The yucca is blooming and the smell fills the air.
My big event for this week was to help hang the Associated Artist show at the Beaver Lake Nature center on Sunday. It was fun and I enjoyed helping and talking with my fellow artists. This show will be up until the end of Aug.
It was so hot on Wed that Liz and I did not dye. I made screens with house paint and interfacing instead.The light gray areas will allow the dye to pass through and print on the fabric below.
The heat has kept me in the studio and I have accomplished a lot.
Progress Report: Linda’s Luck This work is 36” w X 41”l. It has been created with the use of the cut aways from several other text pieces. I used the vertical parallel stitching to do the quilting job.
Summer Heat This in the start of one of my new pieces. The center block is a scrap of painted silk and the started the whole thing.
Beth’s Baby Quilt This quilt is ready for the detail work now. I have not done a baby quilt in about three years and it was a bit more difficult to get back into this process then I expected.
How and Why The addition of the word why really helped this quilt work for me. I am doing the quilting step now. I am sure it will be finished by next Thursday.
Why I had to create a quilt using Why and this is it. I like the strong contrast between the text and the background.
Sky I painted this piece of fabric to create the base for my sky from the class I am following.
New work- Collections 3 This is step one in the collections works. I just lay out a few squares of fabric to build on top of.
Daily Project I finished the orange coring. Then I moved onto the rickrack. It is going very slowly as I am being so elaborate with the stitches I am using to tack it down are complex.
Label Card: Ideas
I think that a good idea is like the cracks in mud, because it can lead and connect to so many other things. One just needs to be open to that idea.
As the nights get shorter and a few bits of color are starting to appear in trees one is reminded that summer is fast coming to an end. I went off to Mill Sight Lake along with other FAB gals for a weekend of talk and quilt work. We did swim in the lake too, but due to a much needed rain on Sunday we did not get any boat work in. We talked and discussed all sorts of things including the projects we where working on. Patti made Pillow cases and Judy and Nancy worked on Disappearing Squares- a block with lots of possibilities. The food was great and we had a good time.
Progress Report: Deep Jellies This work is 37” long and 41.5 “ wide. I did stay true to my vow to do hand work on it every day for and hour and it got done this week. I sure enjoy the mixing of the orange and blue. The dyed blue green lace and the deep blue ribbons represent the parts of the jellyfish that capture the food and pull it into the center so digestion can begin. I still find the idea that these colorful fellows live in total darkness.
Tall Text This quilt is 49” long and 32.5” wide. started this project in Rosalie Dace’s class at QBL. I did reflective quilting in the negative spaces around the text in this work. It has been a good week to finish things up as I prepare for my travels. I like to come back with a clean studio as I am sure I will get lots of new ideas on this trip.
Far Off ForestsI am now done with the free motion work on this piece. I need to get new stretcher bars to finish it as the machine work has so distorted it that it will not stretch to fit the ones I have.
Ethel’s Scrap Nine Patch I inherited this box full of leftovers from Ethel. I took it on the camping weekend. I had one idea about how to use these colorful pieces but the other gals have convinced me to make a nine patch quilt with them.
This is a shot of all of the parts I put together over the weekend that I am now ready to cut into 5” squares and mix with solids for this project. I know I would not have done it in this fashion without the influence of the other gals.
Label Block # 75 I only got one block done this week. I have several near completion though so I will keep my numbers correct.
I will be traveling with Marty for the next few weeks so the next post will be Sept 15.
I saw this young fellow in the cematery on my walk this week. Later I watched in horror as he ran across Comstock Avenue dodging cars and into the woods behind Manley Field House. Good luck Bambi!
This week was one where I got a lot of studio time and although I have not finished much I feel good about what is going on. Uneventful weeks are good for reflection I find. In class with Rosalie Dace at QBL she stressed the importance of Values in our work. Now I have heard that many times but I just never really got the concept. One of my fellow class mates showed me how to see it more clearly and although I have not got the whole idea yet I am seeing what they both meant.
Here is a photo of a group of fabrics that I think work together. In color they seem to have a wide range of values. ( this is were my eye needs training) because when the same fabrics are viewed in black and white it is easy to see there is very little middle value in this collection. So now I need to go back in to the stash and fine a few more pieces in the middle range like the grayed oranges to have more values in this work.
It is good to always be growing.
Progress Report:Going Deep I added the backing to this work after I stretched it yesterday. I really enjoy the building up of the layers of these wool based projects. This is the first one where I do not have a canvas under the fiber piece and I think that allows for more a feeling of buoyancy. The thread build up on these works takes a lot more time then I think will when I start. But the final effect is well worth the efforts. Sometimes it only takes such a small bit of fabric or yarn to really add color to an area. It is like building a puzzle with flexible pieces.
Deep Jellies I am still doing the hand quilting on this project. I have been putting in an hour a day on that process- but it is a big quilt so I have about one third of it done now.
Tall Text I started this in Rosalie’s class. The top is all assembled now and I am in the quilting stage. I am doing reflective machine work around the cut up letter units with variegated thread. I think the textural interest will add a nice dimension to the work.
Ivy Wall This is an early stage for this work. The butterfly will all be done in thread painting with the machine. The image is mounted on organza with tear away stabilizer on the back. I did the brown leaves as a rubbing with pastels last summer. There is a little machine work at the bottom so I know this technique will work.
Far Off Forests- wool work From this corner one can see that it only takes a small scarp to build up an area with a different color.
New Project This is my current three challenge piece. It is all one unit now and I am pondering ways to quilt is as well as the way I want it oriented. This shot is exactly upside down from the original, But some how it works better for me.
Label Blocks #73 and #74
I am pushing my self to get a few blocks ahead as I know I am going away for a three weeks at the end of August.
I always love this time of year after all the wonderful joys of the holidays have become good memories and things seem to slow down and commitments diminish and I can really get some work done. That does not mean I am not busy- it just changes and I find I am more focused on what I want to accomplish. I started on that path with a play day with four friends.
Liz
We ( the QuEG’s – Quilt Exploration Group) got together in Angela’s new big studio and played. It was so much fun that we decided to repeat the play part for the next few mouths doing different projects each time. We will all be “teaching” a technique or leading in the exploration of a new material for the up coming days.
Corinne, Liz and Angela showing a sample for the futureCorinne and Sally
I enjoyed the silk screen printing with dye that we did in the morning and got some nice images. They are true to the color expected because Angela mixed up the dye that day. I do not have any idea where I will use these fabrics. I do know that I will eventually use them.
After lunch we made cards for a fellow creative friend who had fallen over the holidays and could not join the party.
The whole day was great fun and really got me going for this week.
Progress Report: Spiraling Out I am still quilting on this project. I have not done anything this large in a while and I had forgotten how very long the process can take. This shot is of the quilt under the needle at the top. It is fun to do the free motion work again. Paper Quilt I am enjoying working on this project. I edged the openings and edges with a zig -zag stitch and knobby yarns. I keep trying different solutions to filling the wholes and different arrangements for the four units. This sort of play takes me much longer than I expect.
Wrapped wire insertHand made lace insert
I did eliminate on of my attempts for filler so I feel like I am making some progress.
Lines in Fabric This is an exploration project. I talked last week about doing the DMC Quilt challenge. This shots shows I am still working – but the progress is slow. Marty told me that I needed to press each seam toward the outside ,cut the “line” fabric and then sew the next piece on. That way I can get narrower lines – and that is my goal. I have really not had an opportunity to do that yet. I will get to it I am sure.
Diana I am pleased with how this top came together yesterday afternoon. I added the gold embellishment to the fabric in a class two summers ago. It is the just the right touch of elegance for this work. This will be my last quilt for the Goddess Show. I plan to start the quilting tomorrow. I have got to get busy with the labels for that show next.
Rusty Text This is really a working title for this top. I needed to do a little creative work that did not include any pressure. It is also another bit of play with the Text stuff for a possible entry into that competition. I printed letters on inner facing and mixed that texture with silk. The silk was also printed on in the green stripes. When I showed it to Marty on Tue she was quit supportive about the work. I am still not sure about the direction I want to go with the quilting of this work, but there is not real pressure here as I have a mouth before it is due. Enjoy the wonders of winter.
I hope you have all had long enough to relax a bit for the hassles of the holidays. I spent today at the Schweinfurth Art Center viewing the Quilts=Art=Quilts show with a friend. I always find it so very inspirational. Fibers can be used in so many ways to express so many ideas! I got excited all over again about embellishing and piecing and color! It is good to be stimulated in the beginning of winter. For us that means lots of snow and shoveling as well as ice cycles. I took this shot out the bathroom window of the light on the deck last eve. I like how the light reflects off the ice. Winter brings a new appreciation for limited color to me. It is a good thing for me to consider as I have a challenge to work on that uses a very limited pallet using light, med and dark tones of three colors. It is the DMC challenge for this year. That means we all selected a color and purchased the three tons of each of the colors and then gave the other participants our selections. The size this year for the three works is 18″X 24″ and one color from the other two pallets , needs to be used in each work. There are no other rules….sounds like lots of room for variation to me. I selected purple and my fabric are at the top. Marty selected blue and her choices are to the left middle. Dawn chose black and her fabrics are on the bottom of the right. I am a bit surprised at how well the three go together too. I think my work with Leslie’s Riley’ s ” Artist Success Class” – Composition and You will prove to be helpful here. I have also decided to impose a little challenge of my own on the first quilt at least. I want to further my ability to insert slender bits of fabric into my work and this first quilt will use that method. So yesterday I started practicing with some blue fabric and this is the result. I think I will play just a bit more before I start on the challenge fabric as we purchased it in Washington state last Sept and I can not run out and get more if it is a total flop.
Jots and Joints 22″ X 34″
Progress Report: Jots and Joints This quilt is now completed and it is the first one for 2013. I really was working to show the free form cutting in this work and I feel I was successful in that respect the curving edges work well here too. I am also having fun mixing my hand painted fabrics with stock fabrics. This close up shows the raw silk in the left hand corner and some of the silk screen image. I sketched them after looking at a circuit board from a calculator. The drawing was done from memory several day later, so it is really my own invention.
In looking at the photo here I am concerned with the high number of wrinkles present. Perhaps more quilting is in order. I will need to do a bit of study over the next few days.
Spiraling Out This quilt top is about half quilted. It grew a lot as I worked on it. The whole project started with some discharged fabric that I purchased form my friend Randy Kennan last summer at the Quilting By the Lake Conference. I had done just had my first experience with this type of print dyeing in my class with Judy Langille. I was/am fascinated by the effect one gets as one does not have a lot of control as to how the color will disperse . I am free motion quilting on the surface and doing a bit of zig-zag couching along the way to push the spiraling feel of the top. I feel I am nearing the middle point of the quilting work on this piece.
Diana This drawing on old silk is the start of my next and probably final goddess quilt for my show this mouth. I did the drawing three times before I got what I wanted on the fabric and all three were “traced” from a drawing that I did to begin with. The drawing was done from a ancient Greek coin. My Grandfather Howard found the coin while he was in Greece in WWII. My mother made the coin into a pendant by adding a silver band around the out side and creating a bail that holds a diamond from my great aunt May’s engagement ring. On the back of the coin is an owl that I used to create this foam stamp. It will also be a part of the quilt. The owl is Diana’s creature and that is why it is on the back side.
Letters This last image is also a start that I made this week. I stenciled the rust and brown letter shapes onto white inner facing and plan to pair it with some orange silk that has green lines on the surface. I got the silk scarp from my friend Jean Riley before she moved to PA four years ago. It is not something she had silk screened, but something that had been in a bag full of silk that she was given. We quilters are frugal and sharing bunch. I want to create a second entry for the Text Challenge with these fabrics.
Lastly as to my 30 day challenge- I am going to stay away from sugar for my first challenge. I realized on Friday last week that there was far too much candy,cookies and sugar around this season- so I passed most of it off to the teen ages and made that my challenge. It has been an eye opener- I did not realize that I had developed a craving for it, but I have. So this will be a good test.
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.
Happy Solstices! I am looking forward to the days getting longer – even if it is cold. I am not a fan of the long nights even though I do enjoy setting by a fire. I just hate to find crows flying to roost in the darkening 4 o’clock sky.
Sorry to have dropped on the map so abruptly. The computer crashed. We took it off to Best Bye and they had to send it out to have the Mother Board replaced. When it came back the machine crashed again while they were running a diagnostic check. Off the machine went again for 10 days. Needless to say I learned how much I depend on the silly thing and short cuts as I could not excess this sight for the whole time. The second computer that I did have access too did not have Photos Shop either so I could not do photos even if I could have gotten to it. I will try to up date without being overwhelming.
Progress Report: Exploration 3
Exploration 3 22″ X 24.5″
I really enjoyed working away on this quilt with the free form cutting and the irregular edges. It is both freeing and a bit worrisome as I give up control and the reliance on the ruler for strait lines. I do really enjoy the feeling of flow however and feel there is a lot more room for exploration here.
Thunder Boomer I started this work because I was nervous about the wiggle cut things I was trying . I needed to work on something
Thunder Boomers 19.5″ X 26″
that I felt comfortable with. I did challenge myself by using silk as a part of this work. The silk was a way of expressing how the air feels all electric when a storm is going on.
I enjoyed doing the machine drawing here as well. This was a good confidence builder for me at that time.
Pillows I did two pillows to accompany the quilt I did for the bride last mouth. They came out looking good and I think they will enhance the bed when they are placed on top of the quilt.
Abame – Sisters Quilt This little quilt is the next in the wiggle series. I call it a sister quilt because a second quilt grew out of this work as well. I made too much material and found it worked better as a separate unit. I am almost done with the stitching of the face panels.
Sunmi Wash Up This top is mostly done by hand. I have been seeing lots of images of the large amounts of plastic washing up on the west cost. The piles I find distressing so I thought I might do a bit of a “junk ” collection piece to highlight this idea.
Out of the Dark This top is my next work for the solo show that I will be doing in late Jan. I have always been fascinated by stories of the gods and goddess of the past as well as all the little stone figures of women that have been uncovered. Joseph Campbell’s books have also influenced me. I was delighted when he came and spook at Ball State.
Letters This is just the working title of this piece that I just started. There is a challenge to do a quilt using text and this is my first attempt at that idea. I feel this does not say exactly what I had in mind- but I like the way it is coming together so I think I will finish it none the less.
Out of Control This too is a working title. I am so upset by the shooting in the elementary school this last week. I used some discharged fabric to start this quilt because one has so little control with that process and league of control is how I feel in relationship to this tragedy. I tried to show the chaos I felt with this piece. It does not give that feel yet – I think that the quilting I plan to use with help with this.
Discharging I did a little hand writing with dish washer soap to discharge the surface of this black fabric. This is another go at the text thing. I put the dishwasher soap in the mustard container to do the writhing and it worked well. The fabric is in the washer at the moment . Even if I do not use this in the Text Challenge, it was a fun thing to try
I enjoy preparing for the up coming celebrations so that is where my energy will be going for the next few day. May the wonders of the season ans the joys of your life fill you in the up coming holidays.
Hello,
It was fun and I enjoyed helping and talking with my fellow artists. This show will be up until the end of Aug.
The light gray areas will allow the dye to pass through and print on the fabric below.
Progress Report: Linda’s Luck This work is 36” w X 41”l. It has been created with the use of the cut aways from several other text pieces. 
I used the vertical parallel stitching to do the quilting job.
This quilt is ready for the detail work now. I have not done a baby quilt in about three years and it was a bit more difficult to get back into this process then I expected.
How and Why The addition of the word why really helped this quilt work for me. I am doing the quilting step now. I am sure it will be finished by next Thursday.
Why I had to create a quilt using Why and this is it. I like the strong contrast between the text and the background.
I painted this piece of fabric to create the base for my sky from the class I am following.
New work- Collections 3 This is step one in the collections works. I just lay out a few squares of fabric to build on top of.
I finished the orange coring. Then I moved onto the rickrack. It is going very slowly as I am being so elaborate with the stitches I am using to tack it down are complex.
Label Card: Ideas
