Progress!

November 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Work is progressing on the collaboration piece…2014-11-18 14.01.17

…using butter yellow thread. I like the looks of it on the off white background. I am over 1/2 way finished, but have had to quit and do something else. This is free motion “straight” lines. I like the unevenness of it.
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This week a friend and I have been working on a t-shirt quilt that has to be done by Christmas. We made great headway yesterday getting it pieced together. Good thing I bought a heat press or we would still be working on fusing the interfacing to the shirts. It will be going to the quilter EARLY next week. And THEN I have to get ready for an art spree the following weekend at the Rend Lake Center. No rest for me!

 

Filed Under: art sale, artist's thoughts, hand dyed fabrics

How to stitch? That is the question.

November 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment

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Basting today. Don’t want to hold up my fellow collaborators more than I already have. We have to get this show on the road! I am working on raw silk, front and back.

But how to stitch? The onion skin marks cry out for “do not ignore me” stitching? I like to do utility line stitching on most things just to get the layers together, but this? The onion marks are talking to me…so I guess I must listen. Check back later to see how I’m doing.

Filed Under: artist's thoughts, creativity, dyeing, hand dyed fabrics, natural dyeing

Innovations in Textiles

October 8, 2011 by 14 Comments

I had the blessing of being able to take a day off from my work and go to St. Louis this week to see some of the exhibits of Innovations in Textiles.  This is a biannual event that takes place in the area.  Every two years for a two month period of time, galleries and exhibits major in textiles and fibers; there are also lectures and workshops offered by major textile and fiber artists.  Quilt National travels from Athens, Ohio to the Foundry Art Center in St. Charles, MO.   If I lived closer, I’d be majorly involved!

But I wouldn’t miss Quilt National at the Foundry.  And this year, I had two pieces in an exhibit at Maryville University.  The exhibit is called Speaking of Fibers and was put on by the Missouri Fiber Artists (www.missourifiberartists.com).

I took photos at Art St. Louis of some of the interesting fiber works in Fiber Focus.  Here’s one by Suzy Farren, a MoFA member.  I love what she did with paper and various fibers.  I have her permission to share it here.

I Could Fear That Too

To get to Art St. Louis, we had to pass a building under construction…looks like it will be the National Blues Museum when it is finished.

Interesting and very tall building in Art Deco style at 6th and Washington…

Two fiber buddies who spent the day, Julia Sermersheim and Susan Spineto…Susan Marth met up with us in St. Charles, but I didn’t get any photos of her….This quilt didn’t have a center in it, so I had them get in the “frame”…

Julia Sermersheim and Susan Spineto

No photos of Quilt National, of course.  We ate at Picasso’s Coffeehouse in St. Charles…wonderful place with great coffee…I didn’t take photos of that either.

Third Degree Glass Factory on Delmar had marvelously creative sinks and fixtures….

Bathroom sinks and faucets in the Third Degree Glass Factory bathroom

We thought these were the bomb! (unless I can’t say bomb anymore)

I also found an interesting wall to photograph…

It sort of goes with this…which was hanging in the MoFA exhibit…

Weathered Places

Best of show winner, Janet (don’t know last name) with juror Victoria Crowder Payne and Barb Zapulla, who, I think did most of the work of pulling off this exhibit…Pat Owoc’s work is in the background…

More from the reception…I only know a few of these people!

Here’s my other piece in the show…

Fragments of a Life 5b

Here’s another piece from the show by Rosemary Claus-Gray.

Beach Reflections

Well, I’m going to wrap this up…it was a fabulous day…now back to working on my exhibit which is less than 3 weeks away!

Filed Under: Art Exhibits, art shows, collage, Contemporary Art, creativity, hand dyed fabrics, Quilt National Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Today’s Experiments

December 2, 2010 by 5 Comments

I am starting some new work.  Put colors together and piece.  Hmmm…not really satisfied with the salmon-ey orange color with the blue….I’m using my handy dandy 3-in-1 Color Wheel Tool. I also sell these now, so contact me if you need one.

I decided to paint it using either Setacolor or Dye-Na-Flow paints. I had forgotten how nice, fluid-y, and pigmented Dye-Na_Flow paints are.  It was the perfect paint for this project.  I might have used a different color though.  Now I have cheddar as the color for my art.  Well, I’ll be doing some other things to it that will tone it down a bit. Hopefully.

Filed Under: acrylic paint, color, creativity, hand dyed fabrics, paint Tagged With: , ,

Week In Review

August 12, 2010 by 5 Comments

It’s been a strange week. I slightly twisted my ankle last Saturday, but no pain and swelling showed up til Sunday afternoon.  And it swelled up really good by Monday.  I hobbled around the house determined not to let time be a’ wastin’…

I kept ice on it a lot, but also spent time at my sewing machine.  I had printed a huge piece of cloth a while back and decided to make these…those of you who read my blog will recognize the cloth…I love these…

Since I sold my first set of screen printed throw pillows last Saturday, I am now highly motivated to keep going, so I sewed up a few more covers, after cutting lots of fabric for the backs.

It’s too hot to be outside printing since we don’t seem to be able to move past 100 plus degree days. But I have lots of indoor work to be done as long as I can keep supplied with everything I need.  In my “weakened state” I made a request  on Facebook to see if anyone was going to Walmart. Could they check on zippers for me please?  One of my friends did go there but they didn’t have any of the polyester zippers I needed for my bags. So I placed an order with Brewer which I needed to do anyway, but wasn’t ready to do it this early.  I ordered a bunch of zippers, but they only had one box of the Cloister Brown and I needed many.  Sigh.  But the three zippers I got are enough to hold me at this moment.  I am making bags which are liners for a basket purse.  My friend Kay is a basketweaver and we are teaming up on this project.  I think the liners might help her sell the baskets better.  She did sell a purse and liner last Saturday. Woohoo! She has two big shows next month, so I gotta get busy.

And then there’s my own work…I am giving thought to creating hand dyed cotton napkins with matching table runners.  This is for the Select Collection event to be held in November.  The theme is home and wearables.  I dyed some shibori designs on fat quarters.  Table napkins, anyone?

Kay likes them and thinks they would be great as napkins.  What do you think?

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Filed Under: creativity, dyeing, hand dyed fabrics, shibori Tagged With: , , ,

Printing L A R G E

June 30, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I was given some old dyes and some cloth that had been soda soaked by a friend who is downsizing.  The hot weather has finally broken here, so yesterday morning I was out in the patio.  I wanted to try out the new screens and I needed to get started working on silk scarves.  But for yesterday, I got out a piece of cloth from her stash.  It is  a white on white print and is over 2 yards long.  I printed on the back of it.  The fabric turned out way too light for my taste, but is still very much useable.  I’m not sure if it needed to be soda soaked again or what the reason was.  She said it had been soaked last fall…which may be too long ago.

I don’t believe I have printed a piece this large before, but I can see myself doing it again.  In the lower right corner is printing from one of the new screens we made. I used a paper resist to make the pattern. The other printing is from a design made with blue gel glue.

Just above that printing is the turquoise from the older dyes she gave me.  I used double the dye powder and thought that would compensate for the age, but apparently not as I can see a distinct difference from the newer dyes.  The new screens work quite well. Today, I printed on silk scarves and prepared screens for breakdown printing that I will print on other scarves.

One more thing:  both of my pieces were rejected for the Working Together show this year….that has not happened before! Oh well…there’ll be another place to enter them.

Filed Under: artist's thoughts, color, dyeing, hand dyed fabrics, printmaking, screenprinting Tagged With: ,

Christmas Sales…

December 8, 2009 by Leave a Comment

I made these little cell phone/credit card pouches last week.

I had 6 of them…before a nice new Facebook friend purchased 4 of them.  Then I went to  the New Harmony fair and sold 1.  The other one sold yesterday in my Etsy shop.  So last night I was scrambling around trying to make a few more.  You see, these bags came out of playtime in my sewing room last week just using the scraps from the other bags I made.  The scrap pieces were already layered and stitched; they just needed to be pieced together and then sew the bags.  That made it easy.  To make more, I have to layer and quilt a piece of cloth, maybe add more stuff to the cloth, then make the bag.  I was scrounging around through my unfinished pile last night to see if I could find something already quilted…and I did.  These were made from a collage that just never did work for me.  I loved the cloth, but never could get it to come together so I cut it up last night and made these…

The bottom one is sold and I am awaiting her buttons to sew on it.  The other two are in my etsy shop. One has a cool dark green antique button on it and the other has a dark brown one.

The Artisan’s Fair at New Harmony was better than last year in sales.  Maybe everyone was really scared last year and they aren’t so much this year.  The crowd wasn’t massive, but there was a fairly steady flow of people and they were buying.  I sold several scarves each day.  Although not blockbuster, I am pleased with my sales.

To purchase one of the two bags in the last picture, click here.

Filed Under: art shows, collage, creativity, hand dyed fabrics, holidays, New Harmony Tagged With: ,

Bags, Bags, and More Bags…

August 21, 2009 by Leave a Comment

dischargebags

redturquo bag

Bags 001Bags 002

Bags 004Bags 006

Bags 007 At least I’m having fun!!!!!

Filed Under: acrylic paint, breakdown printing, creativity, discharge dyeing, hand dyed fabrics, new art, paint, printmaking, stamping Tagged With:

What I’ve Been Doing…Part 2

July 16, 2009 by 3 Comments

What have I been doing since last week?  Besides planning a short vacation trip in August with my hubby, my mind is trying to make decisions on what shows I will be doing this fall and what needs to be done for each of them.  I am vending at some art fairs and a couple of quilt shows. But first, a retreat coming up in August: I will be teaching free form machine quilting and vending.  I finished a new jacket sample this week, pattern by SuznQuilts. It turned out so cute!

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My piece,…But Words Will Never Hurt Me (Sticks and Stones), hanging in the museum exhbit.  The opening was last Saturday and I received an Honorable Mention in the 3D category.  Can anyone tell me why that is?  I entered in the 2D category.  I sure would like to know how they arrived at an award in 3D.  A friend had a lovely huge sculpture in the show…I wondered how that made her feel? I would appreciate hearing any thoughts on this.

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A call came from the Indiana Heritage quilt show from Bloomington, IN.  This is a fairly well attended 3 day show next March.  They wanted to know if I was still interested in vending.  I’ll give it a shot, although I’ve never done a 3 day show.  Should be fun, as long as the country isn’t in a spending depression by then!

Filed Under: art shows, Arts Council, hand dyed fabrics, quilt retreats, quilt shows Tagged With: ,

What I’ve Been Doing…

July 8, 2009 by Leave a Comment

It’s been awhile again since I’ve blogged…I’m getting so lazy!

Update on the Arts Council show…I got a call last Wednesday that I have been awarded an Honorable Mention award…yeah for fiber! Rayna wrote me a nice note and said that this is extra special because this is recognition in an art show.  Thanks, Rayna.

Update on the Runaround Bag…I decided not to go with those antique buttons.  Instead…I think some fun, funky buttons are called for…

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I have been dyeing some fabric to replenish my supply.  The multicolored ones sell pretty well for me.  The striped ones were hung on the clothesline and I poured the dye on them.  That was sorta fun if you can keep the dye off your toes…I may do more, mostly because I would like to use them myself.  I also soda soaked some white cotton and hung on the line…and guess what showed up?  The Japanese beatles swarmed the white cotton…go figure…they must like the soda ash.

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Last week I prepared some discharged black sateen pieces to sell and to stitch on.

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I will be making more of these…”painting” on black cloth with dishwashing gel is too much fun.

Filed Under: art shows, Arts Council, discharge dyeing, dyeing, hand dyed fabrics, new art Tagged With: , , ,
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