Caramelized, Dry Falls Lichens, Scrap Happy Quilts, Shaving Cream Printing

Active

January 22, 2015 admin

Hello,

This week as been a full one. I went to play day /work shops sort of things two day this week. I printed with shaving cream at Turquoise street studio and now have a new pile of fabric to play with. Then I went off to a Figerative Art event were we all worked for the day on our own projects. This shot is of the clutter on my table were I worked on my Creative Assistants all day long. Marla showed these wonderful doll heads at lunch that day. She will be teaching her water color painting techniques at Artist Doll and Teddy Bear Convention in Philly at the end of April. Check our her blog at : orsinisangels.blogspot.com Its wonderful! I am still struggling with the new program so I do not have all the images I want to share but I have some. I thought I

Caramelized 26" X 33" $300.00 — Caramelized
26″ X 33″
$300.00

had it conquered yesterday- but the new things I wanted to add this morning are not going anywhere. I will keep at it.

Progress Report: Caramelized I enjoyed working on this project. I really used lots of different materializes on this one. There is fused silk paper of course. Some fabric that I printed last year. The light orange pattern on the rust fabric shown here with the gold silk on top. I like the silk screen I used here so much I used it again this week in blues on a turquoise background.

The last technique is some painted tyveck that I placed between two sheets of parchment paper and melted with a hot iron. I like how one is never sure how it will melt and bubble. There is also a little of silk Komona that I got from Ginny in this work.

Scarp Happy 1

Way back in early December my big sewing machine was out for repair. So I got out Grandmother Butter’s Feather weight. With that I sewed up all my scarps and now I am putting them together. I use a sort of Roman strip for my block ( look in the tutorials to see the full process) This one with the blue centers if the first.

Scrap Happy 2

This one with black and white patterned centers alternating with yellow and cream is the second. I am working on the next three using different colored centers and they will appear as I finish them.

Dry Falls Lichens I am to the fun part of this work now. I am adding the lichens . They are created by layering felt on the bottom with velvet on top and then a layer of nylon net on top of that. With this sandwich pinned together I free motion circular patterns on top of all of it to bind it together. I really enjoy doing this step.

New work I made this simple layout for yet another bit of hand work. I found some wonderful plastic shapes that I want to add to the surface by hand so this will serve as my base.

Keep Creating and I will keep struggling with the program.

Carol

Memory Map Quilts, Uncategorized, Yellowstone

Why there have been no Posts

January 16, 2015 admin 2 Comments

Hello Faithful Followers,

I have not had access to the computer for a while. The screen went black and we had to send it out to be repaired- twice to get everything back in running order. We still lost some stuff. Good thing it is on the back up hard drive. Now my second problem is I lost the program that I was using to perpear pictures for the this blog. It has been a real challenge for me to learn a new way of doing that step. The holidays also mean lots of travel and family activities for me so I do not have a lot of work to share. I feel like I am getting going again as I went to visit my friend Ethel yesterday and we made Fused Silk Paper. I have been working with moss, lichens and trees lately so I concentrated on playing with greens with the silk. I feel like I have a good selection of colors now.

I did finish all the Minions and gave most of them away. But I did stop in the process long enough to take photos with every step along the way so I will put up a tutorial on that in the next few days.

Progress Report: Memorie Map -Yellowstone

When I was seven my Father worked for the National Park Service in Yellowstone National Park. It was a glories time for a kid with lots of freedom and wonders to see and explore. Every weekend we went some were and had some sort of adventure or another.

One adventure was a fishing trip were all the ranges at the base took all the kids fishing. This close up shows Gene and I with our cut throat trout. We really feasted that night as there was no electricity and the fish had to be eaten that day.

One of my other memories of Yellowstone was the lupin. They were so beautiful and seemed to grow just every were. This last close up is of Dad’s shoulder patch that was on his uniform. He was a guard at the South Gate Ranger station that wonderful summer.

Sounds Like the Blues

This work go got a lot of attention when it comes to hand work. I had fun using lots of different types of threads and such to the surface of this pieces as well as the leftover silk pieces.

Circuit Board Now that I am done with one bit of hand work I had to start a new one. I hand stamped some orange circles on a white background and started connecting them together with hand stitches. I added the beads because it looked so simple. I am having fun doing all this chain stitching.

Dry Falls Lichens I am working on yet another Foundations piece. This one is based on a photo I took at Dry falls of the Lichens growing on one of the stone guard rail units. I liked all the variations in the colors on the plan gray stone,

Keep Creating

Carol

3-D, Minion, Sounds like the Blues

Snow Time

December 11, 2014 admin 1 Comment

Hello -from the snowy north…….

I think the snow has stopped falling and sense I took this shot yesterday I know there is lots more snow out there- but this does give one the idea. If I was still teaching- I would have used the fall to teach tree branch forms by giving the students gray paper and only black and white crayons. They kids always did wonderful work when they were directed to slow down and look at their world with a careful eye. The slow down part is so important when it comes to snow- It quiets the world a bit too.

I went down to the Turquoise Moon studio and spent as day playing with collage this week. I seem to collect lots of cool images and do not take the time to work on them when I am home. It takes a play day like this one to remind me of the joy that I get from doing “paper work”.

Ginny wanted help making a bag for her Grand Daughter for Christmas. So she came with her goods and we did the job yesterday afternoon. The bag is for all the Fairy stuff Ginny had collected to give her for dress up. It was fun.

Progress Report: Scrap Bag I still do not have my big sewing machine and I continue to use Garma Butterworth’s old Feather Weight. I have finally finished assembling the scraps from the scarp bag however. So I started cutting them into 2.5″ strips. I made the mistake of working on that step too long – 2 hours and my arm and index finger really paid the price for that excess. That happened last Friday and I still feel a twinge of pain when I press too hard with the finger. I am limiting myself to cutting only ten sections into the strips before I stop now. I never really knew my habit of only doing one thing/ project for about an hour was a good plan- I just thought of it as an extension of my teaching where I only had did one class for 45min before I had a new bunch of students and usually a new grade level to deal with. Now I see the benefit of not working too long at any one thing. I will still get the cutting and assembly job done- it will just be a bit more slowly. That is OK too as I am building these quilts to give away and there is no deadline. I did decide to purchase a new sewing machine however as I do have a deadline for the wedding quilt. The machine – a Berna B 350 will come tomorrow or Sat. I am excited about getting back into free motion work.

Sounds like the Blues I am still doing hand work on this piece. I also started a knitting project too so progress on this hand work is slow.

Minion The other thing I just started was this Minion. I think they are so silly and they always make me laugh- so here goes me attempt. I am sure there are patterns out there- but I will muddle along. I am sure I would not go this route if I had a free motion machine- so I will count this as one of the unexpected blessings of only being able to sew strait stitches with a machine.

My holiday wish for all of you is- may you find joy in the challenges you face.

Keep Creating

Carol

Broadcasting, Hand Bags, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs), Sounds like the Blues

Clean Up

December 4, 2014 admin

Hello,

In the process of returning all my quilts to their normal storage spots I noticed how much orange I use in my work. Then on further consideration I realized that it tends to appear more in the work I do in the fall when I see more orange and brown as the leaves change color here. But now my world has become very muted and almost mono chromatic. That was espically true today when the sky was gray and trees were black against it . The leaves on the ground tended toward brows, and tans with a little rust there. I will try to take note as to the color choices I make in the studio in the next few weeks. I spent Tuesday with the QuEG’s folks and we played with the Gelli plates. Several of the gals had never done it before. After a quick demo- the paint started flying and we all produced lots of colorful prints.

Folks did show and tell too of course.

Angela showed off her “10 Min Wonder ” table runners. It really only took 10 min to put together she says and she is set to make lots.Corinne had been to the Red

Thread Retreat and she was excited by the experience too. She came home with a box full of treasures. Mostly in book forms this time. It was a good day.

At the moment I am not making lots of progress on my work because my sewing machine is in the repair shop. I was free motion sewing on the wedding quilt when I noticed there was a problem with the tension.So I did pull out grandmother Butterworth’s old Feather Weight and went to work on the scrap bags. Being limited to froward and backward means I am limited to piecing. It took the better part of last week and Monday to finish putting all the scraps into groups. I started slicing them into 2.5inch units today and started assembling those into long strips for my Scarp Happy quilts.

Progress Report:

Flow Patterns 21.5X 38.5 $300.00 — Flow Patterns
21.5X 38.5
$300.00

Flow Patterns Although I do not have a machine now- I did earlier and I did finish the free motion work on this quilt befor. This project just seemed to flow out my finger tips when I was pinning the parts up. I so enjoy using my silk paper and that is what the most of this project is made of. It does have some gold painted tyvek as an add on portion too.

This work has lots of movement from my point of view.

Broadcasting

I can do some work with only strait stitching and this piece only needed to have the facings added to do that part. I enjoyed adding all the round elements by hand to this piece. There are beads and pads from saxafones on the surface of this work. It was easy to stitch through the felted pads and the ones with leather were also easy to push the needles through.

A friend who plays the sax is very impressed.

Memory Maps- Yellowstone Even though I can only sew strait stitching I can work on this project a little. I outlined the park and painted in the rives and Yellowstone lake. Then I did the road lines. I have added the Ranger Station at South Gate where Dad worked when we lived there. I am still working out exactly where I want to place the trailer that was our home at this point. And the trees- I remember so many lodge pole pine trees in all directions…. It is fun to work away on this project as more and more memories of that wonderful season when I was seven keep flowing back to me.

Silk Clutch I needed a elegant small hand bag for a seasonal event last week. So I looked at the silk paper( I was working on Flow Patterns at the time) and found a bigger piece of some I had created with Ethel as fall. This is strong enough to be a bag because we sandwiched a piece of silk organza in the middle of the silk roving when we created the paper. It worked well and I got several compliments on the bag.

Sound like the Blues I am still doing lots of hand stitching on this work. All the textures are starting to come together for me.

Keep Creating

Hugs

Carol

Uncategorized

Thanksgiving

November 27, 2014 admin

Happy Thanksgiving Day to all!

Carol

Acanthite, Caramelized, New Iris, Oak Leaves, Out of the Dark, Out the Window, Pomegranate, Red Nebula, Yellowstone

Realisations

November 20, 2014 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

I feel so Positive when I think about my work. I did a solo trunk show yesterday for the North Syracuse Art Guild titled

Out the Window 16.5" X 21.5" $125.00 — Out the Window
16.5″ X 21.5″
$125.00

” Your Art /My Art”. In that lecture/ trunks show, I compared my work to the many styles and types of work that the members use. In doing so I really realized how much I draw from the other art categories to get my ideas across. I draw directly on the fabric with pencils, crayons and markers. I use my machine as a drawing tool too. I Paint with acrylic,water color and dye on the surface when I need to create a special effect. I print on the surface using silk screens, stamping and stencils to get images I want on the work. I use some weaving techniques like felting, silk papers and frapping. I often use collage techniques to build up my surfaces with

Red Nebula 18" X 24" — Red Nebula
18″ X 24″

textures and transparencies and different already textured fabrics like velvet and satins. I even embellish with old jewelry on occasion. I am thankful that I get to use from all the different art areas to full fill my creative drive. I realized too that I have been using my experiences and interests to fuel my work for most of my life. Doing a presentation like this is a good way to reflect and re evaluate oneself.

Oak Leaves 45" X 30" $ 350.00 — Oak Leaves
45″ X 30″
$ 350.00

I now have the monster job of returning all the work back into the category packs that I store them in. I feel so very thankful that I am working in so many ways to fulfill my creative ideas.

Acanthite: Foundations XXIV 18" X 23" $ 150.00 — Acanthite: Foundations XXIV
18″ X 23″
$ 150.00

Progress Report: Acanthite :Foundation 24 This quilt is went together very quickly for me. This stone added some problems as some of the areas where a sold white. I wanted to be sure to use velvet and now whale corduroy on this work to show the wonderful textures they add to the surface. There were also lots of cracks on the surface that added interest to this one.

This shot also shows some of the chenille yarn( dark green) and some silk paper( blue- near the top).

Broadcasting I am enjoying doing the hand work on this piece. Most of the saxaphone pads are stitched down now and I am adding beads and french knots to the surface. I have added some reflective quilting to the surface too. This work is going along well at the moment with each actions leading to the next.

Yellowstone The ease that Broadcasting is a great contrast with my slow process on this work. I think I finally have the map portions the correct size and location. I will do the paint step for that and then I will move forward. I also realized that the piece is too pale. Yellowstone has lots of forest and I want to project that feel too so I pulled out dark green organza ( pinned to the left) and adding that will help me go forward I hope.

The Blues This work just needs time as the hand work is a slow thing. I am playing with three of different types of stitches- the chain stitch, the blanket stitch and the fly stitch. I am varying the size of the stitches to add interest.

Caramelized This is a new work that is still in the shifting and pinning stage. I melted the Tyvec that I painted in the fall colors last week, with the iron between sheets of parchment paper. The melt results are so much fun because they are uncontrollable. Mixing them with silk paper makes me think of carmel and melting butter. That is were the title came from. I am enjoying the play.

Keep Creating

Carol

Diva Meetings, Donna's Wedding Dress II, Memory Map Quilts, Uncategorized, Wedding quilts, Yellowstone

More Fall

November 13, 2014 admin

Hello,

I could not resist this oak leaf with its rain spots this morning. They look so like glass beads. I am so influenced by the natural elements around me that I am not even aware of it. This is photo of fruit on a limb that I took yesterday when I went for my morning walk was not on the top of my mind at 3:30 when I painted tyveck for an unknown project-( I wanted to have a bit of the texture that ironed tyveck creates for some use) but the colors came out anyway. The Diva’s did a Trunk Show at the Schweinfurth Art Center on Sunday in conjunction with their Quilts= Art= Quilts show that is currently hanging in their galleries. Eight of the members showed off her works and talk about their personal influences. The presentation was well received and and there where about 45 people who attended. There were lots of positive comments from the viewers after the talk. Sharon Bottle Souva sold two pieces! I tend to forget how strong and unique each of the gals in the group are until I see a group presentation like this one. I feel so

privileged to be a part of such a strong group of supportive and creative fiber artists.

I went to Nancy’s this week and we talked about her possible next steps for her summer quilt. This photo is of the center section. She plans to add butterflies on the surface and to machine draw/quilt in two trees to represent Bret and herself . Nancy always finds a way to take a simple idea and build on it to create a very complex work- I love it!

Progress Report: Donna’s Wedding Quilt I am still quilting away on this work. At this point I am just a little beyond half way with the center section. I find that I can only work for about an hour on this before I begin to get tired and must stop.

Broadcasting I am continueing to add more instrument pads to the surface of this quilt. It is starting to get the feel I want. I am going very slowly and pinning the work up every evening after I have added more to the surface. Then I study before I make new additions.

Memory Map- Yellowstone I am playing with paper patterns of the objects/ parts I want to add to the surface of this project. Sally reminded me that one does not need nor should they try to include everything in the work. I am struggling with that part of the process so it too is going slowly.

New Stone Work I started a new rock piece this week. I am working from a black and white photograph so I am choosing the colors that are the tones and shades like the ones in the image. I used corduroy, hand dyed silk and organza in this work as well as yarns and silk paper. I love all the textures.

New Work I started this work about a month ago. I did not know where I was going with it at the time and I am still not sure. But I am pushing forward none the less. I have added some vertical units and I am doing hand stitching on the surface to add more texture. This is a pure experimental thing.

If you have a comment please post it.

Keep Creating

Carol

Donna's Wedding Dress II, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs), Wedding quilts

Full Moon

November 6, 2014 admin

Hello,

The Moon is full and I love to see how the moon light makes the branches have little sliver out lines. The shadows are wonderful too. I am so glad it was clear and warm last night so I could enjoy the evening. It is cold today however.

I did a little walking in the woods this week and enjoyed the sounds of the leaves under foot as the trees are mostly stripped now. It was a gray day when I made this excursion, but I still enjoyed the sounds and this tree bark bark.

This week there were QuEG’s and FAB meetings. The Diva group is doing a trunk show at the Schweinfurth on Sunday so they did not meet. The QuEG’s gals had lots to share. Sally did this fun little landscape to give to a friend who let her stay on the lake this summer. There is lots of machine work here as she always applies a lot of that.

Sue Ellen is busy thinking of Christmas too and creating little machine drawn mini images 6″ X 8″ in the seasonal vain.

Angela has been experimenting with her felter and she was trying with this copy to see how effective she could be with a pre-felted surface that she felted into. Looks good to me.

Jane is doing her amazing wool embroidery as usual. She had several pieces this time.

There were four of us from the QuEGs group who were in Kerr Groboski’s Deconstructed class last week, so there were lots of wonderful dyed works to share too! This shot of one of Linda’s fabrics shows how the print paste breaks down one the screen with each print. Seeing all our works together sure made me aware of how we all have our own unique color sense as well as style. I hope we do some more of this technique because I was so happy with the color that I achieved in this workshop. Now the real work begins when one uses the fabric as a start or works back into it…….. I think they will need to hang in my line of sight for a while before I know what to do.

Progress Report : New Work I still have not come up with a title for this work. I have started to stitch down the key pads however. It is a fun and very slow process. I will work on that this week.

Donna’s Second Wedding Dress Quilt This is the second commission for my friend Donna. I am to the free motion quilting step now after spending over two hours crawling around on the floor pin basting it on Monday. I wore my knee pads but the knees still hurt. I am following the strong lines in the print for the quilting design . This shot shows the top( green, gold white and red) with the back folded over so one can also see how the quilting pattern is coming along.

Keep Creating

Carol

Creative Assistants, Foundations Series, Foundations XXIII Water Marked Sandstone, Machine Drawing, Spill

More Fall Stuff

October 30, 2014 admin 1 Comment

Hello-

Fall is still all around and painting the landscape here with color. I love it.

When football season starts, I watch and spend my time making my Creative Assistants. This is the first batch of 49 that I have completed. I so enjoy the process and it does make the football go by faster for me. It seems the games have lots of time when there is nothing much going on- but commercials, so I stitch away. I enjoy giving them away when I go to Quilting by the Lake every summer. ( there is a tutorial on how to construct your own Creative Assistants below)

I am taking a class called Deconstructed Screen printing with Kerr Grabowski. It starts today and lasting for three days. This is my pile of stuff for the class. I am sure I will come home with lots of new altered fabric to use.

Spill 17" X30" $185 — Spill
17″ X30″
$185

Progress Report: Spill I had a good time working on this piece. I so love texture and this one has lots of different materials that add to that. There is the usual cotton of course, and my current favorite – silk paper then I added iron melted plastic bags and turquoise mylar as well as satin, and course woven silk. I added hand stitching t in the form of french knots, button whole stitches and chain stitches to the surface as well as machine drawing too. I am pleased with the results.

This piece fits very nicely in a little nook in the wall.

Watermarked Sandstone 33.5" X 25" $305.00 — Watermarked Sandstone
33.5″ X 25″
$305.00

Watermarked Sandstone- Foundations XXIII I am finally finished with this newest member of the foundations series. I really enjoyed the free motion work on this project. I had a good time doing the painting on the surface of this piece. Adding the iron nodes to the surface was a bit of a challenge as I tried them in many different locations before I finally selected this layout. Then when I was shooting the work for this entry I discovered that I like it on a 90 degree turn from the direction that I had been looking all the time I was working on the construction. One always needs to be open and aware of what is in front of them.

New Work As I was nearing the end of my work on Spill I realized I needed a new piece to do hand work on so I looked through my sketchbook of ideas. I came across this old idea of using circles and lines for a piece and though I would try it. I have a box full of old Saxaphone keypads that a friend had passed to me and I thought this would be my opportunity to use them to express this idea. There are so many different sizes, colors and textures here- I am sure I will have fun with this work.

I hope all enjoy the colors of the season and the kids all dressed up for Halloween.

Keep Creating

Carol

Agate, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Felt Work, Foundations Series, Foundations XXIII Water Marked Sandstone, Memory Map Quilts, Spill, Yellowstone

Quality

October 23, 2014 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

Leaves continue to be a big part of my daily dose of nature. But I want to talk about a Jewish Proverb I came across in my reading this week. “The Quality of life is fuelled by our productive wealth.” That idea has been on my mind while I have been walking for the last two days. To begin with I really think that my life is a rich and wealthy one, but I think even though I am productive that is not the only thing that adds meaning and value to my life. Quality is strongly related to context. One can have “Quality Time” and for me that can mean just

time spent listening and interacting with a friend or child. A big part of that quality comes with the focus of that time- no distractions or concerns for other things. When I was making the halloween costume for my grandson- (some video game character that I do not know anything about)- that” one on one time ” with him telling me exactly what he wanted and helping with the sewing machine work was real quality time. I spent quality time talking with Nancy on Wed at the FAB meeting when there were only the two us and we got to telling stories about our youth to one another. That shows a quality of trust too. (She is making progress on her quilt and the sky with the clouds she made in silk paper on that sky is great. ) Then there is also quality friendships like the one I share with Nancy and a few others. There is a degree of necessary quality in all our lives for things like shelter, food, good quality air and water- without those assuredness none of the other quality things can come about. We need those quality ingredients to be healthy and to fully appreciate the degrees of wealthy excellence our lives hold.

Agate 23" X 36" $300.00 — Agate
23″ X 36″
$300.00

Progress Report:Agate I finished this work this week. It has been created from a big piece of silk paper that I made with Ethel a few weeks ago. The most difficult part of this project was deciding what side of the silk paper to use- they were both so lovely. I had a good time attaching the silk paper to the quilt with many hand stitches. This project was created with silk hankies that were hand dyed before I put the paper together. I might not have selected these colors to use together on my own, but I sure like them and will try to add this type of mix to my own way of thinking.

Spill This quilt is coming along nicely now. I love all the textures on the surface of this work. This shot shows silk paper- two types the sheet form (on the far left) and the flow form(the green blue at the top) , the iron melted mylar( the turquoise ) and iron melted plastic bag( the apple green). The whole thing has been fun for me.

Watermarked Sandstone I am still doing machine drawing on this work but I can see the end is in sight. Again I am playing with texture- my favorite thing. There are “nodes of iron ore” in the image and so I have created some solid rust colored circles to add to the surface of the piece. Before I can stitch them down I need to add rust colored paint to the surface to show how the water wears away the iron too and in so doing it stains the surrounding stone.

Yellowstone Memory Map I so enjoyed creating the Sandstone Church project that I thought I would do a second memory map type quilt from my childhood. When I was seven, my Dad was a summer ranger in Yellowstone National Park at South Gate. I have wonderful memories of that summer and want to try to put them into this new project. This is layer one and it too is ready for a paint layer to soften and unify some of these parts.

I hope you too are enjoying the fall color and creating fun works.

Hugs

Carol

Cre-8

Active

Why there have been no Posts

Snow Time

Clean Up

Thanksgiving

Realisations

More Fall

Full Moon

More Fall Stuff

Quality

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer