Category Archives: Stump Men

Adventure Challenge 2013, Far Horizons, Felt Work, Landscapes, Purple Trees, Stump Men

March 14, 2013 Day Light Savings Time

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Hello,

As I set here at the computer I feel like I am running behind.  The clock has been set forward for Day Light Savings Time, but my body is not making the adjustment.  I wake up, and can not believe that it is so late.   And that in turn makes me feel like I am behind all day long.   I am sure that the fact that my husband is on spring break and we are not setting the alarm also adds  to my slow adjustment.  Mother Nature is not helping either.  I am rearing to go when  it is sunny and nice-  It got up to60 degrees one day, but days like today when the snow is flying again make me want to stay in the winter cocoon -I call bed.  I the fact that I forgot  my camera,  and left projects behind twice this week also add to my feeling of out of balance.   Hopefully I will adjust soon and get into “normal” rhythm with the universe and myself.

Progress Report: Speculations on Value  I have spent most of my efforts this week working on this piece.  It is nearly complete and the two long light blue strips are facings that need to be flipped to the back and stitched down.  The fabrics in this quilt have been piled up together for a long time and it felt good to finally assemble them.   I tried a new quilting pattern on this work too.   Sue Ellen introduced the QuEGs group to a pattern  she called Mac Tavishim quilting  at the February meeting.  In looking over my notes I saw the drawing and thought this would be a good time to try it.    The stitching pattern means one starts and curves out to a comfortable point and then returns in a somewhat reflective pattern to the starting point, to then one  swings out again to the opposite end again.   This process is repeated as many times as you feel comfortable or until the space is full, then you start a second.   As this example shows I need to keep practicing, but I do like the process and think I can really use it in the future.

Far  Horizons   This very simple at this point.  I cut the original curved horizontal piece into three sections, shuffled and flipped one unit, then re- assembled the group.  Now I will begin to add lines and stitches as well as small objects on to the surface as embellishment.   It will be a textural play surface for ” add-ons ” and more hand  stitch explorations.

Purple Trees:  This work continues to move along very slowly.  I like how the trees are shaping up.  The new problem is how to bring the three units plus their grounds together into a final grouping.  I am inching forward as I do not know  what I am doing when it comes to how to assemble this work.

  South West Voices:  This work got buried in the fall in one of my cleaning frenzies.  It just surfaced again this week and I am now quilting away on it.  The quilting here is zig-zag and  some what reflective of the patterns in the multi colored fabric.

Stump Men:  I just keep working on the felting of this project.  This shot is of one of the roots.  I think I am nearing the completion of this project and now need to do lots of looking and thinking about what touches it needs to be complete.

I am looking forward to true spring and not needing gloves and boots when I go for my walks.   Those types of walks are always inspiring to me.

Keep Creating

Carol

Bird Goddesses, Felt Work, Goddess Series, Madum Peli, Sprider Woman's Twin Towers, Stump Men, Trees, Twilight Trees

January 24, 2013 The show- Goddesses:Text to Textiles

Hello-

The show is all hung.  I will admit that I am very pleased with how the thing looks.  As the creator of this work, I had never viewed  as a group.  I do not have a big enough space to even spread it all out in one room.  I was quite surprised by the fact that Lauren insisted we hang them all, and by how well they all worked together.  This shot at the top is of three of the quilts and three of Lauren’s baskets below.   It was a fun experience doing the work with her too as she was so very excited by my pieces.  She had asked me to do the show after seeing only one piece of my work.  This third shot with the pink wall behind it is in the bar room of the  resterant. She also has pointed me in several other directions for places to contact about future shows too.  It was a very up lifting day for me.   These photos do not show all the work I will add more next week.   I now look forward to the opening on Sunday.

Progress Report:Spiraling Out

Spiraling Out
43 ” X 55″

   This quilt is finished now.  I added a lot more quilting to the surface this week and I like how that pulls it together.   This work was  created do primary because of the silk screen material that I had purchased from randy Kennan this summer.    I really liked the action in the fabric  and tried to repeat some of the patterns in the quilting patterns I added.   The close up shows the decomposing screen and some of the needle work.     It was a fun project.

   

Twilight Trees    I have really enjoyed doing these twisted tree forms.  I am enjoying  the movement using curves has added to my quilt work.

Twilight Trees
21″ X 22″

I liked the new skill I am building and feel now that I am ready to tackle the DMC Challenge that they were meant to be a prelude for.  I sure hope that my vision can be full filled- but that remains to be seen.     Tree Men     I have been playing with the felt work tree too.  This shot is a partial of  two of the faces.   Thus  far I have done all the work by hand and so the green tool to the lift side is in the photo.   I have rediscovered that the black wool felted skirt that is the dark background unit is difficult to felt to.  I am glad that I need to soften the intensity of the dark so I am going to really build up the other grays and browns on top of it.  That will help unify the work too I hope.

Pele    I spent time this week getting this top to be flat.   I cut and stitched away several wedges of fabric for this purpose.  There is still a lot for me to learn about the curved cutting process like do not make the action too sharp.   Anyway it is flat now.  This shot shows the arms of the fire goddess drawn in thread  on organza.  I will trim away the the outside portion before I attach it to the top.   I am still considering if I want to add some more color to the arms before I do that step too.   I  do want the arms to appear as a spirit like presence on the surface.

Play Day Printing I spent  Friday last week printing with my Styrofoam stamps.   The Styrofoam is the thick sponge like  type  that comes packed around big items like printers or computer screens.  One draws into them with a welding iron in a well ventilated location.  I cut mine last summer out doors  The teacher who taught me  how to do use this technique was teaching a second class on the same day and I was tempted to take it a second time, but decided instead to just play by my self with what I remembered.   I think I got more accomplished too because I did not have to pack up my materials and  spend travel time to get to the workshop. This top one shows two fabrics printed with fabric paint on  commercial textured fabrics.  This shot shows more turquoise fabric with a Styrofoam  leaf stamp print and on the gray a stamp made from some plastic floor matting.  The white is a mixture and I like this piece of fabric the most.    This last piece is the white again with the last Styrofoam stamp  of the figures dancing.    I cut one set on one side of the foam an the other set on the back.    I had a good time and although I have no plan for there use at the moment, I am confident they will all go into work in the future.

I hope winter is treating everyone well.

Keep Creating

Carol

Felt Work, Goddess Series, Out of the Dark, Stump Men, Text in Quilts

Thur Dec. 27 Between the Holidays

Hello-

We are now in the space between the gift rush and celebration of  Christmas and the celebrations of new beginnings that come with New Years day.  I happen to be in the middle of a big snow storm too and that does give one pause as travel is not really a good idea at this point.  I fortunately do not have to leave the house except to shovel the walk so the post man can get to the mail box.  I will venture out and walk up the street to check on the 95 year old- Fred, but mostly I am staying put.       This week is the time I try to evaluate and be realistic.  To finish up the started projects  and to discard the unsuccessful things, and be honest about what seems to slip to the bottom of consideration and toss out the things I really will never go back and finish.   If I do have anything in the way of resolutions there are two.  This one about being realistic and the second is to try the 30 day exercise that I have been hearing about.  That proposition is to take a small thing that you have wanted to do like become a better  drawer, learn to use  my Print Shop Pro program, or do more collage  journaling, and commit to yourself to doing that idea for 30 days.  Then you reevaluate.  You can then choose your next action on this idea.  This sounds very doable to me.  I will make my decision by next Tue.

Out of the Dark
16.5″ X 25″

Progress Report: Out  of the Dark

 This quilt is a new work for the goddess show that I will be doing in Jan.  I actually did the first piece of this in Aug with Susan.  That section is the middle sized goddess that I drew in pencil and we made a photo transfer onto fabric.  The other drawn images are done in permanent ink.

I did the ink drawings from the images in “The Language of the Goddess ” book by Marija Gimbutas.   I really enjoyed working on silk for this project.

Painted Sands   This is another of the wiggle series and I am enjoying the freedom

Painted Sands
25.5″ X 26″

of this process.  The big painted units I did last summer.  There is also some text on thous areas from a stencil that I created.

The crisp gold line here is the stencil.  It is a part of my graffiti series were I was using my name as the element of the stenciling.

Tree Men

This is one of the old projects that I have pulled out to work on.   After trying out four different arrangement for the units I think this is the strongest one and now I need to decide what the next step will be.  It is hanging from the bookshelf in the direct sight line from my sewing machine.  I think this will help me look and think about the process more.  I do not hold any illusions though- it has been 5 years sense I started this so going forward may be slow.

 

 

Written Words  This quilt is again one where I am using the graffiti stencil.  It is

Shot of blue and green quilt with letter stencil in blue/purple. It is free motion quilted with the word Carol in many overlapping directions.

a bit easier to see as this time the letters are stenciled in a blue purple paint.  I quilted my name in free motion work in all directions to hold this quilt sandwich together. There are blue facings on the top and bottom  that I will pull to the back and stitch down to create a knife edge.

Jots and Joints   This is a new quilt top that I started this week as I wanted to use several of the painted fabrics I had created in my class this summer.  In class I   created the stencil- the line with a dot at both ends show here in dark green.   I am still playing with scraps from the silk scarp bag with this top. The light blue/white is  a course weave silk fabric.

 

I hope you are all enjoying the season.  I will post my 30 day effort  resolution along with my work next week.

 

Keep Crating

Carol