Playing with Fabric

I guess what I am doing is procratinating...I've checked out Rayna's blog and what Ted Orland has to say...I've read every Quiltart digest that has come my way. I have been doing the quilting on a piece but it is a lot of work since I heavily quilted the design area and now I get to fight with the pouffs all around it to get it smooth. Well, next time I will just fuse it down...thought I would do one without fusing. Oh well.

So, I have pictures of fabric to show you.


The first is a piece of cotton that I painted with blues and greens. It has a little sparkle to it and is really ummmmy. But my favorite is the painted purple and gold to which I added (why I don't know) silver metallic paint (should have been gold) but it is pretty thin so it adds an interesting shimmer to it all. Finally got them ironed after doing them about 3 weeks ago. They both keep the wrinkled look even tho' they are ironed well.

Then I did a little dyeing. Mixed up a bucket of purple and golden yellow and had at it.



The first piece went in to the purple mix...obviously I didn't mix it very well as the fushia struck immediately and gave me dapples...but then it did it on all three pieces so it looks like I sprinkled dye powder over a piece of wet fabric! It was intentional. That's what I love about dyeing, especially the way I do it. I am never quite sure what will come up and that is just fine...interesting things always happen.

The next piece is pole wrapping Liz style which means that it isn't like the way anyone else does it. I wrapped the fabric and then poured purple down one side and the golden yellow down the other.





The last picture is os a piece of yellow fabric that I had previously dyed but I then ironed it into squares, used a couple of large heavy metal washers and clamps and dumped it in to the dye. What fun! Now I have more things to do this way!





So now I am thinking about all the interesting ways I can use these last three fabrics...each of the yellows also has a lot of the purple but you just don't see it in the part I scanned.

I'm thinking/contemplating orbs...with fences marching past them?
Who knows.

A couple of new pieces

Well, besides taking pictures, I have finished a number of things. This first piece is Canyonlands. It includes pieces of lutradur that has been painted and heated. There are fine lines in the other areas, remeniscent of a topo map. It is mounted via satin stitching to stretched black cotton duck.

I am sorry that this second piece is so off color. The piece is mounted on to a natural color piece of decorator fabric with a great texture to it. The piece was created using transfer dyes and was then foiled via silk screen. I love the way I quilted it...minimally!

I have been working on a series of these pieces (like the last one), one of which will be mounted like a scroll.

Tomorrow I will start putting some of my thoughts about Ted Orland's book, View from the Studio Door. Rayna has started to comment on it so I thought I could add more of my thoughts about it here.

Pictures for inspiration

So we will start out today with a beautiful picture of one of the falls at Yosemite National Park. We went up on Friday with our daughter and her family. We stayed just overnight and went around taking pictures and having a nice break. Lots of clouds and lots of water.

I don't remember which falls is on the left but the one on the right is Yosemite Falls. Last week the flooding crested and the water was not coming down quite as much as previously but it was a beautiful spectacle!



And what would Yosemite be without a picture of Half Dome?
And a picture of El Capitan.


And Mother's Day pictures to boot! On Mother's Day we went with my daughter and her family to the beach in Alameda where Jacob had a great time playing in the sand and the water!

Long Arm Quilting Adventure

How many times have you looked at those huge quilting machines at the big shows....that is, unless you already have one of those $17,000 babies...I have tried them at Houston last fall and last year at our own quilt guild show, but always on muslin.

I happen to know a representative of American Professional Quilting Systems (APQS). Chery Uribe is a drop dead gorgeous woman who is voluptuous...you know, the kind of woman you like to hate because she is so lovely! Well, you would except that she is absolutely one of the nicest people around. She is the one who has been by my side telling me about the various machines...but without trying to sell me one (yeah, right, she knows when I make the decision I will go to her!). She had invited me out to her house to try her big machine anytime I wanted.

Well, this was the time. I had finished a 60 x 60" quilt which needed to be quilted. So, thought I, let's try the long arm machine and see what I can do with it on my own work and not just rambling around on a blank piece of muslin. Was I in for a learning curve! I have taught machine quilting for about 20 years but all of a sudden, moving the machine around was something different. Cheryl kept telling me I was doing really well for a first timer. I used the stitch regulator but didn't really like it so went to the non regulated stitching. The most important thing I learned was to shut off the machine when I needed to pause so it didn't keep on sewing!

What an adventure!

Cheryl has provided some pictures for your enjoyment! I'm surprised my tongue wasn't sticking out as it usually does when I am concerntrating. Anyway, I finished the quilting and then this evening, in front of the TV I did the unquilting so I can fix the major boo-boos on my machine.

Oh, and by the way, Cheryl quilts for other people, including Alex Anderson, so I know I have a good teacher!

time to blog again

I figured that I had better get on line with something or I will be kicked off the ring!

Have been really, really busy making some new art work. It is really different from what I have been doing but can't post a picture just yet since I haven't taken any. One piece is actually pieced!...silk...my hand dyed and black Thai silk. It is wonderful to touch! Another is a larger collaged piece. I have finished one Lutradur piece and have been doing a bunch of postcards. So, should get those posted in a day or two.

Just finished up an interview for Quilter's Newsletter...they will include it in the Meetin' Place section in the October issue.

Also received a wonderful bundle study from Sonji Hunt. It is part of an exchange we are doing...Now I just need to get hers off to her...told her I would today but it really looks like it will go tomorrow. I have been very guilty of fooling around today and not getting much done.

Thought I would give you something to ponder. This is from Matthew Fox in his book, Creativity.

"The liver cleanses and recyles. The artist, too, cleanses, and recycles the toxins in a culture. Artists turn pain into insight and struggle into triumph and darkness into light and ugliness into beauty and forgetfulness into remembering and grief into rejoicing. Artists add awe to awe and beauty to beauty and wonder to wonder. When the liver is healthy, the person is healthy. The artist is to the community or body politic what the liver is to the human body: a cleanser and reclyer of waste and toxins."

Now I thought this was very interesting in light of the conversation that has been ongoing on Art Quilter's Network...Joan Colvin once told me that she didn't think it was really necessary to put all of our angst out there for the public. She felt, and I agree, that we need more beauty in the world. Sometimes putting out public statements about inequities, or life's difficulties is really necessary but I don't know that I really want to share the angst that I have gone through.

Well, it's something to think about!