Friday, April 26, 2019

Serenity Pond

Serenity Pond is finished and hanging at the Umpqua Valley Quilters' Guild Show. The show is this weekend in Roseburg Oregon at the Fairgrounds, April 26-28, 2019. I had a lot of little details to finish up, the dragonflies, the shadow of the rock, gold painted highlights, and toning down the striped fabric on the branch. It all got done with time to spare, Including dyeing more indigo for the binding and getting the label sewn on. It is made entirely with my hand dyed fabrics.
I also added some brass Chinese coins to the squares on the left edge, to give it a bit of an Asian flare. And because the Fyber Café challenge was to add some metal objects to the work. The rocks have additional acrylic paint on them, I'm glad I added this, as the hand dyed fabric was beautiful as it was, but the paint made it even better.
The leaves and the moon have gold metallic paint added, the extra shimmer really adds depth and highlights. I'm very proud of this one. It was started in a class with Claudia Law of Ashland, Oregon. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here see what other talented artists are doing this week.

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Indigo & Dragonflies

Just a little bit about several things. I am trying to get ready for the Umpqua Valley Quilters' Guild Show April 26-28, at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, Roseburg, Oregon. If you are driving up I-5, stop and see our talented regional quilters. They allow our Fyber Café group to have a small display of our art work. We have an annual challenge geared to being ready for this show. I have 1 1/2 weeks to get my wall hanging finished. I'll do a reveal when we set up for the show. I had to dye some extra indigo fabric, I did not have a big enough piece to cut the binding strips from. I did four dye baths, one plain indigo, one with indigo/turquoise, indigo/electric blue, and the last indigo/warm black, trying to get a nice navy. There is not a lot of difference between the indigo, and the indigo/turquoise. The one with black dye, separated out, so some dark green spots are showing. The one with electric blue is more teal than the plain indigo, but very close. So I'll need to pick the one that matches my Shibori dyed backgrounds, maybe I'll use several of them.
I also stitched a bunch of thread painted dragonflies, they are not as nice as the ones I did a few years ago, mostly being smaller. I should have made them larger, but I was trying to get a lot of them in the hoop. The green/purple ones have layers of tulle and Solvy, and are stitched in rayon thread, with Sulky shimmer holographic thread over that. They really shine, but you can't tell from the photograph. I also made two in red.
Talk about the nick of time. I called a friend to tell her the baby quilt was ready to pick up the next morning. When I saw her the baby had just been born that morning. It is just random pieced pink/mauve/burgundy scraps, free motion quilted in hearts and loops de loops. A good cuddle quilt for the new granddaughter. I've got lots of stuff to do before the show, signs, labels, flyers, and getting my quilt done! Then I'm off soon after for the Empty Threads Seminar in Asilomar. I have class with Gloria Loughman for 5 days. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here check out what other talented textile artists are doing this week.