Category Archives: Bird Goddesses

January 31,2013 Opening

Hello Friends,

  Here in central New York the wind is blowing up a storm as a cold front from the north hits a worm front form the south.   Trees are bending and swaying and  some tree limbs have blown down.  The snow has been blown  horizontally  off and on this afternoon.  I am glad to be inside working in my studio today!

The Opening was Sunday afternoon and it went well.  I was delighted by the many friends that appeared from all parts of my life.  My daughter and grandson appeared early in the afternoon and my husband along with several of the folks that he works with near the end of the event.  My friends from school, from Social Art and fellow quilters also showed up to support me and enjoy the wonderful banquet that the director provided.   I was delighted to discover that I have now sold two of my works, the second being the Kachina Sun quilt that was on the post card.    It can be very affirming for an artist like my self to sell a work to a total stranger.

I think that Spider Woman’s Spires looks really strong on the brick wall  background too.

 

 

 

The placement of Motherhood Maze so it is seen from the doorway as you enter the dinning area makes it one of the first works you see.  I think I talked about it more as an individual piece then any of the others.  I am still flying high from the experience.

 

Progress Report:   Play Day
Barbara invited me to the Turquoise Studio to have a play day on Thur last week.  We were working with gesso- stenciling and stamping with it .  I put on it on fabric and felt and Barbara mostly applied it to stretched canvas.  After the gesso was dry in the afternoon we painted the surfaces.  The gesso resisted the paint a bit and that changed the color as well as the texture.   I was so excited by the results that I created a top with some of the altered fabric already.

 

 

I am calling this Eventide.   I used all of one  of the  turquoise felt pieces in this as well as a second painted piece.   The white is the pure gesso.  The turquoise felt has been painted with purple and blue acrylic paint.

 

Pepe’   I started this quilt  before the show but did not get it finished.  It too is a goddess quilt as Pepe’ is  the Hawaiian goddess of the vocano.  I have started  the quilting with a copper metallic thread in a swirling pattern.   But the thread kept breaking so I put the thread  on the bobbin and I have been quilting from the back side.  It is just a little scary to do it this way but the braking is not happening now.   The ghost like color changes shown  here in this close up come from using painted fusible web that I painted orange and brown.   I keep learning new tricks along the way and that is exciting for me.     

   Painted Fusible Web     I went off to my friend Ethel and had a second play day this week.   She and I painted the fusible web.  I did blue, orange and yellow, black and a pink gold  pieces.  I do not know where I will use most of this but  it did the trick for the Pepe piece.   I sure had fun and one can never have too many tools in the creative tool box.

 

Soy Wax Resist     This was another thing Ethel and I played with.   We had both read  about this technique in the February/March  issue of Quilting Arts Magazine- issue 61.  The article is by Susan Purney Mark.  We followed the instructions  and did the sewing  step first .  Then we painted with soy wax on the mountains and tried not to get the wax in the valleys were the tread was.  The next step was to paint in the dye in thous valleys.  It is batching now so the final images will not appear until next week. This second shot   shows how the dye penetrates to through   the  batting to the back.  The dye will all wash away as the batting is synthetic and the dye will not adhere. The same batting can be reused for a second try of this method.  Ethel and I plan to do just that.

Tsunami Wash Up    I have been hand stitching down mostly plastic  objects like the ones I have seen in photos of the plastics that have been washing ashore on the west cost do to the Tsunami last year.   We are really polluting our environment and events like this really play that up. We have too much plastic in our lives. It does not break down into reusable materials like natural objects.  So were does it go?  Sure it gets broken and ground into smaller and smaller bits.  Sometimes birds and fish eat it.  What are the effects on those creatures?  Do we end up with it in ourselves when we eat sea food?  How dangerous  is that?   What are the long term effects?   I do not have any answers, just lots of questions.

Keep Creating

Carol

January 24, 2013 The show- Goddesses:Text to Textiles

Hello-

The show is all hung.  I will admit that I am very pleased with how the thing looks.  As the creator of this work, I had never viewed  as a group.  I do not have a big enough space to even spread it all out in one room.  I was quite surprised by the fact that Lauren insisted we hang them all, and by how well they all worked together.  This shot at the top is of three of the quilts and three of Lauren’s baskets below.   It was a fun experience doing the work with her too as she was so very excited by my pieces.  She had asked me to do the show after seeing only one piece of my work.  This third shot with the pink wall behind it is in the bar room of the  resterant. She also has pointed me in several other directions for places to contact about future shows too.  It was a very up lifting day for me.   These photos do not show all the work I will add more next week.   I now look forward to the opening on Sunday.

Progress Report:Spiraling Out

Spiraling Out
43 ” X 55″

   This quilt is finished now.  I added a lot more quilting to the surface this week and I like how that pulls it together.   This work was  created do primary because of the silk screen material that I had purchased from randy Kennan this summer.    I really liked the action in the fabric  and tried to repeat some of the patterns in the quilting patterns I added.   The close up shows the decomposing screen and some of the needle work.     It was a fun project.

   

Twilight Trees    I have really enjoyed doing these twisted tree forms.  I am enjoying  the movement using curves has added to my quilt work.

Twilight Trees
21″ X 22″

I liked the new skill I am building and feel now that I am ready to tackle the DMC Challenge that they were meant to be a prelude for.  I sure hope that my vision can be full filled- but that remains to be seen.     Tree Men     I have been playing with the felt work tree too.  This shot is a partial of  two of the faces.   Thus  far I have done all the work by hand and so the green tool to the lift side is in the photo.   I have rediscovered that the black wool felted skirt that is the dark background unit is difficult to felt to.  I am glad that I need to soften the intensity of the dark so I am going to really build up the other grays and browns on top of it.  That will help unify the work too I hope.

Pele    I spent time this week getting this top to be flat.   I cut and stitched away several wedges of fabric for this purpose.  There is still a lot for me to learn about the curved cutting process like do not make the action too sharp.   Anyway it is flat now.  This shot shows the arms of the fire goddess drawn in thread  on organza.  I will trim away the the outside portion before I attach it to the top.   I am still considering if I want to add some more color to the arms before I do that step too.   I  do want the arms to appear as a spirit like presence on the surface.

Play Day Printing I spent  Friday last week printing with my Styrofoam stamps.   The Styrofoam is the thick sponge like  type  that comes packed around big items like printers or computer screens.  One draws into them with a welding iron in a well ventilated location.  I cut mine last summer out doors  The teacher who taught me  how to do use this technique was teaching a second class on the same day and I was tempted to take it a second time, but decided instead to just play by my self with what I remembered.   I think I got more accomplished too because I did not have to pack up my materials and  spend travel time to get to the workshop. This top one shows two fabrics printed with fabric paint on  commercial textured fabrics.  This shot shows more turquoise fabric with a Styrofoam  leaf stamp print and on the gray a stamp made from some plastic floor matting.  The white is a mixture and I like this piece of fabric the most.    This last piece is the white again with the last Styrofoam stamp  of the figures dancing.    I cut one set on one side of the foam an the other set on the back.    I had a good time and although I have no plan for there use at the moment, I am confident they will all go into work in the future.

I hope winter is treating everyone well.

Keep Creating

Carol

NOv. 1, 2012 Sandy’s Effects

Hello Friends,

Sandy proved to be just as mighty and power laden  as the weather men predicted.  I am still reeling from the effects of wind and water on the folks of the east coast.   Such destruction and loss.  The will to survive is amazing and this storm will test many a soul.   We where hunkered down here with water, batteries and supplies  that  somehow seem a bit silly.   Thankfully  the storm just glanced over and around us leaving us untouched.  I, however, watched hours of coverage and listened to lots of reports, feeling sorrow for others and blessed at my own good fortune.   My heart goes out to all the thousands of people and the hard ships they are enduring and will be facing in the future.  We must not forget them when they fall off the front pages of our news reports.

Bird Goddesses
17.5″ X 24″

Progress Report:  Bird Goddesses 

I had a good time finishing this work this week.  Now that I am assured that I will have a one woman show in Feb and that director does in deed want goddess quilts I feel really inspired to work in that direction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wedding Quilt for Lauren    I am feeling like I  am making progress on this quilt.  The top is all assembled now and I am ready to begin the quilting step.   I like the way the light centers glow a bit in this work. Composition  in Purples       This quilt really came together this week.    I got excited as I started quilting and did not plan as carefully as I should have and had to rip out a lot.  I enjoyed how the purple organza has a real nice feel for the play of light on the surface.

Tutti Fruity      Last week I was still working on putting together small units of color and

doing so with a wiggle line.  I have quit a pile of them now and so I started using them in a work.   Tutti Fruity is the first in this series.  Quilting in a circular pattern is proving to be a challenge as it stretches the fabric a bit.     I have learned that if I quilt one circle in the clockwise direction then I need to quilt the one inside of next to in it, in the counter-clockwise direction to make it flatter.   New Composition
I started laying out a new composition along the same line as the first.  I was going to try using the stripped units on a lighter background and keeping the crossed effect.  This is the first layout and I will do at least two more before I make my final decision.   I enjoy  making little challenges for myself and watching how they workout.

 

I hope all of you are safe and happy.  To my fellows who experienced Sandy’s wrath- I hope for a speedy return to a “normal” life.

Keep Creating

Hugs

Carol

Oct 18, 2012 For the Birds

Hello,

It is really starting to feel like fall here in  upstate central New York.  It has been cool in the early mornings and evenings and worm during the middle of the day.  I spent time today out of doors stacking wood for the fire place.  I am only about half done, but I had to stop as I had an appointment.  Hopefully I will finish the job tomorrow if it is at all as beautiful as today was.  Another sure sign of the approach of winter around here is the reappearance of different birds at the feeder.  I still see our constant Cardinal friends, but this morning I also saw two Blue Jays.   I do not think I was aware how very big they are as compared to many birds. I know they have big voices and their bright blue makes them easy to spot, I just was unaware of how size was also a part of that until I saw them up close.  I do not think they will be around long I do not recall seeing Jays in the winter in the past.  But I will keep my eyes open for them.

Mary’ Wedding Quilt
Queen sized

 Progress Report: Mary’s Wedding Quilt  

This commission is finally complete.  The cream is from Mary’s mothers wedding dress and was the starting place for this work.   The center block is the collar of the dress and the buttons that are in the middle ran down the front of the dress.  I added lace  to all four of the rows of  wedding dress sashing that surround the center.  The double row of lace  on the sixth row from the center has antique lace from my grandmothers collection as a part of it too.

I am very pleased with how the final quilt looks and I hope the bride feels the same.

Purple Marble
14″ X 21″

Purple Marble 

I have enjoyed working on this quilt as it has all come together sense I came home from my visit to Marty.  I was so very excited and full of ideas that I could not seem to get started on anything.  Over choice, I guess.  So I dropped back and went for a pile of fabric I had selected as “working together” and did  a work that was in my usual vain.

  doing that work on something I was fimilar with made it  easier to start a new idea.  I used a variegated  thread to quilt this work too .

Lauren’s Wedding Quilt Blocks

The blocks are now ready for assembly.  This is one of the ideas that I got from my visit with Marty.   I cut the original block ( blow)so the center was 2″x4″.  ( I did not take any photos of this step  you can see what it looked like before I made the second cut)  I then reassembled the squares and made the same cut on the new aliment. Again I put the squares back together creating the blocks you see.  I tried to make each block unique with only the two cuts.  The fun of the layout for final assembly now begins.

Bird Goddesses

This quilt is made from some of the drawings I did with Susan before I went away.  I know I have a show at Sparky Town for January and February and the curator wants goddess quilts for that show.  I already have several, but will take this opportunity to create a few more in the same area. This close up shows one of the smaller drawings.   It is only about two inches tall and just about life sized.

I hope you are enjoying the wonders of fall and enjoying every second. Until next time.

Keep Creating

Carol