Category Archives: Machine Drawing

Daily's, Diva Meetings, Golden Path, Maya's Tee Shirt quilt, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs), Scrap Happy Quilts, Tee Shirt Quilts

Snow February 6, 2014

February 6, 2014 admin

Hello,

It is a snowed like crazy yesterday and I just could not stay in doors. I had a good time waking in the deep snow. The going was slow as there was about 10 inches of new snow on the ground and it was falling very thick and fast. I walked a block from home and looked back- I could not see the house. I did enjoy the way the fire plug and several small pine trees seemed to be wearing pointed snow hats. I helped push a gal out of her driveway and the snow plow did pass by before I got home form my short walk. It is getting difficult to find joy in this long winter. But I console myself by remembering that this too will pass. The QuEGs group meant on Tuesday. There were only four of us but it was still a good time. Sally is doing some amazing stuff with her embroidery machine. She programed and stitched all of these bags herself. She said she wanted to test thread and needles. There was also a Diva meeting on Tuesday evening and again it was very stimulating. There is so much variety going on in the group it is hard to keep up. Cheri is exploring painting on canvas and really starting to make it her own thing now I think. She not only adds hand dyed fabric on top in a collage like process she is also doing lots of hand stitching on top too.

Lori is doing a wonderful job mixing machine work with hand embroidery on silk. This piece will be a real WOW when it is done. There are two folks exploring book making processes at the moment. Liese is working on a book with individual hand made fabric pages- she is not sure how it will go together at this point. Several pages are sun prints. One is marbaleized, and some are collaged. It is an engineering problem now. The other book worker is Alice. She is using an accordion book format for her works. One book is titled “We Love the Sky” and sun rise to moon rise are represented in her book as one continuing diorama . This image is of rain and storm followed by the rainbow. Her second work is titled ” We Love the Woods” and it too is in the diorama layout. I love how she mixes her painted parts with commercal fabrics and images. I find her trees really strong. Sandy is busy doing wonderful hooking projects. She has two works that are both landscapes that work as a set or stand alone. Her mix of sliced wool and yarn do wonderful things together is powerful. The work in small but this style works for her busy life at the moment. Anne went to a work shop in Vermont with Cynthia Corbin called Emerging Styles. She came home with a wonderful pile of great started projects. She discovered how important light is to her way of creating and that has pushed her into a new direction. I can hardly wait to see how this develops. Noel likes to use silk in her work and although this is an older piece it shows her wonderful handling of this some what difficult material. She does not fuse the silk to any thing either and that allows her to distort the material in the manner this shows. Ruth is still working away on her African symbols project. She is ready to begin quilting on this work now. I think it is very strong graphically. Needless to say I am all excited by all these wonderful works and ready to charge forward. I am so very fortuniate to belong to two powerful groups of creative folks.

Golden Path 29" X 30" $ 305.00 — Golden Path
29″ X 30″
$ 305.00

Progress Report: Golden Path This quilt really seemed to come together without much in put by me. I had all the stripped sections left over from another project and they were in the bottom of a box. When I came across the red, gold, and blue fabric last week it just seemed to pull the other fabrics with it. The big gold and white chunks of fabric are from the printing day I did a few weeks ago. I looked at the surface of this quilt a long time before I started quilting it. I decided to emphasize the square shapes in the center using a Greek Key pattern. I started quilting in the center making first one key and then another connected to the first using variegated yellow thread. I then stared outside the second squared area and built a second set of units. I continued to build until I had about a dozen keys and by then I had worked for an hour on the project. So I stopped. Before I began work the next day I looked critically at the work. It needed a bit of punch so I added a row of gold thread in an outline pattern all the way around all the created units. Thus the name – Golden Path- as it just leads one around the center units. I then switched back to the yellow and repeated the same procedure as the day before. I then added as second out line of gold and retuned to the yellow keys to the out side of the quilt. I am pleased with the results.

Rounding Up Green I am quilting away on this quilt now. I am using the same idea as I applied to Golden Path only I am using spirals. I create one and then from it I spiral out and create a smaller one next to the first and keep building the pattern out from the center of the work. I will not add a row of gold thread however. It is working without that addition.

Maya’s Tee Shirt Quilt I continue to work away on Maya’s quilt. I now have three rows completed. It is getting bit difficult to handle on the pin wall. I still have two rows to construct and then it will be time to start a back.

Scarp Happy I have been working on putting together scraps for about a mouth now. I decided to give myself a break for that and build a top out of the work. I cut the pieces into long 2.5″ widths and then added those pieces to 4.5″ centers. There are blocks with an Egyptian print center and blocks with a red print center . I am now ready to start creating rows for the top of this quilt.

New work-purple and pink I think the cold and whiteness of the weather is effecting my leaning toward spring colors at the moment. This one is just starting to come together. I am going to try to work in the 18″ X 24 ” format again. This is my first return to that format.

New work spring

I pulled out the fabric for this project yesterday during the storm in the morning. Again I think this is my attempt to think about spring instead of the cold all around me.

New work Foundations IX

This is a close up of the new work on the next Foundations piece. It too will be on a smaller format. All the green thread is unraveled silk thread from a woven section of fabric. The solid green and blue are silk papers.

Daily’s I do my Daily’s when I watch the news in the evening. I have been following that practice for a while now and my attitude about the news is much more mellow.

Keep Creating

Carol

Daily's, Lacy Roses, Maya's Tee Shirt Quitl

Happy Chinese New Year January 30, 2014

January 30, 2014 admin

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.

Lace Roses 21" X 26.5" $ 195.00 — Lace Roses
21″ X 26.5″
$ 195.00

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

Charlottes Shadow 2, Daily's, Foundations VII Fragments, I'd Reconsider, Pomegranate

Moon Light January 16, 2014

January 16, 2014 admin

Hello,

Tonight is the full moon, but last evenings moon light was beautiful too. The light was so silvery white through the sky light that I had to go to the window and look out. Most of the snow had melted, but there was still one drift in the back yard. The tree limbs cast beautiful blue gray shadows across the snow and my mind catalogued the colors and patterns for a new work. This morning I did a sketch of the idea so I would not lose the feeling. I can hardly wait until I have time to begin this new project.

Pomegranate 33" X 46" $535.00 — Pomegranate
33″ X 46″
$535.00

Progress Report: Pomegranate I am quite pleased with how this quilt ended up. All the shadow quilting around the fruit did have a pull on the seams- but I minimized it as much as possible by sewing in one direction all the way around and then doing the next pass in the opposite direction. All this action made for very slow work. I also added a spike every now and then to the pattern so there were some strait sewing lines too. I also tried a little experiment with the paint on this project. To give the fruit a little more “punch” I painted clear fingernail polish over some of the red seeds. I really like the transparency of the paint on this piece. It adds to the interest of this work for me. The paint is fabric paint.

I'd Reconsider 16" X 25.5" $145.00 — I’d Reconsider
16″ X 25.5″
$145.00

I’d Reconsider I spent a lot of time looking at this quilt before I started quilting on it. Titles are always a difficult thing for me. I had been calling this work Sunshine and Rust- but looking carefully at the surface-working out the quilt pattern- I noticed the eye shapes in the printed fabric. I decided to use those shapes as a starting place for the quilting. The shape was so easy to quilt and just seemed to flow across the surface of the work. Then when I started altering the size of the eyes to fill in the space it was even an easier process for me. It took on a life of its own and I went with that feeling. When it was all done the title of Sunshine and Rust seemed to be a major miss fit. “I’d Reconsider” seems to work a lot better for me. I have learned that I will not title a work until it is totally finished from this point forward.

Charlotte’s Shadow II I am to the quilting stage of this work now too. It is going to be more in the nature of the fabric that is the main material for this series. I have started adding leaves and finishing flowers on the top at this point. I will keep working away in this type of style until I have completed the work.

Charlotte’s Shadow III This is the third and final quilt in this series. As this shot shows I have only begun to pin some parts to the wall. I will shuffle them a bit before I begin to put it together.

Foundations VII- Fragments I am still quilting away on this work. It was pinned to the pin wall and when I came into the room before I turned on the lights yesterday morning I looked at the piece. With all the color washed to darks and lights by the laque of light I suddenly saw a section of the quilt that was not working at all. I had created a whole in the upper left hand side by surrounding a section with darks. When I turned the light on it was still there. My eye is still drawn to that flaw so I will begin the correction today. That is one really paint/college like quality of this construction method. I will build over the area that I find offensive a with layers of organza so I can keep the texture. This shot shows how I am building texture with yarn in one of the areas of this quilt.

Tee Shirt I have a new commission piece. It is a tee shirt quilt. All the images have been mounted on inner facing so they will remain square when they are seamed together. Sewing on double knit fabric is always tricky. I am now ready to lay them out and add the sassing to them so they are uniform in size- like building a log cabin block. That step will make assembly easy and simple.

Quilt Daily’s I believe the daily’s are getting more complex with time.

Keep your eyes open to the beauty around you.

Hugs

Carol

Blue Yonder, Daily's, Diva Meetings, Oak Leaves, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs)

November 7, 2013

November 7, 2013 admin 2 Comments

Hello,

The weather is still somewhat mild here. I find because I am working on the quilt with the oak leaves on it I am looking more at other oak trees too. This one is in the Oak Wood Cemetery were I walk some days. I Have noticed how different trees have differnt colorations. This old one is a deep red. The one along the drive is primary yellow- but that is only at the bottom, now as the top has turned brown. I have also observed that there are many different shapes to the leaves. I know that has to do with species differences. Some leaves are very sharply pointed like the one in my yard and some are all curves ends. I picked up one in the parking lot in Ithaca yesterday and not only were the ends of the leaves very curved the leaf had a really deep dip, almost to the spine, after the first vain from the base of the leaf. Mother Nature loves variation on a theme. I may have to get a tree book and do some serious study.

This week was the first full week of November and so I had my group meetings on Tue. Both were very exciting. The QUEGs group had severl members who had be to the big quilt show in Houston and they had lots of wonderful pictures and gadets to share. The Diva’s were inspirational too. Everyone seems to be so energized with lots to share. Ruth is working on a project using African simbiles as the bases for the block. This one sure is bold. She had also created a wonderful study using her style of expertly mixing batikand hand dyed fabrics. Cindy shared her amazing prints. She did them with the big Gelly Plate. She is now going back into the work and adding machine stitching in top. They are the faint red lines crossing the yellow in this photo. The work is very elegant. Donna was kind enough to bring her Alchemist Mask. I love masks and this one is a great one. She built it over the old store mannequin she has in her studio. The face is nobel. I like the life size doll eyes she put in the face too. They add so much in the way of focus. Alice is working on a Human Angles series and this is one of them. I am showing this image because she has a unique style of working were she paints the image she wants on the back of her cloth. Then she turn it over and lays a piece of black fabric on top. With the two layers together she flips the work to the back and sews around the image she has painted. So this picture is from the back. She then trims the black off the front along her seam lines and her images are outlined in black- her signature style. It is very cool I think.

This work with four figures is by Cheri. I especially like the unfinished edge she used here. They are a wonderful and inspiring group of gals who seem to be all working away in their own direction.

Progress Report: Blue Yonder This quilt is ready for quilting now. I have done my “stitch in the ditch” step after basting. Doing that makes the work stable for all the crazy directions I always seem to want to go. I have not decided what that free motion quilting will be yet.

Oak Leaves This is a close up of the project. I am having lots of fun making more and more leaves. I just love how the unattached body of the leaves casts such wonderful shadows on the quilt. They also flutter a bit when there is a breeze, like when I come in the studio door. There is a lot of texture here and I love that.

Daily’s The Daily’s are coming along. I now have a full cigar box of the little fellows and they are starting to look really impressive when on puts them all out. I still have ideas of layouts for the parts and shape and color changes I want to try- so I will keep the practice up. I also added a silly rule- no new purchases for this project. I am almost out of red embroidery thread so I will have to switch to crochet thread- I have several huge balls of that. I am sure that will change the character of the stitches. But that is part of the experiment.

Keep Creating

Carol

Curvie Cuts, Felt Work, Fossil Bed, Green Nebula, Machine Drawing, Red Nebula, Rock Face 1

June 27, 2013 More Summer Fun

June 28, 2013 admin

Hello everyone,

I am as busy as ever, but I have taken time to listen to the birds sing and enjoy the beauty of the summer season. Yesterday I went off to visit with my friend Ethel and we used the beautiful weather to spend a day dyeing out side. This shot shows one of the fabrics I dye painted. I can still feel the influence of the rocks and the water on what I am doing. Along with dyeing is the batching step. This small shot is of some of the fabric under plastic so it will not dry out. The last step is the rinsing out- a project for later today. I worked on 10 pieces of fabric so that will take me a while I am sure.

Fossil Bed 23" X 32.5" $ 188.00 — Fossil Bed
23″ X 32.5″
$ 188.00

Progress Report: Fossil Bed This quilt is complete now. I have enjoyed doing all the stencil work here. The last bit of embellishment that I did, was the addition of gold foil shells and then the little round stamps that I created at our last play day in May. In this second closeup the circle stamps are shown in orange and blue along with a second foil section. I also did quilting in gold thread. Susan told me that she want to see more images of the finished surfaces and so there is a third closeup of this quilt.This last closeup shows the brown stryophone stamped area with the quilting in gold too.

Red Nebula I think that I am done adding to this work. I need to decide now how I want to finish it. One of my works is off being framed now. I may want to do that to this work as well. I will know better when the framed work comes back to me.

Green Nebula I have only just started my hand work on this second felted work.
This piece has a hand dyed fabric backing. I am enjoying that hand work as always and this time I am using some antique pale green sequins on the surface.The sequins are from my great aunt’s sewing box.

Rock Face
This is my newest top. I got so inspired by my trip to Idaho and looking at all the rocks, that I just had to do a work on that subject. I got to use my newly developing skill with slender curved inserts too. I think this is just the start of a new series.

I hope that summer is treating you well and that you are enjoying the great out doors .

Keep Creating

Carol

Before the Bud, Canyon De Chelly- Mummy Cave ruin, From the Pavement, Greek Butterflies, Landscapes, Machine Drawing, Mapping the Ruins, Natural Elements, Urbam Beauty

May 23 2013, Spring Walks

May 23, 2013 admin

Hello Friends,

I have been out doing my walking in the early morning to make sure I really follow through. It seems so easy to put it off and then get

involved in other things. So I was not walking in the afternoon at all. Much better to start the day with the walk and it will soon be hot in the afternoons as well. Anyway it has been a glorious feast for the nose of late. What with blooming Honeysuckle, Lilac and a beautiful Dog Wood to mention a few I have really enjoyed starting my days with a walk. I seem to be more aware of the world in the morning as well so I am very glad that I have made this switch.

Friday last week I went to the Turquoise Street Studio and meant with some of the gals from the painting class from the weekend before. Deb had gone back in and did additional work on this painting of limes. I really think it works. This picture is of a new painting Deb did based on the class work too. The class effected all of us. This next images is of Beth doing a value sketch in preparation for a new pastel. The teacher had suggested using a gray paper sketch book so one only needed to do the tonal work by drawing in black and white. Beth is doing just that. I did hand work as I seem to take longer to digest the Value idea into my work. Yesterday I went to Ethel’s house to spend a day playing with silk paper. This photo is of Ethel mixing dye in preparation to the silk. Pam was also there and she did some fine silk paper too It was great fun and I created four different new sheets to use. I went with an eye to make the paper for a specific task and the results were great.

The gold sheet and perhaps the cream one as well are destine for one of the canyon painted surfaces I painted last week. The blue and purple paper I created because I wanted to see if one could add bits of yarn to the surface too. I think it will work well in a meadow idea I have in my head. It is always so much fun to work with others I always feel like I get so much more from these events then I contribute to them.

Before the Bud 17" X 26" $110.00 — Before the Bud
17″ X 26″
$110.00

Progress Report: Before The Bud

This quilt is completed now. I really enjoyed doing all the free motion work here. The colors really work for me as well. With this quilt I am changing my policy a bit. I am adding the price of the work to the image. After reading a third article were a buyer stated that she did not like having to contact the artist to find out about the price of work I decided to include that info in the image. Selling my work in not my goal, but I need the space so I will gladly do so. Besides for me, the act of creating is the most important part of the process. The Problem solving if you will.

Excavating the Ruins 21.5" X 31" $168.00 — Excavating the Ruins
21.5″ X 31″
$168.00

Excavating the Ruins
I have enjoyed working on this project due to all the great textures. I really like all the wholes here and that contrast adds a lot of interest to my eye. The map in white organza is of one of the cliff dwellings in Canyon de Chelly National Monument. In looking over it I though it needed a little more punch so I added a little petroglyph form the canyon for further interest. I found this little figure very fascinating.

Greek Butterflies 17.5 " X 25" $ 105.00 — Greek Butterflies
17.5 ” X 25″
$ 105.00

Greek Butterflies
I am very happy with how this quilt finally resolved its self. The lesson on Value came to play here when I took a second look at the distribution of darks on the week end. I had to take out some of the piecing and insert some more dark near the bottom before I was happy with it. I also realized I need to add something to the light block in the center of the quilt. So I drew in a butterfly of my own using the photos as direction. I added color after I had out lined the image. I was concerned with how to quilt this work. I knew I wanted to out line the butterflies but had no idea beyond that. I toyed with the idea of making the rest of the quilting a reflective of that outline pattern, but was not sure. So I then it hung on the wall for several days before I saw a photo of moth trails in Pinterest. Then I knew that was what the quilting patterns should be. I find this quilt to be very up lifting and the quilting pattern adds to that idea in my mind.

Mummy Cave Ruins
This shot shows a possible layout for the additions that I am planning on adding to this painted top that I started last week. On the far left is some of the wonderful silk paper that I created yesterday. In my origional photo there is a wall of stone that is in the foreground and I wanted to capture that feeling to some what frame the ruins. Hanging on the right is some painted inner facing that I may add to make the rocks a bit more colorful. Again I have added the oil stick stencil drawings to this work surface. I need to do some free motion work on the parts I am sure of before I know what will go where and if the places where they are pinned at the moment is the final location for them. Make visual decisions – Visually.

Urban Beauty – From the Pavement I was doing hand work on this at the Turquoise Street Studio last week. I am enjoying building up textures on this surface. The base units are lutador that has been painted with Lumiar paints and the white is gesso. ( lutador is a type of spun ground cloth that can be found at some hardware stores this time of year) I then melted it a bit with the heat gun to melt and distort the surface. I have done free motion drawing and the hand stitching to add to the complexity of the surface. I am not sure of were the work is leading me so I hang it often an look at the progress to know what I want to do next. This makes the process very slow, but worth it I think.

New Work
This is an attempt at a new direction. Sense I seem to keep getting hit over the head with this Values idea( even read about it in a book this week) – I thought I better pay attention. So I designed a block ( Check the light blue section in the lower right) . I tried to keep light med and dark in the same area- and did three different size variations on the block – small ( lower write) a little bigger ( lower left- this one is also turned 45 degrees) and large( look at the turquoise section) This is all new territory for me when it comes to designing and I am not sure it will or does work at all. But I want to stay sharp and open to new “roads” so I will keep playing- the challenge is the thing.

Enjoy the wonders of the season.

Hugs

Carol

Adventure Challenge 2013, Before the Bud, DMC Dawn, Golden Rain, Machine Drawing

April 25, 2013 Spring Memories

April 25, 2013 admin

Hello friends,

When violets appear I know spring is really here. My mother always put violets on my Birthday Cake when I was growing up. I celebrated this week.

Here is the same branch as last week. The leaves are two and three times as big as before. Mother Nature sure moves things along this time of year.

This week has been a very full one. I started out by going to the opening of the Recycle Show at the Art Center in Rome NY last Thursday evening. I am so delighted to report that my friend Barbara won “Best of Show” for her piece. She even mentioned me when she accepted the award as I had contributed some of the stuff she included. Our mutual interest in Rust helps. Last Friday I went off to the Turquoise Street Studio and played along with the gals. Both are pushing them selves for new work for two different shows that are coming along in the next few weeks. Beth was finishing up work and Barbara was starting a new work. They both work from personal Photo graphics, starting by first drawing in Charcoal and then adding the color on top. I printed some of my insects stencils in preparation for the workshop I will be directing on Friday. I like to do all the processes again before I teach them. I learned that I want to encourage my students tomorrow- to work toward openings that are under three inches wide. The back wings of the crickets were challenging to fill with the oil sticks and I do want the students to be successful without difficulty.

Progress Report: Rain Run ( formerly Golden Rain) I changed the title of this work because as I stitched the wrapped pipe cleaners to the surface, I felt that the idea of rain running down the window was not represented with the title of golden rain. I like the way the “drops” like they are moving. But it is really hard to keep this quilt flat as the wire has a memory and every time you lift or shift the surface it does not go back to flat without pressure. The copper ribbon really reflects the light like the setting sun was doing on the window the day I noticed how rain ran down the glass. It is a great memory and I am glad to have captured it with this work.

Before The Buds This quilt has gone through some major changes sense last week. First of all I made a stencil with this quilt in mind. I drew it on the back of a piece of handy cardboard as I was not in the studio.

I did the drawing with a marker and kept the positive of the cut as well as the portion I used. My thinking was that I could use it for a stencil too and just add the growth around it. I stenciled five trees on the surface of the quilt . Then I got our some “Solvy” a corn starch material that is a water soluble stabilizer, and drew a tree with a permanent marker on the Solvy. Then I drew the tree with the sewing machine and lots of thread. When I was happy with the appearance a I washed out the stabilizer and had my thread tree. I will use the machine on free motion to attach the tread tree to the surface. I did the the majority of the drawing on the stabilizer because all this thread work on the surface of the quilt would cause a lot of distortion of the fabric. This way I can quilt and add the tree to the surface and stand a chance of the final product being flat. I have not done any of this “drawing” in a long time and it felt good to use this technique again. I am sorry that the shadow makes the picture look a bit fuzzy, but feel it will look fine on the quilt.

Brass Bits

I have been working away on the hand appliqueing of the brass units on this quilt for several weeks. I feel that part of the process is now complete. So I trimmed it and placed it on a backing fabric. The yarn is pinned on the surface and that will get machine stitched down and become a part of the quilting on this work. I will have to see how much additional quilting the piece needs to be stable after that point. It was a personal challenge to add all of the brass pieces that Sharron sent me on the surface of this quilt. I enjoyed another chance to do some fancy hand stitches on a piece as well.

DMC Challenge – Dawn’s fabric. This was only a bunch of triangles pinned to the wall last week. I decided that I could use the challenge fabric with it and make the idea work. It is OK and because the challenge is meant to be an exercise as much as anything I am satisfied with it. After talking with Marty about the challenge we agreed not to complete the projects before we got together. It makes transport in the suit case a lot easier as I will be flying out to meet them. Now I need to go back and see if I can save the other two parts of this challenge.

New Work I am auditioning these fabric pieces for the possible next Egyptian quilt. At the moment I think it needs a new ” star” stencil fabric to do the trick. So I will think on that and keep you posted as to the dynamics. I guess all this prep for the stencil class is really pushing me forward.

Keep Creating Friends

Hugs

Carol

Chamomile, DMC Challenge, Farctured Fragmants, Goddess Series, ISIS quilt, Machine Drawing, Paper Quilts, Sphere systems

Crows January 5, 2012

January 5, 2012 admin

Drawn by the sound of crow calls I watched the birds take there flight in the early dawn this morning. They were commuting against a strong gusting wind as they departed from Oak-wood Cemetery were they roost in the winter, to each of their respective hunting grounds. The flight is powerfully beautiful in its grace of movement as it was contrasted against a silver gray sky that was dotted with little blown snow flakes today. Living with the daily routine of these creatures has made me pay attention to their existence and has enriched my life. I have made several quilts with crows as the stars. Their simple dark forms show up so very well against so many surfaces that I always find it to be an enjoyable task to build a work around them. Sense they are present so much around were I live I have many opportunities to watch them in their daily routines. At the moment with the fresh snow they stand out quite sharply as they dance around the ground in there search for food. I like too how they cluster together in the evenings as they gather for the night. All heads facing the wind and raucously shouting to one another filling first one tree top then another. Then taking flight at the same time without a seeming signal as they then move a bit closer as a cluster toward the final roosting place. All the time the numbers increase as they move toward a movable base and the sound becomes louder and louder as more birds stream back. I have tried to walk to the center of were they gather for there night roosting- I have never been successful. But that is the fascination of it for me.

Progress Report:

DMC Challenge Sphere System-

This challenge started on my is visit to Marty in Oct. I spent a lot of time this week working on the DMC project.

This was one attempt with two partial copies of were I thought I was going. I experiment by pinning things up and this is an example of that process. As it turned out I hated the layered X- cut fabric on top. I like the texture- and the idea – but it is not the place to use this idea.

So what I ended up with is this:The irregular edges are proving to be a challenge, but I think I will work it out.

Machine Drawing

Chamomile

I had originally though that this quilt would be done as machine drawing of Golden Rod. But the silk thread was too heavy for the machine and kept creating a mess on the back of the quilt so I took it all out. I could not look at or deal with the work for several mouths. Returning to it, I found I really like the fabric lay out, so I looked for a new subject matter. I came across this card of Chamomile and used it as my inspiration instead.

I have only completed one of the plants in this photo. I have sense put in two more- one on each side of this one. the additional quilting adds to the final effect quilt nicely. I am in the process of adding the facings to this work and I am sure I will complete it this week.

Twinkling Tracings

I have continued to work on the commission too. It now has a title and is called Twinkling Tracings. This is the first panel in the series. It is currently being pressed flat under my big cutting matt with half of the books from my shelves resting on top. The two other panels will get the same treatment and then I will be done with the studio part of the job.

Gold and brown field with blue zig-zagging across — Twinkling Tracings-

ISIS Quilt

Horizonal quilt of Isis in gold on a cream filed surrounded by other Egyptian images — Isis

This is the Isis quilt all finished. It came out quite quickly for me . I think this will be the last of the Egyptian quilts for a while. I do not think I even would have done this last one if I had not been reviewing my goddess series and wondering how I could go forward with that idea. The question remains what will be the next goddess quilt?

Fractured- paper quilt and Fragments

We all have times when what we thought would work is a failure. Well such is the case with this piece. I started out making a quit that would feature a three dimensional tunnel shaped addition. The back got created and the tunnel got created- but they did not work together at all.

Paper quilt in blue and white with gold ribbon — Fractured

So I created a cracked paper quilt to put the tunnel on. They did not work together either……. So I played with the paper quilt . cut some triangular wholes- added some paint and gold ribbon. Fractured was born and I like it all on its own. OK- so this exploration has lead to one more project.

I took the fabric quilt back that I had originally made for the tunnel and applied the flattened beads I had created with play dough to its surface. The beads were made as a play project with my grand son a few weeks ago. I had stamped them with an Egyptian stamp and though they might be used on one of the first Egypt quilts. But they did not work there. Too much of a color contrast for those works.

Gold and blue background with blue add ons — Fragments

Blue playdought bead with silver paint — Fragments- close up

This detail shows a close up of one of the beads. The surface was brushed with a white paint to high light the presses images.

I still do not have a home for the tunnel- but it may be like the beads, something that just has to shift around in the studio for a while before it finds a home. I will be OK with it if that never happens because I know it was an experiment and there are bound to me miss fires when one is playing that way.

I have had a good creative start to the new year and I hope I can continue to work successfully solving the problems as they come my way.

Keep Creating

Carol

Cre-8

Category Archives: Machine Drawing

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Crows January 5, 2012

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer