Hello-,

The Chinese New Year begins tomorrow.  It is the year of the Horse. Folks  born in this year are said to be popular, cheerful, skillful with money and good  with their hands.   It sounds like a good combination to me.  One of the few traditions that I am aware of is that oranges are a good fruit to consume tomorrow because you eat the whole thing and that will bring you luck.  Eating something green is said to help with money items too.     I enjoy learning about different cultures in relationship to days of the year.

There was a FAB  meeting at my house today and  we did metal embossing.  We all ended up creating valentines and had a good time at it.

Progress Report: Lacy Roses  I seem to be running on a real high this week.  I started this piece on Friday and it is done already.   I did all the cutting of the fabric with my scissors instead of using the rotary cutter.   Sometimes the distortions were huge- and then filling in those areas proved to be a bit of a challenge to me. The starting fabric is the red print that I created with fabric and a paper doily.  I was a bit surprised when I printed this as I did not expect it to be as delicate as it is.   I enjoyed the free motion quilting of the rose like shapes with the addition of leaves and spirals on the surface too.   I used a variegated thread for the whole top.

 

 

 

Foundations  VIII    I am enjoying this collage like process of assembling  quilts on buckram.   As usual I did start with a sketch , but quickly pulled away form the drawing as I started placing the fabrics on the surface.     The challenge I presented myself with of working in the smaller format does change my approach as I can do the tacking down of the parts much more quickly. ( check the image form last week)   I again used silk paper on the surface as well as pulled threads and yarn bits.  I like how the raw edges play across the surface too.

Maya’s Tee Shirt Quilt 

I just keep putting in time on this project.  It is moving along.  I always forget how long it takes to created a queen sized top between the times I work on one to the next.   I think it will be a very bright quilt when it is done and one that makes me smile.

New work Green  I had so much fun creating the print fabric last week that I though I really should do a piece using some of the fabric that I printed.    So this is the second thing I started this week.  I pulled out the stack and this blue fabric from two summers ago and the green wipe up rag  fell on the floor.  I decided that I would use these two to get me going on a new work.   The blue fabric was printed using a silk screen and the blue Elmer’s  school glue.  It is water soluble and as I printed with the water based paint the lines deterioated.  That made for a changing image that I really enjoyed.  It was fun as always fitting the pieces and color balance together too.

New Work- Gold   I so enjoyed the challenge of the green and blue top,that I pulled out some other fabric and built a pallet for the next top.  The red blue and gold piece of fabric is one I created with Ethel last spring using a wonderful technique were one sews fabric to thick batting with water soluble  thread, paints the raised surface with wax and then adds dye.  The dye sinks into the valleys were  the wax does not go and dyes the fabric and when you clean up the fabric this is the result.   I hope we do it again some time.  

Daily’s   I am working away on the Daily’s.  The half circle  plus the double line serve as  great new challenges for me on this project.   It sure is fun.

Keep Creating

Carol