Sewing Show

A friend and I spent yesterday at Puyallup for the Sewing Show-what fun. For the first hour I thought I would be the only one who could go to the biggest show around and not buy anything-not much of a shopper. Then I found the buttons with the magic sign "50% off". The beads were irresistable too even though I have lots of necklaces in this color.On to the booth with Kimono scraps bundled in color groups also at an exceptional price. I restrained myself and just got two.Last year I found the nices scrap packages of metallic painted fabric-very generous amounts per package. This year I bought 3. Above is one of them. The booth had a number of wall hangings done with them in abstract designs that were stunning-good advertising.Finally, there were the rovings. As you can see, I like bits and pieces of things. I think it makes me be more creative to have to figure out what to do with them--other than just looking at them and petting them.  We had a nice day.

Quilt, Challenge

http://www.threecreativestudios.com/ has lots of things for us to do. One is a challenge to make a quilt at least 12" by 12" to represent a word. The first word was Puzzle. Here is mine.The pieces are lame that I cut and fused to the background. The piece that was left over looked like the part of the puzzle that was already finished. A friend had given 3 of us who do mixed media an old puzzle, so I drilled holes in some pieces and attached them as fringe. The edging is two fuzzy yarns couched to the piece. Here is a detail. It was fun to do-the idea hit me in the middle of the night as they often do.

Block of the Month

http://www.threecreativestudios.com/ has a Block of the Month section, and here is February.They posted an extra block, so I made that too. The lightest color is actually violet but trying to change that changed the other colors too much.

Class

When you sign up for free classes at Creative Textiles and Quilting Arts, you learn new ways to do things. This is a transfer to cotton of the negative of a Tiger Lily I photographed. The transfer was done with various things over the cotton to give a different look.

Here's a detail. The beads are antique-probably Victorian-that I bought in a small antique store many years ago when my son lived in Quincy, Illinois.

Class

I'm taking a printing class from Susan Sorrell at http://www.joggles.com/ My gelatin was from ages ago-can't remember what I bought it for but it was a VERY long time ago. It still worked just fine. Taking it out of the pan broke it up a bit, so I used a plastic knife and made more pattern in it. Both of these prints are on cotton. The black is overprinted on a piece that didn't have enough pattern. I think printing on black has a lot of possibilities.This last one is on paper. I did find out that as the gelatin plate breaks up, it sticks to the fabric or paper more. It isn't a problem with the fabric-just scrap it off-but the printer paper wanted to rip or just have a shiny glaze on it from the gelatin. Since the print was not at all something I liked, I actually decided to just throw it away-afraid it might attract bugs. I guess I could have coated it with medium, but it wasn't worth the work.   It's a fun technique.

Quilt

I've taken another of the stitched pieces and made it into a wall hanging. It's the negative of the mushrooms I photographed printed on cotton. Net and cheesecloth were laid down on the background before the stitching and beading. The fabrics used to border it are hand dyed. Here is a detail. I find doing these small stitcheries very relaxing.

Bead Journal Project

Here is my February piece for the Bead Journal Project. The glass part was made by a friend. It's glued to a background of felted roving that was machine quilted, then I used the beaded back stitch around it. I've been finishing the edges of the pieces by using a wave blade in the rotary cutter. The fabric is felted wool, so it won't ravel. I'm always looking for alternate edge finishes.