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Archive for the ‘My creations’ Category

Arty Oven Mitt

Sunday, January 8th, 2017

I had so much fun making this arty oven mitt. I selected some heavier fabrics from my stash of scraps: bark cloth, upholstery fabric, drapery fabric.

I pieced them into two sections large enough to cut the glove.

Then I layered them with Insul-Bright and some cotton ticking for lining and quilted the sandwiches together.

Next I cut out the glove shapes and stitched them together. I just have to bind the open edge.

I have done the first set of stitches on the silk backgrounds for the silk stitch along with Laura Wasalowski. We were told to do a simple horizon line.

It has been good to have projects to work on because the weather here has been miserable. It has been below freezing for a week and then it snowed, sleeted and rain so everything is coated in ice. I am getting cabin fever.

Posted in handstitching, My creations | Comments Off on Arty Oven Mitt

Persevering

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016

It is sometimes hard for me to get out of bed, get dressed and put on a happy face. I am still grieving the current political situation. I don’t see much ahead for so many folks in this country but doom and gloom. But, we have to carry on, don’t we.

For my long time readers, you may find this hard to believe, but that is my grandson, Miles, who turned 15 on Sunday. He has grown into such a fine and brainy young man. He is getting straight A’s in highschool. We all got together for dinner at a ramen restaurant and then that delicious mud pie, made by his Mom.

Before that, Mr C and I headed down to Oregon Wine Country for a benefit for Quilts for Empowerment to help Kenyan women who are getting their lives back together after surgery for fistula, a complication of child birth. You may remember that I took some of their embroideries and made quilts which were in a silent auction.

I finally finished my jellyfish stitching for my SAQA trunk show entry.

I also finished the one that I did in the wrong orientation.

I am feeling ready to dig in at the studio and to make some quilts to send out in the world. High Fiber Diet has a theme called, Heat Wave. The main color is to be orange. I pulled some fabrics today and I have an idea. I am almost excited about it, but have a little fear and trepidation as it has been a while since I have done a large piece for a show.

I did some major food shopping and tomorrow, I will get some pies and cranberry chutney made for dinner at Steph’s on Thursday. I am also doing the turkey. I keep thinking it is the last year for me to do the big bird, but no one wants to take it on!!

So, we keep on keeping on and wait to see what happens.

Posted in Family, M & M, My creations | 5 Comments »

What is Normal?

Tuesday, November 15th, 2016

I was finally able to get my studio ready for some major creativity to happen. We were able to assemble a large double sided design wall. But…..

As many of my long time readers know, I am very vested in politics and I am an unapologetic progressive. I have been spending a lot of time over the past month following the presidential campaign and found the ugliness disturbing. I believed the polls and thought for sure Hillary would be the first woma n president. My hopes were dashed a week ago today, and I spent much of the week wavering between panic attacks and sobbing. Yesterday, I decided I needed to get back to some sort of normal and because I have meetings almost every day this week, I needed to buck up. So that explains why I have been mostly missing.

While I have been keeping track of politics, I have been doing some slow stitching. I wanted to make a 7 x 10 piece for the SAQA trunk show. I cut up some shibori circles to use as jelly fish bodies and made the piece up above. Then, I reread the prospective and realized all the pieces had to be a portrait orientation so I started over!!! I am seed stitching the back ground right now.

Mr C finally figured out all the parts we would need to make a portable design wall that I had seen on the internet. It requires pvc pipe and fittings, U-bolts and foam insulation. Here are photos of the assemblage.

This is my daughter cutting the felt to fit the insulation. So glad to have her help.

This is a U-bolt!

The felt still needs to have some spray glued to attach it better to the insulation.

There is felt on both sides. It is 6 x6 so that it fits easily in the space I have to store it. It is very light, yet sturdy so I can pull it out for working. I am so happy with this. It was something I really missed in my closet studio! Next week, I hope to start on something big.

On Sunday, Mr C and I decided to get out of the house for an art date. We went to see the Warhol exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. Here are some images from that.

So, what is normal. My life has been so topsy turvy for a year, that I am not sure. I do know that I am feeling so much better. Getting my energy back. Working on the lower back problem. I want to be strong for the times ahead of us. I will end with this:

Posted in handstitching, My creations, politics, studio | 3 Comments »

Getting Up to Speed

Tuesday, September 27th, 2016

Just a quick post to let you know what I have been up to. First, I am happy to say that I am getting stronger every day. I can get back up the hill to the condo faster and without stopping to catch my breath! I can stand up from the sofa faster ad easier each day. My backaches are subsiding. That is great progress for me.

Above you see the house that I created from the blue moon quilt.Here is the original – kind of boring. I love it as a 3-Dconstruction.

It was on display with other fantastic 3-D objects at the Oregon SAQA conference. Our Blending Poetry and Cloth exhibit is on display there now at the Salem Historical Center. I loved getting reacquainted with my Ode to aTree quilt.

That was an all day affair, and the next day, I took myself to the NW Quilt Expo to wander amongst the quilts and do some retail therapy. I love Marcia Derse fabrics and I selected these from her new line. Love the greens! I also picked up some thread and needles from Superior Thread.

The big news is that I am moving my studio next month to a place a bit larger where I can have a design wall that I can stand back from. It will be a shared space with my daughter Lisa who needs a place to do her fine art painting. More about that as we progress with the move and setting up the space to accommodate both of us.

Posted in My creations, SAQA, studio, Stuff I Buy, This and that | Comments Off on Getting Up to Speed

Great Workshop and Moving On

Monday, September 19th, 2016

Last week, I was privileged to take a 2 day workshop with Fran Skiles. I had so much fun and it was kind of like making a mystery quilt. She would do a demo and give us instructions to create some pieces and then we would move on to something else. She purposely did not show us a finished piece so that we would not have a preconceived notion of what to do.

We started by making random stitches on a piece of plain fabric.

Then we coated one side with gesso.

Next we made monoprints on Chinese rice paper using printing ink.

Then we drew on Japanese rice paper with a bamboo pen and India ink.

We learned how to transfer photos from copy paper using gel medium.

I don’t have photos, but we also drew on stitch and tear pellon with watercolor crayons which we then transferred to the fabric with gel medium.

Once, we had all our parts, we started assembling collages and then doing washes with thinned paint.

I have 3 more skins (Fran’s word for the treated fabric) and lots of parts to make more collages. It was so much fun and so freeing to create the parts without a plan – just to play.

On Thursday, we have our Oregon SAQA one day conference. Our guest speaker is Kay Khan, who does intricate 3-D fiber work. In an homage to her, we were invited to create 3-D pieces. I am cutting up a boring quilt which will become a structure. I glued the parts to stiff pellon tonight.

Tomorrow I will assemble it and hope it stands upright without too much work!!

Posted in Collage, My creations, workshop | 1 Comment »

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