Grounded, Label Blocks, Uncategorized, William's Quilt

Paying Attention

December 10, 2015 admin

Hello-

I was trying to pay attention to lines and I noticed this rather gray bit of pavement. It is almost a landscape in its self. All the horizontal lines suggest it could become one without too much effort. What I was really trying to notice on my walk that day was how the leaves pilled up around the tree trunks. Sometimes they are deep and the tree seems to lean a lot. Sometimes the leaves and earth round the base of the tree pile high and other times it seems to fall away. Then I came across this tree on the side of a hill and found many of the roots exposed. I was doing all this visual research for my next quilt project using leaves as the first took on a life of its own and I could not use the silk leaves I had created.

I went up to see Sharon’s senior show in Oswego this week. Lots of good work there. She explored lots of different areas in her college work. Sharon will start work on her master’s degree next month.

Because of the way Nancy works I made a run to her house today to talk about the lay out of her boarders on her next project. She really did not need me as she had done the work- but it was fun to talk about what she is doing. I enjoy how she mixes and uses fabrics that I would never pick out to use myself.

Progress Report: Grounded This quilt has been fun to work on. I really enjoyed the free motion work. Out lining all the printed leaves was a learning experience. There were so many veins. The paint I used was transparent so the leaves showed through one another. That made the image seem deeper I think. I the background is made from Judy Roberts hand dyed fabric( the brown) and Randy’s deconstructed screen printed fabric( the yellow) The irregular surfaces of both fabrics added interest too. I am showing one shot of the back of the quilt to show the machine work with out the color distraction.

Hand Bag I also though I needed a new hand bag for the season so I pulled out this piece of Regina fabric and made myself a one. Its dark and will not show spots I don’t think. My only regret is that I did not put a pocket on the outside of this piece and I do miss that.

Williams Quilt I am building the blocks for William’s Quilt. It will be colorful when it is complete. I will lay it all out on the floor this week to see how the parts work together.

New Work These fabrics are my loose layout for the next leaf quilt. I will try to mix the two images from the top of this blog into one image that I can work with. I will also be on the look out to keep the leaves around the base of this tree a little simpler so I can use the silk leaves that got me started on this leave thing from the first place.

New Rock Work This is the very beginning of my next rock piece. I am working from the same photo graphic that was taken of Dead Horse Canyon wall. This is about a 4″ X 6″ section of the photo. Lots more build up is yet to come here as even what it pictured is only pinned in place.

Label Block This is block # 30. So now I am one fourth finished with the creation of the blocks for his project.

Keep Creating

Carol

Grounded, Label Blocks, Truquoise Street Studio, William's Quilt

Moving Along

December 3, 2015 admin

Hello,

Our fall has been dry and crisp. I have enjoyed my walks and enjoyed natures bounty. It is raining today however and I will walk to the Dr with my eyes and umbrella open.

A week ago Saturday I went to a new group. Lots of old friends were there and we talked and shared ideas about going forward with a unified idea. There was show and tell of course. Anne talked about her work as did everyone else. I really like this work that she created for a challenge project. There was a lot of talent in that room.

I also spend a day at the Turquoise Street Studio last week. Barbara was working on a sign for a Black Friday event. Beth worked on two pastels. This one of cows and another of a barn landscape. Both were from pictures she took last summer on the same day.

I went off to the Schweinfurt on Sunday to hear my good friend, Cheri do a trunk show and talk. She was very entertaining and I enjoyed seeing all her work together again.

This is also the beginning of a new month so I had group meetings to attend.

At Diva’s Regina had four Christmas banners she had completed to share with us. They all used Christmas carols as the themes for the blocks. She said she will put one up and then replace it with another the next week. All the thread she uses makes my mind boggle.

Noel showed us a fun nine patch she had done years ago of her husband to demonstrate what she was working on. She has a cartoon of her grand daughter that she was cutting up in the same fashion to make for her a Christmas gift. It was cute but still all in pieces.

Tanya came to the studio yesterday and we made silk paper. I have more material for my rock quilts now.

Progress Report: Grounded I am to the fun part of this project now. I do enjoy the free motion work so very much. I am outlining the leaves- each in a different colored thread as my quilting on this one. I am about half way done with the process.

Christmas Cards I took time to make a batch of Christmas cards this week too. I am finally using the great printed papers that I got from the British Museum. Simple but enjoyable.

Williams Quilt I finally got the images transferred to fabric this week. I plan to really concentrate on this project now as I want it finished in two weeks if possible. The fabrics are all washed and ready for cutting. It was fun looking for the topic fabrics on the list. Nancy found the brownie print fabric for me.

Label Blocks Two more blocks numbers 28 ans 29. Soon I will be one forth done with this project. I do need and infusion of labels though as it seems I am getting near the bottom of my box. I will just have to ask for help with this.

Keep Creating

Carol

Uncategorized

Thanksgiving

November 26, 2015 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

I am thankful for my family and friends, my health and my chances to create.

Hugs to all

Carol

Curvie Cuts, Dead Horse Canyon Rock Face, Grounded, Label Blocks, Stretched Works

Leaves

November 19, 2015 admin

Hello,

Leaves seem to remain a strong interest to me. Most of our local trees are stripped now, but as this photo shows some still have their fruit. I am still searching out places were I can walk through the piles of crisp fallen leaves and enjoying the crunch. I found a wall in the park where the leaves are piled deeper then my knees and I felt like I was six again as I plowed through them. There is still lots of colors in those piles too- pinks, greens, tans, browns, yellows and purples. So wonderful! The fact that I am printing leaves on one of my tops is part of the reason for my strong interest I am sure.

The FAB group meant here this week and we had a good talk. Judy finished tieing the bunk bed quilts she brought with her that day. Nancy has added two of her boarders on the quilt she is making for her daughter. It is great when we all make progress.

Progress Report: Grounded-This work is a part of the curvy cut series. I am stamping the leaves I made last week. The colors are not as strong on the brown as I would like. But I feel it will work out in the end. I am stamping from the largest stamp to the smallest. Each stamp is a different color combination. There is also a number increase with each stamp I am using. I started with five of the biggest leaf and moved to seven for the next one. I am increasing by two every time I change leaves to get a deep pile feeling.

Dead Horse Canyon Rock Face This work is going to be stretch. I think I am ready for that step as I have done all the free motion drawing and tacking of the parts. I am finding the small format a challenge. There are three more canvases so I will keep putting in the effort.

New work This work is one of my first pieces using some fabric from pile of hand dyed works I have been creating sense the beginning of Oct. In this shot there are about six units. I was happily putting them together this morning and I did not pin then back on the board every time after I pressed the seams. That was a mistake as I put an early connection together backward and did not notice that error until I was “done”. Now I have lots of seam ripping to do before I can go forward with this piece.

Label Block #27 The daily hand work goes forward on this project.

Keep Creating

Carol

Breaking Up, Butterflies For Ethel, Curvie Cuts, Label Blocks, Taffy Pull, Uncategorized

Leaf Dance

November 13, 2015 admin 2 Comments

Hello,

As this photos shows the crows are populating the trees now. A few trees still have leaves and watching them fall is still something I do was I walk. The wind is the biggest factor in that process and over the course of a week I see all types of winds resulting in sorts of fall patterns. Some leaves zip and race away from there high homes to the ground. While others flutter, twirl and drift down. The wind can effect the leaves on the ground too. Some tumble across my path and others skitter, bounce and jump, while there fellows cart wheel or roll away to be caught in hedges or cluster at the base of trees . Some times they stack against walls or sail across pools. Until we get a rain the dance will fill my walks.

For three days this week I was a part of the Open Studio work at the Schweinfurt Art Center.

There were six of us in the wet studio. Cris and Liz were at the tables near me. Liz and I learned a lot as we had never mixed dyes for our own use before. The really fortunate thing was two very experienced dyers were also in the wet studio, so we had great brains to pick. Pat the woman who I had as class instructor was there doing her own thing. And Maureen was also there dyeing. She was making yardage.

My buddy, Barbara was also in the wet studio dye painting silk scarves. She only got three done – but considering she had never done this before I am proud of her. I am also in love with the rich colors she achieved. This is my wall of work for the first day. Barbara, Liz and I really got the bug and will all do more on our own.

Folks were working in the sewing studio up stairs in the Schweinfurth too. Donna came down and showed us her newest paper piecing project. Looks like new garland for her tree this year. They were all working just as hard up stairs as we were in the basement. It was great fun. There was also a trunk show by my good friend Ruth at the Schweinfurth this week end. I saw some of her work I had never seen before. It was great.

Liz and I spent Thursday making more dye colors to use. We worked in her garage and mixed up six more colors to play with. I have fabric setting in buckets of water in my shower washing out the dye now. Good thing I vowed I would make a piece using some hand dyed fabric I had altered every month, and even that many not be enough to use all of this great stuff up. Even Liz looked at all the wonderful dye Ethel gave me and said “ you will go a lift time and not need to purchase any more dye.” This is some of the new fabric that I altered.

Progress Report: Taffy Pull

Taffy Pull 44" X 29" — Taffy Pull
44″ X 29″

After the quilt meetings last week I did a little rework of this piece. I also changed it’s orientation. Maureen suggested I pull some of the colors out into other areas and I like what happened when I added the thread work to the surface. I also intensified the blue lines. It is a stronger piece for the additions.

Butterflies for Ethel I am so very happy about this piece. It is the third and last in this series of Butterfly pieces. I used only fabric from Ethel’s stash that her children so generously gave to me. The title is part of my tribute. The butterflies are form the ground cloth as before. I also added several machine drawn butterflies to represent Ethel’s being gone from my life but still strong in my memories. No one can see memories- but they are still a strong part of me.

Breaking Up 16" X 30" — Breaking Up
16″ X 30″

Breaking Up This quilt got started at QBL last summer. I was working on the thin line thing. I am feeling much more confident about controlling the width of those lines now.

Curvy Cut Project I did not really get any work done on this project. But I did make the eight leaf stamps to use on the surface. Hopefully I will get to that step this week.

New Work This is the start of my newest rock piece. I am going to try to work on and 18” X 24” scale for four pieces. So far I would say it is proving to be more of a challenge then I expected.

Label Block # 26 One more done.

Keep Creating

Carol

Breaking Up, Butterflies For Ethel, Curvie Cuts, Diva Meetings, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs), Taffy Pull

Indian Summer

November 4, 2015 admin

Hello

We are enjoying a wonderful bit of Indian Summer with mild temperatures and sunny days. Fall is here and some of the trees are striped of leaves. But many still are dressed in colors. I noticed as I was swishing through the leaves on the ground that trees tend to lose there leaves from the far ends of the branches first. That makes sense, just I had not paid attention to that detail before. I have managed to play a little of my favorite fall game of catch the falling leaves while walking. I also realized I get a lot of joy out of having an acorn or two in my pocket.

The week has been a full one. I visited Nancy at her home to see her newest lay out for her next quilt. She uses bold patterns and colors in a way that I so admire. I know it will go through many changes before she is done. Watching her process is great.

Last Friday I went to the opening of Quilt=Art=Quilts at the Schweinfurth. I was delighted by the fact that I knew so many of the quilters who were accepted into this show- seven to be exact. This shot shows Cheri with her work at the opening. I love these wonderful silhouetted works she is doing now.

At the QuIGs meeting Liz was full of news about her trip to The Barn a few weeks ago. She had a notebook that she had covered with her own treatment of Cantha. I like what she did. Sue Ellen brought us some raw cotton and cotton pods from her trip south. I really love the shapes of the pods.

The Diva’s meant on Tue too and folks had lots great things to share. I got a lot of help with my works in progress. That is one of the best things about the group.

Progress Report: Taffy Pull At one point last week I thought I was done with this work. But when I took my second look the day after in the low light of early morning- I realized it was not very strong. So I took to my meetings. That is the best part of showing my stuff to new eyes. I am now working on adding more color to this surface in the form of thread painting. It is helping.

Butterflies for Ethel I am to the quilting stage of this work too. It also went to my meetings without being completed. I had the butterflies attached with the sliver thread as I did the first two in this series but did not have what I felt was a strong enough ideas for the quilting that it needed to be complete. Again my fellow artists came through with lots of suggestions. Now I need to get going on the machine process.

Breaking Up I am to the quilting stage of this work that I started last summer at QBL. I was challenging myself to add slender lines to the surface and I think I was successful with that part of the idea.

New Curvy Cut Work I picked up lots of leaves on my walks this week too. So I decided I needed a place to print there images and this is what I built to do so. I will paint the leaves and hand stamp them on this surface.

New Work/Challenge I am off this week end to do some more fabric dyeing and so I looked through the stack of older dyed stuff. I decided I would challenge myself to do at least a quilt a month using some of the hand dyed fabric. In this photo my hand dyed/printed fabric in the center. I am not sure about the next step- but I am sure going to try.

Label Block TV news goes on every night and so does my work on these blocks. Keep Creating

Carol

Butterflies For Ethel, Collage Based Work, Earthly Fissures, Swoop, Taffy Pull

More ways to study ones composition

October 29, 2015 admin

Hello,

The fall colors are still fascinating me. I just can’t seem to look enough. And every day the view changes.

I have a few other ways of looking at a work to see if the balance is good and the composition on is as strong as it can be. One is to squint. I do this a lot with out even thinking about it. But is is good to pay attention. The second is to use a reducing glass or if you do not have one – to use binoculars in a backward fashion. By making the work smaller the eye can see all of the composition at once. You can also take a digital photo to reduce the size for viewing too. I do anything that helps the brain to make a good composition. Because who wants to waste their time working on something that is not the best one can do?

Progress Report: Earthly Fissures I am pleased with this work. I took it along with four other works to my photographer, John Dowling yesterday. Having the proper lighting and such really does make a difference. I feel that I achieved my goal of creating a dark crack without using black. To do so I used the dark green to create the darkest area. This rock had lots of cracks in it. I used a lot of yarn and thread to convey this feeling.

15 This work is my entry for the Diva’s 15 anniversary show. The rule we all have to follow is : fifteen must be some were in the work and the quilt must be 15” X 15” . I made a block using the roman numeral for fifteen- XV and then built the quilt. The only block were you can read it is in the lower right hand corner. My personal challenge was to assemble it all by hand and quilt it that way too. I have not done either of those things in a long time. I also wanted to get a little practice in doing hand quilting before I started quilting Ethel’s quilt. Now I am ready- if I can only decide now what pattern I want the quilting to follow.

Scarp Happy I finished another one of these fun quilts. I did make it to the Ronald McDonald House this week were I left off the previous one. I looked at the shoe box that holds the extra blocks and it is still too full so I will make another soon using old blocks.

Taffy Pull This close up shows the machine work I am almost finished with on this project. Again I let the fabric tell me what to stitch.

Butterflies for Ethel This will be the third in the Butterfly Series. The title of this work comes from the fact that I have used only Ethel’s fabric for the background of this project. She had a good eye for color and pattern. I am now ready to cut the Butterflies themselves out of the ground cloth. After I add paint I will apply them to this surface.

Swoop I lost my last curvier cut piece when I was at Pat Pauly’s work shop. After trying to find it I have finally accepted the fact that it is gone. So I thought I better get going on a new piece. And I think I was doing a bit of avoidance too as I did not feel confident about starting the quilting on Ethel quilt.

New Rock This is another avoidance start. Judy is pushing me to stretch /frame my rock pieces. So I decided to find a little section in the photo I used for Earthly Fissures( it is framed in white near the top). I cut a piece of wool big enough to stretch around a 18” X 24” canvas that I have and I will begin to try to create the area in blue.

New Work This work is really not very new. I started it at QBL last summer.But it had become buried. When I unearthed it this week I decided to move forward on the completion. It is small and I think it will go quickly.

Label Block #24 And a another one down when it come to this project.

Keep Creating

Carol

Earthly Fissures, Label Blocks, Taffy Pull

Reflection

October 21, 2015 admin

Hello,

I am still enjoying the sights of fall. These wall nuts still in their husks are reflective of the colors we are experiencing at the moment. Reflection is another way to check out the composition of ones work. I have a long mirror that I sometimes pick up and look into to see if the work is balanced. The image is in reverse and that helps me see if thing are off in one way or another. It makes the emphasis different and that helps.

I have been busy supporting my fellow artists this week. My great friend Barbara had an opening on Sunday at the Library. It was/is a wonderful show of the work representing her whole creative career. I really enjoyed it. Then when the FAB group meant, Sally showed off one of her pastels. It is based on a photo she took on Nancy and myself getting into a canoe.That brought back fond memories for all of us. I like the work as well.

Progress Report: Taffy Pull The top is all together now and I am

ready to start the quilting. I sure hope the pressing helps level it out. I am still struggling with the cutting of curves. It is a technique that takes lots of repeat action to master.

Earthly Fissures I am still building up the surface of this work. It is nearly completed. I really enjoy stitching down the yarns and adding lines of stitching to the surface.

Label Block # 23 One more completed. The box full of labels does not seem to be at all diminished however.

Keep Creating

Carol

Collage Based Work, Earthly Fissures, Label Blocks, Scrap Happy Quilts

Looking

October 15, 2015 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

I was struck this morning by how much I depend on the low light of morning to help me see my work. When the light is soft before I turn on the studio lights, I can really see the grays of light med and dark in my working pieces without the distractions of color. Now I am not saying I always pay attention to this- but I do know that when I take note- look at the balance , note the movement of the eye – the work is stronger.

Progress Report: Earthly Fissures This photo is of a rock formation in the Adorancks that I took a few weeks ago when I was up to visit Cris at the Pink House Gallery. I have selected a small section of the photo to be my jumping off point for this new work. I am building up the layers for the look I want now. This process always takes longer then I expect. But I love the final process so much it is well work the time.

Scrap Happy I have now finished this work. I just keep playing at this process. This one is very cheerful even though there is gray and black in the quilt.

15 I am doing the hand quilting on this little project in preparation of work on Ethel’s quilt.

New Work I started a new piece this week based on a collage I did over the week end. I did six collages and then picked out this one to be my challenge/ starting place. I am really exploring with this new process. That is both fun and scary at the same time.

The quilt top does seem to take on a mind of its own and the enlarging of a small” sketch/collage( 3”X 5”) and going to a different color combo changes things. I am enjoying the challenge however and feel I am growing with the process.

Label Block 22 The beat goes on for this project. Enjoy the fall colors.

Carol

Incisions, Label Blocks, Machine Drawing

Fall- Indian Summer

October 8, 2015 admin 2 Comments

Hello,

We are in Indian Summer now. Many trees are changing color over the course of a single day. My favorite time of year with its cold nights and worm days. I have truly enjoyed my walks. This week was a busy one. My first adventure was a trip down to see the opening of the Rock Garden show. I knew many artists in this one including Susan( pictured with her work), Carolyn and Cheri. It was a strong show with lots of variety.

Then on the week end I took a class at the Schweinfurth entitled “ Surface Designs” with Pat Pauly. I learned a lot about dyeing as I paid much more attention this time because I now have Ethel’s stash of dyes to play with. This is my wall at the end of the first day. I have lots of friends in this class and that made it epically wonderful. This shot is of Regina pulling a print.

Susan was in the class and so was Victoria. This shot is of her wall at noon on the second day.

Annette and Regina were the first ones to sort there work out of the first days wash out of the dyed fabric. We all enjoyed our selves and

laughed a lot.

This is a shot of some of my fabric after my the wash out when I got home. I now have a new stash of stuff to play with.

Then on Tuesday this week I had meetings of both the QuIG’s and the Diva groups. I get a great deal of stimulation from both of those groups and find the hour drive back from Ithaca after 9:00 flies as I think about and process my day.

Progress Report: Incisions This quilt is based on a collage that I did in David’s class at QBL last summer. It is 29 ” wide by 43″ long. I ended up turning my quilt upside down to make it work for me- and there were lots of alterations on the design as I went along. But I like the process enough that I will use it again.This is the collage I started from.

I quilted the cream areas in pebble patterns and in the browns I outlined the light areas. I feel like this quilt was a real growth experience for me. I got a lot of help form the QuIGS on how to make the quilt lie flat. They were very instructive at the Sept Meeting when I showed it. I was so far off that I was ready to toss the whole thing. Now I feel differently.

Project 15 I have just started doing the hand quilting on this project. I am going to mostly make that a reflective pattern of the pieces.

New Work I am ready to begin a new rock based piece. The photo is from a long ago trip to the California shore that I took with Eric. I have again just selected a small portion of the photo for this quilt. So I think I will do several based on the same image.

Label Block 22 The process goes on for this project. I realized this week I will need 120 blocks to have enough for a quilt so I will be at this for over two year span…. I almost wish I had not figured that out.

Keep Being Creative

Carol

Cre-8

Paying Attention

Moving Along

Thanksgiving

Leaves

Leaf Dance

Indian Summer

More ways to study ones composition

Reflection

Looking

Fall- Indian Summer

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer