"Creative people are curious, flexible, persistent, and independent; with a tremendous spirit of adventure and a love of play."~~Henri Matisse
Saturday afternoon Jan. 25th was the second class of Postcard Panache. These ladies couldn’t make the first class, so I scheduled another one. There were supposed to be a couple more gals but something came up and got in their way! Here are Mary Ann and Bonnie learning some things about Angelina fibers.
Next class: Saturday, March 8, I will be teaching a fiber photo collage class. Students will learn a bit about collage-making with fibers, photo transfer, and hand stitching. Class sample…
On Friday, February 11th, after 3 attempts to go, I finally made it to Form, Not Function at the Carnegie in New Albany, IN. A friend and I first visited Jane Dunnewold’s wonderful exhibit, Etudes: A Daily Practice on display in Louisville, KY at the Hite Art Institute. We enjoyed that very much, then went to New Albany to find the Mexican restaurant, which had moved, before we went to Form Not Function. I love Jane’s work. It was an awesome day and I really should do that more often. It just reminded me that I don’t get out enough!
Back to life at home….my husband and I went out to eat at an awesome Mexican restaurant the next night in Marion. Can you tell I like Mexican? Here’s what I got…Don Sol’s Fajitas.
The salsa was excellent and there was enough food to take home for lunch on Sunday! The restaurant is Don Sol’s in Marion, IL. If you are in the area try it!
Last week I painted dryer sheets.
This week I ironed them.
This week I painted sky fabrics.
And dyed all of these things.
Cotton and rayon circular scarves, jumbo cotton rick rack and a bunch of onesies. Walmart now sells organic cotton onesies made by Faded Glory. They are so nice and soft.
Well, that’s my week so far. I have more to do before the Bloomington, IN quilt show next week.
I love to work with layering, shadowed images and vague impressions. I like to see what happens when I take a torn piece of fusible web and cover it with a lightly painted dryer sheet, then maybe stamp on it, or take a dryer sheet with a design already stamped on it and layer it over something. The possibilities are endless.
I started this piece last year or the year before, can’t remember. It just never came together for me for some reason. I think I am a person (at least for right now) that is really in to creating patterns, mark making and other ideas that create a foundation, but sometimes I get lost from there. That’s what happened here. I was working intuitively and after deciding it needed more “lights”, I stamped over it with various stamps and white gesso and then got lost. I liked the colors, the stamped images, the hand stitching, but it still wasn’t coming together as a whole piece for me.
A couple of weeks ago, preparing for an art fair and contemplating making small pieces of economical art called ACEO’s, I pulled this piece out of the closet. Armed with a photo mat with a window cut ACEO size, I began to roam over it. I began to see all kinds of cool things. So I promptly cut it up. Then to each little piece that needed more, I added it. I think each little piece is now adorable and am very pleased with this experiment. There are frames on the market now that will will hold 3 of this size together.
Each little piece has a lot to look at…maybe that’s why the larger one wasn’t working…
See this stencil? This is from Crafter’s Workshop. I have a bunch of these coming in. It is 6″ x 6″ and they are $4. I took this stencil and metallic gold paint…
…and just for fun…I stenciled on a painted yellow dryer sheet…
The painted gold tyvek beads from yesterday looked SO plain…I had to do something else to them…
NOW they’re pretty….
Here is the piece I started the other day. The quilt is red orange and blue green. So I used blue green rayon thread on the red orange part and red orange thread on the blue green part. I quilted a pattern and left parts of it unquilted, which, in the end, made another design, because the unquilted parts “pouf” a bit. Can you see the “stripes” in the red part?
They are very subtle… if you click to enlarge, you might see it better.
I’m not sure that it’s done…I was thinking of doing something in those “poufs” but I don’t think I want big contrast, so I may just let it be.
On another note, I am working on a lecture/demo on Journal Quilt techniques. This is a sample I did today using painted fusible web and dryer sheets on a gessoed quilt block. The two metal pieces aren’t attached, but I like the looks of them. I may use them…I may not. I’ve been hoarding them because I couldn’t get any more.
I shut the phone off today. I can’t stand it when it rings while I am trying to concentrate. And I only have two weeks left to plan this lecture and workshop. I have to be able to think. So I left a very polite message that I was working very hard on a class and wouldn’t be able to answer the phone today…it was heaven.
New thermofax screens arrived in the mail today…then I remembered…I forgot to send her toner copies. Well…they still worked…printed on my Epson inkjet printer. I guess there is carbon in that there black ink. Lucky day for me indeed.
Today I was up early and got some fabric dyed to fill out my inventory. I am preparing for the quilt show next week. I will also have painted dryer sheets for sale. Since all my art that uses painted dryer sheets is either in the arts council show or sold, I decided to make a couple of samples so that quilters at the show can get an idea of what they can do with those painted dryer sheets. That’s what I have been working on…that and getting my brain organized of what all I have to get done before I leave. I’m still waiting on important orders to get here! I also spent a good part of yesterday trying to get a hotel room. Who knew a military graduation, the Rider Cup (?), and a Coca-Cola convention would all converge on the town the same time as the quilt show?
Canvas, ink, coffee stain, painted dryer sheet, home dec sample, dyed scrim, photo transfer, old buttons, perle cotton stitching, dyed cheesecloth, very old ribbon. The next one isn’t totally finished. I am going to put some more stuff on it, but here’s where it is now.
It’s got pretty much the same stuff as the other one, except I haven’t done the embellishing yet. These are not quilted, in the interest of time, so they have raw edges. The home dec samples are the perfect size to use in a small hanging like this, and I have so many of them…I should really use them more in my work!
I am also watching this hurricane as it comes closer to shore and praying there will be no loss of life. My sister lives in Dayton, TX and has already evacuated to Louisiana, although they could find no hotel room or campground to park their camper. This morning they were still in the Walmart parking lot in Alexandria with their two dogs. The news is saying this one is bigger than Katrina. And that would be a shame.
I have been doing some hand stitching. Who…me? Yeah. It’s something I don’t do a lot of, but there was a project in the 2007 Quilting Arts Gifts issue that caught my eye. As Christmas approaches, I am thinking about a present for a certain friend. It’s a quilted bag by Linda and Laura Kemshall on page 21. I figured the hand stitching is something I can do in the evenings while watching tv…and then there’s election day coming up. I will need some handwork to do!
I don’t do much hand quilting…like, none, to be exact. Not thinking, I layered my layers with a piece of cotton batting, since I use that exclusively in my quilts and only have that around. I will have to remind myself not to do that again! Hand quilting with cotton batting is not good. It will take much longer, I can tell. And I’m only working on a 14″ square. Here is the full view of the first stage in progress…layered paint rag, polyester sheers, dryer sheets, painted cheesecloth…
…and the close up view…
…this is kind of fun…I just have to remember to use some poly felt for the batting next time!
….Marilyn Davis! There were 243 total sheets. I counted them several times to be sure. A few of you were very close, but Marilyn’s estimate was 247 and she came the closest. Congratulations, Marilyn! I will be sending you a bundle of these painted dryer sheets as your prize. If you will send me your snail mail address, I will get these out to you pronto. My appreciation goes out to all of you who participated! I will be putting some bundles of these sheets in my etsy shop this week if you are interested in purchasing some.
Thanks to everyone who has made a guess. I plan to announce the winner and final total at 6 p.m. central time. 27 of you left a number. You still have time as of this writing if you haven’t posted one.
Here are some pictures of some of the individual sheets. You could lay these out flat and paint them and get more paint on them. For my use, I don’t want a block of color, but just a bit of color and transparency for layering. They can still have paint added to them as well as stamping, and I’m even wondering how they would take a gel medium photo transfer…hmmmm, I may have to try that!
…can one collect? I have been saving them for quite some time. I painted these this morning. If anyone wants to take a guess how many there are in this picture….when I iron them, I will count them and the person who gets closest to the actual number will get a prize! So leave your guess in the comment section. How many painted dryer sheets are in these 6 containers?
