to share.

Angela is creating a wonderful hand embroidered  baby quilt for her first grand child.  The theme is  Australian birds and animals.  The Kookaburra is one of them.   She is doing a beautiful job .Barb's-remberance

Barb is creating family history works with bits of hand work from her relatives.

 

BS4Linda's-work Linda is quilting away on a very colorful lap quilt to keep her knees comfortable this winter.  I think these colors will keep summer memories worm too.

 

BS4-Liz--modelingLiz kindly modeled my latest  fabric flower necklace   at the meeting.  I thank her for that.  I only have one more to complete.

She also has been taking a

Liz'a-work watercolor class and did some wonderful work in that area as well.

Then in the evening, I went off to the Diva meeting.  This time of year BS4-Ruth's-work BS4Sally's-workseems to make many quilters  want to dye.  Both Sally and  Ruth put in time on that topic this month.     They both show their individuality even in their dying colors and techniques.    I love that.       Sally isPannels also putting together a small accordion book to send to Elsie who has moved away.   Everyone is adding a small 4″ X 6″  page to the work.    The wood cut is by Liese and the Fimo bird is by Donna.  The book will be sent to her when it is complete.     It is so very thoughtful of Sally to come up with this idea.

Liese is workingLiesa's-work on wonderful project using Valerie Goodwin’s book, Art Quilt Maps  her jumping off point.    This is her start of her work displaying her  favorite place in the whole world.  This is just an early stage she says and she has yet to add houses and churches and trees  to the work.  I find it fascinating and look forward to  seeing how it grows and changes with her efforts.

Anne is workingApplique-Blocks-Anne on several things.  One is a block exchange that she is creating wonderful reverse applique leave blocks for.  I like the fact that she has pieced the fabric for the appliqued units she is using to create her leaves.  They will all be unique that way.

Susan's-birdsSusan made us all laugh with her  big head parrot choris.     She made the removable paper mache’ heads over little soft bodied little creatures that she had picked up at garage sales for about ten cents a piece.    What fun.

Noel  does wonderful workBS4Noel's-work-cl with silk and this is a close up of some of her style.    She too dyes many of her fabrics to get the tones and shades she wants.  They are just luscious and I can hardly keep my fingers off of them.  She really is a master of curved piecing.

I feel so very fortunate to be a part of such strong artistic groups of women.

 

close up of Road-Less-Traveled Progress Report:  The Road Less Traveled     I am still doing the hand and machine work on this piece.    I am doing lots of fly stitch as well as chain and ladder stitches on this one.

 

 Stone Church  Stone-Church This work has not appeared in a while.  I did not know what I wanted to do with it.    Like Liesi it is based on a memory of a location.   I was stuck  so I  looked again in Valerie Goodwin’s book and decided to push forward.  I painted the church on the organza and  and then I carefully placed dark fabrics behind the opening in the decaying structure.      It is getting there  but the concept is not quite in place yet.   Some work just takes lots of time.

New-WorkNew Work     This is a close up of the quilt using the orange kimono fabric I purchased a few weeks ago.  I am almost ready to start quilting it.  I thought I knew what I wanted to do and had picked out some wonderful Chinese Characters to use as my pattern – then I realized – this is Japanese material- not Chinese.  I will keep thinking.

 

BS4Dailiy's-5 BS4Daily's-1 BS4Daily's-2 BS4Daily's-3 BS4Daily's-4 BS4Daily's-6

 

Daily News     I am still working on finishing the blocks for this project.  But I can see the end of the process now.   I am still adding/ subtracting  and altering the  units daily and that is why there is so much size in the photos.   I do not always stand at the same distance from one day to the next.

Please write if you have any comments.

Keep Creating,

 

Carol

 

 

Abundance August 28, 2014

Blackeyed-SusansHello,

Today on my walk I was struck by the effects of sunshine and light.    It was not sunny today by I noticed how bright the Black Eyed Susan’s were at the entrance toMushrooms the condo complex down the road where there is full  sun shine.  By contrast the  there is so much shade in my yard that there are mushrooms growing along the drive on the north side of my house.  Granted they are quite small- only a out the size of a young child’s finger tip- but growing there none the less.   Sunshine never falls on this area of my yard, but Nature still  finds a way to put life into the space.  I am so lucky to live in such an abundant part of the world.   To add to the abundance of my visual world there is an  abundance of activities going on too.

 

prints Last week I spent three days exploring with Cheri and Terney printing techniques.  We started out intending to do wood cuts and we all did one, but soon found out that although the look is wonderful, the process does not allow for much cross grain cutting.    I think now that our tools needed a bit of sharpening  because we all became quite tired of all the effort necessary to do the work.   Cherri Cherri was the most successful and her’s are  the two  round ones on the pin wall.  Treney had never done Gelli prints before and the other prints   on the pin wall are her works in that area.     I decided to make  foam prints and got going creating graffiti stamps of everyone’s name.   I wrote the names out with a paint brush so I would have a flowing design and  then did a second copy on the paper side of the sticky fun foam.   I then carefully cut out the Grafittigraffiti with an exacto knife so I would have a positive and a negative copy of the works.    This picture shows Cherri’s name.   The black is the foam and it appears backward so when it is printed it will be forward.  The red graffiti of her name is a back view and it still has the paper on it.     Tierney printed her name on the Gelli plate fabric she created the first day.     I have not cut out my name yet because I made it too big for any of the Tierney-Grffitticlear plastic  that I mount these on.  I will have to save my take home container from Wegman’s salad Terney to accommodate them. We had a good time   working talking and laughing.  It is always more fun to explore with other folks. Prints-wood and foam

I made one last stamp  on Friday and printed it when I got home.  Last week when FAB went to Genny’s she had a wonderful kimona on the wall and I could not get the flower  image out of my head.  So I designed and created my own curcumthum. BA28stamp  I made one fourth of the blossom and then rotated it as I printed.  I did a second color on top just off center a little.  I look forward now to using that fabric in the near furture. Print  I found out that I really like the flexibility and speed of foam stamping too.

 

 

 

Then on Tue this week I went to the Kuhlman Foundation opening at Cornell University.     Seven BA28Foundatin-dress-2scholarships are given to students with a theme that they need to interpert.  This year the theme was Layers of Leather.     The approaches were all different and the students were there to BKuhlmanFoundatins-dress1explain their work.  It was a fascinating  event.

Then there were also some interesting things going on in a hall display as well.  The second mini show was of wearable art that was all lazer cut polor fleece.BA28Lazewr-cut-polar-fleeceBA28Lazewr-cutting-laceBA28More-lazercut-fleece   Valerie Goodwin my teacher at QBL had talked about this process in my class and I was delighted to see a second example of the process.

Elsie's-rock-clProgress Report:  Elsie’s Stone     I  am still working away on this Foundations piece.  I am  having a good time working with the close values in this stone  as well as playing with the strong textures.   Once I heard that one should make art to be seen on two levels- from a distance and then drawing the viewer in to take a second look.  I think this series does a good job doing just that.

 Necklace# 7    I still seem to flower-necklace-7find the necklace process that Noel started in me a few month ago working for me.  I think I am nearing the end of the necklace  obsession though.  I think I may apply this idea to a quilt top in the furture.  I  do have two necklaces that are started so I will finish then an then go forward with that idea.

 

NEW-WORKNew Work    I pulled out fabrics that I though I might use in a new project starting with one of the silks( the orange, white and black print)  that I had purchased from Ginny last week.    I think I will add some more browns to the mix and then begin to build the work.

BA28Daily's-2 Daily News  This project was at a stand still until the velcro arrived.  It is moving forward now and although I only seem to get five blocks done a day I am making progress.BA25Daily's1daily5Daily's

I hope all enjoy the  Labor Day holiday week end in their own fashion.

Keep CreatingDaily-3

Carol

Birthday April 24, 2014

-daycard  Hello,

Today is my birthday and this wonderful hand made card arrived from my great friend Barbara with birthday wishes in it..  The card sure makes me feel loved- and it delights my eye too.

Spring is finally a part of central New York.  I was awakened by a bird singing at 4:10 this morning- but I am not complaining-  Just surprised to hear him singing up the sun so early.  There are so many tints and shades of green that it dassel the eye now.  Things here are changing so very fast. Necklace-2 It was raining yesterday and so I did not walk out doors.  But when  I went today I could see changes in the buds of many of the plants that I had looked at just two days before.  One can almost see the plants growing.   I love it!

I am still making fabric flowers from  Noel’s workshop last week.    It is just Necklace1so much fun to use those little scarps of silk in such beautiful ways that I can’t seem to stop.    The “What If  Factor ” is kicking in too and I think my work tray has as many new flowers on it as these two necklaces put together.    Now I am also trying Yoyo flowers- like Cheri did and   I can’t think why wide silk ribbons would not work too, as well as the silky hem tape I seems to have lots of …..  Oh the mind- it  just keeps pumping out possibilites.Foundations-XV

Progress Report:  Foundation XV New Direction  I am nearly finished with this project.  I like all the colors I have be able to use here and feel that I have New-Direction-close-upadded a lot of machine work to the surface.    By making this one irregular in shape I have created a new problem for myself- it does not hang flat at the end of some of the horizional extensions.     That is why I am not showing a full shot this week.  I will work on this problem and get back to you.

 Foundation XVI   GraniteFoundationsXVII-granite

 

  This one is almost done too and because it is a rectangle it does not have the hanging problem of New Directions.   I am still in the” look and see”   stage with this one so that is why there is not a full shot of it either.    ( If you want a good idea of that look at last week)   I am very happy with the flow lines of the free motion work however.

 

  obsidian1Foundation XVII Obsidian   I have wanted to do a piece that is all shades of black and gray so I started this last week.    I  like the rock  Obsidian and how it  seems to have such strong angles in the surfaces that I used it as my inspiration for this project.  It is the second irregular shaped one. Foundations-XVI-Obisidian And lest anyone start to believe I just know how I want things to be placed, I shot this photo the first day I worked on pinning things up.  I thought it was too busy the next morning so I took half the stuff off and started a second time. ( And yes, it us inverted too)    I have used many different fabrics here.  Everything from corduroy and cotton to velvet and silks to get the various  tones of black.    I enjoy how the color changes bepending on what it is next to.  I am enjoying the free motion work now too.New-work

Foundations XVIII-New Work    When I went to play with Noel last week she gave me a box full of wonderful earth toned fabric.  I am using it as my jumping off point for this next Foundations work.  The big piece of rusty wool is so very rich that I am enjoying working with it.

Daily's Daily’s   I am still working away on the Daily’s and they continue to be a calming enjoyment.  So here is the showing for this week.

I hope that spring is dancing at everyone ‘s door and bringing lots of new visuals to everyone too.

Keep Creating

Carol