Daily's, Oak Leaves, On the Raod to Dry Falls, Truquoise Street Studio

Open Studio November 21 , 2013

November 21, 2013 admin

Hi ,

Welcome to all the new followers that have signed up this week. 32 new folks were added to the subscription list and I am quite flattered.

This is a shot of the Turquoise Street Studio wall with work by Beth Houston Barholdt and Barbara Vural. They are having an open studio this eve as a part of Third Thursday. I was asked to join them and I have work for sale as well. I know I should have posted this bit of news last week- but I did not think of it. I will try to keep my eye on that ball in the furture. So as that bit of news suggests I have been busy getting ready for that event. Tagging, matting and framing of little works really take a lot longer than their size suggests.

On Tuesday, I went along with the other gals who are part of FAB- our mini group, to see the Quilts= Art= Quits at the Schweinfurth Art Center. We spent two hours looking and talking about the work shown there. It is always so inspiring. Then on the way home we stopped at Patchwork Plus and did a little shopping. Nancy and Victoria both purchased material, while Patti and I purchased other things. We had a good full day and I went home with my mind spinning in many directions.

I started working on Christmas Cards this week too. I stitched down green silk scraps from the Oak Leaves project on top of green triangles. Then I added a star and squeezie paint balls to the trees. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon.

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

Progress Report: Oak Leaves This quilt is complete now. I had shown it to the gals in FAB at the last meeting and they suggested that I add something to the bottom left hand side. This work hung on the design wall all week and finally yesterday morning it hit me that what it needed was a little bit of suggested green leaf fromation from another branch. So I added it. I really like how the silk leaves are fraying with time on this piece. That added texture plus the wonderful shadows created by the overlapping leaves, especially were they cross the frapped branches, are enjoyable to me. I have never used silk in this fashion before and think there is more exploration for me in that direction. I do not have any more silk at the moment so it will have to stay at the dream/ imagination stage for now.

On the Raod To Dry Falls 29" X 39.5" $290.00 — On the Raod To Dry Falls
29″ X 39.5″
$290.00

On The Road to Dry Falls This is the lost top that I mentioned last week. I had started it at QBL. I used some very old material here- the yellow, orange and white in the center and left sections- and some more recently altered stuff. The cream and green at the top on the right and lower left is from the discharged play day I did with Marty last spring. I also used some of the silk paper on this work. I am enjoying the process of free motion attachment of yarn( the white lines) as well as the sewing/quilting lines for texture. I am getting better at stretching the silk out to create more of a web like effect too.

This quilt also has some hand painted fabric in it. Well that many not exactly be hand painted as this light sections is really a wipe up cloth- but I do not know how else to describe it. Nothing is trash to me I guess.

Daily’s The Daily’s continue to be joy for me. This week’s collection seems to be a mixture of crazy and control…. I am not even going to guess what that says about my mind. There are only a few more prepared blocks using the black circles and red squares….. So there will be a change in something by next week.

Keep Creating

Carol

Choosing Cherry, Daily's, Green Nebula, On the Road to Dry Falls

November 14, 2013 Fall’s Bounty

November 14, 2013 admin

Hello,

Fall always brings a riot of color in so many ways. Not only the trees and all their hues, but in the harvest of all the fruits and vegetables is also a color filled part of fall. Barbara could not resist the wonderful colors of the cabbages and I love them too. I visited her Turquoise Street Studio this week and was impressed by this wilting still life. I can hardly wait to see the pastel that grows out of it.

There also seems to be a bounty of events to attend in the fall. I went to Julia Graziano’s lecture on machine quilting at the Schwienfurth on Sunday. This photo shows her in front of one of her Arches quilts,althouth this one is not in the show. She said she did this series to learn how to sew curves. I think she is successful.

I also went to an opening at the Art Rage Gallery this week. The show “Spoken Threads” displayed many different fiber and thread related work. There were several quilters among the many artists in this show. Sharron Bottle Souva is shown here in a detailed talk with one of the many people at the opening. Sally Dutko also had a piece in this show. She made this quilt as a personal response to the shooting of the school children earlier this year. I along with Sally and several other fiber artists had spent an earlier part of the day visiting the Delevan Center Open Studio event. It was a very stimulating time going in and out of studios of all sorts of artist and talking with them. Even looking at the many ways they organized themselves was an education of sorts.

I am just home from a meeting of the “Fab” group. Fab stands for fabric. It is very small at the moment and we are mostly getting together to support each other and share our pursuits. Victoria is working on these wonderful mini squares using a limited pallet of only seven colors all form the Cherry Wood collection. The other gals in the group gave me some encouragement about how to improve my Oak Leaves quilt and I am going to follow through before I share it. I am sure it will be completed by next week.

I also spent a day with my friend Cherri this week. We were playing with painted canvas in a style like Katie Pasquini Masapust taught us in her workshop. After painting the canvas one adds fabric units and then a second coat of paint. The next step is to place the two works on top of one another and free form cut through them both and reassembel. This is a shot of one of my pieces at this point. I am enjoying the process.

So with the visits to studios, the galleries, the lecture and the group meetings, I am enjoying the full bounty of fall.

Choosing Cherry 12.5" X18" $60.00 — Choosing Cherry
12.5″ X18″
$60.00

Progress Report: Paper Quilt – Choosing Cherry I am delighted to say I finished this quilt after a long delay. I was missing the filler for the biggest opening so I did not complete it. The plastic printed images that appear green and red are from a seasonal food bag. When it appeared again this fall, I purchased the fruit and enjoyed sharing it with my friend Barbara last week. With the bag empty, I cut it up and added it to the back of the work and completed the project. From the close up, it is easy to see the thread bridges and the plastic bag parts behind them. I had not done a paper quilt in such a long time I had forgotten how much I enjoy Carol Weib’s process. So now I am all revved up to do another. From the second close up one can see that I mix fabric and paper in my quilt as well as the plastic.

Green Nebula This was the project that I worked on at the Turquoise Street Studio. I am done with the bead work now and into the quilting. It a great project to carry around as there is very little material involved.

Long Stitches This is a new project that I am experimenting with. I read about doing stitches on “wash away” and them doing free motion machine work on top. I did not have any “wash away” on hand, but had some nylon netting – so I stretched it in a hoop and did long stitches that crossed one another over and through the netting. I then took the work to the machine and did the free motion work that the book suggested on the surface. I think my solution will work for a “moss like” look on a rock surface – my ultimate goal- and be more stable too. I always like to alter ideas to fit my apporaches and this does that.

On the Raod to Dry Falls

I have finally gotten back this work too. I started it at QBL last summer and it got put in the box with the leftover fabrics when I packed up from that adventure. I thought I had already completed all the starts from those two weeks- but here was another. I am ready to start doing the free motion quilting on it now and look forward to that process this next week.

Daily’s I continue to work away on the Daily’s. I think they are getting a little more complex with time. It is very calming work for me now too.

Keep Creating

Carol

Blue Yonder, Daily's, Diva Meetings, Oak Leaves, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs)

November 7, 2013

November 7, 2013 admin 2 Comments

Hello,

The weather is still somewhat mild here. I find because I am working on the quilt with the oak leaves on it I am looking more at other oak trees too. This one is in the Oak Wood Cemetery were I walk some days. I Have noticed how different trees have differnt colorations. This old one is a deep red. The one along the drive is primary yellow- but that is only at the bottom, now as the top has turned brown. I have also observed that there are many different shapes to the leaves. I know that has to do with species differences. Some leaves are very sharply pointed like the one in my yard and some are all curves ends. I picked up one in the parking lot in Ithaca yesterday and not only were the ends of the leaves very curved the leaf had a really deep dip, almost to the spine, after the first vain from the base of the leaf. Mother Nature loves variation on a theme. I may have to get a tree book and do some serious study.

This week was the first full week of November and so I had my group meetings on Tue. Both were very exciting. The QUEGs group had severl members who had be to the big quilt show in Houston and they had lots of wonderful pictures and gadets to share. The Diva’s were inspirational too. Everyone seems to be so energized with lots to share. Ruth is working on a project using African simbiles as the bases for the block. This one sure is bold. She had also created a wonderful study using her style of expertly mixing batikand hand dyed fabrics. Cindy shared her amazing prints. She did them with the big Gelly Plate. She is now going back into the work and adding machine stitching in top. They are the faint red lines crossing the yellow in this photo. The work is very elegant. Donna was kind enough to bring her Alchemist Mask. I love masks and this one is a great one. She built it over the old store mannequin she has in her studio. The face is nobel. I like the life size doll eyes she put in the face too. They add so much in the way of focus. Alice is working on a Human Angles series and this is one of them. I am showing this image because she has a unique style of working were she paints the image she wants on the back of her cloth. Then she turn it over and lays a piece of black fabric on top. With the two layers together she flips the work to the back and sews around the image she has painted. So this picture is from the back. She then trims the black off the front along her seam lines and her images are outlined in black- her signature style. It is very cool I think.

This work with four figures is by Cheri. I especially like the unfinished edge she used here. They are a wonderful and inspiring group of gals who seem to be all working away in their own direction.

Progress Report: Blue Yonder This quilt is ready for quilting now. I have done my “stitch in the ditch” step after basting. Doing that makes the work stable for all the crazy directions I always seem to want to go. I have not decided what that free motion quilting will be yet.

Oak Leaves This is a close up of the project. I am having lots of fun making more and more leaves. I just love how the unattached body of the leaves casts such wonderful shadows on the quilt. They also flutter a bit when there is a breeze, like when I come in the studio door. There is a lot of texture here and I love that.

Daily’s The Daily’s are coming along. I now have a full cigar box of the little fellows and they are starting to look really impressive when on puts them all out. I still have ideas of layouts for the parts and shape and color changes I want to try- so I will keep the practice up. I also added a silly rule- no new purchases for this project. I am almost out of red embroidery thread so I will have to switch to crochet thread- I have several huge balls of that. I am sure that will change the character of the stitches. But that is part of the experiment.

Keep Creating

Carol

Daily's, Oak Leaves, Rounds

Halloween Oct 31, 2013

October 31, 2013 admin

Hello,

I have spent a lot of time this week preparing for Halloween and all the joys there of. This first shot is of my grandson in his black crushed velvet cape that has a red lining of the same material. Very dramatic to my eye and worm as well. I did a second costume for the 10 year old grandson too, but as I have not seen him dressed in it, so I do not have a photo to share. Let’s just say it is a very elaborate pirate costume, from a video game. All the fun of seeing how kids portray themselves will come this eve and I do so enjoy them when they appear at my door. It is good to try on different persona every now and then.

Because I spent so much time creating costumes I did not get a lot of quilt work done this week. Progress Report: Rounds

I am working on the quilting step of this work now. I decided to emphasize the stamped circles and quilted around them all first. I also filled in the rest of a circle if it was cut off in the stripping process. Now the quilting is reflective of those first actions. All the curves means I am moving very slowly because there is so much turning of the whole quilt as I stitch along. I like the rail drops on a pool like images I am creating using this technique.

Oak Leaves This work got some attention this week too. I made a bunch more leaves and trimed them out for application to the surface. The leaves are made of various shades of green Dupioni silk that is backed with green cotton. I draw the vanes out in thread and then free hand cut the leave shapes, all the time referring to the actual leaves that I picked up last week. I will pin them on the quilt and hand stitch them down this week. I seem to have lots more hand work than usual at the moment, but I enjoy that too.

Blue Yonder

This work is fully assembled now. I enjoyed the process and it did seem to change under my fingers as I worked on it. I have created a back and will do the assemble process soon. I am trying to clear things up from the pin wall so I can start on a new series of rock pieces.

Daily’s

The Daily’s changed this week. I did black circles and red rectangles this time. I also watched a video on embroidery stitches on Wed and have a whole head full of stitches to try. It is fun and a challenge- that is what I wanted so I feel very good about the process.

I hope you enjoy all the fun little visitors this evening.

Keep Creating

Carol

Daily's, Oak Leaves

Fall Color Oct 24, 2013

October 24, 2013 admin

Hello,

As this picture tells the color is still high here. I just keep enjoying it as I know a hard fall rain will rip the leaves away from the trees and expose the branches. I know that the world around me will open to much wider vistas whtn that happens, but I will miss the color.

I have put most of my efforts this week into the production of a Halloween costume for my grandson. It is some pirate character from a video game. There is not any commerical pattern of course. It has lots of layers-four- and lots of strage bits of leather harnesses and straps plus brass studs and rings. I even got to make some skull embellishments out of paper clay yesterday to make it more complete. I will let them dry one more day before I paint them and add that the surface. I guess he knows I am always up for a challenge. Progress Report: Oak Leaves It is hard for me to believe I started this in July at QBL. But with all the time I have spent of late looking at leaves it sure seems approiate. I have stitched down all the leaves I created last summer to the branch. I feel it looks a bit skimpy now so I will make more as I still have the bonded silk that I made the first ones from. On my walk today, I picked up four new leaves to use at patterns for the new creations. I felt a little sad as there were so many beautiful colored leaves and the oak ones are just brown. I still do love the shapes of them though. It also added a lot more quilting this week to this quilt.

Blue Horizons I started this work a few weeks ago. I spent a little time assembling this top on Sunday. It is coming along and I will soon have it completed.

Daily’s I am dutifully working away on my Daily’s. I did the fusing step on a new batch this week and tried a little twist. One of the new blocks is unique in the shapes. I hope that viewers can spot it. All the ones for the next few weeks will feature this change. I am having fun and that is the goal.

Keep Creating

Hugs

Carol

Blooming Bacteria, Daily's, Gray Wall, Oak Leaves

Thursday October 17, 2013

October 17, 2013 admin

Hello,

Fall is in about in all its colorful beauty here in central New York. The yellow leaves have forsaken the trees to lay down a carpet of gold in many locations. That is not to say that all the leaves have fallen yet- there are still lots in the trees, but I so love to walk in the crunch that they provide this time of year. I just go a little crazy with my camera and shoot lots of pictures.

I have been busy with lots of play dates and a workshop this week. The workshop was last Friday eve and it was on curved piecing. I was trying to learn how to make very skinny lines with the cruves and I think I am getting closer to what I intended. I mostly selected colors for this experiment that are not my usual pallet. I go for the second class with Ruth White on Friday this week. It is about how to create wholes. I have done some of that on my own, but it is always valuable to get instructions I think.

I spent a play day with Susan on Monday and I played with my Gelli plate the whole time. It was great fun. Susan was experimenting with a new technique for creating stencils. Sadly she was not very successful and discovered mostly what did not work. Her work is on the top shelf and mine is the stuff on the bottom. We did enjoy making our commitment lists for the winter as she has departed for the south now and I will not see her for six mouths. I now have a mini goal to work for and she does as well.

I spend yesterday playing with Liz and Angela. The day was a handwork day and it was great too. Angela is the queen of stitches in my world. Both Liz and I looked at tons of books on the topic too. I have two luscious videos and several books to study now too. It is wonderful to have friends that are so very sharing. Liz did not even get her needles out, but Angela and I both did. She worked on her on going Tapa cloth Hawaiian embroidery block quilt. It is going to be a real stunner when she is done I am sure. Liz drew stitch pattern ideas in her journal. Angela taught us some new hand stitches and I now know the difference between a steam stitch and an outline stitch. ( that has to do with the side of the line that the thread endes up lying on.) She also taught us how to do a Colonel Knot. I worked on my Blooming Bacteria quilt. I also picked up my new thermo fax screens. I need to do the taping of the edges now and then find some time to start to print them. I am excited about that, but it willl need to stay on the back burner until later this fall.

Progress Report: Gray Wall I am very pleased with out

Gray Wall 38" X 36" $700.00 — Gray Wall
38″ X 36″
$700.00

this rock quilt has turned out. I love all the texture and the mix of fabric types that it contains. It really flows for me the way I remember the wall being. I enjoy the raw edges and all the free motion stitch work that is part of this quilt. The paint work adds to the lichen feel of the rock face for me as well.

Susan really helped me with the finishing of this work. Or it would be better to say she encouraged me to leave the raw edges and the exposed back of this work. There is no hiding of my processes in this piece.

Oak Leaves I have been doing handwork on this piece too. The limb is almost all stitched to the surface. I can see that I need to add more machine quilting to make it more stable now that the branch has added so much weight to the quilt. It is a learning process when one is trying new stuff.

Blooming Bacteria This quilt has been setting and waiting for attention for a while.(see Aug 16, 2013) I somehow lost most of the crouched circles I had created for it. I put them some place so safe that I cannot find them at all and that is frustrating. I have done a lot of cleaning in my search and the only conclusion I can come to now is that I mistakenly tossed them out. I took it to the handworks play day yesterday and added some of the circles that I had and started creating more. It will be a long process before this quilt is done.

Daily’s I am doing my Daily’s as I am now calling my hand work square projects. They are still fun and with the new stitches that Angela taught me I still can see more ways to play with the idea.

I hope everyone is enjoying the colors fall as much as I am.

Keep Creating

Hugs

Carol

Uncategorized

Oct 11, 2013 Home again

October 11, 2013 admin 1 Comment

Hello to everyone,

I am home from a most wonderful journey to Maine. But before I left the computer crashed. I was able to get some info down loaded by the GEEK SQUAD( thank you!) but some things were lost. Like all the Favorite connections and such. It has taken me until today to get back to where I can write this work. I did indeed type a post on Wed in prearation, but again in my efforts at the new navigation of this system and I saved it somewhere so safe I can’t find it again. Enough complaining! Maine was beautiful with lots of great color ans my favorite subject-rocks. I took lots of new pictures of rock surfaces in Arcadia and I am sure they will be worked into upcoming art. Rocks and water go together so well. We spent a day in Elizabeth’s studio painting and had a grand time. The paint was almost as colorful as the environment. I created more fabric for rocks of course and Marty did great water color type stuff. Elizabeth let us pin the drying fabric to the back of her milk shed and it made a grand display. Barb spent the day mixing lots of colors,many will be used in furture paint days as she says she is just starting to play now.

Progress Report: Oak Leaves For the background on this piece look at the posts for Sept 12 and 19. I am ready to build the background now. I tried two before I reached the one that is in the photo. I plan to quilt horizontal wind patterns onto the blue background and then apply the limb and leaves on top.

Rounds I have now assembeled this work and it is waiting the next step. I am uncertain about how I want to go forward with the process so I will just move it to the bottom of my work pile and will let it rest for the time being. I did show it to the gals in the work study group yesterday and they had some good suggestions about how to proceed. I will let those ideas work in the back of my mind for a while and when I look at it again later I hope I will know exactly what to do with it.

Vertical Wall ( formerly Road to Dry Falls) I quickly put this work on the wall at the end of quilting one day and it was on the vertical instead of the usual horizotnal format. When I came back in the morning, I knew that the new layout was a much better position. I think that this work is nearly complete now. When I am sure the work is complete I will sign it and post close ups.

Gray Wall I am doing the hand work and free motion quilting on this work now, it will soon be complete so I am only going to show a close up of one area for this week.

New work This is a new work that I started just before my departure for Maine. I came across some of the fabric I had screen printed last winter with Barbara so I used it. The color pallit is a bit bright compared to what I am working toward at the moment,but it was a fun diversion.

Daily Exercise I decided that I needed a small hand work project. So I cut some white 4.5 ” squares. Then I fused a red circle and a black rectangle to each one. I made no attempt to cut them the same size nor did I try to put the shapes in the same location on each square. I then cut a four inch squares of batting to add to the back of the squares. I took red and black thread along to do the handwork with and started my personal challenge. I have done 16 blocks so far and have the start of several more. Doing just a little everyday is a good thing for me and not too demanding. I am having fun shuffling them around already I cannot tell for sure what order I did them in. I like laying them in in different relationships to one another too. I will keep it up for a while, but I am not making any commitment to the leath of time for this action yet.

I hope fall is keeping everyone happy.

Keep Creating

Hugs

Carol

On the Road to Dry Falls, Pumpkin Lichens, Rounds

September 19, 2013 Harvest Moon

September 19, 2013 admin

Hello,

Last evening the harvest moon rose round and orange as a giant pumpkin. It was beautiful! I tried to capture it with my camera- but I am not happy with any of the shots so I am going to leave the idea to you imagination. The Harvest moon is the last full moon before Autumnal Equinox.

This week has been a full one as they all seem to be. I went to the Bead show here in town on Sunday and managed to keep from purchasing too many new beads.

Friday was the Explores day to play with Fused Silk. I think I can speak for everyone in declaring it a big success. This top shot is of Barb spreading the GAC* out on her silk.

Liz and Corinne working on step one- spreading out the silk fibers.

Sue Ellen concentration on her work.

We all had fun and Angela even go far enough along with her fibers to add them to a top. I think we all took home at lease four pieces of fused silk. Liz even experimented with fusing the silk directly to the fabric with the GAC and that seemed to work too.

I make mine very thin- only one layer of fibers to use with my rock wall stuff in the future. It was a fun day for all of us.

Progress Report: Pumpkin Lichens

Pumpkin Lichens 36" X 40" $375.00 — Pumpkin Lichens
36″ X 40″
$375.00

This work had given me fits when it comes to being square and it still looks off kilter to me. The work measures true though. I did have a good time using more of Randy’s wonderful fabric . There is also a bit of the discharged fabric that I did with Marty this summer in this piece( the light orange cream in the middle). I used the curves of Randy’s images to get me started with the quilting patterns too. They were so organic and the lichens I used for part of the inspiration were also irregular like that. This second close up show one of the areas where I started reflective quilting when I got away from the “lichen ” centers.

On the Road to Dry Falls

I worked on this piece this week and all the fabric it attached. I did not shoot it because it does not look any different than last week.

Oak Leaves This is the same limb that I was working on last week from the other side. It also shows the limb all frapped in a second layer of black textured yarn. I plan to get to the background work this week and start putting it all together soon.

Rounds I started this work before QBL – eight weeks ago now. Working through my stack of UFO’s it finally came to the top again. I sliced the work vertically into seven units. Then I pulled out some solid blue fabric and stamped on it with one of the stamps that I cut in my “one a day for 30 day Challenge”. I did the stamping in a purple/pink that works with some of the fabric in the circles. I have ideas for more additions,but will wait to work on them until I have all the units added together. Make the visual decision based on what I see.

New Work This one got some hand work and some paint this week too. The leaves are just pinned on- auditioning so to speak. I like the idea of them, but feel they are not strong enough to work with all the little units of this piece. I think I got a bit carried away with the paint step here. But errors show growth is taking place.

Enjoy the wonders of the season

Keep Creating

Carol

* GAC is a Golden Product used to thin down acrylic paint. GAC 900 is what we used and it is designed for fabric so you keep the soft hand.

Oak Leaves, On the Road to Dry Falls

September 12, 2013 Fall Rains

September 12, 2013 admin

Hello, Today in my part of the world it is raining again. We need the water, but I am tired of the gloom that the gray skies seem to bring along too. It makes me want to take a nap. This photo is one I took on my way home on Tuesday after taking down the “Sticks and Stones” show. As you can see from the image it was gray that day too.

Progress Report: Pumpkin Lichens
I am not showing this work this week because I had a bit of a disaster with it . I though I had trimmed it all up and I was adding the sleeve when I realized that one side was a good inch longer than the other….. I have not done all the deconstruction that needs to happen before I can correct that mistake yet, but I will do so and show that next week.

On the Road to Dry Falls I made progress on this work this week. I am doing more of the tron and free motion stitch down work on this surface. I used this technique with the fused silk, some taffeta and some nylon netting. I like how it allowed for a feeling of shadow and texture.

Oak Leaves
I started this at Quilting by the Lake. The leaves are free floating and made with a top layer of silk and a bottom of cotton. I have been looking at it in this state for a few weeks now and it finally came to me that It needed a three dimensional limb too. So I pulled out some roving and frapped it with a dark patterned fabric. In this closeup you can see how the fabric is wrapping around and creating a new texture. There is a little of the roving showing at the bottom of this shot.

This second shot is of the full limb as it is now. I need to create a background and stitch the limb to it before I add the leaves.

I though I might add fused silk clouds to this work as well. I will at least create some clouds for myself in the fused silk workshop that I am teaching on Friday.

New Work
I am doing pure explorations with this new piece. I took a class with Valerie Goodwin at QBL in 2012 and she suggested we use all the different way we knew to attach fabric to the surface to add texture. I had not really applied this idea before but when I came across my class notes I though I would give it a try. So with this small piece I have used flip piecing, raw edge and hand stitching. The next process is to add paint….. I am having fun as I am not at all sure what I am doing and the class notes are not as complete as I had though. A year plus is a long time and one does forget details.

I hope fall is sending you visual joy and creative time.

Hugs

Carol

Curvie Cuts, Diva Meetings, Pumpkin Lichens, Rock Series East Wall

Sept 6 , 2013 Back to School

September 6, 2013 admin

Hello,

It was the first day of school for students here in central New York. When I went out for my walk this morning there were two boys waiting for the bus on the corner. The same place that my daughter waited for the bus many years ago. I passed others on my trek and thought that this is a sure sign that fall has begun.
This week was the first Tuesday of the mouth and so I went off to my DIVA group meeting on Tuesday. I had missed the mouth before so I was very excited about seeing what others were doing and I was not disappointed! Liese had been doing a lot of marbling on paper . She created two books. I really like the one with the quotes and her second one was an accordion book with wonderful creatures that she saw in the marbling.

She said that she learned that the newsprint paper worked the best for this job.

Susan is doing some great exploration based on sleep. She is printing on fabric with old stencils and writing her quotes in water soluble graphic pencils.

She has a wild collection of stencils and is trying not to cut any new ones for this project. I really like the long line of people she repeated in this second print.

She is also dealing with the inside of things- including people. The rib cage is made with painted canvas suspended in the opening. I can hardly wait to see how this develops.

She always looks at things with such a unique eye.

Sally brought a problem to the group for suggestions. She is getting ready for the Art Trail in the Ithaca area and one of her practices is to have each of her visitors add a piece of fabric to a background that she has selected. Then the sews them down were they are placed. Every five years she take the panels and puts them together in some fashion. She was after suggestions. We brainstormed and gave her several ideas- I can hardly wait to see what she finally does. I really get a lot out of this group for the support as well as the many skills and ideas that each person brings to the setting.

Occasions 35.5" X 49.5" $ 440.00 — Occasions
35.5″ X 49.5″
$ 440.00

Progress Report: Occasions This quilt is one more of the ones that I started at Quilting by the Lake, the second week. I had purchased some deconstructed fabric( the light blue) from her the first week of the conference and used it as my starting place for this piece. This fist close up show the wonderful texture she had created with lines that attracted me to it. I pulled the rest of the materials from my stash and supplemented with a few new pieces that I purchased from the venders there. I enjoyed doing the circular quilting on this piece and feel it is just what the quilt needed to pull all the sections together. The gals at the Diva meeting really liked this work too and had lots of kind word about this work.

I enjoyed working on this one.

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East Wall – Rock Series
This work got lots of additional machine drawing added this last week. There is so much texture now that I feel it is pulling together a bit better.

I used some of my painted wonder under on the surface to add more color and pattern. There is also a bit of intense quilted pink velvet on the right side of this shot for more texture.

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Pumpkin Lichens : I am to the quilting stage on this quilt. It too has some of Randy’s wonderful decomposing screen fabric as it start- The orange with the the dark circles on it. The colors of the trip to southwest really have had a long time effect on me if the work shown here is any indication.

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New Work Here is some more of the curved piecing work I am trying to conquer. I am ready to start the placement of the fused silk paper on this top to add texture and unity to it. There are two pieces sort of pinned in place. I think more will help as well as some of the painted wonder under.

Then the quilting will really pull it all together .

Keep Creating

Carol

Cre-8

Open Studio November 21 , 2013

November 14, 2013 Fall’s Bounty

November 7, 2013

Halloween Oct 31, 2013

Fall Color Oct 24, 2013

Thursday October 17, 2013

Oct 11, 2013 Home again

September 19, 2013 Harvest Moon

September 12, 2013 Fall Rains

Sept 6 , 2013 Back to School

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer