Category Archives: Machine Drawing

Chrysanthemum, Hand work, Harmony, Sand Stone Church

Busy Two Weeks

October 2, 2014 admin

Hello,

It has been a very busy two weeks for me. I not only traveled to Ottawa for four days I took a felting workshop, spent a day with Ethel making silk paper and a day painting sky with Nancy. The world around here is starting to show its fall colors as well and the days have all been wonderfully comfortable. I spent the end of the first week doing a felting workshop. We played at all the techniques we knew with each one of the participants demonstrating her expertise in different areas. Victoria taught us about nano felting as she has been doing a bit of this with her niece. All of us come with a different design approach, so they all came out very unique. Cherri really liked this method of creating felt and she ended up doing at least three pieces in this style. I was told she is making a vest for her granddaughter with some of it. One of the gals did not do wet felting but started with wool that had been felted in the washing machine and needle felted little pins with this technique. By doing this method she had lots of control and created very detailed work. She was making pins and added beads and manipulated the felt as she worked to create various textures in her pieces. I really liked the way she manipulated little wisps of wool to add nice details like the soft line of green in the leaves of the red and gray green pin. The second day we did wet felted Jelly Rolls. Mostly we created flat disk like units – but Cherri also created some plant like forms with her green felted units. After lunch I tried making felted beads and had a good time with that too. I have no goal for their use and they may rattle around the studio for a long time before they find a home- But I sure enjoyed the process. One can also do three dementional felting using the dry method. This mushroom is a great example of that. I did a little seasonal piece using a wool base and dry felted roving into the surface were I wanted the different colors to remain. It was a fun time and I enjoyed it very much. I can certainly add this technique to my work.

Then I went on my travels to Canada. I love to travel and feel it is very invigorating. Travel can open ones eyes to look at ordinary thing and pay attention to the every day. I was especially taken by the wonderful gingerbread work on this house. I might have noticed it at home, but I probably would not have taken the time to look carefully at it or take a photo. The fact that it would not appear in my life again if I did not act then helped to sharpen my vision. We went to Ottawa with the intention of visiting the museums and did that. We visited all three of the major ones there. Our fiat stop was the museum of First Peoples. It is a wonderful mix of history and the current lives of the Native Americans of Canada. By building these mock up of Traditional Northwest Tribal buildings the museum presented the totem poles in their normal settings. Inside the houses were displays of artwork again showing historic works and contempary ones as well. I found the whole day very exciting and I am sure I will soon create a work using this influence.

The next day we went to the National Art Gallery of Canada. Again it was inspiring. I have always liked the work of the Canadian seven and it was great to see the work live.

Then on Friday we visited the Museum of Natural History. The building is beautiful although it looks like it was built in the early part of the last century with its stain glass and carved wood. Some of the displays show this same old flavor but most are very current. There are lots of interactive displays and each sections also had a play area for smaller children.

I spent yesterday working with Nancy painting a sky for her quilt. It was a beautiful day to paint out doors.

We had a good base to work on top of from the first attempt two weeks before. We agreed it needs one more day to get the finial effect she wants for this portion of her quilt.

Progress Report: Harmony

Harmony 24" X 42.5" $370.00 — Harmony
24″ X 42.5″
$370.00

This work displays the Japanise Character that stands for Harmony. That is where I got the title. The two orange silks are from Japan and I felt that this was a good way to celebrate that fact. I looked at many renditions of this character before I settled on this form. The black of the shape is all chain stitched in embroidery thread.

Sand Stone Church

I purchased Valerie Goodwin’s book “Art Quilt Maps” in the spring even before I took my second class with her this summer. I thought I should try to follow her instructions on how to build this type of map quilt and this project is the result. This work is based on childhood memories of a Sand Stone Church that was in the pasture next to the one my grandparents owned. My brother and I often played in the church and in the cemetery that was just up the hill from the old building. The church it’s self had no roof and the local natural stand stone was curmbeling away in some places so we felt safer in the cemetery- espiceally under the big old oak that stood in the corner. The branches were low and we could easily climb quite high in that tree. The second close up is an areal view of the gravel rural road that ran in front of my grandparents house and the farm yard around the house, plus the garage and barns.

Smoky Twilight I am enjoying using the many tints and shades of gray I have for this work. It is in the very early stages of assembly, but I think it is starting work.

Chrysanthemum I am to the free motion stitching/quilting part of this project. This work got away from me as far as size is concerned and grew quite a bit from my original plan, but that does happen from time to time. Again I am using some of Ginny’s silk in this project( the red show here)

Enjoy the colors of fall and keep your eyes open to the possibilities for ideas all around .

Hugs

Carol

Daily's, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Foundation XX II - Elsie's Rock- Cape Cod Stone, Hand work, Harmony, The Road Less Traveled

Paying Attention

September 11, 2014 admin

Hello,

When one needs ideas for solutions or inspiration I believe one has some choices. I was struggling with part of the Stone Church project. There is a old cemetery that is a part of that area and I wanted to include it in my piece. But I was having trouble so I took a walk in the near by cemetery to refresh my mind. I was surprised by the presence of the deer. There were two actually and the cemetery is surrounded by city on all four sides. Looking at how compact these stones and how much they overlapped has helped me formulate a solution to the work I must do on the project.

Sometimes the ideas are as much about paying attention as anything else. There was a FAB meeting at my house this week. Folks showed their work and Victoria is moving along nicely with this quilt. She got inspired by Ginny’s silks that she had purchased a few weeks ago. They are shown here in the orange and gray strip. ( I got inspired by that same orange silk) I think the shadow of the leaf looks wonderful too. She also showed a top that she had assembled for a bed quilt that she is making for her new house. I am so impressed by the large number of prints she uses and the colors. I would not have put that strong orange with the turquoise myself- but I love the combination. So by paying attention to this little surprise I now have a jumping off color combination to try in the future. The real trick here is to note the surprises and in my case write them down. I do that in my idea journal and it helps me when I need to get going with a new piece.

Progress Report:

Foundations XXI Elsies Stone - Cape Cod Rock 43" X 44" $595.00 — Foundations XXI Elsies Stone – Cape Cod Rock
43″ X 44″
$595.00

Foundations XXI Elsie’s Stone- Cape Cod Rock The Road Less Traveled

I am finally done with this project. I love all the texture on the surface of this wonderful stone. I am very grateful that Elsie gave me this parting gift. The many fascists of its surface with the limited colors make it fascinating to me. I think I could revisit this rock and work from a different side too.

I used yarn , nylon netting and lots of torn fabric bits to produce the colors and textures. There is also my favorite silk paper at work on this piece.

The Road Less Traveled

I started this quilt in Rosalie Daces Color class at QBL. I have finally completed the process. I used many of the techniques she taught us. I did insert slender curved lines into sections. I let colors “bleed” or flow across seam lines to make connections. I used raw edges to add texture and I hand embroidered across parts of the surface to draw sections together. Even using all thoughts techniques I did not use all the techniques that she taught us. As a teacher she has a lot to share and she does so very willingly.

I enjoyed using these

earthtones and I will continue to pursue the techniques she taught. I am still not happy with size of my slender inerts- so there is work to do there.

Stone Church

I already mentioned the bit with the cemetary so I will not cover that again. I added lots of machine lines on the roads as they were gravel and I remember how there seemed to be lots of “tracks” of the tries on them. I remember too that Grandmother Ester liked to drive down the middle and only pulled the turquoise ford over when she could see a car coming toward her.

Harmony I am done with the assembly of the form of this quilt. I decided to use the character that

represents Harmony for the central focus and so far I have just quilted around that shape to create the quilting pattern. I want to fill in the character with black hand stitches/ patterns so it stand out. But I have not come up with the correct stitch to do that job yet. So I keep looking in books and paying attention to the world around me and hope that I will find inspiration. Until then the project will just hang in the studio awaiting the correct solution.

New Work In Valeri’s Goodwins class she had a do a fabric ” sketches” of 4″ X 6″ before we started work. So in keeping with using the best the teachers have to offer I made the sketch first. This is the one I selected as my jumping off place. I wanted to use the big printed flower I created a few weeks ago as a big part of this work. Now I am in the process of pinning up parts that I think will work to do the job. I have split the two flowers apart and added parts of a third to the design. Very few parts are connected or solid in its position at this point . This is fun but scary part of the process- but I need the challenge.

Daily News This project is finally complete. I have now sewn all the blocks closed and will continue to play with placement for as long as the process interests me. This will be the last post where the project will appear because at this point all the finished units have been appeared at least twice and some more times then that. I have enjoyed doing a daily sewing pieces and it is very true that the whole is made of of lots of little parts. If I had started out with the intention of making 180 hand embroidered blocks I do not think I would have done it. But by making small manageable units- it as a doable task. I have been encouraged by Susan to submit this idea as an airticle for Quilting Arts so that is my next project.

Keep Creating

Carol

Daily's, Diva Meetings, Fabric Flowers, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs), Stone Chruch, The Road Less Traveled

Making a bit of Order

September 4, 2014 admin

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 am 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. 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.

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

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.

Liz 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

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 seems 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 is 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 working 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 working 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 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 work 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.

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 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 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.

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

Daily's, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Foundation XX II - Elsie's Rock- Cape Cod Stone, Ju Ju June, Rafter Room, The Road Less Traveled

Sharing August 21, 2014

August 21, 2014 admin 2 Comments

Good Habits 21" 32" — Good Habits
21″ 32″

Hello,

As fall approaches I feel the need to “tidy the nest” a bit. As a result of that feeling, I have been sorting out old works and finding new homes for them. So I took along this quilt when I went to the Dentist and it is now hanging in his office. It took a min. before he saw the tooth brushes. He was delighted and so was I as the work was only setting in a dark closet before and I think art should be out in the world. I feel so fortunate that I can share in this fashion.

This week the FAB group went on a field trip too. We visited the home studio of Ginny Spina to see her silk /Komona collection. It was wonderful. Her home is beautiful and so are her gardens. She sells on etsy at www.silkhouse.etsy.com. We got to see and handle the silk. Nancy even tried on one of the Kimono’s that had arrived in the mail that morning. Victoria and I both purchased some of her scarps and now I have a new pile of fabrics and the ideas are flowing. Nancy purchased on of Ginny’s scarves and her custom designed pins that day as well. We all had lots of fun and made new connections.

Progress Report: Ju Ju June

Ju Ju June !8" X 30" $190.oo — Ju Ju June
!8″ X 30″
$190.00

As I predicted this quilt is now complete. There is lots of experimentation in this piece. This is my first attempt at using only canvas as the fabric base. I also had full control of the colors and patters on that base and although I really enjoyed that aspect I do not feel like I explored it fully. So I need to keep putting myself in that position and dealing with that challenge. I also feel I need to do a similar project again because the process is still very much a mimic of Katie Pasquini’s process. I did enjoy mixing the metal with the gathered ribbon “flower” shapes and the beads.

Rafter Room This quilt is now hanging over the door to the rafter room were it will remain for it’s life time. Because it is summer I am not aware of how many drafts it is stopping, but I imagine it will do the job in the fall and winter. I really enjoyed doing the free motion work on this project. It was not only fun to trace the shapes printed on the mud cloth it was fun to extend them out into the blank areas. Then I went forward to drawing and filling in the blank areas as well. I think that I will look at pattern with a little bit of a different eye- and notice more details as a result of this project.

I got to use up the end of one of the fabrics that I had created in Judy Langele’s class at QBL 2 three years ago too.( It is the bottom of this work with the blue gears and dark violet in it)

The Road Less Traveled I am still doing the free motion work on this piece. I am trying to sort of soften the hard seam lines with the machine work. I will add hand work as well.

Foundations XXI- Elise’s Rock/ A Cape Cod Stone This is a rock that Elsie Dents gave me. She has moved to Pennsylvania and we will miss her strong graphic bird based work in the DIVA group. She was cleaning and found this stone that she had collected on the beach at Cape Cod and thought of me. So she brought to me at the last meeting that she attended. I like the strong lines across the stained quarts so I am using it as my jumping off point for the next Foundations work. I am still working with the out side shape of this quilt part as well as the light and dark on the surface.

Daily News The news goes on and on. I am enjoying the playing part of the process now. I thank Barb every time I finish a block because her way of completing the process is so much faster than mine.

Keep Creating

Carol

Daily's, Diva Meetings, Ju Ju June, Rafter Room Project, The Road Less Traveled

Back in Balance August 14, 2014

August 14, 2014 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

I have been on the go a lot of late and this morning I was feeling a bit out of balance. There were lots of tasks I need to do, but I decided to treat myself to a walk. When I go I do not take my phone or any electric devices to distract me. I use the time to pay attentions to the physical world I live in. I noted the sunshine, the many bird songs, and found the visual surprise of that the Popular tree is already shedding golden leaves. As I walked along the street I noticed that the fallen maple seeds looked like the birds in flight. I felt thankful that my legs were still able to carry me along at the pace that I wanted and returned home with a hand full of weed pods to draw later and a positive feeling of confidence about taking on all the little tasks that I needed to do. I also realized how much I need that bit of physical exercise for balance in my life.

The Diva’s had a play day last week and there was a lot going on. Cheri was marbleizing in one section of the room. I was do that as well although I was using a different method.

My work was pale because I was using ink on water and Cheri was using paint on a gel base.

There was lots of laughter, talk and sharing of ideas. Sally, Ruth and Susan did consolations as well. Everyone got a lot done and we all went happy home having made progress at our various projects. Unstructured days of work with fellow artists is a wonderful thing.

There was also a FAB meeting this week. Again lots of sharing and words of encouragement. Victoria shared the top she started in Rosalie’s class with us. The colors are based on a photo close up of a tulip. One of our challenges was to work with a color that we did not normally use. She chose the bright pink.

Progress Report: Ju Ju June I am to the quilting stage on this work. The free motion step is fun and enjoyable for me. I will finish the quilting and do the binding this week and then post the final next time.

Rafter Room Project This project too is left over from before QBL. It is to be a cover over the door to the rafter room from the bed room. I think it will stop the draft that I feel in the winter. Again I am to the fun part of drawing in the images in free motion. I like that fact that I not only get to complete the figures that I cut up from the mud cloth, but I also get create some new ones to fill the spaces between the printed fabric. This example shows the outlining and the filling in of those drawings on the surface. I am about two thirds done at this time.

The Road Less Traveled I have now completed the assembly of my top from Rosalie’s color class. The color that I seldom use is the green brown color in this quilt. It is a good challenge I think and it did make me streach- one of my personal goals for this class. I am almost ready to start adding hand work and machine drawing on the surface of this piece.

Daily News

This project continue to move forward. I ran out of velco for the connections so I am at a bit of a stand still. I have ordered more and now I just wait for it’s arrival.

Please send a comment and let me know what you think about what I am doing.

Keep Creating

Carol

Daily's, Dusty Roads, Rafter Room, Regina's Lace

Light Thinking July 10, 2014

July 10, 2014 admin 1 Comment

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

see 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 in 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 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 some 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 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 pinned 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. 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. 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.

Old 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 techniques 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.

Daily News 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

Baby Quilts, Daily's, Diva Meetings, New Iris, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs)

Seeing July 3, 2014

July 3, 2014 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

As we head for the 4 of July celebrations I have been thinking about seeing. I read “We don’t see what we see. We see what we want to see.” by ALan Fletcher. My first response to this was surprize. But as I though about it I agreed. I then though- Oh this is not so true of artists- we pay more attention to what we see. Then to test myself I tried to visualize my walking shoes that I wear almost daily and recall how many holes were there for laces. Five I though with confince…. but when I checked there are six, although I only have my laces in five of the holes. So I drew them as my drawing exercise this morning. This will help me really “see” them I though. And that is true, I really did see them, but in the looking at the shoes I shut out all the things around the shoes. I would be quickly overwhelmed by the visuals if I did not do that editing and selecting of things in my world. In the end I have to agree with Mr Fletcher- we all are confinded by our choices of “what we want to see”.

This week was the first Tuesday of the month of July so I went to meetings. QuEGS meant and we all had lots to share. Liz is making progress on her memory quilt for her friend. All the blocks are made now and she will begin the final assembly soon.

Linda C. showed us her crazy quilt and amazed us by flipping up the work to show the paper and that showed the planning pages she had under the sewn squares. Several of us admitted we would not have planned out as much as she did, but would have let the process tell us what to do next. We all have different procedures we follow as we work. This work will be a stunner when it is complete. The good thing about seeing the processes of others does help us all of us to think more carefully about our own work and consider if we can improve by following the the examples around us.

Angela is still being influnced by her tip to Hawaii. She showed us several beautiful silk painted flower pictures this week.

Then I was off to my DIVA meeting. Cheri shared her “Miss Liberty” wall piece and her new lady lizard( in the for ground) She mixes fabric and yarn in her sculptures and I think that is a great idea.

Alice had her fabric books to show us. They are so delightful. I enjoy how she mixes commercial fabric images- the water lily- with her own hand painted materials- the turtle.

Ruth assembeled all the units she had created in the class she took last month. They do make a pleasing little collection I think. And what a great visual review of techniques to have on the studio wall so one does not forget about them.

Progress Report: New Iris I am happy to say this work is now complete. I took it to both meetings on Tue and asked for ideas on the beards for the iris. I had thought that purple was the color to use, but the others felt yellow or white would be better.

New Iris 28" X 22.5" — New Iris
28″ X 22.5″

I tried both colors before I settled on the yellow. The yellow sure does pop forward on the purple flowers and draw the eye. That is what contrasting colors are suppose to do, but I do not think of it most of the time while I am working.

I like the depth this quilt has – all the applique on top of what I once thought was a completed work, helps that idea. I will try to keep this more in mind in the furture too.

East Window This work is done now . I made this quilt to put over the window in the east bedroom in the winter. I used a special batting that has a foil liner in the center to reflect heat into the room and cold out. There is not a lot of quilting on this work. I only stitched in the seam lines( in the ditch) to connect the top and back. I would have done a lot more machine drawing on the surface if it was not for window use.

Baby Quilt This one got completed this week as well. I was surprised when I finished putting the last hem stitches in last even and realized I had finished off three this week. The bad news is I have no new beginnings.

I try to be practical with baby quilts and make them so they can be easily washed. I also add a sleeve so they can hang on the wall if the parents choose. This is the second child for this family so there are two bears, one for each child. The bigger one is helping the smaller bear and that is my way of saying that they should care for one another and the older one is a part of the process.

I like the simple outline applique technique that is easy to use with this style of quilting. It goes quickly when the layout of the parts is done. One only needs to think about the layers of the pieces so there are as few starts and stops as possible. Here I did the mane first, then the ear, then the body, and last I added the reins and the eye details.

Daily News I can now see that it will take a lot of time to finish this piece. It takes a seven min. to machine add the velcro spot, and stitch around the two units , leaving an opening. When I set down to do the hand work I trim the corners and turn the block right side out, before stitching it closed. I get between four and five of them done in an hour. I know I am working as fast as I feel comfortable with– but the process of finishing up seems a long way off at this point.

Please leave me a comet in the area provided at the bottom. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Keep Creating

Carol

Baby Quilts, Daily's, Dusty Roads, New Iris

Choices June 26, 2014

June 26, 2014 admin

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 the 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 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.

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. When 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 sections 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 of 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. Its a fun exercise and it means that I finish several more blocks every evening during the news like before.

Keep Creating

Carol

Daily's, Dusty Roads, New Iris

Quarter Moon June 19, 2014

June 19, 2014 admin

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? Quarter 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 name 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 loves 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.

Progress 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 stamping, 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

Daily's, New Iris

Tomorrow…..June 12, 2013

June 12, 2014 admin

Hello,

I am greeting you with flowers because my husband did the same to me this week. I enjoy the rich deep color of red roses.

I realized that tomorrow is the full moon and it is Friday the 13. I wonder how often that happens?

Saterday was our second play date at the Verna Fire Hall. We again were exploring the Gelli Plate and its many printing wonders. There were 10 folks this time and only three of us were repeats from the time before. This shot is of my work table at noon before I fired up for my second layer of fun and surprises. I made a mistake and left half of my paints at home. But I chose to see that as a challenge and because I did not have any red, orange or purple all the pieces will work together do to the limited pallet.

I had a wonderful surprise yesterday as Patti stopped by. She presented me with a gift of two of the squares she made using the fabric yarn I had given to her last week. She sure is enjoying her new pin loom! Both of these squares use the the same weff fabric yarn- but the color she used for the woof really makes them appear different. The black sure tones down the color!

I went to visit Nancy this week too. She works on a tabletop to lay out her work. I do realize she has a much more realistic feel for how the project will look on the bed by doing it that way, but I really like working vertically myself. This quilt will be the summer quilt for her own bed when it is done. She is building a rainbow layout across the main part of the bed top with some black and white added in for interest. This is also the quilt she made the clouds for last week. They are set to go in the pillow sections of the quilt. She lent me this book on color to read before I take my color classes at QBL this summer. It is written for paintes, but I am enjoying it throughly. I am sure thankful I live in a time when one can just go purchase paint off the shelf instead of collect the materials, grinding down the pigments and mix the formulas to get the desired colors.

Progress Report: New Work One I thought I should revisit some of the fabrics I made in the soy wax class earlier this spring and use them. I pulled one and then I noticed how it worked with the rust fabric I did last fall and a piece of the stencil work I did last winter as well as some stamping work I had done the winter before. So I started this possible lay out. It was too monochromatic so I added some blue to the mix. The blue is from my stash of self embellished fabric too. Things will surely shift and change from this starting point- but I try to be open to the changes the fabrics suggest as I work along.

New Work Two I piled up a second collection of fabrics as a starting point for yet another new quilt. It is not “talking” to me in the same way the brown one is so this may not go beyond this point. I just have to live with it a bit.

New Iris’s I was not happy with the way this quilt was going. It was coming out too much like the first one I did earlier this spring. So I let it hang on the pin wall for two weeks. Then I decided to add another layer to the work. I painted purple Iris’s like the ones I saw in Monet’s garden last month. I then sewed organza to the back of the flowers and truned them to create the new blossoms. That process is very time consuming when the shapes are as complex as these are. It takes about 20 min to do each one. I will start to applique them to the top of the quilt this week.

Daily News

The title of this work has changed because of how I want to finish this work. I decided I want it to be a flexible work that could change. To that end I have finished these squares off with each of them having a velcro patch in the center of the back of each “block”. I have only started this process and so I will be doing the flipping of the units and sewing them shut by hand for a while. Soon I will build a back unit with its own corrisponding velcor units placed four inches apart all over its surface so one can add or subtract any square from any location at any time. I think I will limit the back unit to 30 squares( or velco spots) to invite as many possible playing combinations as possible. ( and one does not need to fill all the spots) I hope it is fun to play with when I am done.

Keep Creating

Carol

Cre-8

Category Archives: Machine Drawing

Busy Two Weeks

Paying Attention

Making a bit of Order

Sharing August 21, 2014

Back in Balance August 14, 2014

Light Thinking July 10, 2014

Seeing July 3, 2014

Choices June 26, 2014

Quarter Moon June 19, 2014

Tomorrow…..June 12, 2013

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer