Two Steps Forward . . . you know what follows

This past week I “slipped back” a little into last year’s habits of sort of aimlessly wandering when it came to working on projects. I have a class starting later this week (Lyric Kinard’s Artist’s Toolbox at Quilt U) so I don’t really want to start anything new. So . . . .not a whole lot to share with you right now.

I experimented with some bleach and wood pieces and clamps; that was a colossal failure, so no need to take pics of those pieces.

All my sketches this past week were pretty awful. I haven’t felt well and I was forcing myself to sketch anyway, just to make it a habit.

I did run across these purple and green blocks that I had made WAY back when I started piecing traditional blocks. I started to stash them away and realized I was so tired of running across them, so I impulsively slashed them up and inserted some hand-dyed orange fabric, then sewed them together.




Definitely an improvement, but I’m not really sure what I’ll do with this block now.

So, there you have it.

On the other hand, I do have a couple of book recommendations for you. I just finished Mary Karr’s Lit: A Memoir. This book has been out for a couple of years, but I just got around to reading it. Karr is a brilliant writer, and she held me captive with the tragic, poignant, and funny details of her recovery from alcohol addiction. If you’ve ever know anyone who suffered from an addiction, you won’t want to miss this book. Even if you haven’t, it’s one of the best memoirs I’ve read.

For you Kindle people, I happened to run across Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart. These letters were written beginning in 1909 by a young widow who traveled to Wyoming with her 2-yr. old daughter to work as a housekeeper. I’ve only just started reading them, but Stewart is a gifted and funny writer who paints a detailed picture of life at that time. And, the best part is, this book is free for your Kindle!

I haven’t been completely slug-like. In addition to that great wonky block above, I went on a marvelous adventure this weekend across the web, learning lots about one of my favorite poets, Rainer Maria Rilke. Next time I post, I’ll tell you how I started at Rilke and ended up at Ad Reinhardt’s black canvases.

Paper Play

Yes, I’ve been neglecting my blog. Where does the time go? The days have been whizzing by faster than I can catch them.

So here’s a little review of some of the things I’ve been working on; no fabric, but a lot of paper and paint, some stencils and stamps, pens & markers.

First, from the online Mary Ann Moss class, “Stencilry”:

 

Can you imagine these stenciled images on fabric? Yum!

Next, backgrounds created in Melanie Testa’s Joggle’s class, “Let’s Exchange Some Art”. Can you believe these are made from old newspaper??? They are made using handmade and commercial stamps, stencils, pens, and markers, and they’ll be turned into ATCs and tags:

Time for work. Not the fun kind (sigh); the kind that generates the paychecks. Happy Friday!

Lucky Me!

I just found out I won Melanie Testa’s drawing for a spot in her Joggles class: Let's Exchange some Art: Stencils, Stamps and Grounds with Melanie Testa

Yippee! Thanks, Melanie!

I may end up with a bunch of art to share with blog readers as well, so stay tuned!

She’s a Doll!

I may have mentioned before that I’m an adventurous gal. I’ll try anything once (ok, not ANYTHING—I do have enough fear and restraint to check me in healthy check). When it comes to crafts, though, I’ll try just about anything (except scrapbooking: I absolutely refuse, for reasons I won’t go into. Oh, and PMC silver clay. Not because I don’t want to try it, but because I’m scared of getting hooked into another expensive craft).

So when I strolled over to Joggles to see what those folks were up to and happened to see a class called “Lyric and Laurel” with Carol Murphy, and when I realized that those cute little dolls were made from wine bottles, and when I thought about all the wine bottles I have lying around (not because I drink wine, but because my friends, who drink a LOT of wine, donated all their bottles to me back when I was making those wine-bottle cheese trays), I thought, “aha! A way to use up more of my stuff!” Plus, I like to do something a little different now and then as a sort of mini-vacation from my regular arts & crafts pursuits.

Here, then, is my wine-bottle-doll, whose name is Grace:

I happened to run across this quote about grace, and I thought it worked well with my “girl,” so I wrote the message on a piece of parchment paper and included it in the bottle:

Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too. – Carl Frederick Beuchner

Here’s a close-up of her face:

And of her bird:

I had a good time with this and now have a lovely muse for my craft room, and a reminder about the importance of being able to accept the gifts (of grace and other things) that the universe sends us—and sometimes, of the importance of reaching out and taking those gifts.

Addendum: When I added the label "art dolls" to this post, I thought I would take a little trip down memory lane and read my posts on the two fabric art dolls I've created. When I clicked the "art dolls" label, however, I was only able to find ONE of the fabric art dolls I've made. I've looked everywhere, and I can't find any mention of my other girl. I can't believe I've never posted her pics here! So, here she is, in all her glory. I hope she can forgive me for not debuting her to the world sooner:

Beading Stuff

I received an email from a blog reader complimenting me on my beading and asking for help getting started. I quickly pulled together some information for her, and then I thought, wow, what a shame that I can’t share this with other people who might find it useful. Duh . . .

So, if you’re interested in learning to bead on fabric, here’s a quick rundown of some resources (note: I’m sure there are lots of other great books, classes, web sites, etc. to help people learn to bead, so please feel free to suggest those in comments, if you like). I’ve pasted the email here with a few revisions.

Hi [Interested Beader]:

I learned to bead by taking a class at Quilt University (http://quiltuniversity.com) called "To Bead or Not to Bead." Quilt U has very reasonable classes with lots of great information, and I've learned a lot from them. Susan Brittingham teaches this class, and she's a great instructor, but I don't think she's teaching it again until January.

If you want to get a book rather than take a class, I would recommend Beading on Fabric by Larkin Van Horn. You can read a little about it here: http://www.larkinart.com/shopping/bof/beading_on_fabric_book.html, but it's cheaper to buy it from Amazon. My local library also has that book, so you might check yours, too, to see what beading books they have.

I also found a great DVD at my library called "Mary Stori Teaches You Beading on Fabric." You can see a little preview on YouTube.

I actually started beading before I took a class or read a book. I bought some beading thread (Nymo D is what I use; don't use regular thread, since glass beads can cut it and your beads may eventually fall off; however, you can use dental floss, I've heard), some beading needles (these are very long, thin needles, but you can also use quilting or appliqué needles) and some beads. Then, I looked up beading on the Internet.

I wasn't very good at beading until I took the class and practiced a lot, but it was pretty easy to get started.

I just "Googled" beading on fabric and ran across these .pdf files that might help you get started:
http://www.sewing.org/files/guidelines/11_380_Beading_part1.pdf
http://www.sewing.org/files/guidelines/11_381_Beading_part2.pdf

You'll probably find a lot of other information, too, if you look around on the Internet.

I hope that helps! Please let me know if you have any questions, and good luck with beading! It really is a lot of fun.

P.S.: I also just ran across the site Beading Daily. It has tons of information and resources on all types of beading and bead-making.

P.S.S.: To see previous blog posts about my beading, look over the right under "labels" and click "beading."

Weekly Square #23

I’m missing a couple of my 6x6” weekly journal squares; I’ll circle back and finish those this week (I hope!).

This is last week’s square. I was inspired by the Sharpie marker experiment (see the previous blog entry), and in particular one of the pieces of fabric I colored.

I was also inspired by an online class I’m taking, “Calligra-Fun” (thanks Fannie and Sue, for mentioning this class on your blogs). I’ve been trying for a very long time to learn calligraphy, and I just can’t get it. Every book on calligraphy I have starts out by explaining how you hold the pen “at a 45 degree angle,” but none of them seem to feel the need to explain this. Does this mean the nib is at a 45 degree angle to the paper? Or that the nib is turned to either the left or the right at a 45 degree angle? I’ve tried both ways, but I can’t seem to get the thick and thin lines to come out right.

Calligra-Fun uses brush markers to create thick and thin lines, so there’s no 45 degree angle confusion involved. It's not really calligraphy so much as lettering. It's hard to tell in the picture that there really ARE thick and thin lines, since I added some highlights and outlining.

Clearly, I have a lot more work to do on my lettering, but this is a start, and I’ve already improved dramatically with just a little practice.

Other influences for last week’s square: the relentless heat, and my feeling of enervation that has kept me from creating anything. The blooms are surviving in our flower beds, though, and my creativity is starting to bloom again, as well.

On a completely different note, I met my sweetie for lunch today. On the way home, I noticed a handmade bread store, so I popped in. I sampled the Butterscotch Pecan bread, and, after practically swooning, bought a loaf. Heavenly!

Hand-Quilting

I finished my hand-quilted piece for Nancy Chong’s Hand-quilting class at QU. I had played around with hand-quilting before, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. Here are the results, after I washed and dried the quilt (I love the soft, puffy look that results from washing, plus I had a smear of red velvet cake batter across one part of it):

Here’s a close-up of the stitching:

I discovered that I LOVE hand-quilting. It’s become my new favorite TV-watching activity. I’m anxious to try more, but I’m not sure where to go from here. I have a quilt top that I made a long time ago that I would like to try to hand quilt; I call it “Garden Path”:

And a close-up:

The plants and butterflies are fusible-web appliqués, but everything else is pieced, so I think as long as I don’t try to hand-quilt the appliqués I’ll be fine.

The problem is, I’m not sure what type of hand-quilting “pattern” to use on something like this. Simple, straight lines? Echo quilting? Circles on the center “path” part to look like rocks? I don’t know. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Weekly Square #8

This week’s square started as a class project for Susan Brittingham’s “Flower Power” class at QU. Because the floral quilt we’re making will take several weeks, she gave us a quick fabric collage project to work on this week, if we wanted to.

Originally, this piece was 8x10”, but there was a lot of “empty” space around the flowers (although the fabric was beautiful), so I decided to cut it down to 6x6” and use it for this week’s square.

I think it will make a nice addition to my year-long quilt, and it does reflect the weather we’re having, the flowers that are in bloom all around the neighborhood, and my general feelings this week of happiness and well-being.

This square, as well as the quilt I’ll be making for Susan B’s class, are based on a photo that Melody Johnson gave me permission to use. I’ll be showing that photo later on, once I’ve finished the quilt.

Here are the basic steps I took to make this week’s square:

1. Colored white-on-white fabric with Tsukineko inks (I didn't get a pic of those, but here are some more I made at the same time)

1. Free-form cut the flowers from the inked fabric
2. Cut leaf and stem from hand-dyed fabric
3. Attached flowers, leaf, and stem to background fabric with a dab of glue stick

1. Free-motion stitched around flowers, leaf, and stem with invisible thread
2. Free-motion stitched white highlights on the edges and in the centers of the flowers

1. Free-motion stitched veins on the flowers
2. Free-motion stitched the pink centers
3. Fused white dots on and edged them with Micron pink and green pens (not sure what these are—the little seed-like things in the center of the flower)
4. Fused border on and free-motion stitched it with invisible thread.

Productivity is Spelled T-I-R-E-D

Here’s my latest screen printing project; this one discharges a piece of previously-dyed fabric. I cut a stencil from a transparency, then used that for the print and SoftScrub with bleach to discharge the dye:

And, here’s another (very un-fractal-like) spiral; the pieces are fused on, but I haven’t done any stitching or quilting yet:

My plan now is to scrounge up some leftovers for lunch, then rest for the remainder of the day!

Making Messes

I’ve had screen-printing materials for a long time; in fact, I bought them back when I was working with glass, because my intention was to screen print enamels onto the glass.

Alas, I was scared off by not really understanding how to create images. All the instructions I found had to do with treating the screen with something then exposing it to bright light for so long with some type of really dark line drawing taped to it then . . . that’s about where I typically gave up and went to find something else to do (I have the same issue with the airbrush, which sits neat and clean in its nice little box, just waiting to be used).

So, I decided to take Lyric Kinard’s Screen Printing class at QU. I’ve taken a painting class online with Lyric, and I really like the information and ideas she shares. So far, the class is a lot of fun, and I’m relieved to finally be using my screen-printing stuff.

Here are a couple of prints using a newspaper stencil:

And some using freezer paper stencils that I cut a design into:

And some using masking tape (printed over some less-than-successful previous prints):

And some using a stencil cut from Con-tac Paper:

As you can tell, I’m still trying to get all the particulars down—how hard to press, how many passes to make, how to make sure I have enough paint on the screen.

And finally, my favorites. I cheated and skipped ahead to next week’s lesson, which uses thermofax screens. I had ordered these from Lyric and from Marcy Tilton. When they arrived, I couldn’t resist trying at least one on my own, so I used the “French 1920s Letter” from Marcy:

I have discovered that screen printing is really messy—actually, the process itself is not too bad, but geez! washing all that paint out of the screens! I panicked when I thought the red paint might permanently stain the porcelain bathtub.

Cleaning up the thermofax screens was MUCH neater. Of course, they don’t typically cover as much fabric as a larger screen, and they are MUCH more expensive than masking tape and newspaper, so I’ll have to show a little restraint, or at least hide the credit card statements :-)

My Girl

I finished the project for Terri Stegmiller’s Faces on Fabric class. This was a fun (but scary!) class; I love painting on fabric, but I’ve never tried painting a face on fabric before.

Once I put a certain amount of work into the wall quilt, it was scary to consider all the ways I could have messed it up while painting the face.

One blog-reader commented that she paints her faces first, then appliqués them onto the quilt; this way, if she ends up not liking the face, she can do another one. I may try that in the future.

But for this round, I had to work with I started with, and that required some rework here and there.

Btw, the flower on the left side is cut from what Sherrill Kahn calls “serendipity cloth”—you know, that piece of fabric lying around to mop up extra paint, wipe brushes on, etc. I love being able to “recycle” things in my studio.

My girl’s name is Penelope, which she hates, so she goes by Pen; her friend’s give her a hard time about this by calling her Pencil (this was funnier back when her face was simply pencil lines on fabric :-)).

TT’s Next Top Model

I’m still working on painting the quilt-face for my project in Terri Stegmiller’s Faces on Fabric class. I’m a little frustrated, so I decided to take a step back and return to it in a couple of days. I’m headed to Houston this afternoon; I have a Dr.’s appointment with the surgeon tomorrow, along with another CT scan and more tests. I think I’ll be ready to dive back in by the time I return.

In the meantime, I’m working on this week’s 6x6” square. I thought it was only appropriate that it should include a face, since I’ve spent so much time on faces this week. I created two small faces on fabric, and one of them will be incorporated into my 6x6.

Which do you think I should go with and why? Feel free to offer any suggestions for improvement on either of them as well!

Catfight!

Ok, just kidding, but it IS nice to hear family members squabbling (playfully, of course) over who gets this wall hanging:

This was the class project from Susan Brittingham’s Viewpoints class at Quilt U. She provided the project instructions for this one, and now I’m anxious to experiment with what I’ve learned and create more perspective quilts.

My family has made it clear that I won’t have any trouble getting rid of them once they are complete!

This is what I'm working on for Terri Stegmiller's Faces on Fabric class. So far it's been a lot of fun drawing faces and putting this quilt-top together, but at some point I'll have to paint her face. That's pretty scary considering that I've already put a lot of work into it.

You'll recognize that nagging voice in the back of my mind saying, "but what if I screw it up?"

Here are a couple of cool things about this piece:

1) Her t-shirt is from some shibori-dyed fabric I made a year or so ago. I completely forgot I had it until I started considering what kind of t-shirt she might wear; then I remembered it.

2) The flower and leaves are cut from what Sherrill Kahn calls a "serendipity" cloth. It's a piece of fabric I've had in my studio for a while, and I use it to wipe my brushes on, to mop up extra paint, etc. The other day I was testing out some bottle tips for paint, and I drew a flower onto the cloth. The more I looked at it, the more I really liked it as a flower! I just love it when my refusal to throw anything away actually pays off :-)

Musings on a Perfect Day and a WIP

Saturday was my birthday. On Friday, I had the perfect day: it was beautiful and sunshiny, and the temperature was perfect. I went to Michael's for beads, then to Barnes & Noble for a magazine. I sat outside and ate a cinnamon scone and drank coffee with cream (a rarity these days; I used to be a coffee fiend, but since getting sick I mostly stick to tea). I came home and created an art journal page with watercolors and inks (still outside in the beautiful weather, of course). My sweetie took me to Truluck's for dinner and it was wonderful. The kids brought me a cake this weekend and we celebrated more. I had a wonderful birthday weekend, but it really wore me out and I'm still recovering.

Here's a WIP I've been working on for days that's both easier and harder than I thought it would be. Easier because once I figured out what the heck I was doing, it came together pretty easily. Harder because . . . well, I couldn't figure out what the heck I was doing.

This is from a pattern and project instructions in the Viewpoints class at Quilt University. I'm really enjoying the class, because I'm finally understanding how to create scenes in one-point perspective.

Anyway, here's the process to this point:

Pick out a landscape fabric. I could have used a small landscape quilt I had already made, but I didn't want to mess one up. I thought about copying a premade landscape piece onto fabric and using that, but then I saw this interesting fabric at JoAnn's and, well, it gave me an excuse to buy it!







Add a "sky" to the landscape fabric. I cut along the top edge of the landscape motif and fused it to a background sky of hand-dyed fabric.










Copy the column and arch patterns onto fusible-backed fabric and cut out. Attach to landscape piece and fuse in place.

Select "wall" fabric (the premise is that this piece looks out from a room onto a landscape). Find the perfect fabric, then realize I don't have enough of it. Dye more fabric.

Attach walls & landscape unit to a background of plain muslin.


Wait for next week's lesson to learn how to do the floor . . . patience is NOT my strong suit!