New Work

This piece is the finished product from my Shirbori class with Jan Myers-Newbury at the Nancy Crow Barn & Studio. It measures 53 x 25.5 inches and is made entirely of pieces that I clamp resisted. I keep pulling out the pole wrapped pieces I made there and toying around with ideas for another quilt top. I think I need to do some more pole wrapping first so i have a larger selection of fabrics to work with. I recently ordered some new colors and more soda ash so nothing stands in my way other than time, which we are all short of.

These two pieces are tops only. They are unquilted & unembellished and made from fabric that I hand dyed and screen printed. I used some design ideas I had done in paper for my city and guilds course as the source inspiration. The one with the circles i plan to highlight with embellishing the small yellow circles in particular so they aren't so washed out. I have some threads picked out and next time there is a lull where i am looking for some handwork these will be ready to go.

I pulled another piece of fabric out to make a third piece and decided it needed more color so I spent a couple of days screening and batching and washing. Next post i'll try and show those results.

I have a bunch of zinnia's flower centers i need to mono print soon for the commission so better get onto that next.

Zinnias

Here is my design wall with all the fabrics I have dyed for the new piece I am preparing to make. See the post from Nov 25th to see the space in which it will hang. The full size design has 5 full flowers and 6 partial flowers. The fabrics on the left are some options for some of the partial flowers.

Here is a sample zinnia. I have stitched most of this just on the top layer. Once I added the batting and the back i stitched the final edges of the flower and leaves through all three layers. The center clearly needs a major revision.


Once i get the flowers attached to the top I think this is how I will quilt in between the flowers- parallel rows. The idea is that the yellow background will fade away and the flowers will sit on the surface. Also, since this picece will be 8.5 feet long at minimum, the less I have to twist and turn the whole thing to machine stitch with batting the easier it will be!

starting a new project

I am starting a new project. It is 96 inches long in total but will be hung in two sections. One section is 30 inched wide it will go on the right over the steps to the lower level and the other section is 66 inches wide it will go over the window on the left. The height of the piece is also 30 inches.

Above is the design drafted in full size on paper.
Below is the fabric dyeing in buckets in the kitchen.

new work

I am getting ready to start a new work. This is a draft of my idea. I don't know why it is posting vertical because the picture is saved horizontal. Any how. There are two pieces that are asymmetrical. It will hang on an eleven foot wall over two openings under the wall. The flowers are zinnias from the homeowner's front yard.

I have had two crazy busy weeks with a work conference, transporting folks to and from the airport, house guests (that were really servants! and helped me more than i helped them) etc. Today i finished grading papers for this week so tomorrow is back to the dye buckets for sure.
Can't wait to get started in on this project.
Talk to you soon.

Shibori project

After much readjusting this is the final version. I made this with the clamp resists from the Jan Newbury class at the Crow Barn a couple of weeks ago.

Post Crow Barn quilt

I am back from my trip to the Nancy Crow Barn in Columbus Ohio. What a great Shibori class with Jan Meyer Newbury. I have many more ways of mark making on fabric now. I was number 13 out of 21 and it was a good number for me.

This is a picture of the wall hanging that i came home with made from fabrics i had dyed using mostly clamp resist. Yesterday i spent quite a bit of time taking it all apart and redoing it.

You can see from the strips hanging down from behind it that i was thinking that strips between each section was the right way to go. I was unanimously voted down. Since i am so new at designing i thought i would take their advice and give it a try. I am adding one new strip of "windows" and lengthening each piece so the width and length are balanced.

Once i get it all sewn back together, I'll post a finished picture.

Delivery Announcement

I am delivering this wall hanging to a customer tomorrow.

Exciting!

Here are some pictures of the opening for the Cloakroom Gallery.

My neighbors and Tim in one shot and the three largest pieces in the other one.

Cloakroom Gallery opening

It was a great opening tonight at the Cloakroom Gallery. I had fun and enjoyed everyone who came. I met or reconnected with several artists and I have plans to get together with one. I even got taped by the local TV news along with out township commissioner! I also have a potential commission coming from the show. Delightful!

Now I am off to finish putting on a binding so I can deliver a wall hanging this weekend.

Thanks for reading.

I have an opening at

The Cloakroom Gallery

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

from 5:30 to 7 pm

at New Life Church

located on the corner of

Easton Road and Jenkintown Roads.

Light refreshments served

All welcome.

Opportunity

This week I have two appointments with people who can open doors for a display of my work. Two in one week! When it rains it pours.

One would be at the gallery at my church starting in early October and the other would be at a local university sometime in the next year.

These opportunities make the urgency to finish up those 1/2 done pieces heightened.

Here is one that I have shown before. I have added the leaf litter at the bottom. Next will be to add either more tree trunks for depth (paint sticks, net, organza) or perhaps it is just the branches with falling leaves it needs now...Every fabric here is dyed and screen printed by me. I really wanted a piece that was all my work - nothing store bought. I signals for me at least the beginning of a new season of art work.

I love taking a city and guilds class but sometimes i find i want to do my work not just try to fit my work into their prescribed program or do the courses activities. I am not saying i don't want to finish the course, but i am wondering if my chomping at the bit to move along signals that I have gotten from it what I needed. I really have learned so much in these past two years. Quite different than taking a one week class.

I just threw this together one evening because i was tired of the assigned activities. My only agenda was that it be exclusively from fabric that I had put the color and texture on myself. I am pleased with how the leaf litter works. It languishes a bit for the next step because of a commission I am finishing up and the curtain seen in the previous post.

These opportunities help push it up the line for work to be completed.

Sunday sept 20

Today i went to the Quilt Show in Oaks, PA. Since i am not sure if i am allowed to post pictures of other people's work I'll have to leave that off the blog. What i can say is that many many quilts are machine quilted these days. I did see some interesting settings for blocks and pictures that i may explore for some of my work. Since I have one interior assessment piece to complete and two quilts or wall hangings for my City and Guilds course, i am brainstorming ideas for layout and design for my subject matter.

I am making a curtain as my interior assessment piece for this window in our 2nd floor bathroom. It has had this piece of fabric covering it for at least two years and i thought this would be a good time to make a curtain!

Here is the fabric i have dyed.

So i cut out the circles into oval shapes and am placing them on the curtain so it looks like they are moving away the further up the curtain you go. Not only are the ovals darker at the bottom they also are larger that the ovals at the top. I am embellishing them with net, organza, & threads. The idea comes from the tiles themselves. The tiles have shapes that look like clouds with ice crystals in them. I found a picture in National Geographic of people crossing up North where the ice floes are starting melt and it looked like stepping stones across a pond. I combined both ideas as my source for the design making sure the ovals have ice crystal centers like on the actual tiles. Make sense?

Here are two samples of embellishing

Shibori

I am trying to create some fabrics with star burst motifs for a assessment item i am in in process of making. The green ones were just an expirement in color. I haven't found the right shade of blue yet, but i can keep trying. I used unwaxed dental floss to do the tying and gathering. It makes me think of my father making a fishing lure for carp using unwaxed dental floss! We never ate the fish- too bony but my dad said their teeth go all caught up in the floss and it was much better than a hook!

Progress

I made progress on two fronts today. First, I shopped for fabric for the commission i am working on. I had tried dyeing fabric but it was taking way to long. One disadvantage of working and doing art on the side. Oh well. I have at least 15 of each color so i should be good to go. The avacado disc is the placemat my customer gave me to work with.

I also got started on the binding for the assessment piece for my city and guilds course.

I machine stitched the background with the word hope in script, appliqued all the words on with a blanket stitch, and the maple seed pocket is machine sewn on. The yellow fabric above the seed is the fabric of the inside. Below is a picture of what this should turn out to be when it is folded up - only personalized with my design ideas.

I am sewing a silk ribbon on the edges to bind it. It will be a green ribbon on the outside and a yellow ribbon on the inside. This is a picture of the cord that will be attached to the very edge of the opening.

five

Tim made the boards to "hang" these five pieces. Here is what they look like on the mantle and below are close-ups of each piece.

I am excited to have these up. I have lived here three and a half years and never arrived at anything I was satisfied with to go over the fireplace. NOW i am. The wonderful thing is that I can make many series of smaller pieces exploring ideas and design issues and "try them on".

How cool is that!

July 4th, 2009

So i am working on this commission...I need three colors

avacado/light olive,

peach/salmon/creamy tomato soup and

a yellow that blend with them both.

I have culled from my store bought fabrics all that i have that will work and i am short in all categories.

Here is a picture of a salmon/peach/creamy tomato soup fabric wet, just after screen printing before batching, and afterwards, washed and dried.

Here is a picture of all the salmon/peach/creamy tomato soup fabrics. The one i screen printed a couple of days ago is going to work! I have done a good step-one. I can keep working to finish it up to add to the pile of fabric I'll use. I am going to split this new fabric in half and do two different things with it and then that color will be done.

I am very short of the yellow and green fabrics so that is what i will work on this afternoon before we have to walk down to see the parade at the bottom of our street with all our neighbors.

I got print paste made last night in preparation for screen printing. I have two new screens ready to be used. One with glue resist and one with masking tape resist. I purchased both avacado and light olive colored dye to save time mixing it myself.... Off i go - wish me increasing skill.

July 3

Here are two images of work produced for my city and guilds certificate in design and patchwork. The idea is to basically take a personal image and create a design. Some of the paper hope word are curling up on the edges. I am thankful to have so many days off over the holiday weekend that I can really put some energy into the course.

I haven't progressed much on the dying of fabric for the commission. I did get some new thermofax screens back so that should be some imputus! I have selected some fabrics from my store-bought stash and am making piles so that is a beginning. I love making a piece that uses lots of little bits of lots of fabric to make a whole.

Mid June

So i am trying to dye fabric in the hues of the placemat. I still need more red to make it not so yellow.

I made two new screens. This one is made with ripped masking tape. I will screen through the holes. I may also try to then take off one layer and screen through a striped screen. We'll see how difficult it is to take off one layer of wet masking tape. The other screen has a blue school glue resist pattern, but it doesn't show up because the screen is already multi colored. You'll have to wait to see the results.

The school glue washes out with soap and warm water. I think next I'll do a screen that can be deconstructed.

I sent away three photocopies to have made into thermofax (plastic) screens. Can't wait to get them back to experiment with. Onward and upward.

City and Guilds work

We are working on design work with paper shapes. I have posted three series. Enjoy.

Maybe one day you'll see one of these designs in a quilt i make.