The Pattern That Wasn't

On my first retreat in Bandon, I took with me a Kaufman kit called "Crystal Clear" It is queen size and I knew it would take up a good part of the retreat days to work on. With the sharp pointed star pattern I thought it would be paper piecing, but much to my surprise, it was not. I opened the box and it was all pre-cut pieces with little numbered stickers on each stack. Oh, WOW! As I looked through the box, there was no pattern, no photo, no diagram, no nothing. I only had the photo on the cover of the box. I was quiet upset as this was almost the only thing I had brought with me to work on, and I was a long way from the shop I had purchased it from. But not wanting to be a quitter, I thought I'd give it a try, to figure out how it went together. I organized the stacks of pieces, fortunately only three colors. They each had a cut notch on them to line up the sewing, I put all the "A" pieces together in numerical order, unfortunately the fabrics are batiks and reversible, sometimes the stickers were on the front, sometimes the backs. It took perseverance, but I got one section sewn together. I worked diligently for three days, slowly making progress and not doing too much unsewing. It was tough working out, where the sections were, without a diagram, and some trial and error, finally got me to assembly.

I was lucky to have a large design wall to work on at the retreat center, it would not have been as easy to assemble at home. There were a few poufy areas that had to be fudged in, but I decided it was sewn together properly, with all the correct angles.

Success!! I got it put together into a queen sized quilt! Since then I have found more of the gray fabric to add a wider border, to make it a bit larger. It is going to be for my niece who wanted a "Modern" quilt with grays and blacks, maybe chevrons. When I saw the kit, I knew it would be perfect for her. I never buy kits, it was quiet expensive, but I thought of her immediately. Since I was thinking of nieces, I thought my other niece would like this modern look also, instead of the quilt I was working on for her. So being the masochist I am, I decided to do it again! I had the fore thought to trace each of the pattern pieces, so I cut them up and with LOTS of Scotch tape, I taped each section together and made a paper piecing pattern. Shopping for fabric was tough as I had no fabric requirements to use. I found a beautiful black with a delicate leafy pattern and a gray batik with swirls. I bought all the fabric on the bolt, 4 or 5 yards of each. I figured 9 yards was enough to do a queen size quilt, then I would pray. I added a bright magenta to accent it.

The last day of the retreat I got a good start on it. The next week, everyone at the Bandon shop was going to the Big K Guest Ranch, near me, for their retreat, so Tracy and I signed up for that too. I worked on it for another day and a half, before running out of the black fabric. I was praying I could find some on the internet, it was a new fabric.

Driving home from the retreat, we stopped at the fabric shop in Sutherlin, Oregon, and they had the fabric, I bought the rest of the bolt! YEA!! So now, I don't need to worry about it, I had already found more of the gray batik, so I can add extra border. This was quiet an ordeal, but I stuck with it. Now to get them on the long arm and really finish them. Happy New Year to all! I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to check out what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Retreat, Retreat and Retreat

I have been busy, busy, busy, one quilting retreat after another. Our Fyber Café group took their annual retreat to the Oregon coast. We stay at the retreat center above Forget Me Knots quilt shop for 4 days in Bandon, Oregon. Lots of fun, good friends, good food, and walks on the beach. I got a lots of sewing done. In an effort to finish things, I put together the blocks of a hand applique Hawaiian quilt that I made years ago. I was going to quilt it a block at a time, but decided now that I have a long arm, just to go ahead and assemble it. At one time I had lost a block, argggh!! It took me years to find it, accidentally pulling out some paper pads from a rack, the block had gotten wedged into the back of the slot, weird, how it ever got back there. Thankfully I found it and finished up all the hand stitching. It is rather pastel colors on purpose, it was going to be mostly pink and purple. I had a purple batik fabric for the border but it was too gray and dulled it down a lot. So the teal sashing and border helped perk it up a bit. I am happy to have one more project done, now it is in a pile to long arm quilt, instead of a shoe box of unfinished projects. And bonus, I get an empty shoe box to fill with another project!

At the first retreat I got the pieces sewn for baby Emelia's baby quilt, my nephew's new baby. I used 1920-30's conversation prints, in a simple rail fence pattern. I had a beautiful soft print of vintage children and ladies with parasols in a garden that I used for the border. At the 2nd retreat I got it mostly quilted, but the muslin I bought for the backing had shrunk too much in the prewashing, so I needed to get home and buy more fabric and piece it onto the backing. I have that done now, and it is just waiting for the binding. The little girl is almost a year old now, but it is toddler size, a bit bigger than a baby quilt.

I also got the top done of inset circles for my second marble quilt. The first one was called "Marble Madness," made with my hand dyed fabrics. The second is "Marble Mania" made with hand dyed fabrics from a resist dyeing class. The prints are made with different resists, soy wax, potato dextrin, corn syrup, water soluble gutta and school glue. I had cut out the fabrics a while ago, another unfinished project (see a theme?) and got them all sewn into the backing. At the second retreat I managed to get it all quilted with lots of detail and rayon threads. After I got back from the first retreat at Forget Me Knots, they were having their retreat the next week at the Big K Guest Ranch, near where we live, so one of the ladies and I signed up for that too. Five more days quilting and sewing at the lodge, very intense, 12 hour days at the sewing machine. They had a retriever dog trials at the ranch, so we were able to watch them from the sewing room balcony as they played in the pond and fetched ducks. It was the last of the beautiful warm weather, we even sat out in the sun and did some hand stitching. I did not stay at the ranch cabins, as my friend only lived about 5 miles away, so we stayed at her place. After 5 days home, I went back to the Big K ranch for a 4 day art quilting class with Claudia Law from Ashland, Oregon. I did stay in the cabins that time. More about the class on the next post. I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to check out what other talented art quilters are doing this week.

Dyeing Play Day

Our Fyber Café group had another fabric dyeing play day at Meredith's in Grants Pass last week. We had great weather and smoke free skies. I did some more shibori and helped others learn how. The first piece is done with Procion MX Terra Cotta dye, the 2nd is Bronze. we love the bronze, it mixes well with other colors and sometimes the colors separate so we really did not know what color it really was. This is the first piece I have only used Bronze.

These three pieces were done with turquoise, electric blue and indigo. The photo really doesn't do the colors justice.

Bronze and electric blue, I really like this piece.

I did 3 pieces by accordion folding them, then ice dyeing them with combos of terra cotta, fire engine red, rose brown, and fuchsia. They are folded in half so you see only a part of the fabric.

As soon as I got home from that I packed for a 3 day camping trip to the Oregon coast. It was so beautiful

It was glorious weather, great tide pools, campfire and friends. I am linking this with Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to see what other talented textile artists are doing.

Thermo Fax Silk Screening

Using some thermo-fax screens I got from Judy Coates Perez at Craft Napa, I made some small samples. I will be doing a hands on demo for our Fyber Café group, so I wanted to make some samples to take to Show & Tell. I used muslin and some hand dyed turquoise fabric for the ferns and leaves.

The small teasel prints were made just to use up some brown paint I had mixed up.

Then I moved on to printing some fat quarters of my hand dyed fabric. The teasel is printed with two shades of raspberry Speedball printing paint, the contrast was higher when the paint was wet. The smaller piece with the blue print was done on my wipe up cloth from the previous post. I have two teasel screens, one has a larger single stalk, the other has a pair of smaller ones. I'm thinking of using these two with some darker indigo fabrics I have dyed to make a composition.

The second fat quarter started with the darker green leaves, then the light green ferns. I added the small white, blue and pale green leaves to fill in the design. The blue paint was supposed to be more of a blue/green color, but I like the contrast.

The beautiful caramel fabric was made with lemon yellow and antique gold dyes, maybe a little terra cotta too. The rose screen was from a discount shelf at Walmart years ago, it is very delicate with fine lines, it is also self adhesive, which I really liked. I kept scraping the paint off the edge of the screen onto the fabric. That is why the bees were added, to cover up some of the oops. I think I will add duct tape to the edges of the screen to add a wider border. I really like how this came out, and I made it my screen saver on my laptop.

The wood grain was done to use up the brown paint I had mixed up to do the bees. Again a Walmart screen, the fine lines screened really well. Three swipes with the paint gave it a floor board look, as opposed to a single piece of wood. This has been a lot of fun, now I need to figure out how to use the fabric. 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.

Parfait Dyeing

I finally got a chance to play with dyes in my new "Wet Studio." I had made up a dozen bottles of Procion MX dye concentrates for a play day for our fiber art group. I wanted to use up some of the leftovers dyes before they lost their oomph. The last batch of dyes I had done this summer with old dyes, and I got some very pretty pastels. They were good to add to the stash, but not what I was looking for. I even over dyed some of them this time. Using 24oz. yogurt containers, I scrunched a piece of fabric, one color dye, a second piece of fabric and a different dye, then a third. This is called parfait dying and in each layer some of the color mixes with the layer below and above it. Some really beautiful blended colors can be made, you just have to be careful not to make mud. Altho I do make mud on purpose sometimes. You can see I made quiet a few fat 1/4s, also a few nice cotton handkerchiefs.

I made a variety of greens, from lime squeeze with a touch of yellow, to pretty pale seafoam, and some nice olive colors. One of the wet dark olive colors was gorgeous, but it came out so much lighter. Next time I'll try to get a deeper color.

At the summer play day I had made a few shibori pieces on PVC pipes. The most basic thing I learned is a two color piece needs a bigger diameter pipe, the small diameter the dye colors blend together, but with a 6" dia. you can put on two or three colors and they will stay separate.

You can see some of the color blending here, the pinks have purple in them, the purple has indigo. These are my favorites, with the patterning of the scrunched fabric and the multi colors.

My cleanup cloth is some times the very best. I spilled a lot of fire engine red that day, my hands were red for days.

I tried to get some yellow variations with lemon yellow, antique gold and terra cotta. Some very nice caramel colors resulted from it. Now, to find a new project to use my hand dyes on. I try to have at least one project in the works that uses my hand dyes, mostly mixed with a solid black to make the colors POP! I had LOTS of FUN playing in my studio with these. We are having another dye play day at one of our members in Grants Pass at the end of the month, so more fun to come. I am linking this with Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to check out what other talented artists are doing this week.

Free Motion Quilting

The gelatin mono-prints have been sewn together into a collage. I arranged and played with the layout for a while, mixing types and orientations, adding color balance and contrast. I settled on a layout after some thought, I had to refine it as I went along. After trimming each block and working out some technical sewing details, it went together with only a few changes.

I began free motion quilting each block with matching or contrasting rayon threads. The first prints were easiest to outline and add veins, the ghost prints are softer and I just outlined them, not wanting to obscure the fine detail in the printing.

I quilted extra outlines in the background to add texture. The split leaf gingko was printed on a soft turquoise hand dye instead of muslin, it adds extra color to the layout. I hope to get this finished this next week, the quilting is going real fast. I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" check out what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Botanical Monoprinting

I had a free day today, so decided to make some monoprints on fabric. I have wanted to do this since I took a class at Craft Napa, where we printed on paper. But fabric is my medium. After buying and prewashing a lot of muslin, I cut it up into 6 x 9" pieces, about half of the gelatin plate that I have. I collected heavenly bamboo, and two types of gingko leaves, they are sturdy enough to bear repeated printing. The gingko are a split leaf and a shell/fan shape. I have found gingko comes in many different varieties, there are about 5 I have found around Roseburg.

This is really the first time I have used my new studio space for it's intended use, dyeing, printing, painting, soy batik and silk screening. The "wet" studio, formerly the "man cave." It took me two months to clean, remove junk, sort tools and paint the room this winter. New floor tiles brightened up the dark basement space. It is next to the laundry room, that has a big wash tub and space to hang fabric to dry. It has been 3 years since my husband passed away (where does time go?) and it was quiet difficult to clean and rearrange this space for my use. When I started printing I used a blue/green colorway, then switched to gold, sienna, red, for complimentary contrast. I added textile medium to my cheap craft paint. I made so many prints I had to cut more fabric, and also cut some pale blue/turquoise hand dyes. I used green-yellow acrylics for the last batch.

The first print I pulled gave me a clear silhouette of the leaves, this will be fun to thread paint in the veins. The second pull gave me a ghost print, when I removed the leaves the paint that was left on the gelatin had all the detail of the leaves, as well as some background paint. These are usually my favorite. With the paint left on the brayer, I add paint to the leaves themselves, add a different color background paint, and do another print with the painted leaf face up. This gives you a two color print, from the leaves and the background, I started using a brayer and finished, just pressing down with my hands, this gives you a white ghost edge around the thickness of the leaves.

I'll let them dry overnight, then give them a quick iron to heat set the paint, then play with arranging them into a collage and sewing them together. Oh, what fun that will be! I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to see what other talented textile artists are doing.

Alaska Quilting Cruise

Immediately after returning from the retreat, I had 3 days to get ready for an Alaskan Quilting Cruise, whew! I got my laundry done, quilting supplies together, and at the last minute had to go dress shopping for formal nite, 'cause the dress I had planned on wearing was too small :( I stuffed a bunch of friends from the Fyber Cafe group into my RV and we took off for Seattle. After a few quilt shops along the way, and lunch, we made it to Gig Harbor in about 8 hours. One of our dear friends Pat had moved there last year, and we really missed her in our group, we stayed at her house over night. In total we had 6 quilters and two spouses, in the RV, dropped off at the cruise terminal and I went to park. We were all so excited, the Holland America Eurodam, was huge! But docked next to the Princess Cruise ship she was NOT. Pat and I had a veranda room, very nice. Our first quilting class while we traveled North was with Anna Buzzalino, called "Moments" it was a curved machine applique class, where we designed our own pattern abstract from a photo.

I spent most of the day, sketching abstract curves from my photo of a hen and chicks succulent, I ended up where I started with a bulls eye design. Anna helped everyone with their designs, all different and personal. After enlarging it to a 18 x 24 paper, we traced it again so we could mark up a copy with colors, layers, sections and sewing order, and registration marks to match the curves. This took quiet a lot of time and deep thinking. Next we traced it all again on fusible interfacing for our working pattern. We were getting to the end of the day, so she showed us how to iron the fusible to the back of our fabric and paint starch on the seam allowance and iron the edges under. Over lapping the pieces and sewing with a clear monofilament thread in a small zigzag. I managed to get about 4 pieces put together. The designing was fun, I would have made a more accurate copy of my photo by myself, but did abstract the design, which is NOT my thing. I am more of a realist. So I was very happy with the results. When I got home I decided to work on it or it would have been forgotten in my "to do" pile.

I had quiet a puzzle on the fabric choices, I used mostly batiks and finally decided to go bright and light in the middle with very high contrast. Going more subdued and lower contrast, as the colors got darker and faded to the outside. I paid more attention to contrast than value, which was different for me. I ended up using my own technique for construction, not Anna's. I folded the seam allowance under with a glue stick, and glued the layered pieces together. Then I used a blind hem stitch with the clear monofilament thread to applique and quilt all at once. I highly recommend YLI thread, it is thin and very flexible! I was originally thinking of doing some thread painting to shade some of the colors, but I liked the simplicity of the graphic quality so I did not add any additional quilting. I'll post more of the trip next time. I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click herecheck it to see what other talented textile artists are doing.