Category Archives: Creative Assistants

Collage Based Work, Creative Assistants, Diva Meetings, Felt Work, Label Cards, Pods, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs), Two Chickadees

English

December 7, 2018 admin

Hello,

This is a bit different way to begin my post, but it is where I am so here goes. I did this card in response to the weekly card challenge and I was struck by how what a big part of the English language is mixed with body terms. When we usually hear someone say ” Body Language” we are talking about how our physical body can send signals of thought or actions, but there is another side too. We often use body terms to describe the world as well. One can use the face to raise and eyebrow, eye the competition, look through shuttered lids, roll the eye, give a fellow the evil eye or have looks that could kill. One can put their nose to the grindstone, or use a sharp wit, be a loud mouth, have a sharp thong , voice an anger, or say or do something that is jaw dropping. One can shrug things off, or carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. One uses the gray matter, or brain power, can have a pea brain, be scattered brained or hair brained. A person can laugh things off, but heads with a fellow , be tickled in the funny bone , nod off or have a stiff spine, stiff upper lip and some times get kicked in the seat of the pants. A person can get side swiped, man handled , and piss his fellows off. Or you can give your right arm, put you toe in, split a hair, have spring in your step or a belly laugh, get hip checked, or even hop to work. My mind is reeling with the whole idea. It is a pleasant activity to think on and I am sure you will come up with things I forgot.

The first Tues of the month was this week so I had my meetings with QuEGs and Divas. Corrine shared her leather work. Dori showed us her new raw edged applique quilt. Shabby sheek is my style she told us.

Angela has been busy too. This project from childhood made us all smile.

She is doing hand work on her deconstructed piece from two summers ago. I like the colors she used. Then I went off to Divas.

This is Regina’s newest thing. She does love that Indigo- even her shirt is dyed.

I also meant with my friend Tanya this week. She makes silk scarves to sell and this is just one of her new beauties. She had about six that were natural elements works too. All were beautiful.

Progress Report: Southern Crows This work is 45”w X 56” l. I did the stenciling with Susan in March. I finally put it together and did the quilting.I did reflective quilting around the birds and leaves and then did parallel quilting on the rest of the work.

Two Chickadees This work is 12”X 12” square. I did the birds on wash away with machine drawing. Then I added them to the surface with machine stitching. I am enjoying exploring this technique and have learned a lot about bird plumage in the process.

Creative Assistants I continue to build faces with found objects and make up these little guys. It is fun for me.

Cockle Burs All the cockle bur( Noogoora) heads are all done now and they have padding behind them. I am ready to build the branch to cross the surface and begin adding the burs now.

Felting: I’ve spent a lot of time using the felting machine this week. Built several backgrounds with little direction of where I want to go with them. This is one is an example of this. I believe I can find more birds that I would like to explore and this with work may be the answer. These Dickcissels for example. They are ready to be washed out now.

I built this felted piece with a Blue Jay in mind. I have only just started with the machine drawing here.

Sisterhood Challenge: Totem Fox I have cut out the pieces and they are required to the background fabric. ( a Judy Roberts piece) I am ready to zig-zag around all the parts at this point.

Sisterhood Challenge: Nine Patch This challenge has proved to be a difficult one for me. But after several weeks to struggling I have devised a way to go forward, The challenge is to make nine units that go together and are independently created. This collage of Mentos will be my soft guide for how to build my units. The block are all 18” square in my case, and they all must have back and white somewhere in the square. I have cut by bases ( the blue)and decided to use this black and white print as my unifying unit. I also pulled two other pieces of fabric that I want to use on more than one square. It’s a good challenge for me as I am in uncharted ground as far as I am concerned. A good stretch and that is what challenges are suppose to do.

Card Closed MindsIt is good to be reminded to keep the mind open – no matter where one is.

Keep Creating

Carol

Creative Assistants, Daily Practice, Experiments, Felt Work, Fundations XIX Mossy Stone, Label Cards, Rain Puddle, Southern Crows

Winter Whites

November 29, 2018 admin

Hello,

After three days of wet snow, I have been thinking a lot about white. In this photo the door that is painted white and that is different then the white siding and the snow created a third white. Snow quickly becomes a dirty white with age and light can also effect snow making it appear blue at times. This is a good time of year to look closely at this color.

This is the second snow with more than 4 “ so I snow dyed again this morning. This shot of the pot makes it look like it is red and black- but the dark color is labeled navy blue……. only time will tell what I get. This shot is of the first snow dye that I did two weeks ago with yellow and blue. I have been home a lot between events the last two weeks and I have worked away in the studio. There is a lot to show for that effort.

Progress Report: Rain Puddle This work is 18” X 24” stretched. It is a rework piece. I started with this Mossy Rock that I created in my Foundations series. I did 27 of those and very few are of any interest to anyone but me. So in recalling what my good friend Ethel said “Carol, you make good backgrounds” I thought what a better background then a rock for a puddle. So I looked at puddles on my walks and noted how they appeared to darken the leaves and thought I could use organza and nylon net to create that depth. I also noticed how the oak leaves were all so uniformly cream and brown so I used them as my subjects for this work.

Daily Practice V This work is also 18” X 24” . It takes about 7 weeks for me to complete one of these works. I enjoy all the hand work that is a part of the process. This one also used a great hand dyed that I did last year with a piece of upholstery fabric that Regina gave me. This is the last one this series as I have a new challenge to do for my daily work that involves a lot of hand work.

Scrap Happy This is a queen sized quilt that I created for my granddaughter Alexis for Christmas. It is made from the box of scraps from Ethel. This is the fifth one using up her scraps.Many of the little units were created by her.

Southern Crows I am to the quilting stage on this work now . I am doing reflective work around the bird square and just building around the squares out side of that.

Butterfly Wing This work is nearly done and I really like some parts of this experiment. Others – not so much. I may just cut this up and use sections separately as it is a bit much all together. Little areas work so much better.

Earth – Waterfall This work is building up. I built this tree( on the left) and then added foliage to create the crown. I am ready to build up the stones and add the water now.

Noogoora Pods I just finished quilting stitch in the ditch on this piece. I am now ready to build the steams and add the pods to the surface. Hopefully it will not need additional quilting after that point.

Felts 1 I am building backgrounds for the machine drawn birds that I have been creating. This is an early stage but a start

Felt- 2 Because I have to give up part of my desk when I use the felting machine I like to build more than one background at a time. This is the second and it is even rougher than the first.

Felt-3 This one is hardly tacked at all. I have only layer in the base and will build color over the top before I do much felting on this one.

Creative Assistants I have watched some sports on TV lately so I am creating little faces on my assistants. I just packed away 30 of them that were totally done on Tue and did not pull them out for a photo.

Totem – Fox The Sisterhood of the Scissors has a challenge. It is to create ones totem and this is my enlarged sketch for that project. I plan not to use the traditional color scheme, but limit it none the less.

Label Cards: Marriage As a part of my thinking about what I was thankful for over the last holiday I realized how very important my marriage is to me. So I made this card.

Saving. At the other end of what is happening is all the pressure to Shop! Black Friday , Small Business Saturdays, Cyber Monday…….. and for what? Do we really need more things? I going to give experiences, Theater tickets, and trips to the Zoo. That way I can save MEMORIEs instead of spend money of things that really do not matter.

Keep Creating,

Carol

Birds, Creative Assistants, Crow Calls, Daily Practice, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Feed you soul, Felt Work, FOX, Label Cards, Sisterhood of the Scissors, Thousand words, Wildfire, Word Forms

Good News

October 19, 2018 admin

Hello,

This work is in the Quilts unlimited Show in Old Forge NY. I got a letter in the mail this week that told me this work won a Judges Choice award. I am delighted.

Other events happened this week as well. Tanya came to visit and we talked of dyeing. She is working with silk and experimentally dyeing with different materials. I love the colors she The big event was yesterday and it was my first meeting with the Sisterhood of the Scissors. It was a play day at Regina’s house. Everyone just did their own thing.

Wendy spent her time at the meeting working on shome stitchery. Several gals worked on their weaving.

They both had handmade looms.

one can see the image of her dog under this weaving. It will be great.

Regina is mixing her indigo dyed doily and a rust dyed one.I dyed with shaving cream and put a few items into Regina’s Dye pot. We had a good time and d to the next meeting.

Progress Report: FOX This work is 25.5” w X 4hhh. I am finally finished with this work. I used some of my hand dyed.

The modeled orange red here is that fabric. The background with the greens is one of the fabrics I inherited from Ethel. Her influence just keeps going in my life.

Wildfire- I am now done with the free motion quilting on this piece. It sure seems to give the work more of a flow pattern across the surface.

Friends I am done with the hand applique and directive stitch work on this piece now. The glasses are from my friend Mary and the copper belt buckle is from my mom. I now need to purchase some additional stretcher bars as I did not mark the outer edge of the size and I filled the space allotted. So I will purchase some 16” bars and finish this work.The wool is from Tanya and the leaves from Pam. I got the buttons from a big tin from my friend Sally. Folks are so very generous.

Daily Practice All the fabric pieces are attached now and I am working on stitching to pull them together.

Felting I went a little crazy when I got the felting machine out and did four bases. Then I ordered more roving as I did not have as much blue as I wanted.

Birds The felting lead me to do some machine drawing and the Blue Jay and the Killdeer are the result. I will build a few more birds to

apply to the backgrounds.

New Work I started a new background using lots of my hand dyed stuff .

Creative Assistants I watched a little football this week and built a few faces along the way.

Label Cards Thousand Words I think this is a true and powerful statement. Feed Your Soul For each and everyone of us that idea is unique. Color, texture and exercise are some of the things that feed my soul- but I am sure that is not true of everyone.

Keep Creating

Carol

Collections, Creative Assistants, Daily Practice, Dance, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), FOX, Friends, Label Cards, Natural Elements, Wildfire, Word Forms

Dye Class

September 27, 2018 admin

Hello,

I took a dyeing workshop at the Schweinfurth for three days last week. Pat Pauly was the teacher. This was my second experience with this teacher doing a similar class and I learned a lot. My first class was shortly after I had inherited powered dyes form my friend Ethel. It was also my first time dyeing where I had to mix the dye. When I dyed with Ethel, I would show up and we would play. She had done all the prep work

before I arrived on the scene. So I learned a lot that first time about those steps in the process- But not a lot of what the teacher was trying to impart to us about application and techniques of using the dyes effectively. This time I feel I got what she wanted us to learn. There was lots of variety in what folks did in class as this shot of Jacquelyn with her work behind her shows.

Up stairs at the Schweinfurth there is a great show of stitchery and weaving by a Mayan family. It is beautiful and I would encourage any one at all interested in visiting.

On our way home Liz and I stopped and took a bunch of photos of this beautiful old barn. I hope to use it as a jumping off point for a new piece.

I have washed out some of the fabric- 30 pieces so far. I am quiet pleased at the colors and textures that I got from the class. I feel that because I had class with Pat before that I managed to put my own stamp on the work I created and did not just mimic Pat’s techniques.

FAB meant here yesterday. It was good to see everyone again. Sharon shared this nearly completed quilt that is part of a triptych that she is making for a friend. I lone how she added just a small amount of snow on the branches.

Progress Report: Wildfire This work is going forward. I feel I am ready to now add batting and backing and begin to add the free motion stitching to give detail to the work.

FOX All the parts are now stitched down with nylon thread. It is pin basted and ready for the satin stitch work to unite all the parts and move toward finishing the work.

Collections- Friends I am adding the individual parts to the surface of this work now. I called this work Friends because I am putting little gems that friends have given me together in this work. This trading card is from my friend Sharron.

Daily Practice I m still adding the satin circles to the surface of this piece.

Creative Assistants It is football season so I am working on Creative Assistants. These are ready for pin backs and squeezie paint embellishments.

New work I am ready to start a new piece and I have pulled these fabrics to cut and sew together to be my new base. I want to use the cutaways from several of my text pieces in this work.

Label Cards

Dance – Life is movement so thinking of it as a dance is a normal reaction. Sometimes we forget there is no real pattern that fits everyone. This is a reminder that we need to relax and go with in our personal direction listening to our unique theme.

Dream Dreams change as we grow and change with the events that shape our lives. We need to keep revising and believing in our dreams.

Keep Creating,

Carol

PS- I will be traveling next week so there will not be any Blog for Oct 4.

Creative Assistants, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Fox Tails, Pealing Oranges, Raw Edge Applique, Trust

Getting Rolling

November 30, 2017 admin 1 Comment

Hello-

I am finding it a bit difficult getting back into the studio after the holidays. There is so much I want to do that is not art work related. I am hoping that will remedy its self with time.

I did do a big trunk show at the Schweinfurth Art Center on Sunday and that took a lot of preparation. I discovered some themes in my work that I had not noticed before and that is how I structured my talk. I talked about five of them- Animals, Water, Rocks, Plants and Text. I was epically flattered by the attendance of my friends from all parts of my life. I did have fun with it and enjoyed the support I got from everyone. In talking with folks afterward I came across another topic that I could do a whole different presentation on- my use of embellishments.

There was a FAB meeting yesterday and we got to look at Nancy’s newest work. She will be making “postcards” out of these images from the National Parks for a quilt. More evidence of being busy is the fact that I am still working on getting the fabric washed out from the play weekend at the Schweinfurth three weeks ago.

Progress Report: Fox Tails This work is 12” w X 12” t. I created the heads of the fox Tails in the Experimental Surfaces with Amanda McCarver . It was a great class and I learned a lot. The background rock wall is felted wool roving.

Peeling Orange I am to the point on this project where I am doing reflective quilting on this work. I have decided to leave the orange plain and not quilt in that area. I think the contrast will add interest.

Zap It As the photo shows I have made the “It’s” a part of this work. They are just pinned in place and subject to change, but one needs to start some where. I ended up making a second “It” stencil as I wanted a second size.I am planning to hand stitch down the circular “It” add ons after a bit of quilting by machine.

Creative Assistants I really am at the end of making these fellows. I know I was avoiding starting a new hand project and that is why I did them. But I need to straiten up and begin the project.

Card- Trust I usually trust that good things will happen to me and for the most part that has been a truth in my life. But the happening in the world at this time are throwing a lot of question into my mind on this subject.

Keep Creating

Carol

Creative Assistants, Ethel Scarp #6, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Finger Lakes Fiber Artists, Glyph IV with Beads, Spring Whirl Wind, ZAP

Color every where

October 26, 2017 admin

Hello-

I am enjoying the peak of fall color here. The trees just seem to be burning with color. I was hard pressed to choose a photos to use this time.

This week was a busy one. There was a meeting of the Finger Lakes Fiber Artists on Sat. I collected the quilts for the show I will be hanging for the group on Monday.

Marcia shared the new SAQA magazine and her work on a new jacket. This is the small quilt Pat shared with us.

Maureen is busy doing Indigo dyeing for her class with Jane Dunwald. She is really mastering this technique. Liz shared her projects form her class at the Barn. She is learning Shibori. And I am of benefitting from this experience because we are doing more together.

Regina has been busy this month finishing things from her classes at QBL. The triangles are from her class with Rosalie Dace. The quilt at the top on the right is from Cynthia Corbin’s class. Noel is playing with different quilting and piecing techniques. It was a very stimulating meeting with a varied group of creative gals.

We also had a FAB meeting today. Judy was working on a baby quilt for her church. We had our own little quilting bee as we tied it off before the end of the meeting.

Progress Report:Glyph IV I am done with the beading on the W now. That letter is the center so I feel like I have made progress.

Peeling Orange I am to the point where I am zig –zagging down the parts of this piece. I will do all of this before I quilt it.

Spring Whirl Wind ( Renamed from Tossed Salad as the blue does not work for salad. ) I am doing the line green with free motion quilting on this project. I wanted to push the green back a bit.

New Scrap I started building new blocks and pinning up possible layouts for the sixth quilt built from Ethel’s scrap box. It may change as I have only made three rows of blocks and they are not connected.

Zap I have cut the dark purple in the ZAP pattern. I stitched the parts to the fabric and I even zig -zagged around the right one. But it pulled and puckered up the fabric so much that I took all that stitching out and now there is inner facing on the back. I will re do the zig zag before quilting.

Creative Assistants Another new batch of silly little fellows. I am working away during the football games.

Card- Some Days This card is to celebrate having a day without any event. Feeling a bit over done- I am going to plan some days like this in every week from now on.

I will be traveling next week so there will not be a post. I will write all about it Nov. 9 .

Keep Crating until then.

Carol

Keep creating,

Creative Assistants, Pealing Oranges, Pond Water, Raw Edge Applique, Tossed Salad, ZAP

Indian Summer

October 19, 2017 admin

Hello,

I am enjoying the wonderful weather. I noticed this Paper Hornet’s nest on my walk this week. I am sure it had been there a long time but with the fall of some leaves it was revealed.

I spent a day playing with Liz this week and we did some Shobori . I have never done any of that type of dyeing before and sense Liz was just home from a week at the Barn where that was what she was studying she was anxious to share. Before we meant she told me to make tucks in my fabric. So I ironed this piece and sewed down all the ridges the ironing created. We then wrapped the tucked pieces around polls. Liz then instructed me on how to do some free from wrapping without tucks. The polls were placed in a bucket with dye inside and we agitated them. In an hour the job was done and we took the polls out and unwrapped them. The fabric on the left is the one where I pressed diagonally( the upper photo) across the fabric with the sewing machine. The other piece is s strait tuck. These are the two pieces that I did the random fold and rubber band wrapping on. I love the effect and I have wrapped my polls for the next time we get together to do some more Shobori.

Progress Report: Pond Water( curvy cut) This quilt is 32 “w X 36” l. I put this work in the curvy cut category because the base is made from two pieces of fabric that where curvy cut and then spliced back together. The last thing I did to the base was slice it vertically and then shuffle the order before sewing it back together.

The round purple units are from one of Grandmother Butter’s hats. This pieces has a lot of hand work on it and because I only put my needle to work on it after I was done with the label blocks it has taken a full year to complete.

Peeling Oranges This is the last of the first glyph series and started with a few cut aways not used in other works and a smaller version of the word “Owl” cut in orange.

Toss Salad I am in the process of raw edge appliqueing down this work. I am not sure what way is up yet either. My mind is just starting to think about how I want to quilt this one.

Glyph IV The beading goes on here. After showing weeks of close ups this week I thought I would show a full shot of the sections beaded. When I work for an hour I can fill in about an inch and a half square area.

Card – Resilience This is a shot of my card for this week. I find it wonderful how the deciduous trees prepare for the stresses of winger cold by shedding there leavers and retreating into their cores for the winter.

New Glyph Series- Zap Now I am ready to begin a new glyph. I wrote out a lot of words and did a bunch of trial drawings before choosing ZAP. Then I enlarged it and varied the width of the letters in some areas. This word is enlarged to about 18″ square. Now I am choosing fabric for the project.

Creative Assistants Football season has begun and so has my work on these little fellows. These guys are ready for paint embellishment and pin backs.

Keep Creating

Carol

Creative Assistants, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Glyph II, Glyph IV with Beads, Glyph Series, Glyph V, Series, Wind &Water

Fall Retreat

September 14, 2017 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

I took this photo of the sun setting over the St Laurence on Sat. The FAB group had a weekend retreat at Judy’s Camp last weekend. Saturday we went out to dinner. It was so enjoyable to eat along the river and watch the many boats as they slipped by.

Patti worked away on her pillow case project. She finished all but six of them. Both Nancy and Judy worked on “Disappearing Nine Patch” projects. This shot shows Nancy ready to do the first cut of her four patch. We enjoyed our work time and in the evening we launched two paper lanterns over the lake. They rose strait up until they reached the top of the ridge where the wind caught them and then they sailed north on a fast wind. We all watched open mouthed, until they disappeared in the night. It was a wonderful weekend and we all felt the it jump started us all for quilt work this fall.

Progress Report: Glyph II This quilt is all done now . It is the second one and where I really started the use of the negative space units that were cut from the back of the project.( the brow squared fabric) I am enjoying this series.

Glyph IV I continue to bead for an hour every day on this project. It is coming along, but the progress is a slow one.

Glyph V I am doing two different types of quilting on this project. inside the green areas I am doing pebble quilting with green metallic thread. In the blue, green and purple areas, I am doing reflective quilting in a variegated thread.

Glyph VI This quilt is all pinned in place and I am ready to start to quilt it. I am however not sure about what style/type of quilting I want to use here. I am just studying it now too.

Glyph VII This is the project that I worked on at camp. The four smaller glyph patterns where designed to go together to create a four patch quilt. I am now auditioning different layouts for this project. I am not sure if this is the final at this point, but I feel it is the strongest so far. I try one layout and live/look at it for a while and then take a photo and try another layout and repeat the process. nothing is stitched down yet so I can make all sorts of changes.

Wind – Water card I am still trying to deal with my feelings about the newest hurricane- Irma. Mother Nature sure has used her power of wind and water to remind us that she still has the final say.

Creative assistants I have now completed all the little fellows that have completed faces at this time. I will now move back to the face creation step in the process to move forward.

Capture scarves In cleaning up the studio space I opened a box that was full of these scarves. All with out the fabric neck units on them. Deciding I needed to finish the process I have done these black ones and red ones. There are still a few to go so there will be more next time.

Label Blocks

Only two more blocks and this step of this project will be completed.

Next week I will be in New York City for three days. So there will be no Blog post until Sept 24.

Keep Creating

Carol

Activities, Creative Assistants, Ethel's Nine Patch, Glyph I, Glyph II, Glyph Series, Label Blocks, Label Cards, Pond Water

Two Trips

August 24, 2017 admin

Hello,

The past two weeks have been ones of travel for me. Last week at this time I was on my way to the the Dairy Barn in Athens Ohio. Liz and I were visiting Quilt National. They have changed the entrance and it looks great. No photos are allowed in this show, but my memories are rich. I was epically taken by Natalya Aiken’s Iron Spine work and then saw that she was the feathered artist in the QSDA magazine that came this week. I also like Colleen Anbaugh’s Hot Sugar Cell piece. Lots of glitz and Liz said it was like my work in some ways. Liz and I were both excited by the many techniques we had just explored in Kerr’s class at QBL two weeks before and noticed several of them in the quilts on display at this show. This fact will pushed me to do more exploration. The next day we drove north to Zanesville to check out their museum and see another quilt show. Liz has been in class with this woman at Nancy Crow’s barn. We both noted Nancy’s influence here. The museum was a bit of a work it’s self and I took lots of inspirational pictures of the stairs and shadows.I can see works coming from these images.

Then yesterday Eric and I went for a road trip to Corning New York to the glass museum there. We watched five demonstrations and learned a lot. The artists made it look easy, but I know from my one experience blowing glass it is far from simple. I also enjoyed the Tiffany exhibit. Mosaics are always fascinating and these were amazing. This clock really blew me away. Tiffany’s many recipes for the colors of glass were a real game changer for his work as well as the glass industry. It was a great day.

Progress Report: Glyph I This work is 26.5” w X 41”l. I started the series in Cynthia Corbin’s class at QBL this summer. The Glyph is based on the word OWL. I used simple outline quilting because the shapes and the colors in the fabrics( by Judy Roberts) did so much of the work for this piece.

Glyph II This is the second in the series. I have pin based it down and I am now zig zag appliqueing down the glyph. I will make a second run around the out sides with more zig zag to make it smooth and solid.

Glyph IV The bead work goes on for this project. I am stitching it down with beading thread and back stitching every fifth bead to make a strong connection.

Pond Water This work continues to get attention . I did bead work here this week too.

Ethel’s Scarp Happy I finished the assembly added the boarder and binding on this piece this week. I only need to do the diagonal quilting and the project will be complete

Creative Assistants As fall approaches I start thinking about doing these little guys. I pulled out the box of trims that Debbie sent me this summer and added a row of trim to 100 bodies. The last eve I did four faces. One small step.

Cards Ever sense I visited Susan in March I have been participating in a weekly collage card creating challenge with several other artists. It began loosely based on Tarot cards but with time we have pulled away from that. This is my card for this week titled Activities and the accompanying text.

Activities: 
 Over the course of a day we demand many little task of our selves-One walks, 
talks , comb hair, opens doors, turns on and off lights, reads, checks the 
weather, brushes teeth,  drinks tea, washes hands, sets, collects and opens 
mail, takes pills, writes, climbs stairs, prepares and eats food, ties shoes, 
uses zippers and buttons, looks at the sky, does dishes, changes cloths, checks  
e-mail, and creates something.  It's a complex life.

Label Blocks I finished these two blocks this week. I only have four more to finish and the job will be done. I need to start to think about another hand weekly project.

Keep Creating

Carol

Creative Assistants, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Finger Lakes Fiber Artists, Label Blocks, Nine Blue Iris's, Notebook Covers, Pods, Transparency work

Keeping Active

May 25, 2017 admin

Hello,

These beautiful Alliums where blooming in my friends garden and they just captured me when I drove up. There are constant changes as the weather grows warmer and the days are longer. One needs to pay attention to the catch those changes. Keep Your eyes open.

I had two meetings this week. The FAB group meant and it was an active meeting. Nancy is making great strides on her Mother’s quilt. I spent time helping her with the free motion work in the center section around the little sunflowers and the birds. She is does not have enough experience with free motion work to make it work flow for her yet. But time and work will solve that problem. Patti is taking painting classes in both acrylic and watercolor. I think that takes courage.

Judy is working away on her “Disappearing Nine Patch” and assembling it . She has plans for a second already

Marty was at the meeting too and she showed us the quilt she made for her great grandson.

I really like how the longitude lines curve just a bit to give the rounded feel to the piece.

The Finger Lakes Fiber Artists also meant this week. It is so stimulating and there is lots of interaction between the participants. This shot shows Regina and Sharon talking at lunch. ( the works on the floor are Sharon’s)

This is one of Pat ‘s rare small works – it’s about 16″ square. Her hand printed fabric really lends its self to a big format so this is a different challenge for her.

This is Julia’s piece in response to a collage that she did in David Horning’s class at QBL two summer’s ago.

This work is by Bev. I love how she breaks up a shape and re assembles it. The colors work well together too.

Then on Monday I went to Liz’s house we spent the day using thickened dye to alter the color of fabric. We both did about three pieces and will meet aging in a few weeks to do another batch. These are mine and I am most delighted by finally getting some pure white in the front piece.

Progress Report: Nine Blue Iris This work is 15” X 31” . Iris are one of my favorite flowers that bloom early in the spring. The old lace in the background here is from a pillow case that my Grandmother Ruth made . I am continuing to challenge myself to work with organza and build up layers of color. Flowers work especially well with this idea as they are so delicate.

Most of these flowers are three layers thick,

Pods I am continuing to build these little works. I only have enough altered felt to do two more and then I will move onto another project.

Jellyfish This project also is working with the layers of transparency. The colors do not come through as well as I had hoped. Not enough contrast here I think. But that is part of what I am learning about this material.

Notebook- Harlequin Paper

I made this book cover from the Harlequin paper I made last week. I fused down candy wrappers to black felt and then layered golden brown nylon netting on top. The work was then free motion quilted over the surface to hold it all together and give it a strong body. Making it into the note book jacket was the final step.

Creative Assistants I finished up another 30 of these little fellows this week. They will disappear that QBL as I give them away.

New Work

Liz challenged me when we were dyeing to create something with some of the fabric we have created together over this last year. I pulled all of these to do just that .

Label Block # 122 I keep working away on this project one little block at a time.

I will be away from home so there will not be any post for the next two weeks. I will have holiday ones to share when I get back.

Keep Creating

Carol

Cre-8

Category Archives: Creative Assistants

English

Winter Whites

Good News

Dye Class

Getting Rolling

Color every where

Indian Summer

Fall Retreat

Two Trips

Keeping Active

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer