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: NewIris’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.
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.
I have been enjoying being out of doors and doing lots of yard work this week. Being gone always means lots of catch up for me and that seems to be how I have spent most of my time. That and meeting with my friends that is. The first Tuesday of the month was this week so I had the usual QuEG’s and Diva meetings plus the FAB group has moved to the first of the mouth too. It is good to see all my friends and it is very stimulating.
Barb started off the QuEGs meeting with her three “sliced block” tops. She sure seemed to be having fun with them. Then we moved on to Linda who is taking an on- line class where she is doing prep work for a quilt about her Irish Grandfather. The notebook is a work of art all by it’s self I think. She is collecting lots of ideas to work from for the project.
Then we looked at Liz’s strip blocks. It is a memory quilt using her friends father’s shirts. The outside strips of each block are from the shirts. The florial prints in the centers represent the friend.
Then we looked at Sue Ellen’s work. This new fish quilt of hers really is a joyful one I think. This photo does not show it- but the green has a wonderful reflective quality that really adds to the feel of water in this piece.
Next we looked at Sally’s wonderful work. She has finally finished piecing her “One Block Wonder” top. I love how she used the fabric in such a way that the quilt goes from light to dark in a diagonal sweep across the top. She continues to work hard on her Machine Embrodery too. All the lemons are drawn in thread as is the green sprig and the pie crust. Her work always blows me away.
After the meeting I drove south and picked up Susan who is now back in Central New York and we rove to the Diva meeting together. Where I got my second jolt of creative stimulation. Sharon who is going to graduate school had lots to share. Photos, prints and quilts as she prepares for the many art shows she partisipates in during the summer. She is one busy gal.
Donna is taking a class in Spirit Cards and this a shot of one of them. I am sorry that there is so much glaire here. I like too how all the groups I belong to are so accepting of a wide varitey of different materials as well as styles.
Anne peresented this finished piece at the meeting too. I think the machine work really adds a lot of secondary interest to the surface. I admire how she uses her fabrics.
Susan spent six weeks in Mexico and she built this day journal of that event. She challenged herself to try lots of different techniques on six inch pellon squares with each square representing an event for each day of the trip. I think it is a wonderful way to stay on track and to be creative at the same time. This close up shows foil she found in Mexico behind the painted and cut out pellon sheet.
The FAB group meant this week as well. I taught them how to make silk paper. This shot shows Victoria working at that. Nancy made clouds with the silk roving that she intends to use on her new bed room quilt as a part of the sky.
Victoria and I are in a color class later this summer. She is preparing for that by doing a bit of progressive dying for that project. I think this color run is great. It will be fun to use them in class later.
Patti is the owner of a new pin loom and she has been weaving away. She loaded it up and started a new project during our meeting. I can hardly wait to see the finished piece.
I like all the color that she is using here. With all the visiting going on, I did not do much work on my own stuff. I am OK with that one needs to fill the well every now and then.
Progress
Three Trees and a Singer 21″ x21″ $80.00
Report: Three Trees and a Singer The title of this quilt has changed from just Three Trees to the new one because I added a black bird. It is very small in this image, but it is there on the far left tree about half way up. I added the bird last because I thought the work needed a little reason to look with a bit more care.
The bird is in this closeup. The trees are all based on pictures I took in the winter of trees in my backyard. The trees are all full of leaves now I am glad to say. The photo to the left here shows all three techniques that I used to create the trees. The brown is a wool I started with and the black is yarn that I stitched down on top of the wool. Then after I had stitched together i sewed it to the background. Then I loaded the bobbin with thick tread and from the back I free motion drew the limbs onto the surface of the quilt. I enjoyed creating this quilt.
Daily News ( Formerly Daily’s) These are the last of my Daily’s. I say that because I feel I have learned what I needed to from this project. I am calling the work Daily News because I worked on the pieces every evening during the time the news was on TV. Now I have to figure how what to do with the pieces I have created. I have 240 four and half inch squares. They are not finished so this can’t be the end. I do not want them to simply end up in a box and I do not want to simply sew them together as I have enjoyed placing them next to one another in various arrangements. I am thinking of several possible solutions and I will spent this week making my final decision about that during this time. That and planning the next possible mini challenge.
I hope the week ahead is full of good creative time for all.
It is good to be home and after I recovered from my jet lag I enjoyed getting back into the studio and working. I think having something partly finished helped me get started too. So I will jump into the Progress Report.
Progress Report: Foundations XIX Mossy Stone As this image shows I am now done with this quilt. I am not sure about how to declare the size, but have settled on measuring the distance at the longest points to come up with the numbers. This quilt has a very large number of fabrics in it as well as threads, yarns and some silk paper. I enjoy the extensive thread work that finishing the quilts in this series requires. The thread patterns create nice direction and flow directions to my eye and when I get to that step it is almost meditative in nature when I am working away at it. I do not see the end of this series any time soon- it is just too much fun to see how many fabrics I can use and how many textures I can include in the process.
Growing in the Dark – Paper Quilt
Growing in the Dark Paper Quilt 16″ X 21″
I took a day workshop in using the Gelli plate on the weekend before I went off to Paris. I made a lot of wonderful paper and fabric printed images. I decided to challenge myself and use some of them to do paper quilts again. I have not done that style in over two years so it was a bit of a challenge just to recall the process. The Gelli Plate process is full of chance and I really like that aspect of using them. Paper is in the bottom section of this shot and fabric in the top- they do take the paint /ink differently , but I like them both. This work because of the nature of the stiffness of the paper requires that one work smaller. I can only roll so much under the machine arm. The paper also is a much flatter material so it goes together much more quickly . I added in some of the silk paper as you can see here and it works well with the other materials. I have pulled another pile of paper and fabric from the workshop to start another soon.
ThreeTrees This work is coming along. I made the base of the trees on wash away with a dark gray green wool and then added black yarn on top with machine stitching. I then trimmed the away as much of the wash away as I could before I submerged them in hot water. When they were dry I arranged the trees on the surface and sewed them down. I loaded my bobbin with brown embroidery thread and the top of my machine with black. I turned the quilt over and did free motion drawing of smaller branches in the trees using the outlines of applying the trees to the top as my guide. This shot of the back of the quilt helps show what I did. This closeup shows all three processes. The dark green is the wool, the black is the yarn and the brown is the thread. This project proved to be a very good way to get back into the free motion process for me.
Foundations XX- Asurite This is my new inspiration stone for the new work in the series. The first step is to cut the bucrum in the shape of the stone. Then I start pinning the background fabrics to the surface. I did the light area first this time and used two different blues and some hand dyed that had blue, white and gray in it. I then pulled a pile of blue fabrics that I thought could work and piled them on the floor below the pinwall. Having them at my feet meant I could pin look down and cut the next piece I wanted with ease. I continued building on the surface until I had the whole color areas built in. The next step was to begin to stitch and pin more into the work and start to build the surface. I like to work in this free form way and let the process guide me along. It does mean that I stop and pin the work up frequently and look at the work, but I like that step as well.
Spring Iris I am doing the free motion outline step of this work now. I was so happy to see the Iris in Monet’s garden and I took a lot of photos. I think I will try to add a bit of applique on top with the photos in mind. I am not sure how I will do this yet- but I am thinking on the process.
Red Canvas I started the painting process of this work in the fall as a play day with Cheri. Seeing the great way she used what we started that day at the Diva Meeting in March got me to pull the canvases I had created out again. I cut them up and then zig zagged them back to create a bigger unit. I then painted on top again to add more depth. I was still not happy. So I have now done some hand work and I think I am nearing completion. I added beads, buttons and some altered metal to the surface. I need some assistance as to how to finish this work so I will take it to the Diva meeting and get some help.
Daily’s I think I am done with this series as far as making the little units is concerned. I have eight more and that will complete the thirty blocks I have with the two triangles on them. I have done this daily work for eight months and feel I am ready to find and ending place and move on. I will take this week as I finish the blocks to decide on a way to complete the project and to think about a new daily or weekly challenge.
I have not been home 24 hours yet and I am still a bit out of it as far as time is concerned, but I enjoyed myself a lot on this trip. We got ourselves settled in at the Hotel Atlantic and went of a Metro trip to the center of Paris and walked to Notre Dame Cathedral. It is much larger than one expects and all the carving in the stone is amazing as well
as a wonderful interior. We ended up walking all the way around the building. We ate dinner on the south bank of the Seine and enjoyed watching the tourists stroll by us in our outside cafe. The second full day we got on board the train and went out of Paris to see Monet’s home. This photo is of his garden pool. There were so many colors and textures. All the gardens were so very beautiful with purple rose and lots of iris in bloom. I took tones of photos and know that I will use some of them as jumping off places for new work. You could not take any photos in the house, but it was a grand feast for the eye as well.
Then next day we went to the antique market. This shot of the diving helmet is only one of the many wonderful items we looked at. Jen is an a dealer and she knew some of the booths we visited. She was the only one who purchased anything, but it was like visiting a museum where one could get really close and even touch the displays. Jen was also our French speaker and that made our visit so much easier! She is fearless about Paris and willing to just take off in new directions so that we tried areas of the city that even she, in her seven years of travel there, had never ventured into. This wonderful sculpture was in the square where we went underground for the metro every day at the St-Lazare station. It also served as our marker when we came home in the evenings- a welcome sight that told us we were close to home. Jen had enough confidence in us to send us home on the Metro without her on the third day.
Went to the Grand Promade the next day and started our walk to the Louvre with Nepolian’s Egyptian Obelisque. The visual feast of the Louvre is amazing. We did see the Mona Lisa and spent the morning looking at paintings. After lunch we walked many gallery’s full of marble statuary. I thought this face was very lovely- but I have so many photos that again it was hard to choose just one to present. We then went down to the Seine and took a boat curse. We got off walked up to the Eiffel Tower along the river enjoying the parks, the bridges and the sun set along the way. This shot is of Barb holding up one of the scuptures- even though I did not hide the base at all. It is a good shot of how happy we all felt about the weather and the experience. Everywhere I looked there were textures and images that I just enjoyed.
It was 9:00 in the evening when I took this shot of the Eiffel Tower with all the sparkling lights going off at dusk. It was beautiful and great to watch. I was so glad that we waited until evening to see this and did not visit the tower earlier.
We went to visit one of the biggest and oldest cemeteries in Paris the next day- Cimetier Du Pere Lachaise. The stone work there was wonderful too. Every bit of land was packed with muslims. They represented about 250 years of different types of grave types used in Paris. I was espically fasinated by the ceramic wreaths. There were many types of flowers represented from roses and poppies to violets. The ceramic work was so very thin as these roses show. Many flowers showed the effects of pollution and were black- but that could be rubbed off. We only experienced one day of rain on our trip- that was on Tuesday before we came home. We spent that day shopping at all the stores on Avenue De Champs and Checking out the Arc de Triomphe. It is having some work done on the top so I cut that off in this photo. Again wonderful stone work here.
Every day we walked the staircase in our hotel. We were on the fourth floor and I just loved looking down. We decided we liked the back stairs the most as the wood did not seem to be as worn as the front stair. I did take my pedometer and we counted the steps each day. They were all well beyond 10,000 and one day we did almost 15,000. I loved all the different roof lines and doorways. It was a very enjoyable trip and I have lots of great memories as well as a ton of photos.
I hope everyone is enjoying a choclate chip cookie today. What a wonderfully silly thing to make a national day. Not sure of the origian of this idea, but I am sure the cooks approve. As do those of us who will eat a cookie for any reason.
This week contained the first Tuesday of the mouth so I had meetings. The QuEG’s meeting was great with lots of show and tell. Sue Ellen showed us this wonderful book/ album/portfolio of all of the fish quilts she has done this year. What a great way to present your work. Corrinie is not beading on this wall piece. I sure love the semenate. Linda and I showed the fabrics we had created in the soy dyeing class from last month.
Then it was off to the Diva meeting on Tuesday evening. Anne and Ruth had both taken a workshop with Gwen Marsdon. This first one is Anne’s take on the processes. I like how crisp and clean Anne’s work always is. She limits her color and uses it so very well- something that I could afford to learn a little be more of.
Ruth chose to try all the techniques and plans to assemble them into a sampler type thing when she is done. As is usually true in a class each person puts their own stamp on the final outcome. They both had a good time too.
Spring seems to bring a lot of workshops to all of us as Donna took one as well on Encostics. She came away with three wonderful images and I found it difficult choosing the one I liked best to show here.
Liese continues to wow us with her wonderful little dioramas. This one she finished up on Earth Day (April 22) and it is her statement about all the pollution in our Oceans. I really enjoy her little people- they are so very animated and full of life. She told us this work was the center piece for the dinner table on Earth day too.
This meeting marked my fifth anniversay with this very diverse group of gals. I so enjoy them and I drive home with my mind spinning with new ideas and inspirations every time.
Foundations XVII Obsidian 34″ X 33.5 $400.00
Progress Report: Foundations XVII Obsidian This quilt has many different fabrics in it. I used some denim from my husbands pants in one area. There is velvet, silk, cotton, taffata and nylon fabric here too. I made my choices based on the colors that I saw in the rock ( there are lots of reflections due to the nature of the stone) – it did not matter what type of material it was. The process also involved some fibers that I purchased years ago without any knowledge of the content or type. I was delighted by the color then and I still am. I am glad to finally find a home for some of them. There is some aposistory fabrics in this too. the textured gray black show here was on the piano seat Mom covered when I was in Jr high. I m glad to find a home for it too.
Foundations XVIII – Rust 26″ X 42″ $385.00
Foundations XVIII – Rusty This quilt has lots of old fabric that was intended to become clothing. The rust colored wool was purchased for an a-line skirt. I am still struggling with the irregular shape and the high point at the top of this quilt is still a problem here. I though I had it sloved, but that proved not to be the case. I plan to add some stays in to that section today. I am not surprised as there are always new problems with unexplored territioy. This first close up shows some fabric that I rust dyed. I did break a needle when I tried to free motion through the three layers of the rust dyed fabric. I do not know why, but I fear that even though I did wash it when I finished the fabric there still could contain a bit of residue . Again I used lots of different fabrics on this piece. Wool, velvet, cotton and the back side of taffata can be seen here. I am enjoying the process.
Maya’s Tee Shirt Quilt I finished this quilt this week too. It took me four hours to do the hand stitching on the binding of this project. It is a queen sized quilt. The free motion work on the blocks was the most enjoyable part for me.
New Iris’s This top is now ready for the quilting step. It is a little too much like a very nice background at this point so I will need to think carefully about how to go forward on this project.
Foundations XIX – This is the new pinned up section for the next work. I love the wonderful moss green fabric that Noel gave me a few weeks ago. This mossy stone is the outgrowth of that feeling. I feel the striped fabric that is the base for this one is still too strong so I will keep building on top of it.
Daily’s My storage box for these little exercises is almost too full so I think I will end this series soon. I want to move on to another idea as well.
Keep Creating.
Carol
PS I am off to spend a week in Paris so there will be no post next week. Look for lots of pictures the following week.
Happy May Day to you. For me May Day brings up memories of making paper tube baskets that we filled with wild flowers and perhaps a bit of candy. Then we hung them on the door knobs of neihbors homes. That was when I lived in a small town in Iowa and I am not sure if that practice still goes on today.
I went to a FAB meeting last week. Patti is being very propductive and had a wonderful rust colored ribbon knitted project she was working on as well as having completed this wonderful shaw on her loom.
We also looked at and talked about Victoria’s silver leaf quilt that was pinned to her studio wall. She is setting quite a challenge for herself with this project I think. But it will be wonderful when she is done I am sure.
Then I went to Angela’s where she and Linda were playing with soy wax for a second time. Linda spent the whole time doing the waxing step, but Angela did apply dye while I was there. She had dyed several things earlier that day and then added more soy wax and black dye over the blue to what she is doing here. I can hardly wait until next week to see the results of their work at the QuEGs meeting. There will be another soy wax day I am sure so perhaps I will get in on that one.
Progress Report: Foundations XV- New Directions This quilt is the first of the irregular shaped quilts that I have finished. I think I mentioned last week
Foundations XV New Directions 27″X 44″ $360.00
that there were problems with getting it to remain flat. The paint I add to the back to stabilise that some what. But I feel the there is still is a bit of a problem. I plan to take it to the art quilt meetings next week and get some help with that. I really enjoyed all all the color and the the many textures that ended up in this quilt. I find myself looking and looking again at it on my wall. I used a varigated thread on this work too and that adds an additional interest to the surface of the piece.
Foundations XVI Granite 19″ X 29″ $195.00
Foundations XVI- Granite I also finished off this work this week too. It was too far along to adapt to the off square format, but I usually think of granite in a square shape any way. Even tumbe stones are a slab most of the time. I do not think I have ever seen Granite when in was not”dressed” in some way or another. There are lots of colors in granite and I tried to show that with this project. I used mostly silks, velvets and satians along with the a few cottons in this project. Again I used lots of varigated threads here as well. I also used some of the silk paper with this piece.
Foundations XVII- Obsidian
I am only showing a close up of Obsidian as it is so close to being completed that the full thing will be available next week. I was working on so many pieces in the Foundations series at one time that I got mixed up about the number system. This really is the 17 in the series and not Granite as it says in the Categories. I will have to wait until I have another lesion from the computer specialist before I can correct that mistake.
Maya’s Tee Shirt Quilt I am to what I consider the fun part of this quilt now. I did stitch in the ditch between all the tee shirt sections. Now I am doing free motion around the images. This one is in the center of the quilt and I will work out from there until they are all completed. I only did the free motion work on two more before I ran out of time yesterday.
Necklace III I am still playing in this format. I love making the flower format. This one also has unique metal connections on the ends( the black units) They are old belt connections from Grandmother Ruth’s sewing box. I think they add a bit of glamer to the work.
New Work In and effort to push myself beyond the necklaces I created a new work that needs a lot of hand embellishing on it. I went to my texture box and found the silver fabric already backed with wonder under and added it to the surface of some of the watermarked satin I had pulled up to make flowers. Then I found the ground cloth with lumier paint on it and added that to the surface as well. I just kept adding until I felt that I could only finish it with hand work….. but I have not started that yet my attempt to fool myself did not work. At least not yet.
New Iris Work
This also came out of the idea box and I started it because I was in the studio at the end of the day and the pin wall was empty. The Iris fabric was already cut so it was just a matter of pinning up what I had already done.
Daily’s More of similar works as last week. I plan to work ahead this week as I am preparing for a week trip to Paris o n May 14th. I do not think I want to take this project with me, so that is my solution.
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. 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 so 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.
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 added 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 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.
Foundation 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. 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.
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 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.
Spring is teasing us here in central New York. It was so very nice and warm for three days and then we had a cold day that ended in a snowstorm. I am waiting for my spring flowers to appear. The day that it snowed I took matters into my own hands and spent the day with Noel in her studio along with several others and we made our own flowers. (look back two weeks to see Noel and Victoria’s first ones) It always amazes me how we human beings fliter and apply our own tastes to the same processes. These red, pink and purple blossems are Cheri’s and the black, tan and white ones are Noel’s. We all took the same basic materials and techhniques but treated them with our own unique “stamp”. Noel showed us how to create several types of flowers and then turned us loose. Victoria, like Noel had made flowers before, she cheerfully tried a complex rose type flower where each petal is made indavigaly. I can hardly wait to see how everyone finishes her necklace. I was so excited by the processes that I kept making more flowers for the next two evenings. I am sure I will have two or three necklaces even if I stopped with what I have. I did take the time to lay out one possible combination. It needs small additions like beads and buttons. I just keep thinking of more ways to play with these ideas. And recalling things I did not try yet like yoyo flowers that Cherri did. It sure was a wonderful way to combat the snow falling outside that day!
Progress Report: Foundations XV –New Direction I am still struggling with this project. I have added to the sides to pull away from the square format. Then this morning when I hung it on the wall- “What If” – hit and I turned it 45 degrees to the right and I liked it better- and even more so when I added to the those two sides as well. I try to always be open to what is happening while I am designing and wonderful things can happen. I will push myself to do the remaining work on this one over the next few days.
New Work I am still playing with this newest member of the Foundation series. This one does not seem to know what way is up yet either- but I am enjoying the process. I do think I will leaves this one in a basic square format even though I am trying to go beyond that idea. It is holding it’s own without that challenge.
Grove I am making progress here too. All the trees now have their horizontal branches. I have them all connected to one another but I feel that it is almost too much to take in visually. The blue below the trees is too busy as well, so I plan to remove it and try again. I just don’t know what will work until I try it sometimes.
Mia’s Quilt These green and blue pieces are my prepations for the back of Mia’s Tee shirt quilt. I am building the units and when they are big enough I will assemble them into the big back. It is a fun process from my point of view.
Daily’s I am finding time to do my Daily’s too. They are starting to really pile up.
Spring is really here! I went for my walk today with out a coat. I even ate my lunch on the patio today. It was around seventy and the sun was shinning. It made me feel glorious.
I had a busy week end as I took at three day workshop with Carol Soderlund( www.carolsoderlund.com) called Waxing Eloquent. It was about how to use soy wax and build up layers of dye on fabric to create great depth. We had a grand time and the three days flew by. In this first shot the teacher is holding my experimental piece. I had tried this before several years ago and I am more excited about it on this second attempt. I sewed the prepared fabric with to two layers of batting and normal thread on the top and a wash away( water soluble ) thread in the bobbin. Then I painted the soy wax on the “mountains” of the project and painted the dye in the valley’s. ( the work is at that stage in this first photo.) We all brought along a big supply of tools to apply the soy wax to the fabric. I enjoyed the old calulator plastic and the empty spool a lot. After the wax was dry we applied the dye to the fabric . This shot is of Linda who was setting across the table from me. We worked all afternoon at adding wax and color to the pieces we had started. This shot is of my pin wall in the middle of the afternoon. By the end of that first day the floor of the room looked like a magic carpet shop where the pieces “batched” all night long. We then added more soy wax to the surface. Things were really getting lucious at this point. This piece is by a new friend, Peg. The big circles in the wax were created with a sponge that had a hole cut in the middle. To fully use the dye, Carol had us layer the fabric in two and three stacks. I folded over several of my pieces and so I had softer second pieces and there was much less dye to mop up when the pieces were picked up off the plastic sheets.
There is a little problem with the water soluable thread- the dye also causes the thread to disolve. So before I put on the second layer of wax I had to cover the valley area of the surface to keep the white.
There are several ways to remove the soy wax from the fabrics. One is to iron the fabric between two pieces of newspaper and this should always be done first. This process was done with my work and then it was placed in a boiling kettle of water. All the milky color is the soy wax in the pot rising to the top. The water is then carefully poured out of the pot and the fabric is ready for a hot was in the machine. It is OK to pore the water soy mixture down the drain because the soy wax is a natural product and will bio degrade. I was surprised by the color change. This photo shows some fabric( at the top that did not have the color washed out and the thread is still attached) and the bottom is the final color of the washed and ironed fabric. The green color came from the blue dye added over the yellow dye of the day before. It will still be a fun piece to do hand stitching work on top of.
This shot shows several of the fabrics that I washed out at home on Monday.
Then on Wed I went off to visit my friend Ethel and we did more soy wax work. She has a wonderful electric Jaunting tool and I used it on just about all the pieces I worked on yesterday. I wrote several bits of poetry as well as drew with the tool. Great fun! They are still batching and will be on the blog next week. Ethel is working on a wonderful piece on her pin wall. It is about 50″ wide and 60″ long at this point. I love the intense colors she is playing with here.
Then the FAB group meant at my house this morning. Patti is doing this wonderful portrait of her mom. She is still in the building stage without any of the pieces stitched down, but I am impressed. She told us she is using the front and back of some of her fabric to get the tones and shades to match her photo.
Then we did a little work with the silk screen so the gals could get the hang of using acrylic that was thinned with GAC 900. ( a Golden product especially made for use with fabric.) It was also a chance to play with a deconstruced screen as I had used Elmer’ s school jell on the screen to create a pattern. These are Nancy’s prints. I will continue to print with the screen until the image is mostly gone and I can show the others the effect at our next meeting.
Electric 19.5 ” X 31.5″ $215.00
Progress Report: Electric I finished this quilt last evening. All the stopping, changing direction and starting sewing quilting patters made this project take a lot longer to quilt then I expected. I used the images I had created with the silkscreen print as my inspiration. I started quilting around them first to get a feel for the shapes. After I had done this it was a bit easier to create similar shapes on my own in the other areas of the quilt. The fact that my machine as a needle down position for the stop helped with this process. But there still is a lot of quilt were the printed images is not avaiable for a guide.
Out the Window This is my solution to
Out the Window 16.5″ X 21.5″ $125.00
the quilt that I cut in half two weeks ago. Last week I had decided to add the tree and I tried it in several locations before I decided on this final resting place. After I had stitched the wool tree to the quilt I loaded my bobbin with black embrodery thread, and drew in smaller branches from the back. The whole picture makes me think of looking out my friends window in Brookline where the next building was so close there was hardly any space between the two. But a young tree had grown up there anyway. The nine patch from the origional quilt looks like a near by window too, so it adds to that feel.
Foundations XV- New Directions I have been struggeling with this work for a while. When I took it to the Diva meeting last week Alice asked ” Why are you keeping these Foundations pieces square?” After considering that idea I have decided to try to alter the shape. Hense the new name on the end. Here is the process I am now trying to see if I can grow from an existing rectangle format.
First I add some additional Buckram in the shape I think I want to add. (I put the brown fabric behind so to allow the Buckram to show up.) Then I build up the fabrics on top being sure some crosses over the original surface and i sew it down as I normally do. I like the fact that this method allows me to change my mind a lot as I work. I already know I want to change the left hand side and the top edge. I will know better what the piece needs as I look at the progress.
Grove I did not do a lot of work on this project this week. There has been too many other things demanding my time. But one more unit was completed. It is also at the back of the stack of work pinned to the pin wall so I run out of time before I unearth it many a day. I only have one more tree to create here before I need to move onto the next step
New Work
I have pinned the fabric to the buckram for this new work. I have the detail to show that when I begin the stitching down of the piece I start near the center and do not totally finish even that area until later. That allows the work to change as I progress through the work. I had cut the buckram before I decided to try the new shape, so I will at least start out with is as it is and let the piece grow with the work.
Daily’s I seem to be doing more stitch work with the Daily’s as time goes along. It is still enjoyable and something that I look forward to every evening.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
