Category Archives: Golden Rain

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

April 25, 2013 Spring Memories

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.

Rain Run
21 ” X 31″

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

 

About To Bud, Golden Rain, Natural Elements, Slicing Through, Trees

April18, 2013 Natural Changes

Dear Friends,

It really feels like spring today.  This was the third day this week when I ate my lunch out on the patio  and enjoyed the out of doors.  One of my favorite sketchbook assignments that I did with my eight graders was what I called ” Noting Natural Changes”  and I started it this week with the drawing on the left.  I when out into the sun shine and selected a branch and tried to draw it life sized in my sketch book this morning.  I will follow up next week and draw the same branch- again life sized  and in so doing note the changes a week makes for growth at this time of year.   My students always were suprised by the change a week can make at this time of year and I feel like paying attention to that myself.      This week has been as busy as they all seem to be.  I went off to visit with my friend Ethel again yesterday and we had great fun making silk paper.  Silk paper is created from silk threads that have not been spun.  They come in great long hanks that one gently pulls apart and lays down on nylon netting.  Three  layers of thread in alternating directions  is the usual lay out. then a second piece of nylon netting is placed on top.  The whole thing is gently soaked with water and then a mixture of fabric medium and water is applied to first one side and then the other side  of the sandwich.   After the sandwich is all dry  the nylon netting is carefully pealed from both sides and ironed.  The top image shows the pre-dyed silk drying on the line and it is still encased in the nylon netting.  Pictured on the left are two others we did in the morning with the netting removed.  The blue and purple piece is made of what are called silk hankies- a group of squared off silk layers that can be pulled apart as apposed to a hank of silk.   We dyed both of these two pieces before we added the water and fabric medium to them.   We had such a good time that we are going to play at this another day next mouth.  I already have an idea of things I want to try next time.

Progress Report:  Spot On

Spot On
22″ X 34.5″

 

This quilt is done now.  It is one more of my piece that grew out of  my ” Use the old materials” push.  The marbleized fabric in the upper left and the center bottom are both old materials.   The light blue with the natural shapes in purple and white near the center left are from an experiment that I tried last fall.  I was attempting to do shobori with paint instead of dye.  This piece is the most successful section.    The tyvek is painted on both sides and I did  that last winter when I first started going to the Turquoise Studio.   The pink color  is painted on the back side of the tyvek.   I have used tyvek several times before and not been to  happy with the results.  But this time I quilted it before I applied the heat.  I also waited until I could go out of doors and I wore my respirator while I did this process.   I like how the heat gun distressed the tyvek and  how much the stitching controlled the distorting too.

Golden Rain.    This quilt is all quilted now and ready for the embellishment.  That is the part that will add the rain running down the surface.    I wrapped gold pipe cleaners with two different yards.

They will become the rain when I hand stitch them to the surface.   I still need to tack the facings on both the left and right sides as well.  The copper ribbon really shows up the quilting patterns and adds to the flow motion down the quilt that I was looking for.

Slicing Through:   This quilt is moving along although very slowly.  After Sue Ellen’s tutorial on how to make those little cuts and sew them in I feel I am successful with that part of the process.   Now to work out the design part.    This work has gotten away from me as far as size is concerned- the rule says 18″ X 24″- and this is bigger than that already….. I am not sure how to go forward, so it is fermenting under white paper and two other starts, on the pin wall.

About to Bud:   This piece is basted and ready for quilting.   It too has some marbleized fabric in it, ( Use the Old Materials)although this is a newer experiment then  Spot On.   It also has some of my foam stamp work in the dark turquoise fabric.    The off rounded long forms are from a commercial stamp and come from my play day where I was trying to use every stencil I had in my note book that I had never tried before.     After letting this work hang on the wall over night I decided it needed  to have a machine drawn/quilted bare tree added on top of it.   I will do some sketches before I stat that part of the project.

Silver Slivers:  I have had these silk triangles for several years. ( More Use the Old Material )  On Monday when it was so rainy and gray I pulled them out and added the gray to them at the end of the day.   Now there irregular shapes means that I can not keep the full silk shapes and make traditional connections.  So the following morning I though I might insert silver slivers between the units and in so doing  sort of square them up.      If and how that works remains to be seen,but I do like a challenge and this is a good one.    It may also help when it comes to doing Dawn’s fabric form the DMC   challenge because the colors are the same.

New Work:     This one remains to be named and completed. True to my solution when I am frustrated I start something new-  all this wonderful hand dyed/ printing fabric  in a discarded pile on the cutting table …. put it together.    Only time will tell if it becomes anything.  I go off on these little seaming sprints some times- knowing that it can always  become a part of a Scarp Happy if nothing else….   But is spring and anything is possible.

Keep Creating

Carol