Hello,

We are beginning to enjoy the wonders of summer.   These poppies are in Susan’s garden and look wonderful.    This was the first full week of June and I had three meetings.   QuEG’s meant on Tuesday morning.  It was a small group but folks had lots to share.Linda  C  is working on a baby quilt for her niece.   Elephants are the nursery theme.  Liz is working on her transparency piece and it is looking good.   Sue Ellen is playing with her collection on non cotton fabrics. And there is a row by row project in the works too.

I went from the meeting to Moravia and spent a wonderful afternoon working with Susan.  We then went off to the Diva meeting where more things were cooking. Donna has a new batch of mirrors that she has completed.  She sure knows how to use Fimo effectively.     Lori is creating portraits with her needle now.     Noel is doing portraits too- but with quilt a different bent.   Her fabric faces are stretch and very whimsical.

Yesterday I went off to the FAB meeting.  Judy and Patti are knitting like crazy and Sharon has finished her Relative quilt now.

Because of all these meetings I spent a lot of time in the car alone.   This plus sorting through work looking for a specific piece brought up some issues.     Susan wisely said of reworking pieces one is “playing with your younger self.”   What a grand way to look at the process of redoing works that do not quite make the grade.       Time away from work allows one to look with new eyes at the pieces and I often see things I wish I had done differently.    I can spot the problems in some cases too.   In my sorting and musing I have decided I will return to some works in the hope of making them stronger.

Progress Report: Perception Daily    This work is 30” w X 46” l.   It is a part of the text series .     One of the challenges that Liz and I made for our selves this year was to use some of the fabric that we hand dyed.   All the material except the dark turquoise fabric in the background is something that I altered.       I did reflective quilting around all the words after I had raw edge appliqued down the words.

Daily Practice I   I finally stretched all the finished Daily Practice work  this week.   This piece is 18″ w X 24″ l.    The base of this one is a piece of fabric that was a wipe  up cloth at one of my print sessions last summer.   The lace is from grandmothers collection and I hand dyed it last summer as well.

 

 

Daily  Practice II       This piece is 16″ w X 18″ l.      The base for this work is several  trimmed tans that  looked good together.      This piece has lots of buttons on it for textural contrast.

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Daily Practice III      This work is 18″ w X 24″ l.   The purple background is a commercial fabric and all the other material added on top is some I have altered.   They are also scraps left over from other projects.      I have always been fascinated by negative space and in using those negatives this way they become positive spaces.   Stitches and pompoms are the textural elements of this piece.

Daily Practice IV 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The  orange part  base of the  background isone of the  shibori projects Liz and I tried last summer.   The metal flowers are from Carol.

Rocky Shore I worked forward on Water – the class assignments this week.   The hand painted   sky and  water have been stitched down and the three different types of foam have also been applied.    One foam is made from Angelina, a second is florist plastic that was painted with opalescent paint and the third was a textured plastic ribbon that I ironed.     I will move on to the next element next week and finish all the elements at the end of the class.

 

Mulberry Memories    This work has become a problem for me.  I tried to put too much into the top for the size of the piece.     It has become impossible for the viewer to “read”.     Therefore I have decided to scarp this  particular  work and start again using the same ideas plus a few others and create two or perhaps  a  three units  to represent this time and geography  of my life.     We lived in this location for 5 years and there are lots of memories.

Ravens  I thought that this work was finished last week and I presented it as such.  But a  second study this week as convinced me that it needs more quilting.   The gals at QuEGs pushed this idea too.   So I am taking the time to make these additions.

Persuasion I have been busy doing pebble quilting on this  text piece.   I am ready to start reflective quilting on it now.

Dad’s Barn  I came across the orange and yellow base in one of my boxes from  Ethel.  I pinned it to the pin wall and it hung there for several weeks.  In thumbing through a sketchbook I came across of the old barn on Dad’s Farm and though I would like to do a work about that.  The two came together.  I also wanted to do some more thread painting  so I drew our some swallows on wash away and started them.   After the backs were done I added the chest and beaks.   I have learned that I do not need to do the legs as they are so slender that they do not hold up well after washing and they seldom are in the position I want so I add them when I put the work together.     The birds are washed and dried and ready for mounting on the image.  I need to decide how I am going to add one of them to the work now.

 

 

 

New Work I am trying to pay attention to shape and contrast with this work.  It is made up of mostly the cut-away’s  of several  older pieces.    Again my love of the negative spaces.

Label Cards Modern    I became weary of the word Modern when I was about 10.  I was helping Mom and Aunt Marci clean grandfather’s cabin.  We were taking  The books off the shelf sorting and dusting them.     I came a pone  one called “ Modern Science” and I flipped it open.  It revealed a drawing of  all of the parts of atom with the Neutrons, Protons and Electrons labeled.   Knowing there were more I decided to always  be wary of things labeled as “Modern”.

Self Knowledge     One develops an understanding that they are unique entities separate from others at a  young age.    But the real development of self acceptance takes years and for some never occurs.

Keep Crating Friends

Carol