Hello,

Happy May Day to you.  For me May Day brings up memories of making paper  tube baskets that we filled with wild flowers and perhaps a bit of candy.   Then we hung them on the door knobs of neihbors homes.   That was when I lived in a small town in Iowa and I am not sure if that practice still goes on today.

I went to a FAB meeting last week.   Patti is being very propductive and had a wonderful rust colored ribbon knitted project she was working on as well as having completed this wonderful shaw on her loom.

We also looked at and talked about Victoria’s silver leaf quilt that was pinned to her studio wall.   She is setting quite a challenge for herself with this project I think.   But it will be wonderful when she is done I am sure.

Then I went to Angela’s where she and Linda were playing with soy wax for a second time.     Linda spent the whole time doing the waxing step, but Angela did apply  dye while I was there.  She had dyed several things earlier that day and then added more soy wax and black dye over the blue to what she is doing here.     I can hardly wait until next week to see the results of their work at the QuEGs meeting. There will be another soy wax day I am sure so perhaps I will get in on that one.

Progress Report:  Foundations XV- New Directions    This quilt is the first of the irregular shaped quilts that I have finished.  I think I mentioned last week

that there were problems with getting it to remain flat.  The paint I add to the back to stabilise that some what.  But  I feel the there is  still is a bit of a problem.   I plan to take it to the art quilt meetings next week and get some help with that.     I really enjoyed all all the color  and the the many textures that ended up  in this quilt.  I find myself looking and looking again at it on my wall.    I used a varigated thread on this work too and that adds an additional interest to the surface of the piece.

 

Foundations XVI- Granite  I also finished off this work this week too.    It was too far along to adapt to the off square format, but I usually think of granite in a square shape any way.   Even tumbe stones   are a slab most of the time.   I do not think I have ever seen Granite  when in was not”dressed” in some way or another.    There are  lots of colors in granite and I tried to show that with this project.    I used  mostly silks, velvets  and satians along with the a few cottons in this project.  Again I used lots of varigated threads here as well.      I also used  some of the silk paper with this piece. 

 

 

 

 

Foundations XVII- Obsidian

 

I am only showing a close up of Obsidian as it is so close to being completed that the full thing will be available next week.   I was working on so many pieces in the Foundations series at one time that I got mixed up about the number system.  This really is the 17 in the series and not Granite as it says in the Categories.     I will have to wait until I have another lesion from the computer specialist before I can correct that mistake.

Maya’s Tee Shirt Quilt    I am to what I consider the fun part of this quilt now.  I did stitch in the ditch between all the tee shirt sections.  Now I am doing free motion around the images.  This one is in the center of the quilt and I will work out from there until they are all completed.  I only did the free motion work on two more before I ran out of time yesterday.

Necklace III    I am still playing in this format.  I love making the flower format.  This one also has unique metal connections on the ends( the black units)  They are old belt connections from Grandmother Ruth’s sewing box.    I think they add a bit of glamer to the work.

New Work   In and effort to  push myself beyond the necklaces I created a new work that needs a lot of hand embellishing on it.   I went to my texture box and found the silver fabric already backed with wonder under and added it to the surface of some of the watermarked satin I had pulled up to make flowers.  Then I found the ground cloth with lumier paint on it and added that to the surface as well.  I just kept adding until I felt that I could only finish it with hand work….. but I have not started that yet my attempt to fool myself did not work.  At least not yet.

New Iris Work

This also came out of the idea box and I started it because I was in the studio at the end of the day and the pin wall was empty.   The Iris fabric was already cut so it was just a matter of pinning up what I had already done.

Daily’s       More of similar works as last week.   I plan to work ahead this week as I am preparing for a week trip to Paris o n May 14th.   I do not think I want to take this project with me, so that is my solution.

Keep Creating

Carol