Category Archives: Trees

About To Bud, Golden Rain, Natural Elements, Slicing Through, Trees

April18, 2013 Natural Changes

Dear Friends,

It really feels like spring today.  This was the third day this week when I ate my lunch out on the patio  and enjoyed the out of doors.  One of my favorite sketchbook assignments that I did with my eight graders was what I called ” Noting Natural Changes”  and I started it this week with the drawing on the left.  I when out into the sun shine and selected a branch and tried to draw it life sized in my sketch book this morning.  I will follow up next week and draw the same branch- again life sized  and in so doing note the changes a week makes for growth at this time of year.   My students always were suprised by the change a week can make at this time of year and I feel like paying attention to that myself.      This week has been as busy as they all seem to be.  I went off to visit with my friend Ethel again yesterday and we had great fun making silk paper.  Silk paper is created from silk threads that have not been spun.  They come in great long hanks that one gently pulls apart and lays down on nylon netting.  Three  layers of thread in alternating directions  is the usual lay out. then a second piece of nylon netting is placed on top.  The whole thing is gently soaked with water and then a mixture of fabric medium and water is applied to first one side and then the other side  of the sandwich.   After the sandwich is all dry  the nylon netting is carefully pealed from both sides and ironed.  The top image shows the pre-dyed silk drying on the line and it is still encased in the nylon netting.  Pictured on the left are two others we did in the morning with the netting removed.  The blue and purple piece is made of what are called silk hankies- a group of squared off silk layers that can be pulled apart as apposed to a hank of silk.   We dyed both of these two pieces before we added the water and fabric medium to them.   We had such a good time that we are going to play at this another day next mouth.  I already have an idea of things I want to try next time.

Progress Report:  Spot On

Spot On
22″ X 34.5″

 

This quilt is done now.  It is one more of my piece that grew out of  my ” Use the old materials” push.  The marbleized fabric in the upper left and the center bottom are both old materials.   The light blue with the natural shapes in purple and white near the center left are from an experiment that I tried last fall.  I was attempting to do shobori with paint instead of dye.  This piece is the most successful section.    The tyvek is painted on both sides and I did  that last winter when I first started going to the Turquoise Studio.   The pink color  is painted on the back side of the tyvek.   I have used tyvek several times before and not been to  happy with the results.  But this time I quilted it before I applied the heat.  I also waited until I could go out of doors and I wore my respirator while I did this process.   I like how the heat gun distressed the tyvek and  how much the stitching controlled the distorting too.

Golden Rain.    This quilt is all quilted now and ready for the embellishment.  That is the part that will add the rain running down the surface.    I wrapped gold pipe cleaners with two different yards.

They will become the rain when I hand stitch them to the surface.   I still need to tack the facings on both the left and right sides as well.  The copper ribbon really shows up the quilting patterns and adds to the flow motion down the quilt that I was looking for.

Slicing Through:   This quilt is moving along although very slowly.  After Sue Ellen’s tutorial on how to make those little cuts and sew them in I feel I am successful with that part of the process.   Now to work out the design part.    This work has gotten away from me as far as size is concerned- the rule says 18″ X 24″- and this is bigger than that already….. I am not sure how to go forward, so it is fermenting under white paper and two other starts, on the pin wall.

About to Bud:   This piece is basted and ready for quilting.   It too has some marbleized fabric in it, ( Use the Old Materials)although this is a newer experiment then  Spot On.   It also has some of my foam stamp work in the dark turquoise fabric.    The off rounded long forms are from a commercial stamp and come from my play day where I was trying to use every stencil I had in my note book that I had never tried before.     After letting this work hang on the wall over night I decided it needed  to have a machine drawn/quilted bare tree added on top of it.   I will do some sketches before I stat that part of the project.

Silver Slivers:  I have had these silk triangles for several years. ( More Use the Old Material )  On Monday when it was so rainy and gray I pulled them out and added the gray to them at the end of the day.   Now there irregular shapes means that I can not keep the full silk shapes and make traditional connections.  So the following morning I though I might insert silver slivers between the units and in so doing  sort of square them up.      If and how that works remains to be seen,but I do like a challenge and this is a good one.    It may also help when it comes to doing Dawn’s fabric form the DMC   challenge because the colors are the same.

New Work:     This one remains to be named and completed. True to my solution when I am frustrated I start something new-  all this wonderful hand dyed/ printing fabric  in a discarded pile on the cutting table …. put it together.    Only time will tell if it becomes anything.  I go off on these little seaming sprints some times- knowing that it can always  become a part of a Scarp Happy if nothing else….   But is spring and anything is possible.

Keep Creating

Carol

 

 

 

Bird Goddesses, Felt Work, Goddess Series, Madum Peli, Sprider Woman's Twin Towers, Stump Men, Trees, Twilight Trees

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

Diana, Trees, Twilight Trees

January 17, 2013 Preparing Solo Show

Hello,

I am all excited about the fast approach of my one woman show.   I addressed and sent post cards on Monday.    Hanging day is the 20th and I am busy doing all the little things that go along with that job.  I did my labels this morning.   A quick check of the location yesterday revealed the fact that I need to make new hanging rods as the ones I have are too large to fit with the gallery hanging system used at Sparky Town.  I got the lumber and I plan to cut  and drill the wholes in it tomorrow.   All the work is done now that I have finished the Diana piece.  I will have 15 pieces ready to display, but I do not think they will all fit.   But I always feel more comfortable bringing things home than not having enough.    This also gives the curator some choices.

Diana
16.5″ X 29.5″

Progress Report:  Diana    I am pleased with how this quilt finally came together.   I got to use some  fabric I had done a bit of dye painting.  I then used acrylic gold paint on a spiral stencil  on top.  This fabric  was created about three years ago and it was just the thing for this piece I think.   The owls were fun to free motion quilt around.  I like this stamp and I am sure I will use it again on more fabric in the future.  The  Drawing of the head on the other hand is a one time thing.   It was drawn with a sharpie pen and colored pencils were used as well.   The two other attempts of this face are already cut up and disposed of so no one will ever be tempted to “save ” them.

Spiraling Out
I am still working on the hand step of the facing of this work.  it will be finished this week.  I am sure that after the show is hung I will feel more at ease to do  other things.I did spend a couple of hours adding more quilting to this work this week as well.  

Rusty Text    I have started quilting on this work- all in the ditch  so far.     I am thinking that I will use the green liner units as my starting place for the real quilting action .  That will provide a lot of directional movement I hope.

Twilight Trees      I have really enjoyed working on this top this week.   I am feeling much more confident about the inserting of slender strips of fabric after this  project.    It is  pin basted  and  some quilting is already done to the edges of  the trunks.   I am not sure what to do next so I am just looking at it every morning when I first come into the studio.   It needs to set in the subconscious until it is ready for quilting.

Peli    I know that the goddess quilts are all done – but the ideas are still running around in my head.  Cali is the Hawaiian goddess of fire and this top has that feel for me.  I am not done with the curve cutting thing yet either I guess.  I have learned a lot on this one too- like do not make too sharp of a curve.  It is still not at all flat and I will need to do some additional cuts to remove the bubbles- but that is part of the learning I think.

My wish is for everyone to be as happy and busy as I am in winter. Keep creating

Carol

Diana, Paper Quilts, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs), Rusty Text, Text in Quilts, Trangle Show, Twilight Trees

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

 

 

Adventure Challenge 2013, Diana, Diana, Rusty Text, Twilight Trees

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