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.

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.

Gelli and String

I have been doing more gelatin monoprinting, having fun and just playing. I watched a you Tube video by "Alice Art" click here she makes absolutely beautiful gelatin prints, on home made gelatin. I really liked what she did with hands and string. Her prints are much more detailed and in depth than mine. She is working on canvas and I am printing on fabric. I can not seem to get the saturated paint colors, as the fabric absorbs the paint. These prints are ones I wasn't happy with, not enough contrast, no color in the hands, etc... I worked through several options on technique, string first, then a plastic mask for the hands, or vice versa, then light and dark paint colors, trying to get contrast and bright string colors.

I did make several prints I was happy with enough to quilt. Two prints were put together here, one on teal and the dark blue one had just string. Then I framed it in my hand dyed shibori fabric, that blended well with the string effect. It is free motion quilted with rayon thread to outline and detail the print lines. I really like the effect of the string showing on the hands. The burnt sienna paint was dark enough to give a good print, but translucent enough to show the under layer.

The second one I quilted, I wanted to practice on stitching the hands. How much detail was I going to stitch to add detail, or just outline. The bright green string was my favorite part of this one. It could have used more contrast on the hands. I wish I had a photo before I couched on the lime green yarn. It is 8" x 10" the size of the gelatin plate.

I've stitched these prints together in a composition. The rust pair of hands have a beautiful hand dyed fabric border on them, and are now ready for quilting. I will couch on a bunch of my hand dyed cotton string, and call this one "A Tangled Mess." The purple hands were difficult to print. My purple acrylic paints were just being absorbed by the fabric and it looked gray, not purple. So I brayered paint directly on the plastic mask and printed it directly on the fabric. It took three prints and still did not give me a nice purple color. I am calling this one "The Three Fates" after the Greek goddesses that weave the lives of people together. This has been a fun experiment in gelatin printing, I tried it with yarn and it was too thick. The string impression was done with pearl cotton. I drew and cut out the hand masks myself.

After I had come back from the class I taught, I made a few more prints to coordinate with the ones I made in class. I collaged this composition, with several of the botanical prints and some stencil prints with leaves. I like the dark blue, green and golden yellow colors. The free motion quilting added a lot of texture. I have not hand stitched the binding to the back yet. My hand has been cramping up, so I only hand sew in small bursts. I will link this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to check to see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Gel Print Class

On Thursday I taught a Gelatin Monoprinting class, for several ladies from my Fyber Café art group. I hauled in a whole lot of supplies, stencils, masks, found objects, feathers, twine, potato mashers, combs, as well as paint, fabric and paper. Most of us wanted to print on fabric, but we did do some paper too. Fabric takes a little bit thicker application of paint, to adjust for the weave showing through. We played and played all day. Spring was three weeks late for us, as we had a late snowfall at the end of February, so there was very little greenery to pick. Ferns and heavenly bamboo are green all year around here, I had put some ginkgo leaves in the freezer last fall and they worked great. A friend gave me a hand full of peacock feathers, what fun! One lady got fixated on a spirograph type stencil, another with the turkey feathers. Each had a favorite style, and I encouraged them to make coordinating prints, in different colorways, so they can collage an art quilt from them. The photos are a few from each lady, but I am sure I've got the identities mixed up on some prints. Crystal had a variety of stencils, and the last print is on an "ugly" hand dyed fabric. Lorraine loved the feathers, and she made a few prints with an opaque yellow on black. Meredith used a lot of botanicals, a tangle of eyelash yarn, and stencils. Stephanie's spirographs in many bright colors, she made many more. Tracy used feathers and a favorite stencil. The last print is the stencil and it's ghost print on the same page, isn't it fabulous! I made some prints to use as the demonstration, but I did not get any pics, I'm sure some of them will show up in a future project. I will be linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to see what other fantastic textile artists are doing this week.

More Gel Prints

I have been playing with my Gelatin Plate, making lots and lots of prints. I'm going to be teaching a class soon, so I thought some practice was in order. I also wanted to check out different paints, and the difference of printing on fabric and paper. The fabric takes a thicker application of paints, and a heavy body acrylic or tube paints works best. The paper works with ANY paints, and a thinner layer can be applied. Paying attention to the opacity and translucent qualities of the paint was important. You can't put light colors onto darker with out the opacity, but the translucency made the colors glow and many of the layers show better.

I worked mostly with stencils this round, trying many that I have collected. I am a stencil ADDICT! That is the main reason I bought the Brother Scan N Cut, to cut my own stencils. With all the many prints the next step is to make something from them. ???? What to do? I pulled a selection of like colored prints, mostly blues and greens with a bit of complimentary red, added some botanical prints from another session, and collaged them together. I really like the color combo, and the leafy designs gave it a cohesiveness, but I think it lacks focus. But I am going to use it as a sampler for my class. I think it would be a nice table topper with a center piece in the middle.

The sprouting bulb images are from a rubber stamp I carved, actually four, each stage of the sprouting. The leafy green at the top right is thermos-fax screened, from a screen I got from Judy Coates Perez at Craft Napa last year.

I really enjoy the quilting on the gelatin prints. Using rayon threads gives it some shine, as the paint is quiet matt. I outline all the printing which gives it lots of texture, especially the hexagons. With lots of thread color changes, it brings out the details. I haven't come up with a name for this one, besides gelatin sampler, any better ideas?

I began to assemble a second piece, more of the earth tone colors, yellow, orange, rust and red, with blue/green accents. The blue green took over more than I had intended, but it still reads warmer than the first piece.

A few close up pictures of some of the printing details. I think I will call this one "Tire Tracks" or just "Treads." I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here check it out to see what other talented artists are doing this week.

Gelatin Printed Triangles

I taught a short class last week to Fyber Café on gelatin mono printing. We had so much fun, that I scheduled a full day class for early March at Create and Sip. I've been watching You Tube and getting even more ideas. When I got home I sorted through my gelatin printed fabric to see what needed second layers of paint. I found a whole pile of triangle scraps from the prayer flags I made my sister last year. So I began sewing them together in pairs and cut long 3 x 8" triangles from them. Laying them out I decided to add some half square triangles for more angles and interest.

It finished up as a nice size. You can see the wonderful textures and colors of all the variety of fabrics. It was very random, but I did put the orange triangles together, to add a focal point.

A closer view shows the prints. I am happy with it, don't know what I'll do with it though, or what I'll name it. I seldom make anything abstract, or geometric, I am very pictorially focused. So this was quiet a deviation for me.

I also found a small 8" x 10" gelatin print, that was already quilted and bound, and had a bag of vintage buttons with it. I spent a few days adding the buttons, and really like it. I've titled it "My Mother's Buttons" because they came from my Mom's stash. I am linking this with Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to see what other textile artists are doing this week.

Claudia Law Class

After the retreat in Bandon, and the retreat at the Big K Ranch, my art quilting friend and I went back to the Big K for an art class with Claudia Law from Ashland, Oregon. We had signed up for it months ago, and it just so happened it was the next week after I had just been there. So I had 3 big events in one month, whew! This time Lorraine and I stayed in one of the cabins, and we could quilt as long as we wanted to in the evening. This made for some long days, 12 hours of sewing at the least. After dark, there wasn't much else to do, as we were miles from anywhere. We had each selected one of 5 art quilts that Claudia had made, I choose "After the Fall." It was of an autumn branch with leaves, hanging over water, with ripples. It had a glow to it, that I loved, and I hoped she could show me how to achieve that effect. But it was in RED, and that would not have gone with anything in my house, so I asked if I could do it in cool colors. I had some preconceived ideas of what I wanted to do before I went. I'm not sure this was a good idea, would I follow my plan or let her influence me enough to learn from her. My first objective was to use some blue/green shibori hand dyed fabric that I had just made, and only use my hand dyes for the rest of the quilt. In the photo you can see my fabrics, set up as a sky/water background. She taught us how to cut and sew gently curves. I auditioned many, many moon/sun fabrics, taking photos so I could really see what they looked like on my camera. This was inspired by Claudia teaching us how to machine sew circles into our work. Not part of the original plan. I already knew how, from directions LeAnne Paylor had posted on "Off the Wall Friday" last year. In a fit of boredom, waiting for others to catch up, I decided my background was too plain. Everyone else had complicated pieced backgrounds, taking most of the day to create, so I decided to add the pieced squares of my shibori fabrics on the left side.

Claudia taught us how to piece in branches, into our backgrounds, see quilt below, but I added raw edge applique as I wanted my branches gnarly. The problem was I had NO brown hand dyed. I had made gorgeous brown fabric, but it was still in my drier at home, great place for it to be. I finally settled on a maroon, but I am going to cover some of it up later, as I am not fond of it. I spent the evening making 3-d leaves for my branch, double layered with fusible, and machine stitched veins. Lots of rearranging to get a good flow, and a few more leaves too. After spending the next morning free motion quilting the background, I added the leaves, then I stitched them so they twisted and curled around on the background.

One of the things Claudia specializes in is hand painting her fabrics, to fit her ideas and add texture and highlights. After the quilting I added paint to the moon. The quilting texture on the moon created a wonderful texture to sponge gold metallic paint over. I'm going to add metallic paint to the edges of the twisting leaves to highlight them too. Claudia taught us how to paint on fabric to make 3-D butterflies (see quilt below) but I decided I wanted dragonflies on mine, so I'll make them later.

Many of her students were doing landscapes of one sort or another, and she showed them how to paint some rocks for a river scene. They looked wonderful, very realistic. So in a brainstorm I decided to add a pile of balanced rocks at the bottom of mine. I was looking forward to doing the circle of ripples in the water, where the leaves touched it, but this was a much better idea. I had already free motion quilted the ripples, but the rocks would cover that. I would have been very happy to just use my gray mottled hand dyes for the rocks, they looked good. But boy am I glad I added the paint!! What a difference it makes. Highlights and shadows, added shape and texture and depth! Whoopee! Just as we were finishing up, I got the rocks added, with an extra layer of batting for a trapunto 3-D look. I have more to do, a tulle shadow below the rocks, lots of dragonflies, highlighting the leaves and moon reflection with paint, and the binding. I am going to use this quilt for our art group challenge. We had been issued 5 playing cards with different techniques written on them, and we have to use 3 of those for our challenge piece. I needed to do hand dyeing, raw edge applique and add metal objects. So I am going to sew some Chinese round coins in some of the edge squares, and call this piece "Serenity Pond." It looks NOTHING like I had envisioned before I went. I would not have added the moon, rocks, painting, willow leaves, if not for Claudia's influence. The quilt took on a life of it's own, as it evolved into being. I don't think the curved piecing on the background made any difference, it is covered by leaves, and is now kind of distracting. But other than that I am really happy with it. I can't wait to finish it!

While waiting for everyone to piece their complicated backgrounds, I decided to cut and sew a pieced background of my own, to do a second art piece. I used all my own hand dyed fabrics, and I think they look great together, adding any commercial fabric would have given it a whole different look. Everyone else was going horizontal with their strip sets, but I decided to go vertical instead. Each set was put together with a curved sewing line. Some people made several strip sets and curved cuts to make a very complex background, that took a long time for them to sew.

Claudia also taught us to inset curved strips into our backgrounds, the strips were also varying widths. I had sewn narrow strips into backgrounds before, but not the curves or width variations. This offset the strata we had pieced together, which was impossible to realign, don't even bother trying. 5 of the inset main lines are pieced, the other smaller lines are raw edge applique. We gave up on the cut and piece for more than a few lines. We also played with paints, watercolor pencils, oil pastels and other art products to make flowers and butterflies. Claudia had a quilt of beautiful blue butterflies, that we all admired very much.

I made five butterflies, with double layers of fused fabric, layers of acrylic paint, front and back, and jacquard luminescent paints as the top layer. They became very stiff and sturdy, adding detail really helped. I used a fan brush to add a feathered edge and painted dots to add detail. I was happy with them at the end, but they went through various stages of hatred first. The dogwood flowers in lavender and pink were done with watercolor pencils, blending the lines and shading with a watered paint brush. Pearl pink lines were painted in also. The centers are a small wad of Angelina fibers in a green/copper color. The flowers and butterflies are all 3-D, so they wings and petals stand out from the quilt. This piece is finished with a turned facing, a straight edged top and wonky side and bottom shapes. It was completely unplanned, I just went with the flow. We had four wonderful days at the ranch, being creative and having fun. Most of the work by others was wonderful, but a few beginners got discouraged and did not finish their projects, but they learned lots of new techniques. Several of the beginners did very well. Everyone was excited to do it again next year. I am linking this to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here so you can see what other talented textile artists are doing this week. Please leave a comment, they mean a lot to me. Thanks.