Category Archives: Re Work

Birds, Creative Assistants, Crow Calls, Daily Practice, FAD (Fiber Art Dames), Feed you soul, Felt Work, FOX, Label Cards, Sisterhood of the Scissors, Thousand words, Wildfire, Word Forms

Good News

October 19, 2018 admin

Hello,

This work is in the Quilts unlimited Show in Old Forge NY. I got a letter in the mail this week that told me this work won a Judges Choice award. I am delighted.

Other events happened this week as well. Tanya came to visit and we talked of dyeing. She is working with silk and experimentally dyeing with different materials. I love the colors she The big event was yesterday and it was my first meeting with the Sisterhood of the Scissors. It was a play day at Regina’s house. Everyone just did their own thing.

Wendy spent her time at the meeting working on shome stitchery. Several gals worked on their weaving.

They both had handmade looms.

one can see the image of her dog under this weaving. It will be great.

Regina is mixing her indigo dyed doily and a rust dyed one.I dyed with shaving cream and put a few items into Regina’s Dye pot. We had a good time and d to the next meeting.

Progress Report: FOX This work is 25.5” w X 4hhh. I am finally finished with this work. I used some of my hand dyed.

The modeled orange red here is that fabric. The background with the greens is one of the fabrics I inherited from Ethel. Her influence just keeps going in my life.

Wildfire- I am now done with the free motion quilting on this piece. It sure seems to give the work more of a flow pattern across the surface.

Friends I am done with the hand applique and directive stitch work on this piece now. The glasses are from my friend Mary and the copper belt buckle is from my mom. I now need to purchase some additional stretcher bars as I did not mark the outer edge of the size and I filled the space allotted. So I will purchase some 16” bars and finish this work.The wool is from Tanya and the leaves from Pam. I got the buttons from a big tin from my friend Sally. Folks are so very generous.

Daily Practice All the fabric pieces are attached now and I am working on stitching to pull them together.

Felting I went a little crazy when I got the felting machine out and did four bases. Then I ordered more roving as I did not have as much blue as I wanted.

Birds The felting lead me to do some machine drawing and the Blue Jay and the Killdeer are the result. I will build a few more birds to

apply to the backgrounds.

New Work I started a new background using lots of my hand dyed stuff .

Creative Assistants I watched a little football this week and built a few faces along the way.

Label Cards Thousand Words I think this is a true and powerful statement. Feed Your Soul For each and everyone of us that idea is unique. Color, texture and exercise are some of the things that feed my soul- but I am sure that is not true of everyone.

Keep Creating

Carol

Birch Trees, Daily Practice, Forest Fires, JIG, Label Cards, Memory Map Quilts, Mulberry Memories, Truth, Word Forms

Mill Site Lake Retreat 2018

August 30, 2018 admin

Hello,

Over the weekend I went to the Mill Site Lake fall retreat at Judy’s camp. We had a good time swimming, kayaking and hiking. We went to the Red Wood Sanctuary and that is were Nancy spotted these Indian Pipes. There were lots of colorful mushrooms in that old growth wood too. We enjoyed the big old trees and I was especially taken by the wonderful bark textures. I took lots of photos of those too. The weather was pleasant and it was relaxing as the retreat always is. I did a lot of hand work.

Earlier this week I wash the dye out of the fabrics I have been dyeing this summer. All fabrics have three layers of printing on them. Building up the interest was one of my main goals for this summers work.

Progress Report: Collection III This work is ready to be stretched now I think. I took it to camp and spent a lot of time doing the hand work on it.I had a good time adding in the stitching and embellishing the work. Now I can move onto the next one in this series.

JIG I just finished the last of the machine quilting on this piece this week . Now I need to add the facings and finish it up.

Mulberry Memories I am to the point now where I only have a little hand work to do on this piece and then I can add the facings here too. I am gearing up for the group meetings next week. That always seems to give me finishing goals.

Re work- Birch Trees In the process of looking for work I want to put in the Broad Street Gallery Fiber Show, I came across this felted work and thought it needed additional work. No center of interest. So I am going to add Birch trees to the surface and see if that action does not help the work. The green netting that I have pinned to the top helps with color interest already.

Forest Fire I built the canopy for the trees to add to this work yesterday. It all has fusible on the back so when I add the tree trunks to this and everything is in its final position I can iron it down and then stitch on top. I will build from there forward to fill in the ” work.

Daily Practice This work is almost finished. I added beads and the brass flower forms that Carol gave me to the surface. I am now to the point where I am doing “intense looking” at the work to see if it is complete or if it needs further modifications.

Label Card: Truth In this day and age of telling half truths and open lying, I think we need to be sure to speak clear honest unembellished truths. No need to embellish the truth.

Keep Creating

Carol

Collage, Glyph IV with Beads, Glyph Series, Hand work, JOT I, JOY II, Magic, Plantine

Magic

January 18, 2018 admin

Hello-

We are deep in winter now so the sight of my Christmas Cactus blooming is a nice bright sight. I have had a good week. I went to the opening of the New Members Show at the Manlius Library on Sunday. There are six of us who are showing about six pieces apiece. It was great fun to talk with the other artists and the public too. I had great support from several of my friends and that added to my positive feelings. Before the day was over, much to my delight, I sold two of my works. Fox Tails and White Iris both have new homes now. It is a great feeling of confirmation when a stranger likes your work.

Progress Report: Joy I This work is 24”w X 23” l. It is also a rework. The curvy cut quilt was made in 2012 and was set to be donated to the Helping Hounds shelter. But I pulled it aside and added the JOY graffiti on top instead. This second shot shows the word pattern in paper. The blue was cut following this pattern then stitched down on top. I am exploring the use of my stylized lettering with this work. This last shot is of the “O” in the center of the word.

Glyph IV This shot is of the lower right side of the “O” in the Owl Glyph quilt series. This work is number 4 as the number indicates. I am glad to be working on the biggest letter in the grouping now.

New Ice The work goes slowly forward on this piece. I am rough cutting out the stones now. The upper right corner is my test run of various fabrics for the ice overlay part of this work.

Plantain Selling Fox Tails got me going on doing another wash out plant piece. I did the machine drawing on the wash away just as Amanda taught us in Oct. Then I pinned the work to the Styrofoam and washed away the “plastic”. The dry work is now ready to be stitched down to the felted background.

6X6 The call for six by six came this week so I pulled some pieces to work on. It was so easy to excess them now that the studio is in order.

Collage 1 One of my resolutions when I was cleaning was that I would do a collage every week too. This work is 8.5” X 11” a size that I think I can work with easily. I did find someone to pass a lot of the paper stash on to so I will use making the collages as a way to sort and share the materials as the year goes forward and I make pieces..

Joy II This is the base for my next JOY quilt. I pieced it and then added a bit of inner facing to the back to stabilize it. The same pattern is used as in JOY I . Because I am working from the backthe word is turned upside down for marking the edge and then it will be cut out. The result will be a positive and negative from this same fabric. The interfacing will cut down on the distortion when I stitch it down to the contrasting base.

Hand work I am doing my daily studies of stitches on this work. It is beginning to feel very solid to me.

Magic Card This card represents how I feel about myself and my fellow artists. We all are really Magicians. In our processes of taking raw materials- with paint, clay, pencils and fibers we work magic with them. Just looking at the elements, one never knows what they could and do or become in artistic hands . With sparks of creativity and the magic of our hands, we bring into the world things that without us would not exist. That is true Magic.

Keep Creating

Carol

Crow Calls, Label Blocks, Pods, Samurai Romance, Truquoise Street Studio

New Growth

April 21, 2017 admin

Hello-

Spring is fast upon us here in central New York. From the blooming of the trees to the lots of green sprouts across the ground it is here. Not having to always load up with hats and gloves is a very freeing feeling. I went off to visit with Regina this week. She did this wonderful piece with a snow dyed background and then she hand painted the grapes and leaves on top. It will be wonderful when she is done. She also showed off her machine work. The more I learn about this process the more I respect the gals who do it. There is or can be lots of computer programing in the process as well as all thread and color selection that goes on. It looks to take a lot of skill to me. We also did silk paper and had a long and good day.

Then I help Judy and Nancy work on the basing of Nancy’s Blue Bird quilt. There are lots of hours of machine drawing left on this project and I am certain that the end result will be a beauty.

I spent Thursday afternoon in the Turquoise Street Studio with Beth and Barbara. They are both working on there entries for the St David’s Show next in two weeks.I did hand work all afternoon and enjoyed the conversation.

Progress Report: Samurai Romance This work is 18.5 “ X 37.5 “.

I did four different techniques for adding textures to the surface for this work. I really like using foil and will try to keep that in mind as I go forward with new works.Foil can be added to paper, wool and interfacing. I have only applied it to fabric in the past. With each project I seem to be doing more and more free motion work too. It is also a powerful tool to use the machine as a drawing tool.

Pods I was doing some sorting and found some unique and beautiful buttons in my stash. They come in packs of five- but I am still going to use them as part of the embellishment of these pods. I cut quite a few more this week but there is still the fabric that I created in all four colors left so there will be lots of these to pass to folks at Christmas time as well as plenty to keep for myself.

Guatemalan Top This top is all done now. I will be sure to wear it at QBL this summer so show off how to use some of the great needle work.

I think Pricilla will be glad to see how I used the embroidery I purchased from her too.

Crow Calls I am working away on this project. I am adding the crow in flight to it now as the trees are mostly full of birds. I am almost out of the suede too so when that is all gone I will stop.

Iced Leaves I am making slow progress on this work. I have cut and embossed some of the copper leaves I want to use. I have also started to stitch down some of the fabric leaves too. I will admit now that it is spring I do not seem to have the drive to work on this I had earlier in the year.

Tan Rock This background is all done now. I have done some research and some drawings trying to decide what plant life I want to add on top. I am still in this part of the design stage.

Red Rock The same can be said for this red rock face.

Label Block # 117 The stitching keeps going forward on this project. I did a lot of hand work on the pods so not as much extra time was put into this project this week. I still meant my goal of completing one more block.

Keep Creating
Carol

Birds, Blossoming Branch, Crow Calls, Diva Meetings, Label Blocks, Pods, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs), Summer Meadow, Year Of the Rooster

Spring

April 7, 2017 admin

Hello-

It is starting to really feel like spring here in central New York. I see little bits of green on the tips of branches and shoots in the flower beds on my walks. This was the fist week of the month so I had meetings. The QuEG’s meeting was small but there was lots of work.

Liz finished this beauty using all Kay Facet’s fabrics. She and Sue Ellen both had work for the group challenge for the guild.

This is Liz’s finished star challenge piece. It looks good I think. Sue Ellen’s star is a good one as well. The use of the light blue fabric and the size were the other two limitations to the challenge. Angela is busy working on felting some of her patterns from her tip to Hawaii I think the limited pallet will server her well with this exploration.

The Divas also meant on Tue eve. with more exciting stuff. This is Lori’s completed tundra piece from her trip to Alaska.Maureen showed us lots of the new wonderful hand printed fabric that she is working on. Donna is proud of finally finishing her big king sized top. It is amazing as it is her first quilt.

She is also working away on some figures in paper clay. These bathing beauties are fun I think.

Regina is doing lots of handwork on her shobori pieces from last month. She is also exploring with rust dyeing.

Lliesa shared her memory scrolls from her semester in Japan. They are so wonderful. All created while she was there with her husband and made from fabric she got at the temple sales that she attended.

There are four scrolls and each one is full of beautiful appliqued works all with memories and stories too. She stitched the insect by hand here and told a story about the cricket pets one has in the small houses there. I just could not look enough at this piece of work.

Progress Report: Summer Meadow

This work is 15” X 21.5 “ in size. Sewing of the flowers was done from the back of the work with thick thread and cord in the bobbin. The dragon fly has wings cut from ribbon that was then free motion attached to the background. The body is made of bugle beads that I hand stitched to the surface.

Blooming Branch This work is 33” X 40.5”. It is the result of a challenge by my friend Sharron. We bot purchased some silk kimono fabric

This shot is a close up of that fabric. The challenge was to use it in a project to show at QBL in the summer of 2017. This is my solution.

Crow Calls I am adding the trees to the surface of the work now. It takes about 50 minuets to do each tree and the birds have not been started yet. I am enjoying it none the less.

Samurai Romance I finished the leaf panels this week . I am beginning to feel it is a bit over crowded and I still have one more technique to add to the surface.

I may do some editing before this is all done and I am happy now that I only pinned things in place as I went along.

Banner –Year of the Rooster This is one of my works that I started in Florida with Susan. The lettering on this one is stamped. The rooster is colored with crayon.

Banner- Birds This is my second banner this week. The texture is created by rubbing over a plastic doily with crayon. The text here is cut felt letters that were machine stitched down.

New IceI am just starting to free motion stitch down the parts of this work. The bright pink at the bottom, is the felt inside that I am building on.

New Scarves Chris asked for more scarves so I got busy and did these two this week. I am always surprised by the bits of stuff that seem to pile up and work in these projects.

Pod 6 I gave in and decided to create a few more pods. This one needs some weight/beads on the bottom and it will be complete.

Label Block # 114 I made it to the fabric store this week and got more black fabric for the last 25 blocks. Cutting them is the next step. Only 36 to go now.

Keep Creating

Carol

PS check out my tutorial on how to rust print.

and Brugundy, Bias Bound, Mini's, Paper Quilts, Re Work, Rocks and Water, Uncategorized

Feb 16, 2012 Color

February 16, 2012 admin 1 Comment

When I walked into the studio this morning before I turned on the light I looked at the pin wall. Because the day is gray the light was not strong so the wall appeared in colors of darks, grays and tans. Is this what a color blind person sees all the time I wondered? I love color and it dose effect my life. I am keenly aware of red this week for lots of reasons- Valentines day being a big part of that. I was a hostess and had to bring balloons as table decorations to the luncheon on Tuesday. Getting four of these clusters of balloons in the car was a challenge. But the process made me smile all day long. I have one cluster in the studio now and I am still grinning about the whole idea. My husband gave me Red Roses for the holiday too. They are another study in the wonders of red. Color is a strong influence on my life. Color is so very complex. There are labels like tint, shade and hue. They are used to label feelings like” black moods”, ” seeing red”, and “feeling blue”. We all have our favorites and colors we dislike for various reasons. Angela’s suggestion from the QEG’s meeting was that we study color, so I have purchased two books on that subject.( there are lots of them) I intend to read do some exercises and see if I can build some additional color confidence. In the mean time I will keep my eyes open and try to be more aware of the color that fills my world, being thankful that I see them.

Progress Report: Biases Bound Adventure Challenge #1 18″X22″

Full quilt ,red black and biasis strip cirlcleing across the surface — Biases Bound

Biases Bound is now done. Those biases strips sure started a lot of different projects and I learned a lot about color using them too. I am still enjoying the process and plan to try to work again with solid fabric strips on the next one.You can see from the close up how complex the strips were and understand why they frustrated me a bit. I do like the way they look however. As you can see I have added the size to the title section of the blog. I am not sure if this is were it will remain- but I feel it is and important bit of information about the quilt. I also am trying to find a standard small item to add to my close ups so the viewer will get a sense of scale there as well. A postage stamp perhaps……

Paper Quilt – Rocks and Water 13.5″X22″

Paper quitl in blue, white, purple with wholes and cuts — Rocks and Water

I am quite happy with how this quilt finally resolved its self. My wanting the “river” like cuts to be uneven did not make it an easy process however. I like the use of the purple ribbon in the back as it adds to the depth of water feel I was after here too. The process is still a challenge to me so I will keep working in this fashion for at least a few more pieces. I can see so many ways to keep adding and playing with this concept- adding buttons or beads on top. More fabric and how about paper from other sources? Fun in the future.

Black White and Burgundy 18″X 24″. I am trying new ideas for presentation of my work. Some where I read about mounting art quilts on canvas. I do not remember where I read this or the exact method the author was pushing so I had to try my own thing. I just stitched the work to the surface- only at the top this time.

Colors in the title with silver and red beads added as accents — Black, White and Burgundy

This quilt grew out of the Adventure Challenge . I made this background for the biases work and it is strong- but far too much action for the biases strips. I like the color balance here. The mounting process does shows off the quilting well. I like the way the beads show up here as well.

I am learning that I must really keep myself in check when I am building a small back because I get into the design process so much this type of thing happens. The work that I referred to at the beginning of the blog is one where I have let that happen. Over doing is so easy for me.

Mini Series I have lots of old quilts. Some I am reworking like ” The Moon She Called Me” ( Feb 2 posting), but after talking with my friends Barbara and Beth at there studio a few weeks ago- they suggested I look at some of the older work and try to make them into smaller units. Here is my attempt. This quilt- Juggling a Friendship was 38″X44″ and it was created in 1994. Now I feel there is just too much happening in this work so seeing it is a prim candidate for the cut up. I made a frame with a 5″X7″ opening and moved it around on the surface until I found an area I though was pleasing. Then I pulled up my courage and cut…….. I kept moving around the surface until I ended up with a dozen little works that are about 7″X9″. That size because then I can put them easily in standard matts and frames. I then zigzagged around the raw edges to stabilize them. I discovered that the edges would not warp as much if I put paper under the edges. The picture shows the pile of mini’s with the paper bound pieces in the top. It is going well I think and I am happy with the little works. Now I am off to do the framing and the glass. I hate to admit that the pile of scraps is calling up a new idea too……..

I hope you are all being creative and enjoying the wonders of the season. Have a productive week.

Hugs

Carol

Adventure Challenge 2012, and Brugundy, Black, DMC Challenge, Limber Loss, Paper Quilts, Re Work, Slight Slip, White

Jan 26, 2012 Power

January 26, 2012 admin

This morning I blew a fuse and lost the power in the studio. What a way to make one come to a halt. As I sat in the pale light that came through my bay window on this gray day, I was suddenly aware of how much I depend on this magical stuff we call electricity. I was in the middle of sewing a seam so the stop really make me take notice. How many items were on before it happened I asked myself? The sewing machine of course, the two Ott lights on the desk, the two power bars of three lights that are over head, the iron, the two spot lights from taking pictures for the blog, the extra heat unit in the studio, and the light in the laundry room downstairs is also on this line. And did I leave the light on in the closet when I went for fabric, I wondered? That is a high demand, I thought, and some of that is unnecessary as well as a bit lazy on my part. So I went around the room and turned off things- including the sewing machine as I like to always use the switch to start it, and went down to the basement to throw the fuse in the box. In the process I discovered that the light for the area leading to the fuse box is also on that circuit and it was on because that leads to the laundry too. I do not think that I have more items then most folks, but I do think I need to be more mindful of what I am using. If the problem had been caused by a source that I could not fix my day would have really been stopped. So with that in mind I will try to use power carefully, remembering to turn things off when not in use and keep in mind what are the consequences of its loss. Electricity is a powerful material that one can easily take for granted until it is taken away. So to keep the magic of Electricity in my studio I will be a better steward of its use.

Progress Report

DMC Challenge- Limber Loss and Slight Slip

I finished up Limber Loss this week. I still need to do the pressing, but I am happy with the look. It continues the theme that was started with Amended Squares.

I like the way the units all work together here. In the detail one can see the metal additions. They are the units off the bottom of candles that allow the candle to float. In this case I trimmed off the points that stick into the wax. You can also see the close alignment of the bugle beads to create the circle

Slit Slip is coming along nicely too. I have completed the quilting and I am almost done with the facings.( you can see the last ones on the bottom. I plan to use beads between the two units to connect them and create one big irruglar shape with it.

Re Work – The Moon She Called Me

I have given lots of works away this year as a part of my Project Divest , but there are some works that I am finding in that process that need a bit of sprucing up. So I have saved them to do just that. This old piece has been hanging on the back of the door for mouths. I decided to add a moon to the surface of the work and add some additional quilting. Here is were I am sorry to say that I have not taken enough photos so the progress is not documented. I am still learning. I made several moons and they have been rejected-Too small, too transparent, too busy and finally I created on that I was happy with. This Moon is water marked satin with dark fabric underneath and lots of free motion quilting on top.

Adventure Challenge- Black,White, and Burgundy

This is another case were the the act of creating go away from me. I was having such a good time crating a background that it got far too complex. When I realized this I just kept going, but it will have to end in a different fashion as I do not want to use the bias strips on this surface, there is far too much action for that to work. I am still using the three colors that I had selected last week.

Black, White and Burgandy — Black, White and Burgundy

Adventure Challenge- Bias Bound

This is the top I will apply the bias strips too. It is much quieter and I hope I can make it work. The same three colors are still in use. I an thinking that I will cut it down a bit too. But I must make the visual decisions visually.

Paper Quilt

I had started this paper quilt last week. I think I am going to call it Crannies. But I still need to think on this title. At the moment it is cut and there are a few openings. This is and in progress piece.

I have lots of options for this at this point and I am still running them around in my mind and on the pin wall.

I plan to spend a lot of time in the studio this week and hopefully make progress on many fronts. I hope to get the post from the 5th of Jan fixed this week too. Every entry gives me more confidence and helps me do a better job I think. There is still a long way to go- but each mistake is a part of the growth process.

Keep Creating

Hugs

Carol

Cre-8

Category Archives: Re Work

Good News

Mill Site Lake Retreat 2018

Magic

New Growth

Spring

Feb 16, 2012 Color

Jan 26, 2012 Power

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer