Paper Mache Bowl

On the Gelli Arts blog click herethey had a tutorial on making a paper mache bowl, covered in paper printed on the Gelli plate. I had an "Ah ha" moment and thought about using the triangle fabric scraps from my prayer flags. I began by covering one of my stainless steel bowls with plastic wrap, and cutting 2" strips of newspaper. I dipped the paper in a 50/50 mix of white Elmers glue and water. The paper went on quickly and I tried to get at least 4 layers of paper on all parts of the bowl. Left to dry over night, it was a tight squeeze, trying to get it off the metal bowl, it must have shrunk when it dried. It was stiff enough to use as a base for the fabric, and I began gluing small bits of fabric on the outside. For this I used a matt gel medium, to adhere as well as coat the fabric. Dry time, and then coated the inside of the bowl with fabric.

The shape warped a bit, adding the wet medium softened up the paper mache, so I put it back on the bowl to help it keep its round shape. I coated everything with 2 layers of mat medium. Tipped it over and coated the insides too. It had a bit of a rough texture, that I thought Mod Podge would even out, as it is thicker and made for just that use. Unfortunately the Mod Podge I had was glossy, I'm not sure I like it. They do make it in Satin and Matt finish though.

I added a strip of darker blue around the rim, with a wavy cut edge. More coats of sealer. I am not finished with it, I am going to glue on around the edge, various blue buttons and beads. At least I don't need to sew them by hand. So it was a fun little project, using up some scraps, but I don't know if I would do a second one, but it was fun to experiment.
I am going to link this with Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right hand column to see what other wonderful textile artists are doing this week.

Rest in Peace, Charlie

My wonderful husband of 28 years, passed away March 10, 2015, after a year long battle with lung cancer. The last year has been wonderful as we spent many weekends at the Oregon coast, or just driving around the mountains, and also many visits with his family from California. The last 3 months have been a challenge as he was in hospice care at home, then the last month in the hospice unit at the VA hospital, as I could not manage all his care alone. I spent nearly all my time at the VA this past month, and was getting very worn out. Now I can start to pull my life back together, a week off of work to relax and do a few things for myself. Like the grocery shopping I haven't done for over a month, and catching up on laundry. I managed to go to lunch with a few of my quilting buddies and catch up with them, as I missed the last meeting of our art group. Next month is the UMPQUA VALLEY QUILTERS' GUILD Show, April 10,11, & 12 in Roseburg, Oregon. Fyber Cafe, our art group, will have a section for displaying the last three challenges we did over the past year. I have managed to work on a few little pieces, I'll try to get pics posted soon, a paper mache bowl, covered in the triangle scraps from the prayer flags, and progress on my "Flotsam" piece that will be in the show. One week of work, and then "Spring Break" off from driving school bus, so that will be FUN time, as I get back to my art work.

Dear Jane by the Numbers

I spent last weekend, taking out each block and counting the number of pieces that I used. My count at the moment is 4687. Your count my be different than mine, it depends on how you drafted your templates and the sewing techniques you used. In several blocks, I had to sew scraps together to make a large enough piece of fabric to cut out the shape. I counted this as two pieces. Jane must have counted all the sashing, setting triangles and scallops, her total is 5603 pieces, and she embroidered it on the quilt, very unusual for quilts in that time frame. I found one mistake that I made, I left off a paper pieced triangle on the triangle block, left side, 10th from top. I left it in, I'm not going to fix it. Does anyone have a template for the scallops around the edge? It is not in my book. I don't have the CD with templates.
Row I has the fewest pieces, 271, row L has the most, 332.
5 is the lowest number of pieces per block.
Two blocks have 49 pieces.
One block has 50 pieces.
One corner has 68 pieces.
There will be 56 setting triangles, and 64 scallops and 4 corner scallops.

The Last DJ Blocks

Finally, the last triangle block, it was all applique, so it took awhile. My hands were doing ok at this point, they did not hurt much.

This corner kite has 68 pieces. I really had to scrounge my fabric stash to find enough vintage print, that had a small enough pattern, for these tiny pieces. It went together easier than I thought it would. I used traditional piecing, rotary cutting each piece.

With a darker rose colored embroidery floss, I stitched, "All vintage fabric, from 1920 to 1940's." On the bottom tip of the block I am going to add the total number of pieces.

I added blue and yellow embroidery to the signature block. At the bottom I stitched "Original Quilt by Jane A. Blakley Stickle" and in the bottom petal the date "1863." Around the top star "Reproduced" in the star "BY" and "Amy Marie Cruger Vetter" around the top of the flower petals, and 2015 in the top petal.

I really like that I got all that information on the one block. My spacing wasn't great, even though I wrote it out on paper and pinned it in place to see how it fit. My embroidery stitches, kind of stretched it out, and I ran out of room to stitch. But I am finally done with all the blocks, triangles and corners!!!! YEA!! I plan on piecing it all together with sashing, during spring break. I have about 8 yards of a vintage light apple green, hopefully that will be enough for the sashing and backing. I am not sure yet if I will use that on the setting triangles or vintage prints, which I am quickly running out of. It may be a huge challenge to cut 56 triangles out of vintage prints, and I worry about the contrast, and will it be too busy. Thank you for following this journey, it has been at least three years, maybe 5, to make all this.

Fabric Bowls

Needing a break from the "Dear Jane" triangles, I decided to make a few gifts. I had seen a fabric bowl, probably on a blog, that was beautiful and wondered why mine were not as nice. I realized I made mine with old scrap fabric, old & ugly fabric equals old and ugly bowls. My large piece of hand dyed fabric that was drip dyed offered a multicolored option. I was not going to use it for any thing else, and it would probably sit around collecting dust, so I might as well use it. I boldly cut it into 1" bias strips, from the middle of the fabric, where the colors were clearest. A supply of cotton clothesline had been hard to find, most rope is now polyester or some other plastic. Yea, "Big Lots" had some, cheap too. I don't recall what diameter it is, I threw away the packaging, but it is substantial.

The bright colors are green, yellow, orange, rust and a little blue and raspberry, a lot of secondary colors as the dyes blended when wet.

I made the first one round, with two handles. My good Brother sewing machine had trouble with the thickness, I tried a new denim needle, different tensions, different pressure on the foot, and still it kept skipping stitches. My cheap, take along Brother machine had no problem with the thread or thickness of the clothesline, go figure. It stitched up very quickly, with a multicolored Star brand cotton thread, in a wide zig zag stitch.

Getting fancy with the second basket was tricky, I made several loops along the edge, then ran a row across the top of the humps. Two more rows finished it off. It has a nice open feel to it, but is kinda wonky.

I tried to go rectangular with the next one. It was difficult to square up the corners, I pinched it square, but it left a tiny triangular gap in each corner. Then bringing up the sides was tricky to keep it from flaring out.

I am giving a basket to each of the ladies who helped to create it, at our tie dye play day.

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge to the right, and see what other talented textile artists are doing.

More & More Dear Janes

Poppy inspects the next set of completed Dear Jane blocks, for piecing excellence. Nine more triangles are finished, and my holiday break is over. Only a few more to do, but they seam to be getting more difficult. I am having a hard time finding scraps that are big enough to do the larger triangles. Many of my scraps are larger prints and they are hard to cut up for such tiny pieces.

Originally, I had quiet a lot of this Dutch girl fabric, but after 3 large vintage quilt projects, I am just about out. Only tiny bits remain. I sorted the two boxes of scraps, into large pieces, pieces that will barely fold up, small bits maybe 4 to 6" per side, and even smaller bits. It is fun to just play with the vintage fabric, fold it, caress it and appreciate just how old it is. Some of my favorite pieces are already used up and gone, just a tiny snippet remains.

All three of these blocks are done with paisley fabric, the left is light and airy with a white background. The middle is a border type print and reminds me a Jinny Beyer fabrics. The right, is a dense pink and fuchsia print, but it is so tight, it is hard to tell it is a paisley.

During the week, I managed to piece two blocks and finish the applique on two others.

The fabric for the snowball corner kite is an Indian print, with moccasins, drums, and pots. It was tight fussy cutting the designs and some just barely fit. I pieced it by sewing together 3 blocks and setting in Y seams with half square triangles. It worked pretty well, except the bias was at the edge of the block and really stretched. Last I added four corner yellow triangles and finished the block. I have only a few more to do, 2 of the kites are done, just waiting for applique, and 3 more triangles are not finished yet. So I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! This has been quiet a project, I knew if I stopped at this point I wouldn't get back to them for months. So it was best to keep plugging away, and just do it. Next post----The LAST few triangles and kites. Yea!! Almost done!!

Focus for the New Year

Everyone has been talking about a "WORD" for the new year, to focus on improvements or themes in your art work. Immediately "Refuge" came to mind. As my husband's condition gets worse, he takes more and more of my time in care taking. I see my sewing studio as my refuge. To get away from the stress and relax for a few stolen moments. Sewing centers me, calms me, distracts me from "Real Life." People ask me how I get so much work done, on a regular basis. For one, I work a split shift driving school bus, so I have 4 hours in the middle of the day to sew. Second, I'd much rather sew and create, than do dishes or clean the bathroom. Even if I just take 10 extra minutes, before I go to work, at 5AM, I can do a lot. I once sewed hundreds of beads onto a wall hanging, sewing 10 beads every morning before work. I am not a worrier, I know things are going to get worse, so I am saving my worry for later, and also a lot of the stress. But I am reaching a breaking point, more and more, when I just get over whelmed, and need a rest, to sit for five minutes and sew. Even if it is just "zombie" sewing, feeding 2 scraps into the machine, over and over, until I have made a fat quarter of scrap fabric. Then I cut out hearts for charity baby quilts. When I do this type of sewing, my mind disconnects and I just float in the flow of mindless sewing. Since my hands have been hurting more and more, and I do less hand sewing, I miss having a little Ziplock bag, with applique, or English paper pieced hexagons, to distract me as I watch TV or sit in Doctor' s offices. My New Years resolution for years has been to finish projects! Get on bindings and labels, add borders or put blocks together with sashing. I usually got 5 or 6 pieces finished in January and February every year. And I promised myself, if I started a new project, it would be small and I would finish it too, and not add to the problem. So I think I will get some of the tedious finishing done, while I relax and meditate, or let my mind wander. Finishing always gives me a great sense of satisfaction. Have a Great start to your New Year!