The Canning Count

Peaches are in season here in Central Texas, so it's time for some canning! This year I made spiced peaches for the first time (instead of peach preserves), and bread and butter pickles (which are AMAZING). I also made some chow chow (I think it's also called "picalilli") which I've actually never eaten before and I'm hoping tastes good :-)

This season's can count (to date):

Spiced Peaches: 4 & 1/2 quarts; Bread & Butter Pickles: 2 & 1/2 quarts:

 

 Chow chow: 5 pints:

Still to come: more spiced peaches, peach preserves, and apple butter. Oh, and more bread & butter pickles, since we either gave them all away or ate them :-)

On the quilting front, I have way too many projects 1/2 done, so I need to finish those up. I'm also finally repurposing those paper towels I use to clean up when painting; I'll try to post more on this (and maybe a tutorial?) in the near future:

Oh, and Happy (early) Summer. We're definitely feeling the heat here in Central Texas, where we just experienced our first 100+ temperature day. I'm sure there are many more to come before Fall arrives sometime in October!

The Blogging Dilemma

Where do people find time to take gorgeous pics of their work, post them on their blogs, and write blog posts? More and more frequently, I’m faced with a choice: talk about working on my blog, or do some actual work.

Of course, there’s a slight possibility that too much of my time is sucked up by Facebook.
At any rate, I’ve been happily tucked away in my studio painting fabric and paper. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it!

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Guess how much I love my leaves thermofax stencil?

Back to work now!

Paper Art

One of the advantages to posting on my blog is that I have a record of what I’ve accomplished. It turns out, after looking back through photos I’ve taken over the past few months, that I did get a few things accomplished during the long summer of sloth. Remember the tags and ATCs I was making in Melanie Testa’s Joggles class? Here are the tags in progress:

And completed tags; these were (variously) stamped, stenciled, painted, and markered:

Tomorrow, more summer projects.

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!

Child at Play

Sometimes the best way for me to pull out of a creative free-fall is just to get out the art supplies I don’t play with often enough—paper, paints, markers, scissors, glue—and revert to that time in childhood when play was serious business (and vice-versa). No pressure, no thoughts of “what will I do with this?” or “how does this move me toward my goals?”

So, here are some collage/mixed media/visual journal pages that I’ve been working on playing with, complete with advice to myself:

 

 

Fun, fun, FUN!

I'm a Genius!

Ok, I'm not really a genius. But I do feel a little smarter than usual today, since I actually figured out (within the span of about 4 hours) how to create a video, edit it to add title pages, sign up for Vimeo, and publish my video there.

I haven't had much interest in making videos in the past, but I got my camera out to take pictures of my latest project, a "recycled" journal made from scraps of fabric and paper and all those little bits of things I can't bring myself to throw away:

Once I realized it would take tons of pictures to show all the pages in this journal, I realized that a video would be much more efficient, and that I could talk about the pages as I was showing them. Ok, so I'm a little behind the times, but I can catch up with a vengeance!

So, TADA! Here's my grand entrance into the world of video. The quality leaves something to be desired, but it's a starting point!


My Scrappy Journal from Michele (Textile Traveler) on Vimeo.

I hope embedding the video works, or I won't feel so smart after all :-)

Let me know what you think!

Catching Up

I’ve had a burst of energy after a rather draggy February. Fortunately, I know that around January/February my creativity tends to hibernate, so I’ve learned to be patient with it, confident that I can benefit from the creative “downtime.”

But the weather has turned all spring-like: warm, sunny days that make me want to tackle all those projects I’ve been thinking about but haven’t gotten around to. Of course, the problem is that the more time I spend working on projects, the less time I have to document or share them. And when I have lots of time to write blog posts, it means I’m not getting any work done, so there’s nothing to share (this is a corollary of that money/time conundrum; when there’s money for art, there’s no time, and when there’s time that usually means there’s no money).

Anyway, here are some of the things I’ve been creating/working on:

I finally got around to creating a portrait quilt, which has been on my wish list for a while. I’m using Maria Elkins’ technique here, which is a lot of fun and not nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I’m not particularly thrilled with how this turned out, but I learned a lot about both fabric and portraits that work, and those that don’t:



Btw, this is my lovely daughter, Amanda. I’ll be making more of these. I think I may make one for every member of my family, then stitch them all together.

This past weekend the weather was so gorgeous that I had to get outside. That always makes me think of dyeing/painting fabric for some reason, even though I typically end up doing it in the house. But I ended up creating some screens for deconstructed screen printing and then setting them in the sun to dry. Here is the result of my first deconstructed screen printing project:



I’m really happy with this and loved the process. I’ll be doing more of this, as well.
While I had thickened dyes mixed up, I decided to paint on some fabric:



I’m not sure what I’ll do with this yet; I may cut it up and reassemble it.
And, I finally got around to ordering some Citra Solv (and some magnesium, which my body is always low on, while I was at it) so that I could try a technique for creating cool art papers. This is a messy process and the Citra Solv has a strong odor, so it’s best done outside. Plus, a sunny day helps the papers dry quickly. Essentially, I started with a National Geographic magazine and brushed concentrated Citra Solv on the pages, then closed up the magazine and let it sit for a while. I squeezed out the extra liquid/ink, then tore out the pages and laid them out to dry (this technique was in a recent issue of, I think, Cloth, Paper, Scissors). Here are the results:



Aren’t these scrumptious?

I’m almost finished with this small (about 8x10) piece I started a very long time ago. This is silk that I painted after applying a resist. I stitched it with wonderful 30wt. Trilobal poly thread, and added a dyed silk border. I’m still debating on whether to add a binding, create an envelope finish, or stitch around the edges:



Here’s a sneak peak of a wall quilt I’m working on; you’ll just have to wait to see the whole thing when it’s finished:



Let’s see, what else? Oh, here’s a wall quilt I finished a month or so ago, but I don’t think I’ve posted it yet. This is reverse appliqué made from batik-fabric charm squares. I added some beads and hand-stitching for embellishment, but it’s hard to see them in the photos:



And a close-up:



And finally, here’s my 6x6” weekly journal square, #50:



#51 is from Valentine’s week; it’s finished, but I haven’t taken pics yet. #52 is from my birthday week, and I haven’t finished it yet. And that brings me full circle—a FULL YEAR of weekly 6x6” journal quilts! I’m excited to stitch them all together. Stay tuned for the final results of that year-long project!
And don’t forget to check out my other blog, A Year of Pleasures, to see my latest fascination with cotton yarn.

I hope the weather where you are is showing some lovely promises of Spring, as it is here in Central Texas!

Art Knows No Holiday, and Weekly Square #40

Thanksgiving morning I was cutting up some celery, and I noticed how lovely the root was after I had chopped the stalks from it. I couldn’t help myself; I stopped making the stuffing immediately, grabbed some fabric and some paint, and started stamping:

Here’s a close up of one of the celery “roses”:

I also had some really nice fibrous-paper, disposable washcloths I had brought home the hospital. I had previously painted a couple of those, so I grabbed them and stamped them as well. These are hard to photograph; because of the texture of the paper, the paint comes out very luminous:

Finally, here is last week’s 6x6” weekly square. Influences: Thanksgiving (what else?): “My cup(s) runneth over.”

ATC Details

I’m pretty new to ATC swaps on a large scale, so I keep forgetting that it seems to be the custom to describe in some detail how the ATCs are made. So, to embellish on any earlier post, I’m providing more information about how these ATCs for a swap were made.

The background is Tyvek that I painted with Golden quinacridone colors; I love those acrylics because they are translucent, but heavily pigmented for beautiful color.

The birds started with watercolor paper that I had previously painted with fabric dyes.

I stamped the birds with a clear Versamark stamp pad, then embossed them with ultra-thick embossing powder. I sprayed Adirondack color wash sprays onto the paper, then laid newsprint over the top and ironed the paper until the embossing powder was absorbed. The strips along the side were created the same way, but one set of leaves was stamped with green acrylic paint, embossed, then ironed to remove the embossing powder.

(Btw, I have an article on eHow with detailed instructions and pics of the above process; if you visit and read the article, please be sure to rate it!)

I added details to the birds with Micron pens. Then I glued the birds and the strips onto the Tyvek, then glued the whole thing to illustration board so that it would be sturdy.

I wanted to dip the edges into ink and embossing powder, but I completely forgot that Tyvek MELTS with heat, so when I started heating the embossing powder, the Tyvek started pulling away from the edges. I decided instead use a Krylon gold-leafing pen to color the edges.