Diva Meetings, Idaho, Quilt Exploration Group (QuEGs)

June 21, 2013 Continuation

June 21, 2013 admin

Hello again,

This extra post is a continuation my saga for the last two weeks. This shot is of the sun set from Kay’s deck in Wenatchee Washington. I love how the light truned the rock to red.

I left off last time with the Iron Quilter experience. That was followed by the meeting of the QuEGs groop. Because of the play day on the Friday before the meeting was a big show and tell of what we had done. I followed that with a drive to Ithaca to meet with the Diva group. Ruth had been busy with her American Beauty/Clam shell quilt. All the ” blocks” are different and full of her love of color. She plans to keep the shape irregular and I think that is wonderful. Sandy wowed us with her newest hooked creation. She used strips of wool and she mixed yarn with them to create the colors she wanted for this landscape. Great solution to a color problem.

Liese created this quilt for the next show at Kendell. The theme is “Ship Ahoy.” She opted to commemorate her memory of being a Girl Scout leader. One of her favorite memories was of little wooden boats made by the girls with candles that they launched on the lake the final evening of their camping trip. It made many of us envious and we want to try it too. Annie created this spring growth piece. I like the show drift in the back with the green shoots so full of life in front. I hope it is completed for the fall show.

Susan, now back from her home in Florida, is finding inspiration from her garden. She is limiting her palet and mixing the colors she needs for her images. I think she is very successful with these leeks especially in this long format.

Idaho and Washington

I then flew out to visit with Marty. She and I spent a sunny afternoon discharging with bleach. It was specially exciting because we used hand dyed fabric so the colors from underneath were often a surprise. We tried using the fabric in wadded piles on the ground and some on the line. We felt we had more control of the results when we used the line method. Then the next day we dyed fabric. Marty was trying for browns and this shot of the tub looks like she was successful- but the dye was a bit old and it did not take well. I am still delighted by the stuff I came home with and look forward using it. This photo is of some of the new fabric pinned to the wall when I got home.

Rosalie Dace joined us on Saturday. We celebrated Marty’s Birthday on Sunday with a picnic on the deck. Marty made a great souffle that we all enjoyed. Then she opened her gifts. I love the socks sent to her by her daughter- so very operate for a quilter. They will keep her toes worm this winter.

Marty’s home, thanks mostly to her brother, is also a Bear Museum. This means there are bears everywhere a fact that is not without its hazards. Rosalie found that she had a bed mate when she went to her room. Bob,the big bear, was very accommodating and allowed her to rest her head on his abundant stomach.

We drove to Wentchee see Kay Hall and go to a lecture on geogely. Kay is a quilter with a love of texture like myself. She uses a lot of beading in her work as this great little piece shows. “The figure was in the dyed cloth,” she said. “All I had to do was embellish it.”

This shot is of Dry Falls National Monument. It looks so much different from my last visit do to the fact that the day was sunny and there was lots of rain this spring so it was very green.

I had a wonderful time on this visit. I have a whole new pack of pictures and tons of new ideas as well as fabric for new works.

Keep Inspired and Creating

Carol

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June 20, Busy Time

June 21, 2013 admin 1 Comment

Hello Friends,

Summer is really upon us, although it has been very rainy and cool here in the north east. I can not believe that Summer Solstice is tomorrow. Time is flying before me. I have been busy with events almost every day for the last two weeks, so time really moves in my point of view.

Crow Woman Kachina 21" x 23" $ 120.00 — Crow Woman Kachina
21″ x 23″
$ 120.00

I started out with the hanging of my solo show at the Maxwell library. There are 17 piece in that show titled “Earth Tones” , many have

Knot Now 18" X 25" $ 113.00 — Knot Now
18″ X 25″
$ 113.00

never been seen before in public with a few works from the “Goddess” show as well. The work spans over four years and it was a good chance for me to reflect on how much I like and use browns and golds. This show also shows examples of the wide variety of techniques I use in my work. ” Know Now” for example has copper and leather added to the surface with some dish washer soap discharged work in the black areas of the top. “Rusty Rings” on the other hand, is a rust dyed silk with embroidery on it.

Rusty Rings 18" X 20" $90.00 — Rusty Rings
18″ X 20″
$90.00

I also added dark fabric below the white silk to make “shadow” circles appear in the quilt.

Collaps- warped work serirs top-16.5" X 22" bottom 21" X 27" $205.00 — Collapse-
warped work series
top-16.5″ X 22″ bottom 21″ X 27″
$205.00

“Collapse ” is from the Warped Work series and is one quilt on top of another with snaps to allow for a warped surface of the top quilt. I did five works in this fashion to explore folds and shadows with my work. I enjoyed this series, but no one seemed to understand what I was doing so I stopped working in this direction. I may yet go back and do further exploration with this idea later.

“Mummy Cave Ruins” ( see last May 31 posting) along with Ancient Voices and Rain Run were also a part of this show. Putting up this show was fun, but it took me a long time to do the job. I will be taking it down in a week.

The day after that was a Play Group event were we all played with stamping. This picture is of cut eraser stamps that I taught. The stamped image to the left shows how one can make a really big image by making one of your elements warp around the four sides of the eraser, so it flows together( the white line from all four images.) This shot is of Linda’s exploration page from her eraser cuttings. Then I showed everyone how to use ” fun foam” to make stamps and apply the images to clear plastic so you can easily see were you are placing the stamp. Liz made some fanciful shapes and she used a whole punch to add detail to her work as well. Then Corinne demonstrated how to cut on a circular form with linoleum cutters. The shape does seem to effect the style and way one thinks about the images. I cut two and stamped them both. It was quit enjoyable. I think I will use the stamp, printed in blue here, on my Fossil quilt as it resembles a Trilobite.

The next event in my life was a trip to Rochester to the Genesee Vally Quilt Show. There are 600 members in that quilt group and the show was very enjoyable. While there I participated in my second Iron Quilter event. There were 19 quilters and in 3 1/2 hours we all produced a quilt that was at least 24 inches on a side. The topic, told to us at the start, was “Vanishing Act”. We all rushed to the table of fabric provided and pulled stuff from the collection. I started pawing with no idea at all about how to show this concept. But I came across someone’s discarded block with two small elephants printed on it and I had my brain storm. I was off and running then. This first shot is of the work at noon when then made us all stop for lunch. At this point I had fabric ironed and pinned to the surface, but no stitches yet. Back form Lunch and two hours later and we all had a piece done. I was exhausted as were most of my peers.

The “Vanishing Color” ( center quilt here) won second place.

I neglected to take a photo of the winner.

My quilt titled “Vanishing Environments” is OK for a work with limited time. I learned that I can really re-lie on my machine drawing skills to pull me through when time is short. When asked if I would do it again- sure I would. It is fun to stretch every now and then.

I have lots more to talk about, but find I am getting tired, so look for an extra post in the next day or two.

Keep Creating

Carol

To Be Continued

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May 30, 2013 Time to grow

May 30, 2013 admin 1 Comment

Dear Friends,

I am still walking in the mornings and this week it really payed off. I live a few blocks from an undeveloped portion of the Syracuse University campus and on Tuesday I decided to walk through that part of my world as I wanted to see if there were any wild flowers blooming. I spotted this young deer instead. It looked me over very carefully and then turned his white tale toward me a bounded away. It was a great experience.

This week has been a full one as they all seem to be at this time of year. I went to a Fiber Show Opening at the Schweinfurth on Sat evening. My friend Angela had a whole little gallery fullof her work as a suplementry part of this great show. I am so proud of her and all her wonderful felted Hawaiian Petroglyphs. She told me that by the end of the evening she had been asked to be a part of an upcoming article in “Fibers Today”. I am so happy for her and look forward to seeing her in print. A second pal had participated in some wild knitting for this show too. Barbara did a cover for the sign in front of the Art Center and she posed for me in front of her work. She told me she had to draw each letter out life sized and then work each row to match the pattern to make it work. Trees and sign posts were also covered with colorful yarn additions. What a fun challenge. There were lots of folks at the opening that I knew and it was good to see all of them as well. The Art Center is a fine source of creative inspiration and I am always glad when ever I go through it’s doors.

Mummy Cave Ruins 18" X 23" $105.00 — Mummy Cave Ruins
18″ X 23″
$105.00

Progress Report: Mummy Cave Ruins I really had a good time working on this quilt. The memories of the trip to Canyon de Chelly are very vivid and every time I create a project related to that experience I feel wonderful. I did add the silk paper I had created with Ethel on Wed last week. It is the reflective stuff on the left hand side. I added the painted inner facing on the top of the canyon section too. I liked doing all the free motion drawing around the figures and creating the texture in the rock faces as well. I used water solvable crayons and colored pencils on this work too. All the work on this piece pushed me to work on the second canyon piece I had started.

Canyon Stains
I have only just stared building more color on the top of the painted image here, but again I am enjoying the process. I am off to visit the west again next week and I know the landscape will capture me again- but southern Idaho is quite different then the canyon lands of Arizona and New Mexico so I want the images of that experience far enough along before I go. I am sure the experience will create new images for new directions.

Red Nebula I continue to add beads and hand stitching to the surface of this work. I think it needs a bit more dark fiber felted into the composition to make it flow a bit more. The beading also needs more intensity in the “center” of the nebula to feel completed to me. Taking pictures and looking at the images on a smaller scale really does help one see the design problems that get lost in life sized work. At least that is true for me.

Fossil Bed I mentioned before that I am off to Idaho and a part of that will be a geology lecture. So I have fossils and land formations on my mind. This piece is a result of that mind set I think. I am still struggling with the light/medium/dark thing and this top is a part of that. I now feel the medium colored fabric is too light and gets lost, but it may still work as a back drop for the fossil stencils I want to add on top. I have three more stamps and stencils to use on this top. I plan to make them in various tone and shades of the brown and golds. The vision is not real clear at this point.

Struts and Gurders
This top is also a part of my efforts to control/plan consciously the lay out of light/medium/dark. I am so filled with self doubt that I do not know how I feel or were I am going with this piece. When I looked at it this morning I felt I had tried to do make it all too busy and that the orientation was wrong. I designed it in a vertical format so if you want an idea of that turn your head to the right shoulder and look at the work. I do not know what or were to go with this piece- so I will keep it folded up and take it to the QuEG’s and Diva meetings next week and get some feed from some other artists. Growth in a new style/direction is difficult!

New work: Block Varieations
I had started this last week and the old photo form last week shows the work with the parts pinned up but unassembled. Now each block is put together and that makes them easy to move about. This was the start of the light/medium/dark work and it is not very far along from before. I have really only changed the orientation of this work and decided it needs four more small blocks so I can play with a different placements of the light/medium/ dark parts in those new blocks. I can say that I was so frustrated that I buried it under white paper for the week and only pulled it out today. I did my typical thing when I am frustrated and started new stuff. I see now all I have really done is compound the problem buy creating three light/medium/dark challenges to deal with now instead of one….. I guess we all play games with ourselves.

Keep Creating

Carol

PS. Please remember that I will be leaving on June 5 and be away until June 16. So there will be three week with out a post.

Before the Bud, Canyon De Chelly- Mummy Cave ruin, From the Pavement, Greek Butterflies, Landscapes, Machine Drawing, Mapping the Ruins, Natural Elements, Urbam Beauty

May 23 2013, Spring Walks

May 23, 2013 admin

Hello Friends,

I have been out doing my walking in the early morning to make sure I really follow through. It seems so easy to put it off and then get

involved in other things. So I was not walking in the afternoon at all. Much better to start the day with the walk and it will soon be hot in the afternoons as well. Anyway it has been a glorious feast for the nose of late. What with blooming Honeysuckle, Lilac and a beautiful Dog Wood to mention a few I have really enjoyed starting my days with a walk. I seem to be more aware of the world in the morning as well so I am very glad that I have made this switch.

Friday last week I went to the Turquoise Street Studio and meant with some of the gals from the painting class from the weekend before. Deb had gone back in and did additional work on this painting of limes. I really think it works. This picture is of a new painting Deb did based on the class work too. The class effected all of us. This next images is of Beth doing a value sketch in preparation for a new pastel. The teacher had suggested using a gray paper sketch book so one only needed to do the tonal work by drawing in black and white. Beth is doing just that. I did hand work as I seem to take longer to digest the Value idea into my work. Yesterday I went to Ethel’s house to spend a day playing with silk paper. This photo is of Ethel mixing dye in preparation to the silk. Pam was also there and she did some fine silk paper too It was great fun and I created four different new sheets to use. I went with an eye to make the paper for a specific task and the results were great.

The gold sheet and perhaps the cream one as well are destine for one of the canyon painted surfaces I painted last week. The blue and purple paper I created because I wanted to see if one could add bits of yarn to the surface too. I think it will work well in a meadow idea I have in my head. It is always so much fun to work with others I always feel like I get so much more from these events then I contribute to them.

Before the Bud 17" X 26" $110.00 — Before the Bud
17″ X 26″
$110.00

Progress Report: Before The Bud

This quilt is completed now. I really enjoyed doing all the free motion work here. The colors really work for me as well. With this quilt I am changing my policy a bit. I am adding the price of the work to the image. After reading a third article were a buyer stated that she did not like having to contact the artist to find out about the price of work I decided to include that info in the image. Selling my work in not my goal, but I need the space so I will gladly do so. Besides for me, the act of creating is the most important part of the process. The Problem solving if you will.

Excavating the Ruins 21.5" X 31" $168.00 — Excavating the Ruins
21.5″ X 31″
$168.00

Excavating the Ruins
I have enjoyed working on this project due to all the great textures. I really like all the wholes here and that contrast adds a lot of interest to my eye. The map in white organza is of one of the cliff dwellings in Canyon de Chelly National Monument. In looking over it I though it needed a little more punch so I added a little petroglyph form the canyon for further interest. I found this little figure very fascinating.

Greek Butterflies 17.5 " X 25" $ 105.00 — Greek Butterflies
17.5 ” X 25″
$ 105.00

Greek Butterflies
I am very happy with how this quilt finally resolved its self. The lesson on Value came to play here when I took a second look at the distribution of darks on the week end. I had to take out some of the piecing and insert some more dark near the bottom before I was happy with it. I also realized I need to add something to the light block in the center of the quilt. So I drew in a butterfly of my own using the photos as direction. I added color after I had out lined the image. I was concerned with how to quilt this work. I knew I wanted to out line the butterflies but had no idea beyond that. I toyed with the idea of making the rest of the quilting a reflective of that outline pattern, but was not sure. So I then it hung on the wall for several days before I saw a photo of moth trails in Pinterest. Then I knew that was what the quilting patterns should be. I find this quilt to be very up lifting and the quilting pattern adds to that idea in my mind.

Mummy Cave Ruins
This shot shows a possible layout for the additions that I am planning on adding to this painted top that I started last week. On the far left is some of the wonderful silk paper that I created yesterday. In my origional photo there is a wall of stone that is in the foreground and I wanted to capture that feeling to some what frame the ruins. Hanging on the right is some painted inner facing that I may add to make the rocks a bit more colorful. Again I have added the oil stick stencil drawings to this work surface. I need to do some free motion work on the parts I am sure of before I know what will go where and if the places where they are pinned at the moment is the final location for them. Make visual decisions – Visually.

Urban Beauty – From the Pavement I was doing hand work on this at the Turquoise Street Studio last week. I am enjoying building up textures on this surface. The base units are lutador that has been painted with Lumiar paints and the white is gesso. ( lutador is a type of spun ground cloth that can be found at some hardware stores this time of year) I then melted it a bit with the heat gun to melt and distort the surface. I have done free motion drawing and the hand stitching to add to the complexity of the surface. I am not sure of were the work is leading me so I hang it often an look at the progress to know what I want to do next. This makes the process very slow, but worth it I think.

New Work
This is an attempt at a new direction. Sense I seem to keep getting hit over the head with this Values idea( even read about it in a book this week) – I thought I better pay attention. So I designed a block ( Check the light blue section in the lower right) . I tried to keep light med and dark in the same area- and did three different size variations on the block – small ( lower write) a little bigger ( lower left- this one is also turned 45 degrees) and large( look at the turquoise section) This is all new territory for me when it comes to designing and I am not sure it will or does work at all. But I want to stay sharp and open to new “roads” so I will keep playing- the challenge is the thing.

Enjoy the wonders of the season.

Hugs

Carol

Canyon De Chelly- Mummy Cave ruin, Chanyon De Chelly- Desert Vanish, Landscapes, Mapping the Ruins

May 16, 2013 Painting

May 16, 2013 admin

Dear Friends,

I feel very light hearted today because I spent most of my morning out doors. I took a painting workshop this weekend along with all my pastel pals. We were all looking to stretch a bit. The workshop was taught by Patti Mollica and was called ” Painting- Fast and Loose.” This fist shot is over Barbara’ shoulder of the first assignment. We were working on showing lights, mediums, and darks, in our work. The teacher gave us all a few photos to work from.This second shot is of my pears. The second painting we tried. I am not real happy with it, but I think I got the concept. Then on the second day we did more painting and she was pushing the fast and loose working part. We did five paintings that day. The first in the morning to worm up and then one forty five minute one. Followed by a half hour one and last we did two fifteen min works. That sure put us into the fast and loose part. The pomegranate is my favorite. The whole thing was fun and got me going with the painting again. Hence my happy feeling as I painted out doors this morning. I raised the level of my plastic table by setting the legs on four up turned flower pots so I could stand up and work. I painted fabric as starts for two more works based on the trip last June to Canyon De Chelly Nation Monument. This first shot is of the White House Ruin. I have rough out the color bases and will add layers on top with pastels, crayons and fabric pieces. I want to show the Desert Varnish on the walls of the canyon in this one. The second one is also from a picture I took on that trip. It is of the Mummy Cave Ruin. This time I want to work on showing the depth of the rock pocket of the canyon wall and how much color there was in the stone. There is lots of work to do here, but I am excited about it.

Progress Report: Mapping the Ruins

The Canyon trip really was on my mind this week and this work also has the influence of that trip in it. This piece has a traditional pieced fabric base in pinks and white. I am sorry I did not take a photo of this step before I went forward. Then I pinned tyvek that had been painted on both side with acrylic paint to the surface. I quilted through all the layers in a pattern that I had made. The pattern for the quilting was based on a map of the ruins of one to the pueblos in the cliff face of Canyon De Chelly. I had drawn that map last year in July for the class I took with Valerie Goodwin at Quilting By the Lake. I did not use the map in the work because it made the work too busy for my final piece. ( Check last week for the shot of White Tower in the Kendall Show- it’s intended home) This morning I took the heat gun to the tyvek and melted away some of the surface. I love the wholes in the surface that add to the idea of decay and deterioration. My next step will be to add the map that I have created on two layers of organza on top of the quilt. I will be trimming it down and stitching this map on top of the fabric and the tyvek to add yet another layer of depth to the work. That is the plan at this time any way.

Greek Butterflies This is a new top that grew our of some very old material. I took a class six years ago were we learned how to transfer photographic images to fabric. I fist mixed the side of a shingled building ( the gray)with a wonderful butterfly image that I had taken when I went to Greece. I printed the image on fabric in class. Then the fabric just kept shuffling around from one pile to another. Thinking on the painting class were our teacher Patti Mollica, spent a whole day on Light-Medium-Dark, I though I would try to use that idea. I had a good time and found out what many quilters know about there stashes – we have lots of mediums and not many lights or darks. Now I need to move forward on this piece- like how to quilt it…..

I hope spring and all it’s joys are filling you with creative juices and thoughts.

Hugs

Carol

Nebula, Thoth

May 9, 2013 Enjoying the Spring

May 9, 2013 admin

Hello,

This is the fourth and final entry of the “Noting Natural Changes” assignment. I am amazed at how much the leaves have come out on all the trees this week . This branch is so full now that I hardly recognize it from the first one I drew on the 18 of April. There are even blooms of the lilac on the higher branches of this bush now. I love the fast daily changes that are every were. When I showed my “Before the Bud” quilt at the QEG’s meeting on Tuesday and I explained that I had started it because I was starved for leaves on the trees- I got a bit of a chuckle. How soon we forget.

The lecture and gallery guided tour of the Kendell Show was Tuesday too. It looks great.

The pale quilt on the left is all hand dyed silk and it is by Liese. The center one is beautifully pieced and quilted by Ruth White. The colors really make the eye dance. I look at this show and feel delighted by the wide variety of styles and techniques that the other artists in the group display. There is so much talent !

This work is called Hand Made and it is by Mary Diamond a very good quilting teacher. I really like all the tones and shades of color she used in this work.

This shot shows the work of three different quilters, Sally, Sharon and Cheri are represented here. Sally’s work ( far left) is a paper, fabric and paint quilt. Sharon’s work( middle) has raw edges on both sides of all of those vertical cuts. She makes her tops cuts through and washes them before she assembles the quilt. The two leaf works ( far right) were items that Cheri felt were unsuccessful until she cut freezer paper leaves and ironed them to the surface. She then added more paint over the whole thing. When she removed the freezer paper units she was happy with the work. There are so many varying ideas and techniques in this group it is almost too much some times.

Progress Report: Thoth I am still struggling with this work. I can not seem to get a layout pinned to the wall that works for me so I can even put two pieces together. I tried creating a new image of Thoth- and that does not seems to solve the problem either.The attempt in gold may give the image more a feel of “god “- but I think it may be too pale on the fabric…… I have covered it with white paper and moved on to other things and hope my sub conscious will keep working away on this and the solution will come to me.

Nebula – 1 Mean while I seem to be fascinated by Nebula of late. I have found lots of new images of the heavens in Pintrest and so many are wonderful Nebula that I just had to try to create some of my own. The back ground fabric is hand dyed material that I purchased at QBL. I felted green and gold wool on top to create the feel of the nebula. I will now go back into the surface with stitches and beads to fill it out and add more definition to the work.

Nebula 2 Being true to the way I work and having such a good time with the felting machine I started a second one as well. There was lots of warping of the fabric with the green nebula so I also tried felting the wool into some red paper like material that came wrapped around my valentine flowers. The felting part worked, but the red “paper” melted when I tried to iron it and that created a problem. After cleaning the iron and the non stick matt that I had wisely put on top before ironing- I put the whole thing on gray felt and ironed it down. I think the red “paper” made the nebula too sold and so I am going to felt more darks on top to make it feel more open. I also got a little carried away with the yarn on this second work so I plan to tone it down as well. The love the layering of the process as I feel I can always add to the surface.

Notebooks I use three ringed binders to keep my stamps and stencils organized. Pictured here are two three ring notebooks with quilted covers. In the front and under the notebooks are stencil and stamped fabrics that did not become parts of quilts, but are destine to become the next notebook cover. These two books are full and I am ready to create a new one so I pulled some altered fabrics and put them together. I keep the works inside the note books in the plastic page protectors that one can purchase at office supply stores. I did this to keep the like things together. I was surprised at how the gals in my stencil workshops over the last few weeks have responded. They thought this idea was a good one so I am passing it along. Making a soft cover out of leftovers is just my way of using things up.

I hope spring is adding life to your step and all is good in your world.

Keep Creating

Carol

Uncategorized

May 2, 2013 More Spring

May 3, 2013 admin 1 Comment

Hello,

As the drawing shows the leaves are really showing themselves now. I am surprised and delighted by the changes that are occurring around me. One day you can see into the neighbors back yard the next it is screened from view with tiny little leaves that will only thicken. Its so wonderful to behold.

This week has been as full as they all seem to be. I taught the stencil workshop last week and it went well. This photo is of Linda, Angela, Corinne and Liz looking at books for ideas for their personal stencils. I provided everyone with a stencil of their name in a graffiti type layout. I did this so they could all have something to work with at the beginning. That meant that I could give the instruction on how to use the oil stick at the start and then everyone could work at their own pace. The second shot is of Linda’s stencil with several colors of oil stick and lots of over lap. They quickly went on to creating their own stencils and working with them. This photo is of Angela’s stencils. The orange one in the upper right is of a Hawaiian petroglyph. The blue is painters tape that we used to keep the stencil in place while we used them.

The other big event for me this week was hanging the Diva Quilt Show at Kendell in Ithaca. This shot shows Sandi Holland adjusting a piece. There are 41 pieces in this show representing 13 different artists. It is a visual feast. There is so much variety in technique and color that I am always amazed at how well they all work together. It is a real group effort to put up the show too and I am very thankful for all the help. This last shot is of Liese and Sally as they add the tags and check on final details.Progress Report: The Lost Buckle This quilt has gone through some major changes sense the last time I posted it. ( Check April 4th). It was called Cracked Up and when I was all done with the facings and such it did not appeal to me. I let the work hang on the pin wall and decided that the square format was part of the problem. So I tried various ups and downs and blocks of portions of the surface and then cut away a strip. This shot shows the cut. I bound the sides and changed the big section. It needed a focus point so I added an old shoe buckle – one remaining form a set that was lost by Aunt

The Lost Buckel full — The Lost Buckle
19.5″ X 27″

May at a dance in the 40’s. It was such a treasured item that it was in the jewelry box I inherited form my grandmother years later. I feel this is a good way to honer that value. The remaining portion of the quilt was on its way to the trash when the dentist made a comment about how important smiles were to his business. So I used the remainder to make a banner for his office. He will get in in a few weeks when I go again.

Before the Buds I am making progress on this piece although the strong desire that prompted this work a few weeks back ago when I could hardly wait for buds to open is now a reality. I am machine drawing the thread tree down and adding branches as I go. It is fun and I like how it is coming along.

DMC Marty’s Challenge- Slender Cuts This is the second of the mono chromatic color challenge fabric unit works. I enjoyed the personal part of the challenge were I was trying to learn how to do the slender cuts. I feel confident with there use now. There is also more exploitation possible with this technique. With the three works in this challenge I learned that I like to have more color in my work and that light, medium and dark still need a punch to work for my eye. As Dad always use to say” You learn something form every experience- Even if you only learn what you do not like!”

Thoth: I cut this stencil at the workshop last Friday. This is one of the prints I made . I did three. the best will be a part of the new Egyptian quilt I had pinned to the wall last week.

I hope spring is filling your heart with joy and delight and that the creative juices are flowing for you too.

Keep Crating

Carol

PS- Sorry this got a late post. I always re read the post after a few hours and then publish it. I went off to dinner with the gals and there were two who were home from a trip. We talked late and I simply forgot to sit down at the computer when I got home hit the Publish button.

Adventure Challenge 2013, Before the Bud, DMC Dawn, Golden Rain, Machine Drawing

April 25, 2013 Spring Memories

April 25, 2013 admin

Hello friends,

When violets appear I know spring is really here. My mother always put violets on my Birthday Cake when I was growing up. I celebrated this week.

Here is the same branch as last week. The leaves are two and three times as big as before. Mother Nature sure moves things along this time of year.

This week has been a very full one. I started out by going to the opening of the Recycle Show at the Art Center in Rome NY last Thursday evening. I am so delighted to report that my friend Barbara won “Best of Show” for her piece. She even mentioned me when she accepted the award as I had contributed some of the stuff she included. Our mutual interest in Rust helps. Last Friday I went off to the Turquoise Street Studio and played along with the gals. Both are pushing them selves for new work for two different shows that are coming along in the next few weeks. Beth was finishing up work and Barbara was starting a new work. They both work from personal Photo graphics, starting by first drawing in Charcoal and then adding the color on top. I printed some of my insects stencils in preparation for the workshop I will be directing on Friday. I like to do all the processes again before I teach them. I learned that I want to encourage my students tomorrow- to work toward openings that are under three inches wide. The back wings of the crickets were challenging to fill with the oil sticks and I do want the students to be successful without difficulty.

Progress Report: Rain Run ( formerly Golden Rain) I changed the title of this work because as I stitched the wrapped pipe cleaners to the surface, I felt that the idea of rain running down the window was not represented with the title of golden rain. I like the way the “drops” like they are moving. But it is really hard to keep this quilt flat as the wire has a memory and every time you lift or shift the surface it does not go back to flat without pressure. The copper ribbon really reflects the light like the setting sun was doing on the window the day I noticed how rain ran down the glass. It is a great memory and I am glad to have captured it with this work.

Before The Buds This quilt has gone through some major changes sense last week. First of all I made a stencil with this quilt in mind. I drew it on the back of a piece of handy cardboard as I was not in the studio.

I did the drawing with a marker and kept the positive of the cut as well as the portion I used. My thinking was that I could use it for a stencil too and just add the growth around it. I stenciled five trees on the surface of the quilt . Then I got our some “Solvy” a corn starch material that is a water soluble stabilizer, and drew a tree with a permanent marker on the Solvy. Then I drew the tree with the sewing machine and lots of thread. When I was happy with the appearance a I washed out the stabilizer and had my thread tree. I will use the machine on free motion to attach the tread tree to the surface. I did the the majority of the drawing on the stabilizer because all this thread work on the surface of the quilt would cause a lot of distortion of the fabric. This way I can quilt and add the tree to the surface and stand a chance of the final product being flat. I have not done any of this “drawing” in a long time and it felt good to use this technique again. I am sorry that the shadow makes the picture look a bit fuzzy, but feel it will look fine on the quilt.

Brass Bits

I have been working away on the hand appliqueing of the brass units on this quilt for several weeks. I feel that part of the process is now complete. So I trimmed it and placed it on a backing fabric. The yarn is pinned on the surface and that will get machine stitched down and become a part of the quilting on this work. I will have to see how much additional quilting the piece needs to be stable after that point. It was a personal challenge to add all of the brass pieces that Sharron sent me on the surface of this quilt. I enjoyed another chance to do some fancy hand stitches on a piece as well.

DMC Challenge – Dawn’s fabric. This was only a bunch of triangles pinned to the wall last week. I decided that I could use the challenge fabric with it and make the idea work. It is OK and because the challenge is meant to be an exercise as much as anything I am satisfied with it. After talking with Marty about the challenge we agreed not to complete the projects before we got together. It makes transport in the suit case a lot easier as I will be flying out to meet them. Now I need to go back and see if I can save the other two parts of this challenge.

New Work I am auditioning these fabric pieces for the possible next Egyptian quilt. At the moment I think it needs a new ” star” stencil fabric to do the trick. So I will think on that and keep you posted as to the dynamics. I guess all this prep for the stencil class is really pushing me forward.

Keep Creating Friends

Hugs

Carol

About To Bud, Golden Rain, Natural Elements, Slicing Through, Trees

April18, 2013 Natural Changes

April 18, 2013 admin

Dear Friends,

It really feels like spring today. This was the third day this week when I ate my lunch out on the patio and enjoyed the out of doors. One of my favorite sketchbook assignments that I did with my eight graders was what I called ” Noting Natural Changes” and I started it this week with the drawing on the left. I when out into the sun shine and selected a branch and tried to draw it life sized in my sketch book this morning. I will follow up next week and draw the same branch- again life sized and in so doing note the changes a week makes for growth at this time of year. My students always were suprised by the change a week can make at this time of year and I feel like paying attention to that myself. This week has been as busy as they all seem to be. I went off to visit with my friend Ethel again yesterday and we had great fun making silk paper. Silk paper is created from silk threads that have not been spun. They come in great long hanks that one gently pulls apart and lays down on nylon netting. Three layers of thread in alternating directions is the usual lay out. then a second piece of nylon netting is placed on top. The whole thing is gently soaked with water and then a mixture of fabric medium and water is applied to first one side and then the other side of the sandwich. After the sandwich is all dry the nylon netting is carefully pealed from both sides and ironed. The top image shows the pre-dyed silk drying on the line and it is still encased in the nylon netting. Pictured on the left are two others we did in the morning with the netting removed. The blue and purple piece is made of what are called silk hankies- a group of squared off silk layers that can be pulled apart as apposed to a hank of silk. We dyed both of these two pieces before we added the water and fabric medium to them. We had such a good time that we are going to play at this another day next mouth. I already have an idea of things I want to try next time.

Progress Report: Spot On

This quilt is done now. It is one more of my piece that grew out of my ” Use the old materials” push. The marbleized fabric in the upper left and the center bottom are both old materials. The light blue with the natural shapes in purple and white near the center left are from an experiment that I tried last fall. I was attempting to do shobori with paint instead of dye. This piece is the most successful section. The tyvek is painted on both sides and I did that last winter when I first started going to the Turquoise Studio. The pink color is painted on the back side of the tyvek. I have used tyvek several times before and not been to happy with the results. But this time I quilted it before I applied the heat. I also waited until I could go out of doors and I wore my respirator while I did this process. I like how the heat gun distressed the tyvek and how much the stitching controlled the distorting too.

Golden Rain. This quilt is all quilted now and ready for the embellishment. That is the part that will add the rain running down the surface. I wrapped gold pipe cleaners with two different yards.

They will become the rain when I hand stitch them to the surface. I still need to tack the facings on both the left and right sides as well. The copper ribbon really shows up the quilting patterns and adds to the flow motion down the quilt that I was looking for.

Slicing Through: This quilt is moving along although very slowly. After Sue Ellen’s tutorial on how to make those little cuts and sew them in I feel I am successful with that part of the process. Now to work out the design part. This work has gotten away from me as far as size is concerned- the rule says 18″ X 24″- and this is bigger than that already….. I am not sure how to go forward, so it is fermenting under white paper and two other starts, on the pin wall.

About to Bud: This piece is basted and ready for quilting. It too has some marbleized fabric in it, ( Use the Old Materials)although this is a newer experiment then Spot On. It also has some of my foam stamp work in the dark turquoise fabric. The off rounded long forms are from a commercial stamp and come from my play day where I was trying to use every stencil I had in my note book that I had never tried before. After letting this work hang on the wall over night I decided it needed to have a machine drawn/quilted bare tree added on top of it. I will do some sketches before I stat that part of the project.

Silver Slivers: I have had these silk triangles for several years. ( More Use the Old Material ) On Monday when it was so rainy and gray I pulled them out and added the gray to them at the end of the day. Now there irregular shapes means that I can not keep the full silk shapes and make traditional connections. So the following morning I though I might insert silver slivers between the units and in so doing sort of square them up. If and how that works remains to be seen,but I do like a challenge and this is a good one. It may also help when it comes to doing Dawn’s fabric form the DMC challenge because the colors are the same.

New Work: This one remains to be named and completed. True to my solution when I am frustrated I start something new- all this wonderful hand dyed/ printing fabric in a discarded pile on the cutting table …. put it together. Only time will tell if it becomes anything. I go off on these little seaming sprints some times- knowing that it can always become a part of a Scarp Happy if nothing else…. But is spring and anything is possible.

Keep Creating

Carol

Adventure Challenge 2013, Scrap Happy Quilts

April 11, 2013 Going Green

April 11, 2013 admin

Hello friends,

Spring is coming to our part of the world as I see more and more green. Even this bit of stain glass green caught my eye yesterday and I have looked at this many times and not really seen it. I like all the patterns created from the siding on the opposite wall as it sifts through the glass. Green is one of the colors that scientists tell us the human eye see more variations on than any other color. It sure seems that landscapes have lots and lots of greens in them and why I think I noticed the small flecks of green on a bush across the street yesterday when I went out for the mail. The grass seems a bit greener this morning too even though it is gray and raining here today. Green was my mothers favorite color and she wore lots of it. There was even an apple green couch and a green plastic covered rocking chair in the living room in one of the first houses I remember. It is a color that I do not seem to have a lot of in my stash. But as I kid I remember being a bit frustrated by the limit of greens in the crayon box. I am just glad that Green is starting to fill up my world again.

I helped my friend Nancy this week work on the quilting of her new quilt. She is new to quilting and did not come to the quilting through traditional paths- but jumped in with both feet staring with a animal applique quilt for her grandson several years ago. This time she put her unique point of view into a work using channel and flannel. It makes for unique challenges and I love working with her on it. ( the green stain glass is behind her)

This week I went off to the Turquoise Street Studio and worked with the pastel gals too.( look at all the greens in Pat’s pastel box). They were all getting busy for a workshop this week and having lots of fun. Beth and Pat both did finish up work on old projects and color exercises. Barbara on the other hand was making what she called “Skins” of various mediums and color on wax paper that she could later peal off and apply to paintings. I did hand work on my Brass Bits piece. I am using decorative stitches to apply the brass bits that Sharron sent me last fall. The top of this image shows a bit of copper knitting that is used to keep slugs off of plants. Texture is my thing.

Progress Report: Cracked Up I did free motion quilting on this work this week. It was enjoyable to let the patterns on the printed fabric be my starting place for this piece. The piece has its facing’s machine sewn on and I will get the hand work done soon.Slicing Through : This work got attention this week too. There is that green again, but this is Marty’s blue challenge fabrics with my solid green added. I am still a little shaky about were this is going. Sometimes the materials seem to be telling me what to do and I tend to follow the muse when that happens. Usually that is not a problem- but in this case the challenge has a size limit and I am well beyond that already. I see challenges as places to really grow in new directions so I am going to go with this and see were it leads me.

Untitled This work is still in flux. I have done all the piecing and I am OK with that part of it- but some how it is not satisfying-right -or something…. I am discontented. I have pinned various metallic ribbons, wrapped pip cleaners and such on the surface to see it that is what it needs, but still I do not feel like I have the answer. It may just need to be folded up and put away a while – like the Purple Trees work from March 14. It’s not a creative block- it more discontent……I will not let this stop me- time will help.

Auditions These colors all work together and I have pinned them up to look at and think about them for a new top. I am very comfortable with blues and they may help me move forward with the” problem children” that I just mentioned.

Scrap Happy I am working away on this project too. I want it done by Monday when the woman for the Prevention Network comes to pick up a quilt for the spring auction. I always like to have two works done so she has a choice. This shot shows two rows that have been sewn together through the batting and the backing in the flip quilting method. The blocks are roman strip with centers of red and blue star prints. The two side bars of the block are made up of scrap pieces- that is were my name for the work comes from. I find these quilts are what I call ” no brainers” as I have made so many that I do not need to think much about the process to complete the task.

Be on the look out for Spring.

And Keep Creating

Hugs

Carol

Cre-8

June 21, 2013 Continuation

June 20, Busy Time

May 30, 2013 Time to grow

May 23 2013, Spring Walks

May 16, 2013 Painting

May 9, 2013 Enjoying the Spring

May 2, 2013 More Spring

April 25, 2013 Spring Memories

April18, 2013 Natural Changes

April 11, 2013 Going Green

Creative Fiber Collage Artist Carol Boyer