Take a Stitch Tuesday, Felting

I watched a DVD by Pokey Bolton about using the Embellisher and had to try this idea. It's strips of fabric punched into a base. The violet oval shapes are roving The blue-green pieces are lace motifs that I painted with acrylic paints. Before adding the lace, I machine quilted the circles with a rayon thread. Maybe it will be a fabric book cover. I have some decorated denim pockets that I want to use.

My using a regular thread and tight tension, this is what I got on the back. I like it too much to cover it up, so I'll have to come up with an edge treatment that leaves the back open. I think couched threads zigzagged to it would work.

Sharonb at http://www.pintangle.com/ gave us th Raised Closed Herringbone Stitch this week.

It makes a great leaf and went on my flower sampler. The light green is all 6 strands of embroidery floss to give a very full leaf. The dark is Perle Cotton #8 and is more open.

Quilts

Here are the last two quilts that went to the gallery.Uncommon Sunflower has petals made of overlapping sheers that are raw edged and machined in place. I quilted the background with a variegated thread. The center is full of French Knots.

Broken Pathways is part of a series made by first sewing lots of strips together then cutting them up and using them with black.

Quilts

Here are some more of the quilts that will be going to the Teagues' Gallery in Longview, Washington.Garden with Bridge is a Japanese silk piece that is hand and machine quilted.

Journey Beyond the Black Hole was made for a Journey show that the High Fiber Diet Art Group had that travelled lots of places. It is my image of what must be beyond the black hole. All light is sucked in and captured never to be released, so inside must be very sparkly.The inside is hand dyes, pieced and beaded. Foil was added to the spokes.

Origins is canvas that I painted, machine stitched, hand stitched and beaded. It is one of my favorites.

All the pieces as on the small side. The gallery has few large walls. Besides I like working small.

Take a Stitch Tuesday

This week is the Eastern Stitch. I didn't know this one either. It makes a nice braid type look. It also does great things when stitched randomly-more my style. The challenge is presented by Sharonb at http://www.pintangle.com/

I haven't had much to show lately-getting ready to go to Art and Soul in Portland, Oregon. It's a mixed media conference and great fun. Let me know if any of you are going. It would be fun to meet.

Felt

I'm glad people liked my story in the last post. Thanks for commenting. I seem to have to learn everything the hard way. It was a great help when I was teaching-had already made all the mistakes and could help students with a solution.

This piece started as a felted background to which I addeded three pieces left from making ATC's. The pieces are scraps bonded to felt and heavily machined to hold them in place. The edge seemed raw, so I couched a flat braid on it by hand then stitched a frame of chain stitches in a heavy metallic thread. The space between cried out for beads. Alternating bugles and seed beads are attached with back stitch. It was relaxing to do.

Quilt

 TALE OF THE CHALLENGING PIECE

I took a photo of a flower last summer then did the negative in the computer, because I like blue and purple. After printing it on fabric, I didn't like the background, so I put Misty Fuse on it and trimmed out the background. Then it went on a prettier hand dyed fabric. To add interest I laid netting over the top. Once the net was machined in place, I trimmed out the part that wasn't on the flower.

The center is French Knots in 3 Perle Cotton colors. The next area is Straight Stitch by hand in a variegated rayon.  Here's where the challenge started. There were two more shapes machined in blue that looked ackward, so I took the stitching out. Then there were visible holes in the background. OK Steam them out. The net melted! OK go for the distrested look. The other areas of net WOULD NOT MELT! OK slash and then melt. Still didn't melt. Final solution. Do some more machining around the edges of the petals and cut the net out. That worked. More hand stitching in a matt silk thread.

It needed the cordless piping before adding the strips to border it. There is Perle cotton couched between the next two strips and regular binding. I really need to keep listening to the work. It is a much more interesting flower now.

Fiberaction

This is the day for the reveal. The word is Stretch which really was one for me-actually most of them have been. After several tries, I decided to be literal.

I stamped a white on white cotton with the word. Then I hand embroidered around each letter in red perle cotton. The letters didn't stand out enough, so around again on the outside with black perle cotton. Much better.

I wanted the piecing to be wavy. The white is machine quilted with echo quilting; the black just wavy following the line pieced with the white.

Quilts

Here is the latest piece from my motif series. I had lost it on the table and finally stitched it-wanted to see how the motif looked in batiks. I do like to work with them. I think I'm through with the series, at least for a while.In going through quilts to get ready for a show in October, I came across this one. The show doesn't specify new quilts, and I've been revisiting some. I always did like it. The fabrics are the satiny type of cotton, so it feels good. It's called Lines and Circles for all the quilting on it.

Bead Journal Project

Here is September's Bead Journal Project. The background is wool roving needlefelted to felt. Then I couched the ribbon by machine and stitched over the piece with metallic thread. A stone donut is the focal piece with beading echoing the loops formed by the ribbon.

Take a Stitch Tuesday, family

This week and next week's stitches from Sharonb at http://www.pintangle.com/ is the Raised Chain in 2 versions. The dark blue for this week is the way I originally learned it and is in the stitch books. The light blue is for next week and is actually a regular chain worked so that it doesn't go through the fabric but uses two stitched bars.I like the raised stitches, because they make more impact, although they do take longer to stitch.

 Since she was born, my granddaughter has had dragonflies land on her. Maybe she smells like a flower.

Printing

Two friends and I tried Gelatin Plate prining last week.Here are mine drying in the studio bathroom.

The chickens are donating art supplies again. The feathers really make a good print

This one is more subtle but still visible.Sheet music made a good background as long as we didn't make the paint too dark.

Punchinello/Sequin waste does a marvelous print no matter what you use it for.

Paint pretty dark on this one. I tend to be heavy handed. We were using acrylic paint.

I still prefer monoprinting for a similar effect with less mess. I don't like the pieces of gelatin that get everywhere as the plate breaks down.

For those who haven't tried this technique, you make the gelatin plate using clear gelatin-basically jello without the color or sugar. We found that it needed to be unmolded from the pan to make a good print. We also found that a thicker plate worked better. It didn't break down as much if that is the effect you want, but it made a clearer print.

Quilts

I'm getting pieced tops ready for the next step and decided to use some of the Japanese fabrics I have. The silks and rayons are all kinds of weights and don't play together well. Batting and quilting will help.I want to do some hand stitching around the butterfly and bamboo.

I always loved this little piece and can see machine work on the flowers. Obi scraps tend to have problem areas and this has a worn section on the bottom right. I thought about trimming it off, but the proportions were wrong then, so I used an iron on stabilizer on the back and will quilt it in place to reinforce that area.

This was the most interesting of the scraps and will have machine stitching to accent the shapes. I had more red and black scraps than I realized.

Take a Stitch Tuesday, class

Sharonb at http://www.pintangle.com/ posted the Woven Trellis Stitch this week. It reminds me of a flower, so I put it on a sampler that I am doing featuring flowers and leaves.In the class about using our own photos to make rubber stamps, I made one from a Clematis photo I'd taken. I never cared for it and decided that it was because the lower left leaf was too big in spite of the fact that it was that way on the plant. Editing helped-I carved it down and am much happier with it now.

The center circle on this one was to be the center of the Clematis flower, but I decided I didn't need a stamp for that, so I cut off one side and carved the echoing curves. Then I decided it needed the cuts to echo the ones in the center. This one I think I will use. I tested it on paper using black ink.