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Archive for the ‘Slow Cloth’ Category

Oops! I’m Back

Monday, March 13th, 2017

Well, I haven’t been anywhere, but I have been busy, busy. We had a visit from our California peeps at the end of February. We had lots of fun family time together. Here is Paige at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry).

I also got wrapped up in getting my resist piece done. First, I made the letters, using some snow dyed fabric in my stash.

Then I cut up a whole bunch of my pink and fuschia fabric to make one of my collaged backgrounds.

I used some of my own photos and found other copyright free photos on Flicker of the Women’s March in January. I printed these on Jacquard ExravOrganza sheets.

I collaged and fused them to the pink background. It is now ready to be trimmed and backed and quilted! I am quite happy with it. I am going to tweak the colors in the resist a bit with some paint or color pencil.

Here is a detail shot with a photo of Mr C and I.

As you know, I share studio space with my daughter. She is amassing quite a body of work.

The other thing I have done is finish samples for my wool stitching class at Trinity Cathedral.

The first class was last Wednesday. I have two young boys, 8 and 10, a teen-age girl, 3 guys, and several women. My assistant got sick so it was a bit daunting to work with everyone by myself. They had a bit of a problem getting the idea of making a freezer paper pattern for each part of their chosen object even though I demonstrated it with the piece I am making along with them!! It was fun and time flew by.

 

 

 

More Making While Snowed In

Monday, January 16th, 2017

We are hoping that this is our last day of below freezing weather. We are due for warmer temps and torrential rains and flooding, now. I guess I am glad we live on a hill! We did get out and about this week-end. We found that our car, which has 4 wheel drive, handles the snowy and icy roads quite well.

I finished the Arty Oven Mitts that I started. They needed a binding around the opening.

I also have made some good progress on knitting two more pink pussy hats. I think I can finish them by Saturday. I made the ribbing white for one of them because I did not have enough yarn of that color for a whole hat. I think it will look great.

I have made progress on the Silk Stitch Along with Laura Wasalowski. First is my practice piece. Just a reminder that I am using the same colors on each piece. They look so different in some cases.

Tomorrow, I am going to do some work on my Indigo Moon house. It needs a more rigid interior. Here is a photo of it. We are going to share 3-D work at a SAQA meeting on Wednesday.

 

 

Snowed In and Making

Thursday, January 12th, 2017

We are still snowed in here in Portland. Schools will be closed again tomorrow. We ventured down the hill to the grocery store this afternoon. The streets are all packed snow. By Monday, we are supposed to finally get above freezing with rain and it will soon disappear. Today the sun came out and it was beautiful to see the trees and buildings shrouded in snow.

I am so glad that I have lots of projects to work on. I have two sides of one of my oven mitts ready to stitch together.

I did free motion quilting first and what a mess. I ripped it all out and did some more sensible straight line quilting.

I have both trees finished for my silk stitch along with Laura Wasalowski. And I have been working on two more pink pussy hats. The top embroidery is my practice piece and the other one, I try to remedy the mistakes I had in the first.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Radical Embroidery

Saturday, July 30th, 2016

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I signed up to take Radical Embroidery at Oregon College of Art and Craft. It was a 3 day workshop. It turned out to be not that radical, but I learned a lot about using embroidery as an art form. The instructor was a delightful young woman from the CA bay area, Victoria May. Her website is here. Her work is a bit radical as she has a fondness for the gritty and industrial debris that she finds in her travels. I think that adding delicate embroidery to these found objects serves to confound the viewer.

On the first day, we learned different ways to create line in our work. The piece at the beginning of this post is my sampler. We used Dynaflow paint on canvas to  begin our work. Then I added lines in various ways. We used organza in our work. For this line, I painted organza which I tore into strips and couched down. I really like the effect.

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The next day, we moved on to working with painted organza layered on canvas and we were to capture some things between the layers.

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I had some previously quilted rusted silk which I cut into rectangles. Two pieces are under the organza and the middle one is on top. I am in the process of stitching the quilted silk pieces down. Then, I will add some interesting stitching to the rest of the piece. I am thinking of adding a bit of rust to this in some way.

Then we were introduced to stitching on water color paper. The trick here is to pre-punch your stitching holes with a needle or awl. For my piece, I stained the water color paper with acrylic ink and got some interesting effects by blow drying it. Click on any photo to see it larger.

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I am in the process of stitching with variegated thread, following the design created by the ink.

On the last day, I had an idea that I just had to work on using some of the materials that I brought.

First, I painted the canvas with indigo Dynaflow paint. I forgot to get a photo before I started stitching, but you can get an idea from this photo.

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I had some indigo fabric with clamped circles. I cut out three circles for the composition. I also had a dark blue shibori organza which has black lines in it. And I also had a piece of Rymplecoth that my friend, Maris, gave me. It is more loosely woven than cheesecloth and is used for cleaning and polishing. She uses it in her felting. I dyed it a dark black. It takes the dye really well.

I used strips of the organza as I wanted some of the painted canvas to show to give a better value change. I ripped some holes in the Rymplecloth so that the organza can poke through.

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The top circle is on top of the organza and is couched down and stitched with silver metallic thread.

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The other circles are under organza and stitched with the silver thread. I have started doing some stitching on the organza and canvas and then I will tack the Rymple cloth down.

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Here is the final layout which looks a bit messy, but I think I know where I am going.

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I was feeling a bit overwhelmed earlier this week and wishing my recovery was moving faster. Yesterday, I had Mr C  help me get my sewing machine table back where I use it and pulled the Janome up out of hiding. It made me so happy, I almost danced. I think it is a symbol for the life I want to live and now, I am feeling so much better and have been doing better. I think I turned a corner.

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All I did was shorten some clothes, but it felt good. My knee didn’t like the knee lift, but that will get better.

 

Art Quilt Workshop Prep

Tuesday, May 5th, 2015

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I am getting ready to teach an art quilting class for our multi-generational art program at Trinity. We will have no sewing machines so I got permission from Laura Wasilowski to pattern my class after her wonderful little hand-stitched art quilts. This is my class sample that I am working on. I have some stitching done.

I love this part soooo much. Slow stitching – ahhhhh!

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The class will be on Wednesday nights for the next 4 weeks – an hour and a half per class. So part of my planning is parsing out the steps to a finished quilt. For those who get done early, I will have them make fiber postcards.

I bought several batiks for them to use for the background fused to black felt. I have lots and lots of fused scraps that I am bringing in for them to use for their creations.

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There are so many things to think of. I will try to take photos as we go along.

I was exhausted after the SAQA conference and then I had a backlog of SDA work to do. Today, I am feeling rested and energetic again.