Category Archives: Rusty Text

January 10, 2013 Winter Work

Hello,

Angela with printing stuff

I always love this time of year after all the wonderful joys of the holidays have become good memories and things seem to slow down and commitments diminish and I can really get some work done.  That does not mean I am not busy- it just changes and I find I am more focused on what I want to accomplish.  I started on that path with a play day with  four friends.

Liz

We  ( the QuEG’s – Quilt Exploration Group) got together in Angela’s  new big studio and played.  It was so much fun that we decided to repeat the play part for the next few mouths doing different projects each time.   We will all be “teaching” a technique or leading in the exploration of a new material for the up coming days.

Corinne, Liz and Angela showing a sample for the future
Corinne and Sally

I enjoyed the silk screen printing with dye that we did in the morning and got some nice images.  They are true to the color expected because Angela mixed up the dye that day.   I do not have any idea where I will use these fabrics.  I do know that I will eventually use them.

After lunch we made cards for a fellow creative friend who had fallen over the holidays and could not join the party.

The whole day was great fun and really got me going for this week.

Progress Report: Spiraling Out   I am still quilting  on this project.  I have not done anything this large in a while and I had forgotten how very long the process can take.   This shot is of the quilt under the needle at the top.  It is fun to do the free motion  work again.
 Paper Quilt   I am enjoying working on this project.   I edged the openings  and edges with a  zig -zag stitch and knobby yarns.  I keep trying different solutions to filling the wholes and different arrangements for the four units.   This sort of play takes me much longer than I expect.

Wrapped wire insert
Hand made lace insert

I did eliminate on of  my attempts for filler so I feel like I am making some progress.

Lines in Fabric     This is an exploration project.  I talked last week about doing the DMC Quilt challenge.  This shots shows I am still working – but the progress is slow.  Marty  told me  that  I needed to press each seam toward the outside ,cut the “line” fabric and  then sew the next piece on.  That way I can get narrower lines – and that is my goal. I have really not had an opportunity to do that yet.  I will get to it I am sure.

   Diana  I am pleased with how this top came together  yesterday afternoon.  I  added the gold embellishment to the fabric in a class two summers ago.   It is the just the right touch of elegance for this work.     This will be my last quilt for the Goddess Show.  I plan to start the quilting tomorrow.   I have got to get busy with the labels for that show next.

  Rusty Text    This is really a working title for this top.  I needed to do a little creative work that did not include any pressure.    It is also another  bit of play with the Text stuff for  a possible entry into that competition.   I printed letters on inner facing and mixed that texture with silk.  The silk was also printed on in the green stripes.   When I showed it to Marty on Tue she was quit supportive about the work.  I am still not sure about the direction  I want to go with the quilting of this work, but there is not real  pressure here as I have a mouth before it is due.

Enjoy the wonders of winter.

Keep Crating

Carol

 

 

Thur Jan 4 New Year

Hello Everyone,

I hope you  have all had long enough to relax a bit for the hassles of the holidays.  I spent today at the Schweinfurth Art Center viewing the Quilts=Art=Quilts show with a friend.   I always find it so very inspirational.  Fibers can be used in so many ways to express so many ideas!    I got excited all over again about embellishing and piecing and color!   It is good to be stimulated in the beginning of winter.  For us that means lots of snow and shoveling as well as ice cycles.  I took this shot out the bathroom window of the light on the deck last eve.  I like how the light reflects off the ice.  Winter brings a new appreciation for limited color to me.   It is a good thing for me to consider as I have a challenge to work on that uses a very limited pallet using  light, med and dark tones of three colors.  It is the DMC challenge for this year.   That means we all selected a color and purchased the three tons of each of the colors and then gave the other participants  our selections.  The size this year for the three works is 18″X 24″ and one color from the other two pallets , needs to be used in each work.  There are no other rules….sounds like lots of room for variation to me.    I selected purple and my fabric are at the top.  Marty selected blue and her choices are to the left middle.  Dawn chose  black and her fabrics are on the bottom of the right.    I am a bit surprised at how well the three go together too.  I think my work with Leslie’s Riley’ s ” Artist Success Class” – Composition and You  will prove to be helpful here.      I have also decided to impose a little challenge of my own on the first quilt at least.  I want to further my ability to insert slender bits of fabric into my work and this first quilt will use that method.     So yesterday I started practicing with some blue fabric and this is the result.  I think I will play just a bit more before I start on the challenge fabric as we purchased it in Washington state last Sept and I can not run out and get more if it is a total flop.

Jots and Joints
22″ X 34″

Progress Report: Jots and Joints
This quilt is now completed and it is the first one for 2013.    I really was working to show the free form cutting in this work and I feel I was successful in that respect the curving edges work well here too.   I am also having fun mixing my hand painted fabrics with stock fabrics. This close up shows the raw silk in the left hand corner and some of the silk screen image.  I sketched them after looking at a circuit board from a calculator.  The drawing was done from memory several day later, so it is really my own invention.

In looking at the photo here I am concerned with the high number of wrinkles present.  Perhaps more quilting is in order.  I will need to do a bit of study over the next few days.

 

Spiraling Out   This quilt top is about half quilted.  It grew a lot as I worked on it.  The whole project started with some discharged fabric that I purchased form my friend Randy Kennan last summer at the  Quilting By the Lake Conference.   I had done just had my first experience with this type of print dyeing in my class with Judy Langille.  I was/am fascinated by the effect one gets as one does not have a lot of control as to how the color will disperse .   I am free motion quilting on the surface and doing a bit of zig-zag  couching along the way to push the spiraling feel of the top.   I feel I am nearing the middle point of the quilting work on this piece.   

Diana   This  drawing on old silk is the start of my next and probably final goddess quilt for my show this mouth.   I did the drawing three times before I got what I wanted on the fabric and all three were “traced”  from a  drawing that I did to begin with.  The drawing was done from a ancient Greek coin.  My Grandfather Howard found the coin while he was in Greece in WWII.  My mother made the coin into a pendant by adding a silver band around the out side and creating a bail that holds a diamond from my great aunt May’s engagement ring.    On the back of the coin is an owl that I used to create this foam stamp.  It will also be a part of the  quilt The owl is Diana’s creature and that is why it is on the back side.

Letters
This last image is also a start that I made this week.  I stenciled the rust and brown letter shapes onto white inner facing and plan to pair  it with some orange silk that has green lines on the surface.  I got the silk scarp from my friend Jean Riley before she moved to PA four years ago.  It is not something she had silk screened, but something that  had  been in a bag full of silk that she was given.  We quilters are  frugal and sharing bunch.   I want to create a second entry for the Text Challenge with these  fabrics.

Lastly as to my 30 day challenge- I am going to stay away from sugar for my first challenge.  I realized on Friday last week that there was far too much candy,cookies and sugar around this season- so I passed most of it off to the teen ages and made that my challenge.  It has been an eye opener- I did not realize that I had developed a craving for it, but I have.  So this will be a good test.

Keep Creating ,

Carol