NapArt

SpirARTuality: Collaborative Fiber Art

2010-03-03T12:33:00.001-08:00

This month's SpirARTuality was Collaborative Art.
Each of us began with a background and worked for 10-15 minutes. Then, we gave the piece to the next person. We worked on that piece for 15-20 minutes. Then we traded again and completed the piece in 1/2 hour.

Here's Jo working on one of the pieces:

I was the middle person in the piece below. When I got it, it had a monster on the right hand side, and I added a tree and some other elements. And then it became this wonderful thing!

Here's the piece we all agreed was done when it was very simple. But after a while, I announced that it needed a face, so Jo added this lovely lady:

I was the last worker on the piece below. It seems just about right when I got it. Then I added all the yarn, just for fun:

Here's what we produced in about 90 minutes:

Not too shabby!

SpirARTuality: Acrylic Paints

2009-11-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

November's SpirARTuality event was taking an acrylics painting class at the fantastic Root Art Center.

I have very little training in art, so the very first thing out of our instructor's mouth was fascinating to me. She set out two reds, two yellows, and two blues and told us that there are both warm and cool colors of each primary color!
So she prefers to work with 6 primary colors (3 warm and 3 cool) plus black and white when she paints. So that's what we did.

She had our canvas paper all prepared. It was taped to a piece of cardboard both to give it pretty finished edges, and to keep it from warping when it got wet.

Our first task was to put down a wash over the whole paper.
I had fun testing out mixing paint and water, but made quite a mess (and obviously I was much more interested in the activity than in taking good photos!):

We then chose an artist to copy. Since we were simply working on techniques today, we didn't need to waste time on figuring out what to paint.
We chose Van Gogh. Analyzing the picture I chose, we saw that it was in the cool range, so I worked with the cool blue, red, and yellow as I mixed and painted. Susan's painting, too was in the cool range (even though it had lots of yellow). We painted for about an hour, then stopped and the instructor led us in a little critique.

Susan's sky and grass were just fantastic. But the light blob wasn't just right, so she went back to work on that. I didn't have enough defintion between the sky and the water. I liked the sky, but wasn't too happy with the water. So when I took it back, I tried using warm colors for the water to see if they would make an interesting contrast from the cool sky.

Here we are, working on our revisions.
I was surprisingly pleased with the result of my first acrylic painting. It's by no means a masterpiece, but it's not too shabby, either. And I love the contrast in the sky and water now. How interesting!

Our reflection questions for today's project is:
When in your life are you imitating someone? Who is the person your are imitating? Are you glad to be imitating them?

Fabulous Necklace

2009-10-29T07:37:00.001-07:00

I recently attended CREDO II a fabulous retreat/conference offer to Episcopal clergy through our pension fund. One of the participants had a necklace that I really liked:

So I thought, I could make that! And I made the most Fabulous Necklace in the World.

Three years ago, I had a Blessing Way before the birth of my younger son. Many of my friends couldn't attend, but wanted to participate. So each of them were invited to send a bead which would be made into a birthing necklace which I could use as a focal point in labor. They were on some ribbon, but I never quite knew what to do with them afterwards. Now, I've figured it out.

I took my Blessing Way beads and some of my favorite other beads into my local bead shop and showed the owner the picture and my beads. She set me up to work, and I added a few more beads from her collection and some seed beads, and voila!

I love this necklace. It's chock full of love and reminders of friends; it's hand-made; it's made by ME; and...it's got a magnetic clasp in the back! I've never heard of magnetic clasps, but they rock!

Have an artful day.

SpirARTuality ideas

2009-08-05T08:00:00.001-07:00

Our SpirARTuality group got together for lunch and brainstorming ideas for next year. Our ideas include:

Haiku
Dancing
Creating our own painting class at Root Art Center
Weaving rolled paper

Making clay beads
Doing our own Art Hop
Going to Whatever Works in Granville
Visiting a glass blowing studio
Cooking

Creating african-type painted fabrics
Creative writing
Beading at our local bead store
Retreat day (or several days!)

What are your arty thoughts for the coming year?

Monoprinting with Kids

2009-07-05T06:36:00.000-07:00

I helped lead the Children's Program for the Ohio Episcopal Celebration at Kenyon (OEC@K). As we were begin planning our activities for the weekend, I remembered I had extra Versatex screen printing ink from the previously blogged about Fish Printing. So this time, we tried monprinting.

In order to get a smooth, elevated working surface for the children (ages 2-11), we used a food storage bag wrapped tightly around a book, with the excess neatly folded and taped. The kids had to be very careful not to rip the thin plastic, but none of them did.

As I was demonstrating the process to the children and I pulled up my piece, I suddenly realized that these could be prayer flags. So suddenly this became an Prayer Flag activity.

(We also stuck with the original plan, which was about decision-making. Children trying out different designs on the paint was like thinking about what decision to make. But then putting down the fabric was like making a decision--it can't be un-made.)

Here I am, mellowly talking about prayer flags as if it was our intention the whole time:

Children then took a plastic-covered book, a flat work surface (showerboard cut to 2ft squares), and a piece of cotton or muslin and then chose a color to work with. I spread the color on the plastic, then they took off with a teen-aged helper and got to work.

After playing in the paint and deciding on a design, the children would carefully put down their fabric piece and use a brayer to make sure the full design was transfered. Here's Grant braying a neat design:

It was a great gift that the teen program chose this particular session to sit in with the children's program. There were just enough teens and kids that they paired up very nicely, and they loved working together:

Truth be told, I think the teens liked this project as much as the kids did. They were very patient helping the kids, but the moment their "job" was done, they came asking to do their own prints:

Oh! And we had enough left-over shirts from the Fish Prints that each of the children could monoprint a t-shirt, too.

Here are our prayer flags in full glory:

This is quite an easy activity that can be done with any age and be successful, even with confirmed "non-artists." Just don't forget to heat set the images afterwards (press with a hot but not steamy iron for 5 minutes).

Paper Friendship Quilt

2009-06-22T07:34:00.001-07:00

On our recent trip back to Kansas, we did an art project with the Reeces. Cydney suggested a friendship quilt, and I loved the idea. I, of course, wanted to do it in fabric. She wanted to do it in paper and had all the supplies. So paper it was!

Step 1: Choose the paper.
First, Cyd and I each chose a group of scrapbooking papers that we liked. (Suggestion: have the whole family choose the papers, not just one person.)
There were 3 piles: Reeces, S-Bs, and shared.

Step 2: Choose the quilt pattern.
You can make any shapes you want to on the quilt, but since we wanted to make it easy enough for a 2-year old to do it, we just cut triangles. Each quilt square was to be 5 inches, so each of the scrap book papers was cut first into 2 1/2 inch squares and then cut on the diagonal to make triangles.
Each pile is kept separate (Reece, S-B, Shared).

Step 3: Everyone makes 2 quilt squares, one for each home.
Here, you can see me, Matthew, and Cydney working on our squares. Each of us used triangles from the "S-B" and "shared" pile for my quilt, and from the "Reece" and "shared" for the Reece quilt.
We used glue stick to stick the squares to a backing of stiffer paper (whatever we had on hand, posterboard, perhaps).
Each person got to choose both the triangles they use and what pattern they wanted to place them in.

Luke's one for us is directly below him. I didn't mind the white showing, but we straightened up the one he made for the other quilt because the wonkyness would have driven them crazy. ;)

Here, you can see the 3 piles we were drawing from, the Reeces are more green/muted, the share is ecclectic, and ours are more pinks and oranges:

And here are our finished quilt squares.
They are now divided by family, and waiting to be mounted and framed using this matte board.
Cyd and I are both pleased with the results:

Birthday (The Big 4-0)

2009-06-22T07:18:00.000-07:00

My birthday this year fell on a Wednesday, which made it easy to make it an arty day. SpirARTuality meets on the 1st Wednesday of each month, so we celebrated by making these cute little animals out of pre-plastered gauze. We chose these animals to go along with my birthday theme. My goal was to have all of my friends donate to the Heifer Project so that we could buy 40 animals for folks around the world for my 40th birthday. (We surpassed my goal!). These animals graced the table at my party that evening. Jo's lama is so well-dressed. Susan's lamb is cute as a bug. And my lama is ready to go!

In the evening, it was the last in our church's series, "In the Image of the Creator God." Each week, a different artist came to share a little of their art, how God/spirituality influences their art, and then leads us in an art project (HOW COOL IS THAT?!?). It was a great series. This last week, a woman who paints eggs using wax lead us in painting eggs. It was ridiculously fun, addicticting, and everyone was successful at it from my 2-year old son to my 87-year old mom, and the most creative to the most...reserved. Charlie shows off his favorite two eggs:

My niece Sara surprised me by driving 3 hours for the party (and having to leave again very early the next morning). She and Luke worked on some eggs together:

And here I am watching hubby and a bunch of other folks work on eggs. What a great birthday!

ArtiGras 2009

2009-03-02T08:39:00.001-08:00

I spent my Saturday at ArtiGras, a fundraiser for the Spirituality Network in Columbus, OH. It was a wonderful day of taking care of our spiritual selves. Three friends attended with me, and there were over 100 participants.

One of the workshops I took was "Another's Shoes" where we used plaster strips (like they use to cast a broken arm) to make someone else's shoes and to tell a story about them. There were some wonderful shoes: mom's house slippers she put on each day after working 3 jobs, shoes for a child in africa sponsored by the maker, work books, etc.
My shoe is for the Mommy I'm Not. I don't own any high-healed shoes. This greatly disappoints my 5-year old. So here is the shoe I wish was in my closet for him to play with:

I also went to a dance workshop by happy accident. When my friends re-gathered after our first workshop, Penny was glowing from her dance workshop and said we really should go. I weight it in my mind and thought about skipping my assigned painting workshop to go, but the Dutiful Child won out and I went to the painting workshop. When I got there, my name wasn't on the teacher's list, and the class was full. So off I went to the dance workshop.
The leader drew from many different sources from the bible to "What the body wants" and Gabriella Roth and others. Our hour and a half class was mostly active dancing as we danced our ways though the chakras. It was intimidating, freeing, and exhausting. It was also deeply personal even though we were dancing in the same space. I didn't get a picture of this workshop, but wow!

The other workshop I attended was creating Mandelas. It was really fun. Here's what I came up with:

The ostrich in the center of mine started calling to me from another table as soon as I sat down. He's such a funny creature!
After we made our mandalas, we were given time to contemplate them. I almost laughed out loud when I realized that the ostrich wasn't me!
Pieces of 2 songs came to me, "Crown him with many crowns" (see the safety pin with 3 bells on it on his head?) and from "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light" the phrase, "The star of my life is Jesus." HA HA. Apparently, one of my images for Jesus is now an ostrich. Hmm...

When I got home and showed my kids what I'd done, Charlie (5) was facinated by the mandala and asked several times to do one together. So the boys spent most of the morning creating their own mandals. Here's Lukes:

And Charlie's. See how proud he is!
What a great day at ArtiGras. And what a great day with the kids.

SpirARTuality: Nuno Felting

2009-03-02T08:29:00.001-08:00

February's SpirARTuality gathering was to do Nuno Felting. (Full directions and information on kits are in the 2 posts below). We began with 9in by 12in prefelt. Here is one fabulous design before we started felting:

And here we are in the final step of the process, when we dropped our projects into very hot water and squished and squeezed them to get them nice an well-felted.

I was shocked about how small my project got:

And then very interested at the sizes of the three projects we did. Each of these were dipped and squeezed for the same amount of time. Hmmm...do you think perhaps I was dealing with a little bit of stress?

All three projects turned out beautifully. We were all pleased. Nuno felting with a kit is very do-able, and turns out well. I highly recommend it!

Our SpirARTuality question for this project is, "Are you the roving that holds things together, or are you the silk pieces that brighten things up?"

Nuno Felting: Part 1

2009-01-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

I'll be leading our next SpirARTuality group in Nuno Felting. Since none of us had ever done it before, I had to practice.
We bought our wonderful kits from Suzanne Morgan, here. She's got very complete written directions for nuno felting here, (and a link to my friend Deborah's blog which give me the idea originally). So here's my simplified photo version of How To Nuno Felt.

Here are the supplies you'll need:
-a hard, flat surface that can get wet (I used a big broiling pan)
-a towel to soak up excess water
-bubble wrap or a bamboo mat
-net or tulle
-scissors
-old pantyhose or rubberbands (something to secure your rolled bundle)
-rolling pin, PVC pipe, dowel rod, or something similar
-The contents of a Nuno Felting Starter Kit, or: a prefelt base (or you may build yourself with alternating layers of wool), loose weave silk or other natural fibers, roving, yarn or thread if desired.

Step 1: Set up your Sandwich like this:
pan
towel
bubble wrap or bamboo mat
tulle or net
prefelt (or 4-6 pieces of alternating roving which will become the backing when felted)
your fabric design*
tulle or net

*For your fabric design, you may layer up fabric. However, make sure that there is roving between any layers of fabric. Also make sure there is roving on the top of the whole project so that the wool will bind through the layers of non-wool and felt everything.

Step 2: Once you've completed your fabric design and put the tulle/net on top, wet it down with some water with a couple of drops of soap (don't over-soap it--it will become a bubbly mess!)

Step 4: Rub in small circles for 10-15 minutes until the design is tacked down.
You can do this either with a wadded up ball of plastic, or you can use rubber gloves or a plastic sack on your hand.
Start out rubbing gently in small circles. As you go, you can press more firmly and make bigger circles.
Give extra care to the edges of fabric to make sure they get tacked down.
Every couple of minutes, pull both layers of tulle away from your fabric piece to make sure they are not getting felted into the piece. At that point, you can also re-position anything that has slipped.
Keep rubbing until everything in your piece is tacked down and doesn't move around.

When everything is tacked, it's time to roll up your sandwich and start the second part...

Nuno Felting: Part 2

2009-01-28T07:59:00.001-08:00

Step B1: Once your patterned is stuck together a bit, it's time to roll it up and get to serious felting.
I used a rolling pin covered with Saran Press N Seal (to keep the wood from getting too wet) as the center of my roll. You could also use PVC pipe, a dowel, or whatever you have around.
Wrap the sandwich (bubble wrap, net, your fabric piece, net) around your core and secure it.
I used rubber bands. You can also use old panty hose or whatever.

Step B2: Roll! Roll! Roll! and Roll some more!
Roll it at least 100 times in one direction.
Then undo your package turn your fabric 1/4 turn, package it together again, and roll 100 times.
Undo package, turn fabric 1/4 turn, and then roll at least 100 times.
Again.
Make sure you roll it in all 4 directions at least 100 times.

You can roll any way you like--on a table, up and down the wall (a REALLY good workout), or on the floor using your feet (gliders work great for this step).
When you roll, put your body into it--use lots of pressure. But be gentle with your body, too.

Note: the fabric shrinks in the direction you are rolling it. So if you want to make it skinnier than it is, roll it up sideways then roll, roll, roll.

Step B-3: Squishing.
When you're done with all the rolling, then unroll it and pull your fabric out of the sandwich.
Get a bowl of hot water and dip your fabric into it.

Then squeeze it out 3-4 times.
Open the fabric and gently pull on the edges to "clean them up."
Then drop it into the water, squeeze the water out several times, and pull the edges.
Repeat, repeat, repeat until it's as small and tight as you want it.

When it's the size you like, spread it out and let it dry. You're done!

Magnetic Fabric Photo Frames

2009-01-28T06:15:00.001-08:00

I've been away from my blog for so long, I can't figure out how to turn a picture or how to turn off underlining. Please excuse my unintended emphsis.

Each Christmas, we get dozens of photos from family and friends. And I'm not good about putting them in a photo album. So this year, we decided to send pictures ready to put onto your fridge. It was a really fun little project. Turn your head to see how they turned out:

Step 1:
Cut Timtex to your desired "frame" size.
(I prefer Timtex because it is very stiff and is sticky on both sides. You may use any sort of batting or stiffener, and separate sticky stuff if you prefer.)

If making mulitples (which I encourage you to do), cut them all at once. Remember, the frames don't all have to be the same size.

Step 2: Iron on your backing fabric.
Backing fabric can be just one piece of material, or you can sew together many scraps. I suggest using those things that take up room in your stash but never call out to you.

If you are making multiple frames, save yourself some energy here and place all the timtex close together and lay a large piece of fabric over all of it and iron all at once. Then cut the rectangles apart, leaving just a tiny bit of fabric overhanging the edge.

Step 3: Iron on your front fabric.
I did lots of strip piecing of my favorite scraps of fabric to make the fronts. I was really happy to be able to use tiny pieces of my favorite bits.

Again, if you're making multiple frames, put the timtex pieces beside one another and iron all at once. Cut rectangles apart, leaving a tiny overhang of fabric.

Step 4: zigzag around all edges of your frames:

Step 5: Sew on a vinyl cover for your photo. You may choose to cut the vinyl the same size as your frame, or just slightly bigger than your photo.
Sew around 3 sides of the vinyl.

Final Step: Glue magnetic strips or circles onto the back of your frames. Insert photo.

SpirARTuality: Fabric Beads

2008-10-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

We began today's SpirARTuality by celebrating Jo's birthday with honey bran mango chocolate chip muffins. Then we were off to making fabric beads. Everyone has told me that making them is quite easy--and it's true. It is!

Supply list:
hollow coffee stirrers, straws etc
bits of fabric
glue
irridecent paint, glitter glue, etc
string, yarn, fabric shreds etc

Here's a nice picture of the process. You can see the unused fabric scraps on the right, a bunch of rolled beads on the bottom left, and the clear plate has the paint and a sponge.

Jo uses a pattern, seen here, to help her tear her fabric into 2 inch by 1 inch bits.
I just approximate and even do some triangles and other shapes when the mood hits.

How To:
1) Cut the stirrers down to about 1" pieces
2) Cut or tear fabric into about 1" by 2" pieces
3) put a dab of glue on the end of a piece of fabric
4) place stirrer on glue and roll fabric up til only 1/4" is left
5) put a dab of glue on fabric just before the end to hold it together and roll the last 1/4 inch
repeat
repeat
repeat
6) daub on small bits of irridecent paint onto the fabric beads. This *really* makes a difference
7) wind and tie bits of string, yarn, or tiny fabric strips around the beads

And Ta-Da!

These are going right home and getting glued on some more Inchies to send off to Sacred Path Book and Arts.

The SpirARTuality reflection question for today is:
Imagine your life is a string of beads. Attach an event in your life to each bead, and list those events. What does your life-as-beads look like? Pearls? Diamonds? Fabric beads? Muliti-strand seed beads? A maccaroni necklace?

A break from art: MDGs

2008-09-25T09:13:00.001-07:00

September 25th is a national day of prayer, fasting, and advocacy for the Millennium Development Goals. Whatever day you happen to read this post, please take a moment to DO SOMETHING to support these.

There are about 1 BILLION people in the world living on less than $1 a day.
Every 3 seconds, a child dies of preventable, treatable causes (diarrhea, malaria, etc).
Some things you can do include:

Go to the Hunger Site. Click there and food will be donated by the sponsors just because you saw the advertising on their page. You can also sign up to get a daily e-mail reminder. I've been doing this for years. It takes about 10 seconds a day, and it gives someone food for the day.

Sign up to receive Action Alerts from EPPN or another group. When you receive one, it will take you about 1 minute to complete a form to send a statement to your legislators about issues around poverty and justice.

Loan $25 (or more) thru KIVA.org. It is really fun to look through their lists of people approved for micro-loans and choose the actual person and business you'll support.

Donate money to the Heifer Project, ERD, Curamericas, or the charity of your choice that helps "the least of these."

Have you DONE something yet? If not, stop right now and do one of these things.

I thank you, and God thanks you.

SpirARTuality: Marbling Fabric

2008-09-04T16:36:00.001-07:00

September's SpirARTuality activity was marbling fabric using shaving cream.

Step 1: Spread a layer of shaving cream in a bin or on any sort of flat surface (even the gravel patio worked!)

Step 2: Blob on some paint, and swosh it around (this picture is actually taken after step 3...)

Step 3: Press a damp piece of fabric down into the color. "The Directions" say leave it there to dry. But what fun is that?! We Must Make More!!

Step 4: Lay flat or hang to dry (and don't be embarassed about your big rump in the side of the photo)

Jo came out with some beautiful marbling when she did this alone. As a group, we made some interestingly painted pieces...but I'm not sure they could actually be considered "marbled."

The question of the day came from someone being surprised at how little control they had of the process of getting the colors onto the fabric:
How much control do you believe God has in your life? Does God drop the colors and let them smoosh where they may, or is God more careful about getting things just so?

Ad Astera Per Aspera

2008-09-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

A wonderful artist friend let me come raid her stash, and I came home with a big sackful of wonderful new bits of material.
I couldn't resists so just started sewing and sewing and sewing them together, planning on doing the sew-cut-sew-cut-sew-cut until I got backgrounds like #2 in my Prayer Resurrected piece.
Instead, at some point several really simply sewed pieces jumped out at me and said they were done. So I used them as the background, added some wonderful raw silk on the edge, and pieces of debris I picked up after the Chapman Tornado.

I call them Ad Astera Per Aspera 1 and 2. Kansas' motto is Ad Astera Per Aspera--to the stars through difficulty. That is what this tornado recovery has seemed like to me.

AAPA 2:

AAPA 1:

Hands on Art, Door County WI

2008-09-03T13:42:00.000-07:00

The BEST part of our vacation was finding a small green sign by the side of the road that said "Hands on Art." It is a magical, amazing place. (I told my husband I know now what Heaven is like!)

It's on a big old farm and they use several out buildings and have animals to pet and feed. They use their silo to put up tiles people had made. The kids loved looking at them (and standing and yelling inside the silo).

Each Wednesday Night is Family Night where families come do projects together. Here, our family is working on a spin-art painting that now hangs in our front guest bedroom:

And here are my boys painting ceramics. Charlie already has a plate he painted when he was 2, so he did a snake. Luke was very confident about the colors he wanted to use. We use the plate regularly, and the snake has taken up residency on Charlie's dresser.

Charlie also had time to work with fused glass. Well, he puts the glass together just the way he wants it, then they put it in the kiln and then it becomes fused. This is now hanging in our kitchen window:

We had such a wonderful time that my husband and I went back on Friday night for Adult Night. It was SO much fun! We worked with metal. More about that another time...

Prayer Resurrection Shared

2008-08-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited!
I didn't get a photo of her like I should have, but I gave away the piece in the previous entry. (It's full title is "Prayer Resurrection--Chapman Resurrection." ) I've spent all week on a work trip in Chapman to help the schools recover from a tornado (I blog about it here). For 5 days, I was keeping open to finding "the right" person to share this with. And on Saturday, I found her! The Middle School music teacher was delighted with it, and said she'd have guard it from the interim art teacher who will be coming for a semester. (I told her I'd happily make the art teacher something, too.)

I had no idea how good it felt to give away your art to someone who loves it. ;)

Off to vacation. Door County, WI, here we are!

Prayer Resurrection

2008-07-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

I'm calling this "Prayer Resurrection."

It's the follow-up to the unraveled prayer quilt. It's made from a stack of 10 Bull's Eye quilt squares. The first panel is the symetry of a quilt piece. The second panel is made from stripping and re-stripping the other 9 quilt squares. And the third panel is made from tiny tiny pieces of the scraps from those quilt squares.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

Unravelled Prayers

2008-06-29T07:19:00.000-07:00

Remember the prayer quilts I was making for my friends who made it through the Chapman Tornado?
I decided I should wash them before sending, just to make sure they'll take actual use.
Here's the result:

Sometimes our prayers unravel.
So the rest of my squares are sitting in a pile. If anyone needs them for a purely decorative quilt, let me know!

SpirARTuality: Poetry

2008-06-25T13:20:00.001-07:00

This month's SpirARTuality was a stretch for the fiber artists in our group. I invited one of our members to help us write poetry. The rest of us didn't think we could do it, but were all delighted by the results.

Penny passed out 5 poems for us to look at as she read them. We were to mine them for words we might like to use. We circled a bunch of words, then made a list of the words and phrases that stuck out for us:

She then gave us a theme (childhood memories) and we were to write down some words that came to us when we thought of that. When we noticed a word that wanted more written about it, we did. I ended up with lots of rhyming words, although I was hoping to use illiteration instead of rhyme.

After we'd come to a stopping point on our lists and blurbs, we then were invited to make it into a writing. Maybe prose, maybe a list, maybe a poem:

Mine was a poem entitled, "Camp Wood"--the church camp I went to each summer for a week from the time I was in 7th grade through about 24 years old.

Camp Wood
ever stood
feels good
wish I would

Mystery Pod
Hutch Hall plod
not a fraud
close to God

Cross on the hill
grist for the mill
getting your fill
take a pill

Time flies
hug guys
teary eyes
deep sighs
hard goodbys...

And because writing on a page just doesn't excite me much, I had to write mine onto a strawberry box:

What a freeing exercise we all had--We were thrilled with ourselves! Who knew we had that in us?

QSDS 2008 Intro

2008-06-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

I was really looking forward to Susan Shie's self-portrait class at QSDS this year. I wanted to take her 5-day class, but by the time I enrolled it was "closed." We found out when we gathered that it had been canceled for lack of enrollment rather than closed. So I'll try to enroll earlier next year.

Here's the bags of stuff I brought to class:

And here's my bag of finished (or almost finished) products:

I thought the scariest part of the class would be coming up with things to write on my quilt--but that turned out not to be very difficult at all after we did a quiet 10-minute writing exercise in our notebooks.

The next scariest part I thought would be my lack of drawing skills. But that turned out not to be very intimidating, either. I even developed my own style of drawing standing bodies that I like, and sitting bodies with frog legs, and I like both of them.

But the actual scariest part was this:

Susan was very strict about us using respirators, even though in the scheme of things our paints weren't all that toxic.
I had asthma as a kid and still have lingering panic issues when my breathing is at all inhibited. It was a big step that I kept this thing on even though it was extra-hard to breath in while wearing it.

But I had trusty Avogadro with me. I made him when I was in Junior High. I went through a phase of making weird stuffed animals (about 25 years before my time--it seems like everyone is doing that now days!). He's half mole (hence the name), half cockroach. He's always been just a stuffed animal, but I realized he'd make a great pincushion.

For more on the class, keep reading!

QSDS 2008 Day 1

2008-06-23T09:50:00.001-07:00

In the 2-day class, Susan Shie taught us her technique using the theme of self-portraits. The steps are pretty simple: 1) Draw on Fabric with Rub a Dub, 2) Paint, 3) write words all over 4) self-bind using backing fabric and quilt with crazy grids.

My first piece was to be about my self-image vs. how others see me. I had a great idea in my head which did not make it into my project. It was fun anyway.
Here's my drawing, with the self-image me on the left and the other's view on the right. Susan had mentioned Chakras, so I ended up adding them to my piece as a unifying element:

And here is the (upside-down) painted how-others-see-me:

And the right-side up self-image (which is totally NOT how I see myself. I think at this point, this looks like it is done by someone with a whooollllee lot of issues!!):

And then here is the piece after it's dried and I've written on it.
I almost scrapped the piece after painting and seeing CrazyMe. But I'm glad I stuck it out. I kinda like it here:

And I like it even better as a 2 inch by 3 inch piece as seen here rather than the full size 2 ft by 3 ft!

Off to sandwich, self-bind, and quilt. Oh, I wish I had a walking foot!

QSDS 2008 Wrap-Up

2008-06-23T09:16:00.001-07:00

When I thought the Chakra piece was looking pretty ick, I drew out another self-portrait that would be a motivational piece, encouraging me to do all the things I need to do to be healthy and strong. Top left is time for exercise. Top right is eat healthy. Bottom right is quiet/prayer time and Bottom left is creativity.
I drew myself standing on a pedestal, but after painting it green I thought it looked like an upside-down trash can. I was sad. Until I came up with the imagery that this piece is about not treating myself as "trash" so I'm standing on an upended trash can. ;)

My colors were still much more vibrant than I wished. I wanted to imitate Susan Shie's more gentle, subtle coloring. So I also drew a couple of pieces just to practice my painting.

The first one is a note I leave for my boys if I leave the house before they wake up. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, they are very sad. Since they can't write, it's a pictogram of Mommy Loves Charlie and Luke. I normally add a treat for each of them.

I'm really pleased with the way this one turned out, and will add glitzed-up clothes pins to it so I can attach the treats when needed:

Here is what I got done in our 2-day class. The bottom left is a "Back at (clock)" sign, which I made for our kitchen. Occasionally one of us will leave and not leave a note. I hoped this would help. Until someone walked up and mentioned it, I didn't even realize it's the same wording stores use! Maybe I'm not all that innovative after all... ;)

Once again, I was dubbed Most Prolific in the Class. It's not something I strive for, but because I have so little studio time at home, I really like to crank through as much as I can on those rare moments I've got focused time.

Prayer Quilt 1

2008-06-19T12:02:00.001-07:00

Here's a very poor picture of my first Prayer Quilt for my friends who lost everything in the Chapman, Kansas tornado last week:

I'm a loosey-goosey kind of sewer. So I just folded the green material in half, then measured 4 inches from the fold and 8 inches from the edge and sewed 3 squares down each side.

Then I opened it up...
and realized I'd reversed it and actually measured 4 inches from the edge and 8 inches from the fold!! So I stuck in those 2 tilted quarters to make it look like that's what I intended all along. ;)
That's sort of the way my prayer life is anyway--I'll often think I'll be praying for one thing and suddenly realize something different is going on.

Now, I've just got to bind it up (I think I'll just pull the plush red backing around for a self-binding) and find an address to mail it off.

A Purpose for the Bull's Eyes

2008-06-14T08:18:00.001-07:00

We've now completed our swap for the Bull's Eye squares we were doing. And they were just sitting there in neat piles, not calling to me at all. But then Thursday morning, I found out my hometown was destoyed by a tornado.

I got right to work on sewing the quarters together to make squares. I'll use them to make small prayer blankets for some of the families that lost everything or were injured.

When I pulled a string off my sewing machine, I realized how beautiful they were and the boys and I just had to hang them like Tibetan Prayer Flags for a moment before we continued:

I knew I could have spent months looking at the colors of each quarter and trying to match them up with just the right other 3 quarters for the perfect look.
To break that habit, I simply went to the sewing machine with the piles, and randomly began sewing 2 together, then another 2, then another 2 until all the quarters became halves:

Then I cut each half from the string of halves, ironed it flat, and made a big stack of halves. I sat back down at the machine and randomly sewed halves together to make whole squares, then cut them apart and ironed them flat:

This morning I went to That Place on Market in Danville to get some $1/yard fabric for the background and back, and I'll keep working (*after* I work at my paying gig, spend some time with the hubby, and some time with the family...)

Altar Cloth in Progress

2008-06-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

A few of us from the church are working on creating an altar cloth to be used on our summer altar. All summer long, we worship outside using an IKEA kitchen island for our altar.

As we were fusing the crosses onto the front of the altar cloth today, Jo told us the pincushion we were using (see bottom of the picture) was made by Janet Parr. Mrs. Parr just happened to make the only other hand-made altar cloth our church owns, and made it about 40 years ago. What a lovely connection.

Here's a better shot of what the front will look like. We plan to add a colored strip near the bottom edge, and then pipe around the crosses in green (for the liturgical season of Pentecost).

We're getting to the point where detail work and hand work is needed. That is NOT my forte. Luckily, some other women are very gifted in that area.

EfM Art

2008-06-02T14:50:00.001-07:00

As our closing excercise, our EfM (Education for Ministry) group decided to make fabric art. I was delighted because the work of EfM is very heady, so this art would be a stretch.

Before the meeting, I made up a bunch of blanks using hand dyed fabric and double-fuse Pellon. I just fused a big orange piece onto one side of the Pellon and then a big blue piece to the other side of the Pellon and then cut the big piece into 10 smaller pieces and satin stitched around the edges.

I then printed off about 20 thumbnails of "journal quilt" or "art quilt" using goggle image which I passed around to give them ideas.
I then had a big pile of pre-fused fabrics, scissors, pastels, and sharpies on one table and an ironing stations set up on the other.

Everyone did fantastic! Here are the results:

Some reflected important scenes from their life:

Others drew together elements of who they are, what they've done, and the music that inspires them:

Another drew on a family symbol and had a lovely quote around the edge:

This project turned out so well, it makes me want to do this sort of thing with lots of other groups.

My Studio: True Confessions

2008-05-19T07:41:00.000-07:00

This is my studio:

I was so hoping that for Cloth, Paper, Scissor's new Studio special issue, they would have a contest for a reader's studio makeover. But (sigh) instead, the editor got a studio makeover.

So I'm stuck with working on this studio myself. The magazine gave me lots of ideas, but it's the money and the time that I don't have.

And they didn't have any good suggestions for keeping kids out. That's one of my main problems. Both boys like to come into the area and pull things out. Luke actually empties the trash onto the floor every time he's there.
As you can see, I also try to put anything important above child-height, which creates big piles on my higher surfaces.

UG.

Bull's eye Swap

2008-05-19T07:24:00.000-07:00

Over the last month or so, I've been busy with a frayed edge Bull's eye swap with Donna and two of her other blogfriends.

Here's how we did it:

1) Each of us cut 4 10x10 squares of red fabric. We kept one set of 10, and sent the other 3 sets to the other 3 people.

2) Each of us ended up with 40 different 10x10 squares. We then cut 40 8x8 squares and sewed them right on top with a 1/4 in seam.

3) Next, we turned the blocks over and cut out a 6 1/2 in square from the middle back. This is the fabric from the 10in square that is covered by our 8 in square. We then could trim it down to be a 6 in square.

4) We repeated steps 2 and 3 with 6x6 and 4x4 squares.

Here I am auditioning the 4in squares on our stone wall:

5) We then cut each of our quilt pieces into 4 smaller squares, and sent 40 smaller squares off to our 3 other friends.

6) I just couldn't send them without a little something, so I chopped up some of my scraps and used an old project as a backing and some net on top and made some little Tiny Art pieces to go along with my squares.

I really like my Tiny Art. (It's not as blurry in real life!)

I'm not sure what I'll do with the squares. Red is not my favorite color, and I'm not yet inspired to do something particular with them. Maybe I could put them into squares again and my mom could make them into lap blankets. Or maybe the frayed edges would worry mom so much that it wouldn't work. I'll have to keep thinking...

Paper Bag Portfolio: Making Leather

2008-04-02T12:22:00.000-07:00

Our SpirARTuality group meet yesterday to make "leather" portfolios from paper bags. Here are the supplies you'll need:
Paper bag--we used grocery bags
Brown (or black or maroon, etc) acrylic paint--we used Setacolor fabric paint
Pellon 72 (73?) double-sided stiffener (or your favorite stiffener and sticky stuff)
Fabric for the lining of portfolio
Envelope or folder to hold things in your portfolio
Glue--we used Tacky Glue
Sewing Machine (optional--for binding)
Fastener optional (elastic to go around binder, ribbon and button etc etc)

To Make "Leather"

Step 1: Open paper back to lie flat.

Step 2: On inside of paper bag, do a light wash of paint. We used about 1 part paint to 10 parts water, and got the whole bag wet, but somewhat splotchy.

Step 3: Let dry completely. The patient people can do this by waiting a day. Some of us are impatient and use a hair dryer to speed the process.

Step 4: Crinkle up the bag into a small a ball as you can get it. The flatten it out. Crinkle again. Repeat 3-4 times until it's nice and wrinkled. Spread flatish.

Step 5: Daub on full-strength paint onto the bag. The goal is to rub the paint over the top layers of wrinkles, but leave the gullies without paint in them. It looks good to have a little more paint here, a little less there. Try to keep the paint on the top--not down in the holes.

Step 6: When it's dryish, iron flat.

You've got yourself a piece of "leather." See the next post for making the portfolio.

Paper Bag Portfolio: Making the Portfolio

2008-04-02T12:08:00.000-07:00

Once you've turned your paper bag into "leather," here's how to put the portfolio together:

Cut a piece of Pellon to the exact size you want for your portfolio. We used double-sized fusable Pellon, which made it easy as pie. You also could use many different stiffeners or stabilizers.
Iron the wrong side of your "leather" onto one side of the Pellon.

Trim your "leather" to the exact size of the Pellon.

Next, use your "leather"/Pellon as a pattern to cut your lining fabric. Leave 1/2 inch of fabric around all sides. (OR leave a full inch if you chose a fabric that frays. If so, then you'll fold the fabric over twice in the next step.)

Take the protective coating off the Pellon and iron the wrong side of the lining fabric to the Pellon. I used a thick fabric and had to hold the iron on for quite a while to make it stick.

Next, fold the liner fabric over the "leather" and sew to make a binding. I found this machine didn't like doing a fancy stitch through all these layers, but it would do a zig-zag just fine.

After you've sewn the binding on, next glue your pocket onto the lining fabric so that one side folds over to the top of your folder, and the other side folds over part way.
I used a plastic 5-pocket folder, and roughed it up with sandpaper before gluing. Jo used an old mailing envelope. Pat will make her own fabric pocket.

Ta-Da!
Happy Birthday to Me!
I'll probably just attach a circle of elastic to keep the binder together. Or maybe a ribbon and button if I find Just the Thing.

If you are going to use your portfolio alot, you should cover your "leather" with Mod Podge, Gel Medium, or some other thing to protect it (and to protect you since the paint may run if it gets wet.)

And here are the SpirARTuality questions for this project:

Portfolios are for keeping items we're proud of.
What is in your inner portfolio? Spend some time thinking of the moments in your life you are most proud of. What 5 events do you want to save in your Inner Portfolio?

Take a moment to give thanks for those moments, the people involved with them, and the gifts and skills you used.

Consider spending more time over the next year honing one of those gifts or skills.

More Fabric Bowls

2008-03-11T13:35:00.001-07:00

Making fabric bowls can be addictive! The next morning, I went back and made 3 more:

This one has geckos on both the outside and inside prints. How cute is that!

I'm a big fan of green and pink. And no, I wasn't a preppy in the early 80s.
With this one, the isosolese triangles have swirls in them and the smaller triangles are empty inside. I have the feeling these "chips" could be used for something, I'm just not sure yet. (Well, actually the first thing that came into my mind was to give them to parents of newborns as a beautiful way to keep track of wet and poopy diapers. There's probably not a great market for that tho!!)

This yellow/orange bowl refuses to be overlooked:

I've also got a related book about how to make fabric boxes. I'm pondering the possibility of making the boys a van toybox for our trip next month...

7 Random Things

2008-03-06T17:58:00.000-08:00

Connie from Life Scraps and Patches has tagged me to list 7 random things about myself, and then tag 5 others.

1) As of TODAY, I am a La Leche League Leader. My group is a Toddler/Tandem group, specifically for moms nursing a child over a year old, or more than one child.

2) It took me 38 years to realize my favorite color is blue (periwinkle, really).

3) I sleep on a king size bed, but only use a couch sized throw to cover up with.

4) I share a birthday with one of my very best friends.

5) Half the fun of my vacations is the time I spend planning them. I love learning about the place, the route, things to do, etc. (My husband sometimes thinks it's a bit obsessive...)

6) At our wedding, all the ushers and groomsmen wore real gerbera daisies that were fitted with a squirting flower mechanism and I wore flowered flip-flops.

7) I believe every blog post should contain a picture.

Now I'm supposed to tag 5 others. Let's see if I can find 5 who haven't been tagged yet:
Carin, Quilt Pixie, My hubby, Deborah's sis, and...Diane whom I just found by hitting the "random" button in the Artful Quilter Webring.

Now, go see if they've listed their random things.

Fabric Bowls II

2008-03-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

We found that Fabric Bowls can also make jaunty hats!

And because I chafe so much at having to follow precise directions, I had to do another free form bowl after learning the basics. This is an electric lime and fuchsia even though it looks yellow in the photo.

Oh, and when I took the black and white bowl into the basement, I found out that the eyes in the faces are glow in the dark! How fun is that!?! What a great extra surprise from my swap with QuiltPixie

Fabric Bowls

2008-03-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

Our SpirARTuality group met this morning to make Fabric Bowls. I LOVED IT!!!

We used to book Fun, Fast, and Easy Fabric Bowls and the book really lives up to it's name.

Step 1:
Cut 2 12 1/2 inch squares of contrasting fabric and 2 5 inch squares of a third fabric.
Also cut a 12 1/2 inch square of either Pellon 70 that has fusible on it OR timtex and 2 12 1/2 inch squares of WonderUnder (I used the Pellon. It was so easy!)

Step 2: Make your big sandwich--fuse the 2 fabrics to the stiffener.

Step 3: On one fabric, mark a line down the middle (6 1/4 inches) both ways, so you've divided it into 4 equal squares.

Step 4: Position one of your small squares so that a point of the small square lines up with the each line you drew (basically step 3 and for are just so you can center the bottom portion--it doesn't have to be that difficult!).

Step 5: Sew around the small square. Turn over. Position other small square on top of sewing lines. Satin stitch around edge. This will satin stitch both small squares down.

Step 6: Draw a line from the point of your small square to the edge of the big square. Cut a V out of it, with the point of the V being 1/4 inch from the small square:

Step 7: This step takes some real strength! Also, it's like freemotion sewing. Do NOT reposition your hands unless you stop sewing!!
Put your fabric into the machine so the presserfoot is at the corner of the small square. Satin stitch forward, and as you do, slowly (and this takes lots of muscle!) push the fabric so the two sides of the V are flush with one another as you are sewing.
You can't put the V together all at once--then it's too shaped to sew. But if you do it little bit by little bit it will work.

Step 8, 9, 10: Repeat step 6 & 7 on the other 3 sides.

Step 11: Satin stitch around the edge of your bowl:

The Spiritual Questions (metaphorically of course) that went along with today's project were:
Hold your bowl. Imagine it is an empty space waiting for something. If God could give you anything, what would you ask for?
Now imagine God has an empty bowl like this. If you could give to God anything you'd like to get rid of from your life, what would you give to God?

As the Deer longs for the water-brooks

2008-03-05T13:39:00.001-08:00

I'm excited about a little triptych I've finished recently. It's one longer piece and 2 smaller pieces. All hand-painted fabric. The background is silk and the squares are cotton. The sticks are from my back yard, and although it doesn't show up in this picture, there is some light blue stitching meandering across the larger piece that is to envoke the idea of a stream.

The triptych is named for Psalm 42, verse 1 "As the deer longs for the water-brook, so longs my heart for you." There's a wonderful hymn setting of this song that I was humming to myself as I made these. The large one is called "As the deer longs for the water-brooks" and one small one is "so longs" and the other small one is "my heart for you."

I'm really pleased with the way these turned out. They're rough around the edges in a very organic way. MMM!

CyberFyber

2008-02-26T13:24:00.001-08:00

Fiber artist Susan Lenz is putting together a show entitled, "CyberFiber" and part of it will include 163 fiber art postcards from artist that also blog. She had an open invitation to anyone who blogged, so I signed up!

Susan actually made 163 postcards herself, and then each artist could chose one of Susan's postcards to get in exchange for theirs. I chose her postcard #154 and it arrived in an amazingly short time:

It took me a couple of days to send my "Amoeba" postcard back to her because my toddler tinkered with my sewing machine and now it won't run. I had to take my fabric, backing, and thread to a friend's house to finish the edges.
I've got several "Amoeba" pieces of different sizes. They came from our SpirARTuality group's summer fabric painting day. When I painted, I taped on 3-4 layers of fabric, and the Amoeba fabric are the ones that were nearest the bottom of the pile. Only bits and spots of fabric soaked through. I really love the look of it. I then take simple thread and sew around the blobs:

My work is going to be in a show! (With a thousand other artist, but it's still exciting.) Thanks, Susan!!!

Paper Fabric Notebook Covers

2008-02-26T13:14:00.001-08:00

The SpirARTuality women made journals out of our Fabric Paper (Paper Fabric?).

1) Measure your notebook. Decide whether you want to just cover the front, or wrap around. If you want to wrap around, make sure to measure the book while closed so you have enough fabric to cover the closed spine.

2) Put glue all over the cover. We found Tacky Glue to work just as well as the smelly lethal stuff:
3) Cut your fabric paper to size and glue onto notebook:

Here's another example if you're feeling a little less dramatic than I was that day:
I love that it's using a pattern piece. Delightful!!

Making Fabric Paper

2008-02-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

Our February SpirARTuality task was making Paper Fabric (or is it Fabric Paper? I don't really know) with MistyFuse.

1) Lay Parchment Paper on your work surface.
On top of that, I put down a layer of scrap fabric as my base, then a layer of MistyFuse, then this tissue paper, and ironed:

2) Next, another layer of MistyFuse. Sprinkle on more stuff,
Protect your iron by covering with parchment before ironing:

3) Repeat step 2 another 2-4 times.

4) When your collage is done, top with a layer of MistyFuse and a single layer of netting, tulle, etc:

See next post for final product.

My friend Jo loves MistyFuse. I didn't care for it all that much. It drapes really well, but I like my fuser to be stiffer so it's not always making wrinkles or scooching out of place. I'd use MistyFuse again, but wouldn't pay more for it than WonderUnder.

Raw Materials

2008-01-28T13:29:00.000-08:00

Last night, Charlie wanted to draw on some write-on/wipe-off placemats we have. So I colored in all the states I'd lived in and visited, and then used pink to color the state I've not been to. It helped us decide where to vacation this summer. We'll shoot for Michigan or Wisconsin.

Luke is being very helpful in supplying raw materials for my SpiARTuality group. We'll be making "Fabric Paper" and we're all to bring bits and bobs to sprinkle on it. Look at the beautiful paper towels after we wipe off the placemats:

And Proud Momma just has to show off...
Our family friend, Susan, watched the boys recently so I asked Charlie to draw a picture for her thank you note. He drew the whole thing upside down. After he'd drawn himself and saw what a large circle he'd made he said, "Well...Luke must be in my tummy." :)
Here's the picture of Charlie and Susan, drawn by Charlie (4 years, 2 months):

Who knew a mother could be so proud?! ;)
Firsts can be both unbelievably terrifying and unbelievably heart-warming, can't they.

Quilt Pixie Swap

2008-01-21T08:17:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago, QuiltPixie and I did a swap. I sent her everything but cotton fabric, and she sent me nothing but cotton fabric. We expanded one another's stash nicely, I think.
As I pulled out and ironed each fabric she sent, I realized I haven't worked with real prints yet--and she sent me many to play with.
At first, I tried to organize into my current color spectrum of fabrics, but then I decided there were too many fun groupings. These fun groups were just begging to be shown off. So here are a few I'm playing with:

Rounds and Reptiles:

Baby, it's Hot Outside (even when it's only 5 degrees!!):

The colors didn't come through very well for this set. They have really vibrant pinks and oranges along with the blacks:

And my, oh my! LOOK at that divine Muscle Fiber fabric on the left!!!! Clearly, this fabric designer *must* be designing from anatomy books. WHERE can I see the whole collection? Brain prints...intestine batiks...mitosis...the possibilities are endless, and exciting!

All the fabrics in this photo have some shimmery gold to them. They will be delightful surprises in future quilts:

Thank you, QP. I can't wait to get my boys to sleep and have some time to play with these!

Finally Finishing

2008-01-21T07:50:00.001-08:00

Finishing quilts is not interesting to me, so I don't often do it. That means I have piles of tops, tops and batting, and sandwiches all over my workspace. When I can no longer work, I finish a pile.

Here is a piece I did for our friends working in a Dominican Republic seminary. I met them in seminary. He was an amazing professor of Old Testament. I took 3 semesters of her Liturgical Dance class, and she was our fabulous chef in residence. Our dogs were best friends, too.
They moved down to the DR with almost nothing, and I noticed that their walls look pretty bare. So here's a little something to cheer their home:

These next two pieces are ones I started in Melody Johnson's workshop at QSDS. The one on the right is the first thing I dared to quilt (stitch). It was a piece I was willing to ruin, and I ended up liking it alot. I think it's going to replace the one I have in my office that was a Melody/Helen collaboration. The one on the right was so small I was afraid to finish it with a binding, so just pillowcased it. I think I'll send it off to my friends in the DR too. (Hmm...now that I see it in the photo, I wonder if it should be a wide orientation instead of a tall one. But ew, that would mean sewing another rod pocket...)

And here are two pieces I finished just to get them off the pile. The first one is also one I started in Melodie's class. I added a fortune from a cookie that I found inspiring. This was also an "I can loose it" composition, so I tried fuse binding it, just pulling extra material from the backing over and fusing it to the front. Good enough for "sketches" but I don't think I'd use it for a piece I hope would be displayed. The second is an extra block from the "Faith Hope Love" series. I've got enough to make 2 more long pieces, and then 4 (now 3) extra blocks. With this one, I tried just cutting batting and backing fabric (no fuser), ironing them in place, and sewing around the edge. There is nothing attaching them all together except the outside stitching. I found that it works fine on a small piece like this.

I also kept working on my largest piece to date, which isn't all that big. Maybe 2ft x 3ft. It's small random-sized blocks of 1/4 my hand painted fabric and 3/4 white made into the shape of a cross. I had used big white pieces to fill in the corners to make it square, but then Hubby couldn't see the cross. So I ripped them off and replaced it with some very light blue fabric I painted. The fabric I'm using is somewhere between a heavy gauze and a very light-weight loosely woven regular cotton. I machine sewed the small squares together and into the cross, then hand-stitched top to batting around each colored rectangle. I ended up hand sewing the blue onto the fabric because I couldn't figure out how to get into the corners with my sewing machine. I think it needs lots more quilting, I'm just not sure if I'll do it by machine (I kind of know how to do this) or hand (I know *nothing* about how to do this). Or could I use hand for the cross and machine for the blue corners? And should it be backed before I quilt? I think so.

Hmm...

Faith, Hope, and Love

2008-01-07T13:32:00.001-08:00

I started and finished 2 pieces this weekend. It's a record!
I also didn't make any mistakes while making them. It's a miracle!

I had them 80% done last night when we went to bed, and began wondering when I'd get a chance to finish them. So I got up after the boys were soundly asleep and put in the last hour's work.

I call them Faith, Hope, and Love (red) and Faith, Hope, and Love (blue). They can be hung together as companion pieces, or alone.

I originally planned to center the squares in the squares, but I'm so much happier that my messy side took hold and convinced me to make the smaller squares off-kilter.

Faith, Hope and Love create... pride. ;) and a good dose of happiness.

I finished these in a new way. I used fusable interfacing instead of batting. I fused it to the top side of the piece. Next, I machine stitched the rod pocket onto the back side of the piece.
Then I made my right sides together sandwich and stitched around most of the way leaving part of a side open for turning. Before turning, I ironed the edge open, and that seemed to help alot. Also, I ironed on a strip of WonderUnder on the open edge. Then I turned, and ironed well and fused the opening shut with WonderUnder. Finally, I sewed on the squares.

I LOVE this way of finishing! The only thing you need to be aware of is to make sure you don't sew up your rod pocket with the applique. I pushed my squares a bit lower so they wouldn't overlap with the rod pockets. (Again, a miracle that I caught this before I did it!)

Fabric store

2008-01-07T13:27:00.001-08:00

I got some quilting gloves for christmas that I already had. So on Friday, I returned them for something more interesting. After looking through the whole neat store and choosing a few fabrics, I found something that made my heart beat quicker. This basket:

It was jam-packed with bits of this and that. Just what I was looking for! I asked if I could look through it, and she said yes. I pulled out a bunch of things and was simply delighted. It was much more thrilling than even looking through the basket of neatly folded & wrapped fabric bits by the counter. Delightfully fun!

And I even ironed all my fabric when I got home that night. I've now got my main quilt fabrics folded and sorted by color. Currently, they fit into 2 shoeboxes. I'm ready for more!!!

Wonky Christmas Present

2008-01-06T09:48:00.001-08:00

Our family draws names for Christmas. This year, my hubby and I were to give to my sister in Kansas and her hubby. I wanted to give them something they'd really like and could use, but wasn't coming up with anything. Then I had an inspiration! Note cards with pen-and-ink drawings of their house.

But we have a $50 per person limit, so I'd need to be creative:

I e-mailed an old college friend who lives in their town, and he snuck over and took pictures of their house that very day and e-mailed them to us.

My husband, who minored in graphic arts and really likes to do this sort of thing, spent several hours on Photoshop changing the color photo to something like a black-and-white print. (He also removed a car, telephone lines, background homes, and re-drew at least 1/2 of the tree branches.)

The stationary store I checked with quoted me $355 for 25 cards. I don't THINK so! CopyMax didn't have thicker paper or matching envelopes. But the college print shop did. They printed on really nice paper with matching lovely envelopes, and it was a great deal.

I also planned on matting an 8X10 print for their wall. Then someone said, "Why aren't you giving any of your art for christmas?" I hit my head with the palm of my hand and said, "I'll print it on fabric and make a wallhanging.

I had 2 hours before it had to get to the postoffice and here's what turned out:

I'm delighted with it, except for that top left edge. HOW in the world did I do that? I looked and looked, and my sewing lines seem straight to me.
When I was done and saw the wonkiness, I decided not to send it. My friend Jo and husband both encouraged me to go ahead and send it. So I did. I'll not be insulted if they don't hang it. And would be happy to do it over if they really do like it.

All in all, I'm very happy with the way my husband and I worked together to create their christmas gifts. It was a gift to ourselves along the way.

Another Adoption Wallhanging

2008-01-06T09:40:00.001-08:00

Friends of ours adopted 2 children this year. Both had been living with their family for a few years as foster children. J was 18 when they adopted him in March, and H was 6 (or 7?) when she was adopted on National Adoption Day in November.

When J was adopted, I really wanted to give the family a present. But anything I thought about that celebrated J's permanent status I was afraid would heighten H's not-yet-permanent status. So I waited.

When we got the news about H, I created this:

I was so delighted to be able to use one of the "Road" series that I made during the Tour de France last summer. I have 5-6 of them ready, but I've not been inspired to finish the others yet.
Then I added a house, which seems to be a running theme for me. And 2 big hearts for the parents, and 1 little heart past the house for R who died at birth and then 4 small hearts on the road to the house to represent all the children in their family.

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. When I make my first $1,000 in fiber art, I will invest in a good camera that can really capture the true colors and details of a piece. ;) Until then, I'm stuck with the trusty camera I found that seems to have a problem with it's shutter timing.

Many Blessings and Cheers, B family!

Sculpty Nativity

2008-01-06T09:30:00.001-08:00

Our December SpirARTuality group got together to make Sculpty nativity scenes. I had learned to do it from a wonderful artist, Judy King, who had started making these when she was Registrar at ETSS in Austin, but left to work on her art full-time.

I had hoped to be in contact with Judy to get a refresher course before our SpirARTuality class-but I didn't. So we winged it. The others, I thought, did better than I. But here's my result:

The most important thing when doing this is to use a good-quality pasta maker to run the sculpty through time and time again to get interestingly melded, thin, plyable sheets of sculpty. We also used little face, hands, and feet molds which give you one shape but you can then scunch and change it into other shapes.

If you've got the supplies and at least half a day, it's a fun project. MUCH more fun when you do it with others!

Surrounding yourself with art

2008-01-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

When we stayed at our friend's home, Luke and I slept on a futon on their upstairs landing. These quilts and weavings were draped over their railing. It was a delight to sleep next to them, wake to them, and have them in such plain sight:

Here is my favorite quilt of theirs. When I asked them about it, I found out that both of these quilts shown below were made by her grandmother when she wanted a rug for her house. This first piece is the hubby's favorite. It's got more cotton fabrics in it and is more elaborate:

And this one is my favorite:

It's made up of wonderful crushed velvet squares, with brightly colored double-knit and some bold embroidery floss stitching:

I can't imagine using these on my floors. But I also imagine her grandmother in Greece making do with what she had. I think she said these may have been made in the 60s.

How delightful!

Belated Thanksgiving Pics

2007-12-31T09:34:00.000-08:00

Our family joined Charlie's godparent's family for thanksgiving this year. We rented a condo on South Padre Island, and the owner was clearly an artist. There were wonderful original pieces of art all over the house including:

This one, which was in the entry-area bathroom. I looked at it for a whole day before someone mentioned to me that it's a picture of a nude beach. The photo is just blurry enough for a Family Blog like this one. There's a stuffed boypart I think on the person with the red towel that you can't see here that just made me laugh. I'm a real fan of nude art in bathrooms--it just seems like a natural fit to me.

And in our friend's bedroom was this magificent pillow:

Here's a detail of the side view of the pillow:

What a surprising delight to be surrounded by original art on our vacation. We couldn't have planned it better.

(aside: It's GREAT to be back to blogging. My computer and I aren't friends yet, but we're learning how to work together.)

Inchies conclusion (part 1)

2007-12-31T09:31:00.000-08:00

For those of you who like closure, I'll let you know that the Craft Fair went well. Our booth sold Plum Puddings, pen and ink drawings of our church, and Inchies. We made a little over $300. Not bad!

We've got many inchies left over. I'm going to make some into greeting cards and offer them and some of the other types to our diocesan bookstore to sell.

Pause...

2007-12-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

Oh, much is getting done.
But learning how to deal with a new computer isn't one of them.

When I learn how to upload pics to/from my new Mac laptop, I'll post my backlogs.
Target date: January 10.

Blessings!

Inchies Update

2007-11-13T14:03:00.001-08:00

Today, Marilyn came to help add baubles to our inches:

And here are a few of the multiplying-like-rabbits inches we'll be selling at the Craft Fair on December 2nd:

Fun!

Inchies, Part III: Finishing Touches

2007-11-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

To keep the inchies from falling apart, you next need to zigzag the edges. I prefer sewing mine in nice, long rows:

Jo prefers to sew hers in grids and matrixes:

Here's what happens at the end of our workday. Jo attempts to wear them all:

And her is what I am most excited about doing with the Inchies right now--making double and triple pendant neclaces. As you're sewing one to the next, you just leave a bit of space and the sewing machine does a great job of twisting the two threads into a teeny, tiny cord to hang the next inchie. Beautiful!

Now, we'll have to see if anyone besides me thinks these are pretty nifty. ;)

Inches, Part II: From 12X12 to 1X1

2007-11-08T09:55:00.001-08:00

After cutting into manageable pieces, you then add the fun stuff: threads, sparkly bits, etc. And cover with netting and or/tulle:

Sew it all down with fairly close-together random sewing. Remember these bits will only be an inch wide, and there should be several bits of sewing on each square inch. You can use freemotion or just sew lines and curves:

Next, cut the manageable piece into your actual inches. We are making some 1 inch by 1 inch, and others 1 inch by 1 1/2 inches (and a few bigger ones).
This handy-dandy cutting tool makes things a breeze! There are slots every 1/2 inch, so you don't have to reposition for each cut. Brilliant!:

Now you've got your basic Inchies:

Do the same with each of your Manageable Pieces, and you've got a whole farm of inchies:

Inchies, Part 1: Starting from Scratch

2007-10-24T13:29:00.001-07:00

Our church is going to try to raise some money next month by having a table at the Gambier Craft Sale. We hope to be selling the traditional Plum Puddings from days gone by, and to also offer some other crafts.
Jo and I are working on creating "Inchies" for pins, necklaces, and whatever else we can think of. Most of them will actually be about 1 by 1 1/2 inches. I also am interested in making some reusable gift tags by putting a vinyl pocket on the back side to insert "to/from" papers.

Neither of us have ever made an inchie, but here's how we started:

1) Fuse a variety of background fabrics onto whatever stiffener we had around the studio:

2) Lay down some garish see-through fabric, with some threads and yard underneath for good measure. Sprinkle with 007 and iron. Notice the iron is melting the garish fabric. Play with the time/temp so it sticks but doesn't melt:

3) Cut into easily manageable chunks:

We then plan to do some freemotion quilting. I think after that, we cut then sew around the edges and finish with baubles and doo-dads, then add the pins or cord or whatever.
Stay tuned to find out for sure!

Sling Bling

2007-10-09T13:32:00.001-07:00

My friend, Jo, has a show opening on Thursday and she recently broke her arm. She asked if I would be interested in making an art quilt sling for her (I like to think of it as My First Commission!) Of course, I jumped at the chance. What an honor!!

Friday, she brought me the supplies: a sling, leftover orangey fabric from her vest she'll wear to the opening, and a variety of fabric from her previous work:

I began by making a sling fabric template of batting:

And then fusing fabric to the batting. At this stage, the piece is "Helen's Style":

But then I decided to make it an Homage to Jo and added her style on top. In my mind, Jo's signatures are faces, bits of thread, and tulle ("the pizza").
LEARNING: Attempting to freemotion quilt before you have backing on is miserable. Batting is very sticky stuff! And yet, I persisted. I told Jo to keep her arm moving so no one could look very carefully at my craftsmanship.
I then simply zig zagged the quilt top onto the sling, used some of the orange material as binding, and then added a little button bling (since it IS for an opening!)

Here's Jo trying it on with her vest, sans Artistic All Black Underlayer:

I hear she's dyed the ugly white strap a fetching rust, and has done a little painting touch-up on the sling.

I'm not going to be able to attend the opening on Thursday, but I am so delighted that I'll be there in spirit AND she'll have a physcial reminder on her arm that I wish I could be.

Thanks for giving me this delightful project, Jo!

SpirARTuality 1

2007-10-03T15:37:00.001-07:00

Yippee! This morning I hosted an amazing, fantastic, first monthly gathering of our women's SpirARTuality group.

Jo, Joanne, Deb, Susan, Chris and I got together in my back yard to paint fabric. Jo is the only one with any real experience in the subject, but I had plenty of supplies, and after taking a little longer than needed to set ourselves up, we jumped right in.

Chris spent her time on a wonderful representational piece I think would look great on her daughter's wall:

Deb spent most of her time in one colorway, but did a nice variety of pieces. Being a weaver, one of her stretches was to stay away from patterns. Her, she uses a pattern she later salted which added some neat variety to it:

I was prolific, as I always seem to be when given the chance to Just Do Art. A while ago, a pattern came to mine, 3 braids on one side and then circles on the other side. I used this in a variety of ways.
A few months ago, Jo taught me that you can use "any glue" to make a design and then paint over it and it's like quickie batik. I couldn't find any school glue during one naptime, so used wood glue instead (see 2 photos down at the bottom). After using it for 2 pieces, I looked more closely and saw that it is water resistant. So it may not wash out like Elmers.
Oh, well, this is all a learning process.

After the glue dried, I wetted the fabric and then threw some paint on it:

I then squnched it up as squeezed it until there was paint on all the fabric.
Here's my resultant fabrics. YUM!

The bottom 4 pieces in the picture below began being painted at the same time. I taped one to my cardboard, then the next right on top, next on top, and last on top. The one on the far left was my top painting. 95% of it was painted, I pulled it off and scrunched it and squeezed it and there it is. Then the next two pieces just screamed "let me be!" so I pulled them off without adding anything. The final piece was probably only 10% colored, so I had fun and used up the rest of my paint with flicking and daubing and then finally even rinsing in some green water.

And the piece at the top of the photo? My paint rag. ;)

As we were cleaning up, we reflected on a list of questions I created. (e-mail me if you'd like a copy). Everyone really enjoyed the morning. I think this group is going to thrive and grow.
Next month, Deb will be hosting us and leading some new art adventure.

SpirARTuality

2007-09-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

One week from today, I'll be hosting our first Women's SpirARTuality morning. A nearby spiritual director and I came up with the idea. I've not heard back from her, but I'm charging ahead full-force as is fairly typical for me.

We'll be painting fabric in my back yard and reflecting on the experience. I've invited 8 women, so far 4 of us will attend. I've painted fabric once. Two of the participants have years of experience in painting and dying fabric. So it will be interesting to see how our morning goes. My hope is that I will provide supplies and and the time/space, and that each of us will do our own thing or collaborate as the Spirit moves us.
At the end of our time, we will have some reflecting/journaling questions about the event.

Suggestions are always welcome.

Pop Art Fabric Art

2007-09-08T10:05:00.001-07:00

Way back in Lent, I decided to spend a few minutes each day doing art. I imagined that I'd spend the whole season working with people and faces. I made some fun little stick puppets of our family and friends, but then did other things most of the time. Near the end of Lent, I came across this site about how to turn family pictures into pop art. I was intrigued!

I knew virtually nothing about our Photoshop, but we took some photos and my husband taught me the basics. I had TONS of fun altering each mug shot to be a paper pop art piece.

I then cut the paper pictures into component pieces and used them as templates for fabric, and created this:

It was definitely only "play" and a study, but it was fun and I learned alot (like when using cheap Walmart fabric things show through--see hubby's yellow shirt)

I especially like adding the hand-sewn details of my highlights

And our baby's fuzzy head:

All in all, a fun learning project. I commend it to you!

House series

2007-08-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

I have lots of house shape to play with from my Neighbors are Nearby and Far Away piece. I'm calling my series "Glass Houses" although some/many of them won't actually be Glass Houses.

I'm calling them Glass Houses because they are just the right size to be a coaster, to hold your glass. And they have houses on them. Thus, Glass Houses.

Here is my first one, sent to a friend.

Here's my second one. I made it for a friend's youngest child who attended a Happening weekend with her church. Unfortunately, I didn't hear about it in time to get it to her during the weekend, and now I'm too shy to send it to her late. Somehow, it seemed like it would be a really neat and special gift along with a bunch of other gifts and notes and such that she would get during the weekend, but it might be a Weird and Uninvited Piece Of I Don't Know What if I send it to her now. So it's sitting in my studio.

And here are the other Glass Houses bases. Aren't they a pretty lot?

I have a few pieces that are villages. Here is one I'm preparing to take to a freemotion quilting class next week. (I'll keep it hidden until I figure out if they will kick me out if they know I'm an art quilter instead of a traditional quilter!)

And another village that I started playing with and it became a Mediterranean Village:

I am realizing I have no sense of when I'm really "done" with a quilt. Anyone out there know if that's something that you learn, or something that develops as you do more, or just an inherent skill I don't seem to have?

Adoption Wall Hanging

2007-08-28T13:36:00.001-07:00

Ooh! I just sent off my favorite piece ever!

Earlier this year, my friend Carin's family adopted a son. They also were fostering another child and I spent months trying to come up with just the right gift to share in their joy. I never came up with anything. However, I continued to percolate.

Just last week, we got an adoption anouncement from our friends the Camerons that their youngest son was now legally theirs. And in about an hour, this delightful little piece was created for them:

It's not the best picture. Maybe someday I'll get better at that. However, you can see the elements.
It uses one of the outlines from the "Neighbors" wall hanging from a few weeks ago. And I stamped their name onto the house. Then I cut out a heart for each one in the family, and since I had a little space and they're church folk, I added a cross. Then I used metalic thread coming from the cross in the house and running through each heart, connecting them.

(I hope they like it as much as I do. It's so fun to do things I like and I'm able to share. This art stuff is cool.)

Let's SWAP!

2007-08-21T09:07:00.001-07:00

I returned to the previously mentioned going-out-of-business store. Oh, my.
I bought another 1,000 buttons.
And enough upholstery to recover everything in our living room--but we've got little kids so there's no point in doing that for another 15 years. So I guess I'll have the bolts of fabric in my studio for the next 15 years.
And here are some photos of other things I couldn't resist.

They had a 3ft x 4 ft x 4ft big FULL of iron-on embroidery patches. It was impossible to look thru them all, so I asked for a bag and threw in anything that looked vaguely interesting with the intention of picking out my 20 favorites. I set the bag on the counter and kept looking. When I returned, it and some other things were all counted and tied up together and I forgot about my sorting plan. So I came home with 300 more of these things than I intended!

And oh, this lovely beaded fringe!

And I have no idea what this ball fringe could be used for. But I have such FABULOUS memories of my mom's stash of ball fringe when I was a baby. It brings intensely happy, safe, comfortable, fun memories to me because of having it hang on my crib, and being pinned on to my pants when I was pretending to be some animal, and that it was in one of my mom's lower drawers in her sewing room--one than I played in when I was a tiny tot.

SO, now I've got alot of some similar things, but would instead like to swap some of my things for other's things. I've got lots of yarns, some fabrics, notions, doo dads, and of course all of the above.
I'm inviting all bloggers to swap a small-sized priority mail box full of stash goodies with me. If you'd like to do this, please leave a comment (and add a link on your blog if you feel so inclined). I've got lots to share, and am looking forward to broadening my stash. My goal will be to do 20 swaps with folks in 2007. Can I do it?

Goodies!

2007-08-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

Being brand new to Art Quilting and to making time for art in general, my stash of goodies is way too small. However, a few weeks ago my friend Penny took me to a nearby town where there is a fabric store going out of business and everything is 75% off. WOW. Their selection was limited, but I was entranced by their button selection. I came away with 273 buttons.

I put them in little jars: Sparkly Ones, Animal Ones, Vehicle Ones, Hearts, Flowers, Big Ones.

Slowly, I'll create a delightful little stash...

Neighbors are Nearby and Far Away

2007-07-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

Way back in February I had the idea of making a piece that had the houses of several close friends and our house, all linked in some way. I asked the friends for quick photos of their homes, but never got the photos. So the project slipped into the recesses of my mind. It was resurrected this weekend when I read about Deborah's "Homegrown" piece. Something about it stirred my need to do a house piece.

I've also been wanting to try the technique of sewing lots of layers of fabric, then cutting away some layers to reveal others. I've seen this done for abstract forms, but not for concrete forms. I thought I'd give it a try.

I used a pile of Blue and Yellows I had been given, and sewed around the outside edges, then sewed a line for the "ground". Next, I went back and sewed a variety of houses on the fabric:

Next, I cut out the top layer of each of my houses. Teeny tiny scissors are very helpful with this step.

(Note the baby monitor in the upper left of this photo, proving this to be true Nap Art.)

Then I cut each house out a different number of layers so that each house was from a unique fabric.

At first, I poked a hole in the middle and then cut diagonally to cut the house out. But then I realized I was able to start at a corner, and cut neatly around the edge, and then I had a perfect little house to use in another project. Can you say Series! ;)

Then, I went back in and sewed unique elements on each house--doors, windows, roofs, etc, and cut them out. This step could be done before the original cuts were made if you were a more organized, plan-it-out artist than I am.

And then, when the houses were done, I cut out all the layers of fabric on the top of the piece to reveal the night sky fabric that was the base for all of it. (This also gave me some wonderful Series Starters you can see if the top right of the above photo.)

I then added some flowers to the foreground and one house, and added a word on each house "Neighbors are nearby & far away" (note: must find better pens that Sharpies).

I cut the batting a bit smaller, fused it to the front, fused it to the backing, cut to size, and zigzagged around the edges.
And I even added the rod pocket.

A Completed Project. Yippee! (Sorry, no good photos of it. I'll try again and post something later.)

Felting so easy a preschooler can do it

2007-07-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

I may not be any good at felting soap, but I can do Ziplock Felt. It's a breeze, is really, fun, and I need to find a way to use the felt before my house gets overrun with small felted pieces. ;)

Here's how to do it:

Step 1: Take a 6 inch piece of wool roving. Pull it sideways so it thins out to about square, or maybe 4X6. Place it flat on a table.
Step 2: Repeat step 1, placing it perpendicularlly on top of the first piece (bottom fibers go north/south; next layer fibers go east/west)
Step 3: Repeat again.
Step 4: Using colored roving, pull off dime-sized pieces and place on wool to make design

Step 5: Carefully put wool into a ziplock bag. Add around 1/2 cup of hot water with 1/2 t dish soap (like Dawn). Squeeze all the air out and zip up.

At this point, you can finish now, or just leave it and do the squishing part anytime over the next few weeks.

Step 6: Roll up one way, squish squish squish.
Roll up another way, squish squish squish.
Kneed the felt however you feel like doing it, but make sure the wool all stays in it's flat original layers--don't let it fold over itself or the fold will be felted into it and you won't be able to get it out.

You can make a bunch of these little baggies, and keep them in the car to play with on car trips, or in your purse if you get caught in a boring meeting or a long line. FUN!

Any time you'd like to check it, just open the ziplock and feel the fabric. If it's all bonded together, you're done. If not, get the air out, close up the bag, and keep squooshing.
It will get firmer and firmer (and smaller and smaller) the longer you felt it.

When it's felted, take it out, rinse, and let dry.
Ta-Da!

What?! It's NOT all about ME?!

2007-07-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

I made a conscious choice to find/allow others to hang the big wheat and water pieces I did with Jo, Anne, and Sara. I thought it would be very stressful for me to Try To Make It Perfect.

I didn't realize how stressful it would be for me to see something VERY different from what I had envisioned. The hangers did a great job with the parameters they had to work in. And I'm very glad I wasn't there for the hanging-- I would have gone all Control Freak, I'm sure.

I imagined the wheat pieces hanging from dowels from the drop ceiling so that you could see both sides, they would move in the breeze, and the would create a feeling of openness but also define the space. It would be a lovely worship area unbesmurched by anything else.

However, I didn't know that several others were also working on schemes to transform the space. And I'd forgotten that the same space was also going to be used for the program and for displays for a variety of different groups.
Thus, we get:

A plastic banner and an Episcopal Flag flanking The Art, with a hard plastic sign slapped right on top of it. Oh, the horror. (Get over it, Helen!)

And if you look to the right of the water in the picture below, you can see part of the Wall-O-Tee-Shirts that someone else had made to transform the space. And the pole for lighting just in front of one of the wheat pieces.

But then look here. This looks fine. (I still would have prefered to get rid of that heavy black curtain. But not bad...)

Oh, do we ever really learn that it's not All About Us?

8 floor to ceiling Wheat Pieces

2007-07-21T09:36:00.000-07:00

To transform a basement dining hall into a worship space, I thought some hangings would help. I decided to do 4 pairs of wheat in different stages of growth, from new green shoots to ripe golden harvest. Also, these hopefully will be saved and reused in different venues, so decided to paint both side of the fabric so that they will be equally attractive from any direction.

First, lay out your fabric on the grass so you can see all of your work at once. Then, if you're lucky, enlist friends. Thanks, Jo (below), Anne (2 below), and Sara (in River post).

Working on cardboard is easier and will give you more what you expect. Working on grass may create some unusual movement of the paint which may or may not be desired.

We mixed yellow and orange for the harvest wheat and did them, then added much more yellow for the pair that comes earlier in the season. Then we started afresh with light green for the first wheat pair, and then mixed moss green and light green for the next set.

When the first side is dry (or mostly dry), flip over. Much of the paint will have seeped through. Use that as a guideline to repeat the pattern on the back side.

If you are also creating rivers or some other motif, you may want to add a touch of that motif to your hangings. (See water in the corner of the photo below.) Let dry.

Once dry, iron and add 4 inch rod pockets. (Thanks, Susan.) Because these are such big pieces, and the raw silk gives it a rough feel, I didn't hem or turn under and think they look just fine.

How to Make a River

2007-07-21T09:23:00.000-07:00

Pre-wash your long swaths of fabric, even if they are PFD (Prepared for Dyeing). There is still a lot of goop to get off of PFD fabric. I used 2 12-yard lengths and 2 18-yard lengths.
Prepare your dye. I used Setacolor, and used about 1 part dye to 5 or 6 parts water for this first wash. (Then about 1:1 for the accent colors.)

Using gloves, dip each section of the cloth into the dye. Dip a section, then pull it out of the dye, wrap undyed fabric around it and squeeze to get the excess dye into the undyed fabric. Having white patches is OK.

Lay out the fabric. Natural wrinkling will occur. Since Setacolor is photosensitive, the wrinkles will be lighter in color than where the fabric is flat. This makes for great water! I chose to lay the fabric in the shade so that the contrasts would be subtle (also I have a shady yard!)

Add bits of complimentary colors. My base color was Turquoise. I brushed on bits of Emerald and Cobalt with a 4 inch paintbrush. Pushing hard on the brush made interesting variations from the grass and rocks underneath the fabric.

Finally, sprinkle salt onto the wet fabric. This is a great addition to give it a watery look.

I added fish while the fabric was still wet. They looked AMAZING for the first 15 minutes, then began to bleed. What I Learned: Add fish after the fabric is dry.

Pay it Forward

2007-07-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

It's 1:00 am and I'm blogsurfing because tonight I'm the Parent On Duty for our current Child Who Doesn't Like to Sleep Before 2am. I came across a neat idea on Terry's blog.

So I'm going to Pay it Forward, too. I'm adding a caveat for mine--this will be for the first 3 people who have never left a comment on my blog (Deborah and Jo, if you'd like something, just ask!).
Here are the rest of the rules:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week… LOL… but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

And HEY! The baby's sleepy! Goodnight.

SoulFire

2007-07-17T12:39:00.001-07:00

I have a wonderful friend who has the gift and the ability to be a fabulous hostess. She has given me use of her guest house on a couple of occasions now so that I can lead retreats there. She is also really digging into her spiritual life and exploding with all sorts of amazing insights and growth. Something she has recently discovered is her fire, both physically and metaphorically. So I wanted to make her something for the wall where she does her spiritual work.

I used these strips of color to symbolize the bits and pieces she brought together that formed the basis for her firey spiritual work. As the pieces were gathered, they grew.

Next, I placed the fire on a stary background. The background is quilted in 2 inch squares. This symbolized the straight and narrow background she came from before digging into her spiritual work. Up close, you can see that there is puckering and pulling (ie, this isn't the way things were meant to be).

And then, the fire begins! This is the first time I have used metalic thread, and I had SUCH FUN creating the licking fire. I really like the way the fire quilting turned out. I felt like I could create thread flames all day!

Dyeing fabric, take 1

2007-07-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

I have never dyed fabric before. Actually, I am trying to paint raw silk using Setasilk from Darma Trading Co.
And this isn't just for fun in my spare time. Somehow I volunteered to paint 50 yards of it to use this weekend to change an old dining hall into a worship/gathering space. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!
Deep Breath.
OK. First things first, we should do some testing, right?
Alright. Let's start with one yard of raw silk (actually 1 yard washed and 1 yard unwashed so that I can decide whether it's really necessary to wash the other 48 yards).

Next, gather the rest of the supplies: Thinned paint, paint brush, gloves, cut outs for sun printing...

Paint fabric. Place in sun. Place cut-outs on top of fabric. Paint will leave the covered areas leaving white underneath the cutouts.

Wait.

After it is dry, take off the cutouts and...Ta Don't...sigh. That didn't work very well.
Back to the drawing board.

Learnings II: Just wait

2007-07-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

A week or to ago, I posted about how I had ruined a nice little piece from Melody's workshop. Here it is:

Not so bad after all. Not a $750 collecter's item. But it would make a dandy coaster (for an oblong glass...)

Ironically, the same thing happened with my dog this last week. On the afternoon of the 4th of July, Roxanne began shaking as if she were incredibly afraid, wasn't able to control her limbs well, was jumping over imaginary things, listing to one side, and couldn't make eye contact.

I took her to the emergency vet and he thought poisoning, but gave her about 6 shots to cover many different things. Said she should probably be fine in 24 hours. She was better the next day, but all weekend she still would walk away from being petted, ignored food dropped from the table, did't wag her tail AT ALL for 4 days, and left a spot of pee every time she got up from laying down.

I made an appointment with our vet on Monday, fearing that there was no hope and I would have to find out more about euthaniasia and would have some really hard decisions to make in the near future. But when I got home to take her to the vet, she wagged at me and came over for a petting. I got her leash, and she about pulled me out of the door. She gobbled up cheerios from the car seat. My dog was back!
The vet said it was probably a Doggie Stroke, which textbooks say don't happen but he sees a couple of times per month. And she should make a full recovery.

Waiting is good.

Triangles (Not)

2007-07-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, both boys were asleep and my husband and I had a few free moments. He had the Tour de France on in the background, and I thought that I could do a few quick studies just to get my juices flowing.

I pulled out my fabric scraps and was draw to these three triangles:

I thought it'll be a nice exercise to come up with a quickie quilt using them. Here is what I came up with:

OK. Now I've got that out of my system, I'll Use Those Triangles. I was composing and talking to my husband about the Tour and watching snippets and came up with this:

I like it! Maybe it will be the first in a Tour series.
Now that I've got the basic fabric placed, where should I go from here? Do I need to add more elements? (I sort of like the simplicity...) Ideas on quilting? beading? or just let it be simple?
hmmm...

Felted Soap

2007-07-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

We had young and old house guests this weekend. A whie ago, I learned how to make felted soap and thought that would be a fun project for the kiddos. So my brother-in-law, 3 kids, and I got the supplies ready: A bowl of water, a bar of soap, and feltable wool (from rough sheep not smooth alpaca).
To felt soap, you simply gently rub a thin layer of wool onto the soap, moisten with water, and continue gently rubbing until it becomes felted (you'll feel it go from furry to firm). When that has happened, you add another layer of wool perpendicular to the first and repeat.

After you've built up several layers of the felt and there are no empty spots, you can add colored wool to make a wonderful design.

Here's my brother-in-law's soap. He and one of the children are natural felters. The other 2 kids were a little young (3 and 4 vs 6). And I am sad to say that although I've tried several times, I am a horrible felter! I'm not sure whether it is that I'm too impatient, or I'm rubbing to hard, or what. I'm just no good at it. However, I LOVE the idea of it, so will continue to invite others to do it and be humbled at this thing I can't quite master.
Oh! And when it's all done, you simply wash your hands or body like normal with the felted soap. And as the soap shrinks, so does the felt. When the soap is gone, they say you'll just be left with a little felt ball for your kids to play with in the bath, or to play with in the park, or to slice thru to make buttons or flowers or do any number of things with. Our felted soap is still 98.3% of it's original size, so I can't speak from experience about this, but I'm looking forward to playing with the felt ball in the kid's bath.

Learnings

2007-06-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Sigh. This was such a delightful little piece when I brought it home from the workshop. I sat with it for a while and decided it didn't need any quilting or embellishment. So I was simply going to do the Pillowcasing backing technique that Melody taught us in her class. But UG! I forgot how much you lose to seam allowance. Sigh. Now it's a Learning Experience rather than a Piece of Art.
Oh, well.

Melody Class: The Rest of the Story

2007-06-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

There were a few in the class that were calling me "Miss Productivity" and other names. They didn't quite understand what an incredible blessing and rarity it was for me to have uninterrupted hours to do art. I had a grand time, learned some useful things, and look forward to many more workshops in the future.

Melody Class: Day 1 afternoon

2007-06-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

I was having a great time, and put together piece after piece. Melody was very helpful (and gentle) with her comments. She looked at my first piece (photo 1), and helped me understand that there were way too many things going on in it--too many elements. So I CUT IT UP and started again (photo 2). Most of the pieces from the first piece became elements of other quilts during the 2-day session.
When I had a hard time understanding how she built a background, Melody came right in and started re-organizing my fabric and together we made a fantastic background (photo 3). This piece is now complete and hanging in my office at work, as a reminder of my artistic side and the joy of collaboration.

Melody Class: Day 1

2007-06-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

Melody's class began with a slide show and a story about her art. It was great, and the class asked tons of questions. She talked not only about her success, but also about the times everything wasn't working for her. I find it so valuable when people will share the things that don't work, the hard times, etc. In some ways, that's almost more helpful than sharing successes.

After that, we each got to choose 2 fabulous vibrantly dyed fabrics, iron on WonderUnder, and start cutting. The fabric was so beautiful many of us had a hard time cutting it. But I realized it was beautiful but useless until you cut it up. So my rotary cutter sprung to life and zip-zip-zip I had a pile of beautiful pieces all ready for play.

How I Decided to Attend QSDS

2007-06-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

My husband gave me the best Christmas gift ever last year. It was for 8 hours per week. I couldn't use them for sleeping or cleaning or working. I could use them for my art, or working out, or anything that renews me. AMAZING!

We haven't been able to get a regular schedule for these hours. Often I get 2-5 hours per week in. So I decided to make up for my deficit by attending a weekend class at QSDS in nearby Columbus. I looked over their course schedule and had a few classes I thought I'd like to take and asked advice from a couple of art quilt friends including my oldest friend Deborah

Clearly, Melody's class was the one to take. Her vibrant colors just sang to me!

So my husband had Kid Duty all weekend (except for a lunchtime visit each day), and I got to PLAY!!

The Original Nap Art

2007-06-19T12:44:00.001-07:00

Here is the original Nap Art. One Saturday, Luke was napping and Charlie was watching TV, so I thought that I could slip in a quick piece of art. After just a few minutes in my studio, Charlie decided what I was doing was more interesting than TV and begged to help. So we worked together.
We used a photo of a sunflower from a birthday card my sister Joyce had sent as a basis for our art. I did 2 of mine, and then we did one for Charlie. I actually kind of like Charlie's better!
It's just a simple fused piece. And we really did get them done before Luke got up from his nap.
Success!

Cloth Paper Scissors Recipe Card Challenge

2007-06-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

I entered my first challenge/swap this spring. The goal was to take a 4X6 recipe and embellish it. It must include floaters, and must be encased in vinyl. I wrote my very best cookie recipe on bits of fabric, and the directions on other bits of fabric. And then on the back side, I beaded a cooling rack and made little fabric cookies as the floaters. It wasn't very professional-looking, but it was a lot of fun. And the recipe is so good it will make up what is missing in artistic finesse.

Farm Jackets

2007-06-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

This spring, Susan G taught me how to make a jacket using a sweatshit as the base. Actually, we began about a year ago and I finally finished this spring.

I began the jacket for Charlie, then had Luke and decided he needed something as well so quickly threw together the little vest in one evening. I made them to wear as their Speical Easter Outfits. However, they ended up with colds and staying home from Easter services. Oh, well! It's the process that matters.

Photo Pillow

2007-06-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

When I moved to Ohio, I tried to start a "Quilties" group, women who were interested in quilts and may or may not actively quilt. One of the things the Quilties did was to learn how to make these fantastic photo pillows. They would be great as prayer pillows for someone who is sick or lonely!
I made this pillow for Charlie's godparents. It is of their daughter and her namesake, her great-grandmother. The daughter loved it, and the grandmother who came to visit from Greece loved it just as much.

First Art Quilt Class: Pizza Postcards

2007-06-19T12:26:00.001-07:00

Here are photos from my Very First art quilt class, a one-evening course taught by Jo Rice. She's got such great style, flare, and a great can-do attitude. It's wonderful to be doing art around her!