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Archive for the ‘indigo’ Category

Mood Indigo

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

It was a gorgeous day today  — sunny and 70° — a perfect day to visit the Portland Japanese Garden. I met my friend Suzy there and we took in the beautiful indigo installation by a Japanese artist.

She uses a linen that is specially created for her. It is based on Japanese mosquito netting. Here is the back side of the Moonlit piece.

This is the most amazing installation:

Notice the subtle change in the design of each piece. Here is a straight on shot.

This piece is the width of the room and would have been used to screen off part of a garden for privacy when entertaining.

This is another subtle beauty.

There were smaller hangings, too.

This was the coolest, however, a little indigo tent.

Here are some photos of the gorgeous fall color in the garden and a view of Mt. Hood.

I hope to have all my photos on my Flickr site, soon.

Winter Night

Monday, March 1st, 2010

The Twelve X Twelve theme selected by Francoise was Blue/White and a Bit of Black. I just had to dip into my indigo scraps and do up one of my indigo moon landscapes. I used lots of scraps which I fused together with raw and frayed edges showing. Here are some detail shots.

I used a piece of silk with shadowy indigo coloration for the snow. I cut strips of silk indigo shibori for the shadows of the fence posts.

This piece looked very different at one point. I had quilted it and thought it was done. It wasn’t.

This photo was taken before I screwed up the fence with some terrible quilting. It was an ok piece before then, but after the quilting it was a dog. I went at it with sharp implements and pulled off the fence.

I then added the printed indigo fabrics which were given to me by Kristin and made the fence look more like a fence. I couldn’t remove the shadows so I ended up making a wonky split rail fence that works much better.

If you haven’t done so yet, go over to Twelve X Twelve to see the other great pieces.

Art Every Day 3

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

fourindigoaspenpostcards

Because, you can’t make just one…. I had so much fun today with my indigo scraps. I love all of these. It feels pretty good to use up scraps that really would have no other use. You can click on the photo to see them larger.

I did one more for the colorful silk series, titled Circles.

circlespostcard

It took a better part of my morning to prepare The Wall of Hopes and Dreams for shipping to Arizona for the Significant Stitches show. Scooter and I walked up to the Westmoreland Kinkos/FedEx store. It was a beautiful brisk and sunny fall day.

This afternoon, I went to see Kevin for a hair cut. I said cut it all off, I am tired of hair. Hed did. Hope I won’t regret it. It does grow back.

Look at my adorable pup on his new bed. When we first bought it, he would only lie next to it. Yesterday and today, he has been curled up on it.

Scooternewbed

I regret that I did not have time for any drawing exercises, but I will get to it. I have other fish to fry right now.

Good News and More Good News

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

aspenplacement

The good news is that I feel as if I am getting back into a creative groove and feeling more confident about what I am doing. I was really stymied and about how to do the aspens. I cut some paper pieces to try out some options. I got brave and started cutting from my shibori stash, using some linen, first. It just was not working. I got on the computer and googled aspens and just looked at photos of how aspens appear in the natural landscape. Very often, you just see a stand of them sort of in a row and I decided that was what I needed to do, but abstracted. After several trials, I am quite happy with this. I haven’t stitched them yet. They are lightly fused. I ended up using a silk charmeuse shibori piece because there was more contrast in the markings. I was a little worried about the value change in this piece, but was pleasantly surprised when I changed it to black and white.

aspensblackandwhite

The other good news is that I saw my oncologist today for my annual visit. He says I am fine and do not need to come back unless I want to. He is such a fine man that I might go back just to visit with him. We always find lots to talk about.

M and M arrived after lunch to spend the day. We didn’t do much. Miles watched Muppets in Space. Mia kept me company in my studio and played with Scooter. Tonight, we headed over to the Farmer’s Market to shop and have dinner. They didn’t see anything that appealed to them so we went to the never fail Stickers Asian restaurant down the street.

potstickers

Here is Miles enjoying a sticker. Mia loved the new vinyl lime green and gold flecked upholstery on the booths!!

mileswithsticker

We walked back to the Farmer’s Market to do some shopping and the kids enjoyed gourmet ice cream sandwiches.

miabigsmile

I call this photo Doing the man walk in tandem.

manwalking

Mmmm! Brought home berries to eat and freeze.

oregonberries

Tonight, I found the two munchkins staring with intense interest as they watched Mythbusters, one of their favorite shows.

scarystare

Tomorrow is a play day with STASH at Terry’s house. I have my supplies all packed. We are going to do sun printing and maybe some monoprints. I will take my camera.

The Hum of Machine Quilting

Monday, July 6th, 2009

aspenbackgroundfinal

I added a couple of more rows of detail to the bottom of the landscape to make it less square. I made a trip to Fabric Depot to buy some variegated orange thread for the quilting. I had some thread that is perfect for the indigo areas. Here is a detail of the quilting.

aspendetail

Unfortunately, I ran out of it. I think I remember where I bought it — the Viking dealer in the local JoAnns. So I hope I can find more tomorrow. I enjoyed sitting at the Janome, listening to the hum and watching the thread patterns emerge on the fabric.

While I was at JoAnns, I picked up some fabrics with purple, pink and turquoise — the color palette for a quilt for my great niece who will turn 1 this month.

kaelynfabrics

I am looking forward to making a pieced quilt for a change.

The quilts that were in Sacred Threads arrived home on Friday. Tomorrow, I will deliver them to the wonderful folks who purchased them at my solo show. It was so nice of them to loan them back to me. You can see several of the quilts that were in the show by clicking here.