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Archive for the ‘Stuff I Buy’ Category

Master Class Update

Monday, January 19th, 2015

janmockuprev

I decided to do the one color value study of the leave photo. Here is the mockup from the sketch. I need to get it quilted and finished by the end of the month. It is 12 x 12 so I think that is doable.

I tried to work on this here at home in my multi-purpose room, but I have way too many things going on here and I work better at a higher table like I have at the studio. I have been avoiding the studio. It is such a mess, but I went there today and I got this done and I feel energized and ready to clean house, er studio, and get on with my creative life.

I pulled out these sort of icky yellow green pieces, but truth be told, I love working with colors like these.

valuefabrics

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The looked like a good enough value change to do what I wanted to do.

I started cutting leaves and laying out my piece.

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Here is the mock up that I sent to EB.

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I felt the lightest value was to light and was not working in the composition. EB agreed. I was following the values in the sketch. I used some color pencil on the light yellow/green and used it in smaller pieces in the central area of the piece. That is what is up at the top of the page.

I spent the week-end doing SDA work and living on Aleve. I was in serious pain after working on the studio at Trinity! I did get my hair cut and the color freshened on Friday and also saw the eye Dr. I went in because I lost my red glasses in San Francisco and needed to get new ones. I am glad I went in as I had a big change in my prescription. I have been having headaches and irritated eyes of late. Here are the two new frames I selected.

red glass frames

blue glass frames

Can’t wait for them to come in next week.

No Rest for the Weary

Saturday, September 27th, 2014

GECatNWExpo

Well, I am not that weary, but fortunately, I recovered from my sinus infection and taking care of M & M so that I could keep up with my busy schedule this past week. On Tuesday, I went out to the Expo Center to help hang the SAQA Oregon Show, Exploring Layers. On Wednesday, I was busy, busy doing my left brain SDA work. On Thursday, I went back out to the opening of NW Quilt Expo. I spent a couple of hours at the Columbia FiberArts Guild table, showing some member’s work and promoting the guild. Then, I gave a docent talk for the SAQA show. That is me with my quilt, Walking With Scooter and Mr. C. That quilt has really been getting around.

On Friday, I finally got to my studio to start some clean up and to work on my latest Printed Fabric Bee piece. The queen this month is Leslie Jennison who has asked for Urban Surfaces -think about layered textures of old walls, peeling paint, graffiti, etc., on building walls. I was trying to decide what piece of fabric to use as my base for printing and had an epiphany as I was falling asleep or waking up. (Always get my best ideas, then.) I had done some shibori folds on some cotton scarves that I bought from Darma. They looked horrible – what was I thinking horrible. Here is one of them, dampened and ready to be tortured some more. I will only say that my first step was to paint over the whole thing with diluted black Jacquard DynaFlow paint. I will show the final result in a few days.

 

whatwasithinkingscarf

Intermission: Time to stop, make dinner and go to the symphony.

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg played a violin concerto by Shostakovich. Fantastic concert.

And, I am back!

While at the quilt show, I found my favorite booth with hand-dyes from Maureen Schmidt – a friend from Sonoma County. I bought two packs of neutrals – one, warm and one, cool. High Fiber Diet has neutral as the theme for next year.

neutralfabrics1

neutralfabrics2

And I also found some Radiance (cotton/silk blend) in colors that will be perfect for the commission I am working on.

 

radiancefabrics

This is the gorgeous nuno felted backdrop that my friend, Maris Cavanaugh, made for the guild fashion show.

marisfeltedbackgroundLast, but not least, I finally got to use my new studio tool – an Oliso Smart Iron.

olisoiron

When it is plugged in, it pops up on it’s legs. When you hold it to iron, the legs disappear, but as soon as you let go of it, up it pops. It has a long cord and it goes off after 30 minutes when not in use, unlike most irons, which last for only 7 -8 minutes. I love its bright sunny color.

Some Studio Time and an Art Date

Saturday, August 23rd, 2014

syringewriting

I had a rude awakening this week and realized that I needed to get a project done for The Printed Fabric Bee. So I spent some time in my studio this week. It is cooler now so much easier to work there. I did a little syringe writing with black paint.

beeswaxcrayonwork

I also used one of my wood block designs to do some beeswax crayon rubbings. I will share more of this project later when it is finished and mailed to the Queen Bee.

It has been one of those crazy weeks. Monday and Tuesday were left brain, excel spread sheets, kind of days doing my membership work for SDA. Wednesday, I worked at Trinity helping to prepare food for the community outreach meal. I love doing this; it combines two of my favorite things, making food and hanging out with great people. Then, I got to spend some time in the studio for a couple of days.

Sidnee Snell, a local textile artist and SAQA member has an exhibit of her work at the Guardino Gallery in the Alberta area of N. Portland. Sidnee manipulates photos to create patterns to create her beautifully stitched pieces, using hand-dyes.

Sidnee

This piece is from a photo of a rusting bridge.

sidneerustedbridge

 

This one is called red laces:

2014-08-23 14.18.59

I love the richness of the colors that Sidnee uses and her machine quilting adds a wonderful dimension to the work.

I loved the two pieces she calls sacred seating which are church pews.

Sidneesacredseats

sidneeseatsandcarvings'

The other artist in the show makes wood sculptures with figures in evocative situations. They were very interesting and well done.

carvedwork

sidneeandmorecarving

After our gallery trip, we stopped at the mall and I did some binge shopping at Macy’s for some things for out upcoming trip to celebrate 50 years of wedded bliss.

 

Quilt Knit Stitch and More

Sunday, August 17th, 2014

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This was a happy week here in Portlandia. My art quilt daughter, Kristin La Flamme, was in town and stayed with us for a few days and it was the debut of Quilt Knit Stitch in Portland. It is the latest Quilts, Inc show which included more than quilts — knitting, crocheting, fashion shows, etc. It really was a good show, but the attendance was not what was expected. The quilts part of it was much smaller than you see at Houston and there were some exhibits just for this show. One was with a theme of roses since this is the City of Roses. The show will be back next year and I hope it gets more publicity going and the attendance improves.

On Tuesday, I had volunteered to help set up the SAQA exhibit and Kristin came along to help. You can see us hanging a sampling of this year’s auction quilts that were on display. SAQA had two of their special exhibits there: Metaphors of Aging and Text Messages. Many people who had not seen art quilts like this before and they were quite taken with the stories that accompanied them.

On Thursday, we had STASH at Gale’s house and we helped Reva get started tying her huge t-shirt quilt. Here we are, stitching away. It was meditative, but hard on the back.

 

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On Friday, we were off to QKS. Kristin was doing docenting in the SAQA exhibits and I was  intermittently schmoozing at the SAQA table, checking out exhibits and shopping in the vendor area.

It was fun to see our fellow Twelve by 12 member, Terri Stegmiller, who was visiting her aunt who lives here. We were able to get a selfie.

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I bought some dye-painted tencil yarn to knit a shrug for myself. I saw it hanging in my friend, Teresa Ruch’s booth and I had to make one too.

knittedshrug

Here is the yarn that I bought.

paintedtencelyarn

I also bought a set of celtic style alphabet woodblocks. I am going to use these in my next Printed Fabric Bee project.

 

 

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It was fun to stop by Marcia Derse’s booth and look at her fabrics. She does printing and discharging on hand-dyed fabrics and then they are commercially printed. I don’t buy her fabric because I like to print my own, but I love to look at what she has done.She has wonderful colors and designs. She just moved from Ohio to Whidby Island and says that she loves it here in the North West.

marciadersefabrics

On Saturday, we jumped on the street car again and went back to the show to hear Marci Rae McDade, SDA Journal editor, talk about the exhibit she curated at the Hap Gallery, which includes one of Kristin’s Army Aprons. This is a synopsis of the show.

Hap Gallery is pleased to present Fail-Safe: Discomforts Close to Home, a group exhibition of contemporary textile and fiber-based artists curated by Marci Rae McDade. The show features a range of art forms made with seemingly safe and comforting materials from everyday life that are loaded with incendiary content. Each object reflects an aspect of anxiety, discontent, and longing in the 21st century, from poverty and racism to mortality and digital disconnect. These potent works compel viewers to take stock of the world today as we collectively contemplate our futures.

On Saturday night, Marci hosted a reception at the gallery so Mr C, Kristin and I went down on the street car. I really enjoyed seeing the show. Such a variety of work. I got a couple of photos. This is of Marci and Kristin, with her apron on a manikin in the back. It is knitted from undershirts that her husband wore during his deployments. You can see a better photo of this and more of her work in the Army Wife series, here.

marciandkristin

I loved this piece that was thread painted and the pieces were hung to give a 3-D effect.

theadpaintedchair

I also love an exhibit of miniature clothes hand sewn from clothing of deceased people. They are done as a memorial for loved ones to keep. They were exquisitely done.

And so that is what I have been up to. Kristin left at 3 am this morning and now it is quiet around here and I am trying to catch my breath before the next big event in my life.

How to Print a Mosaic (or not)

Thursday, February 27th, 2014

mosaic3inch

Lesley Riley is the queen bee of The Printed Fabric Bee this month. She asked for a mosaic theme using yellow/orange, purple and fuchsia.

My original plan was to use potato dextrin spread on fabric to dry and crackle.

potatodextrin

I did this once in a workshop and had some great results.

finishedpotatodextrin

However, I think I did not spread the dextrin thickly enough so I did not get a good crackle. So I went to a backup of making a thermofax screen. My first screen was 4 inches square and since Lesley asked for a 12 x 12 inch finished piece, I could do three across and down. I am really missing the big padded print table that I have had since we moved here. I am working in a much smaller space and since I am a quite messy, I had several blips. So this is the first printing that I did. I used a pale turquoise fabric for the background

mosaic4inch

I dropped a splotch of yellow on the print and had to do a fix so I brushed more yellow, pink and purple across the piece. I kind of liked it. Then, I saw that I had put the fabric down on a splotch of yellow paint on the print table so the back looked very untidy. I had another problem, I needed to do a 6 inch piece for our give away. The four inch screen did not work for that so I made a new 3 inch screen. Here is what I printed. It is a darker turquoise. So, I printed another 12 inch piece using the 3 inch screen. That is up at the top. I think I will send them both to Lesley.

mosaicgiveaway

That reminds me, I just got all of my wonky lines pieces so I should photograph them so you can see what great pieces I got.

On another note, I am not going to get my piece finished for the master class. I was turning into a crazy lady because Mr C decided we would buy a new car this week. I will be driving it quite a bit so I had to be involved. Spending time with car salesmen is an interesting activity. Not one that I enjoy. We ended up buying a new Prius 5 which we will pick up tomorrow. I drove it this morning and really loved it. I picked sea glass pearl for the color.

We have interviewed one estate sale person. A second one is coming tomorrow. When will my life return to a semblance of normalcy, and what will that be like?