Weekly Square #6

Whew, I managed to get caught up on the weekly squares, and it’s not even the end of the week yet!

I decided not to use the piece I showed yesterday; I think I will mount that on a canvas or frame it (or both), as blog commenters suggested.

Instead, I fused spirals cut out of shibori-dyed fabric onto a painted background, stitched them with metallic thread, and added some little acrylic paint triangles and dots.

Influences for this week’s 6x6” square: Lily Kerns QU class, Fractal Fragments (she’s focusing on spirals this week as a common fractal pattern; beyond that, I couldn’t tell you what’s happening, because fractals apparently make my brain dissolve, so I’m avoiding them); working with painted/screen printed fabric (the background started as a screen print that didn’t work out so well, so I covered it with Setacolor paints); and doodling, which I’ve been doing a lot lately.

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 :-)

Paddling Furiously

Wow, what a crazy week. My job has been a nightmare--one thing after another after another after another . . .

On top of that, my daughter is graduating from the University of Texas tomorrow (Hook 'em Horns, Amanda! We're very proud of you!), so I've been cleaning and turning my sewing space back into a dining room (temporarily, anyway), which meant finding space in my craft room for the sewing machines, the fabric, the rotary mats and cutters, thread, and all that other stuff that manages to swell to fill up a space (it's all safely stashed away, and everything will be fine as long as no one opens the craft room door).

I was able to take a few minutes tonight to dye a couple of silk scarves. The first one is nui shibori that I hand-stitched zig-zags into; the second I tied into knots, hung up, and poured the dye so that it ran down the scarf. If you look closely, you can see the dreaded "speckles" of red on this piece, which really frustrates me because I mixed well, used urea, strained, and practically inspected the red dye under a microscope before using it.

Not much play time today (or this week, for that matter), but it might be enough to get me through to the weekend . . .

Full Plates

The house is filled with the aroma of the corned beef and cabbage that my sweetie has been cooking all afternoon, so it's difficult to write without analogies of food popping into my head. In particular, I'm struck by how--as is typical for me--my artistic plate is full of yummy, satisfying projects. Here are some of the things I've been working on since my last post:



I'm taking Ellen Lindner's online class, Instant Art Quilts. We begin with a high-contrast fabric and chop it up and arrange the pieces. The pic on the left is the fabric I dyed for the class; the pic on the left is the arrangement, which awaits next week's lesson on accents. This was so quick and easy, and so much fun, that I've dyed more fabric and started another "instant art quilt."



I'm also taking another of Marjie McWilliams classes at Quilt U: Shibori Dyeing. Last week we worked on "Arashi" dyeing, which apparently means "storm" in Japanese. and here are the results. The pic to the left is dyed silk velvet, and on the right is habotai.



This week we're working on "Suji" dyeing, which is all about pleating and folding. The results are below. The first piece is cotton, the second is a chiffon scarf, and the third is a piece of silk that I had previously stamped with thickened blue dye. Today, I folded it and overdyed it with a light red and a deep yellow.

WIPs (or, "Why I'm Pooped")

Things I've been working on . . . thinking about . . . considering finishing . . .

The pic on the left is what is currently hanging on the design wall. A large piece of fabric that I dyed using the rubber-band technique. I'm considering over-dyeing but haven't decided yet. A needle-felted pear on blue jean material, just because I was curious about whether I could do it. A few strips I cut off of the "fire" piece I did a while back in Linda Schmidt's "Elements" class (they were too pretty to throw away; there must be a use for them, right?). A piece of "fabric" that I made by stitching scraps, threads, and ribbons through water-soluble stabilizer. Another piece of "fabric" I made by chopping up scraps and layering them onto ugly fabric, and under some chiffon or organza or something filmy, then stitching all over. The problem with things like this is that, if I put them away, I'll never remember I have them and will never use them. If I don't put them away, they take up space and I still never use them. Sigh. To the right, btw, is the "water" piece I did in Linda's class, still waiting for a border or a frame or some method of finishing.

Other things I've been working on: a piece of fabric I painted with some green colors, then overdyed with rust brown. I stamped sunflowers on and am waiting for them to dry so that I can add details, highlights, and shading with paint.

A crocheted baby blanket that I started for my great-niece, who is having a baby this month (yes, I have a pregnant great-niece, but really, I'm NOT that old; my niece--her mother--is only 2 years younger than me!). I decided to give her a quilt instead, and have been working on this while watching TV; not much good TV lately with the holidays and the writer's strike, so not much progress on the blanket.

January's journal quilt--maybe. I've never done journal quilts, but am considering doing one a month this year. I'm still playing with the idea and with this piece, and while I'm thinking about it I'm embellishing some beads onto it.



And finally, a pattern from a photo I took in Seattle of a stack of rocks. These were everywhere in Seattle when I visited a couple of years ago, and particularly at the parks. I have no idea why people stack rocks, but I was enchanted with them.