Four Yellow Blocks

Since I was tagged on Facebook by Susan Leslie Lumsden to show some of my work every day for five days, it’s made me work. Good show Susan. Caroline S. Daley is the tag for today. Her work is such fun.

Yesterday I showed an old piece. Today I’ll show what I’m currently working on – a yellow quilt which will be a gift for someone who likes yellow. Here are the first four blocks, untrimmed. There will be a total of 16. Yes, it’s certainly YELLOW.  The squares that are off center in each block are from a vintage butterfly fabric. Each butterfly in the fabric is about 8″ square. Much too large so I’ve cut 6″ square out of it getting pieces of butterflies. Looking at them I think they are almost flower like. I’m not overly fond of yellow but I think it’s going to work. I keep trying to tone it down and I can see that one lighter yellow strip it too big so I’ll trim it down. This is a Quilt As You Go project and will have a narrow sashing of a darker, gray-ish color.

Art Challenge Day Two “The Gift”

I’ve been challenged on FaceBook by Susan Leslie Lumsden to show a piece of my work every day for five days. This is day two and I decided to post it on my blog as this is an old favorite that I want to share.  Titled: “The Gift.” When it was made there were advertisements every Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s day for this mixmaster which stated: “Don’t give her just one gift, give her five,” meaning it was a multi-task mixer. Remembering a Christmas when I was newly married, and I didn’t like to cook and didn’t do it well, I received nothing but KITCHEN gifts. What a disappointment. This art piece enshrines the damned thing with a party aporn made of hankies, a shiny metallic halo, and a velvet red roof. Along the bottom are images of a circa 1950’s housewife with her “beloved” mixmaster. Before I forget it, I challenge Ellen Eiford White.

CRYSTAL BRIDGES

We’ve just returned from Crystal Bridges Museum of America Art in Bentonville, Arkansas where we saw the current exhibit “State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now.” It runs to January 19, 2015 and if you are anywhere near northwest Arkansas I urge to see it. Not only is it a fantastic display of current American art showing everything from fiber to film, but the admission is FREE! The following two pics are of the museum.

And being a fiber artist myself, I was particularly drawn to the fiber in the exhibit

 

Jeila Gueramian –  Collected vintage crochet and knitted objects

Gina Phillips – Pieced, painted “quilted” fiber

Adam Eckstrom & Lauren Was – collage of lottery tickets

Miki Baird – cut photo images

Four women studying cut paper with individual typed letters. I forgot to write the artist’s name.

Wild and Crazy is finally fishished

The last couple of weeks have been more than frustrating. I finished the Wild and Crazy quilt and was very proud of it. Laid it out on the bed and thought it looked super; pillows excluded.

Then I washed and dried it to get rid of the cat hair and to puff it up. Oh Woe. The hand dyed red fabric (which had been previously washed) faded on to the narrow white strips making them a dull pinkish-grey.

There is no contrast between the “white” strips and the grey pieces. What I thought was going to be a great quilt was now a disappointing quilt. I tried to get over the disappointment but it was always in the back of my mind. A few days ago, I wondered if the strips could be painted. Not practical. Then I woke up two days ago and said, “Dots.”

So – by dipping a half inch wooden dowel into white fabric paint and touching it to the strip the quilt turned into this.

Detail:

Now, I think I’m happier with the quilt than I was in the beginning.

 

Wild & Crazy, 3 & 4

I’m at it again. Another Quilt As You Go quilt. This one is bigger than the last. Hopefully it will be about 74″ x 74″. I want to keep it and use it on a blond mid-century bed that used to be my Mom’s.  These are numbers 3 & 4 of four made. Five more to go but the rain has finally stopped and I’ve GOT to get out into the garden. Yes, I can sleep under it. The room will be dark and my eyes will be closed.

Printing on Fabric

Just when I think I’m getting smarter in PSE, I perform dumb, dumber, and dumbest things.

I’ve printed on fabric many times, but this time nothing goes right. Gets hung up in the printer, smudges of ink on the sides, etc., etc., etc. I had a small piece of hand dyed gray fabric to print on and messed it up.

See the big smudge on the right? And I had no more hand dyed gray. Once I use a hand dyed fabric, a commercial fabric just doesn’t do the job. What to do? Ah-Ha! I turned the above fabric over and scanned it and put it in PSE. Then I scanned my drawing of the trees on tracing paper and put that image into PSE  on a transparent background. Then – moved the trees onto of the scanned gray background and printed it on a paper backed silk purchased from Dharma Trading Co.

The background is a little lighter but I can live with it. And if you look very closely you can see the trees that were on the back.

I also wanted to use an image that I saw on the internet. I asked the photographer for permission but got no answer. So I altered the image by putting my head of “her” body. That wasn’t so hard, but every time I printed the image there was something wrong. Too green, too big, too small, too something, Took nine tries to get it right.

Wish I were really that slim.

Spring Fling 12 x 12 Challenge

Here is the last 12 x 12 challenge. It was titled “Spring Fling.” My inspiration was a photo taken at Jamie and Natascha’s wedding rehearsal three years ago by their friend, Yevette.

In Spring A Young Man’s Fancy Turns To Love

It was a lovely wedding.

Favorite tree

The Uncommon Threads art quilt group’s latest challenge is “My Favorite Tree.” At first I found that trying to limit myself to just one tree was very hard, but as I reviewed some of my old photographs I realized that I really do have a favorite. Or did. A Wahoo tree (Euonymus atropurpureus), native to this area. The tree starts in the Spring with green leaves first, then flowers with rather insignificant small brown flowers and in the fall it’s foliage is red and gold with little red pods opening to red berries. In the winter we used to see a flock of Cedar Wax Wing birds feast and strip it of the berries in just a few hours.

In 2009 we were hit with a terrible ice storm in which you could literally hear tree limbs cracking and breaking and falling. It was a terrible two days. When it was all over the beautiful little Wahoo tree in my back yard had “exploded” and all the branches were broken. All that was left was a trunk.

My first attempt was to print a photo image of the Wahoo foliage onto canvas and then fuse another photo image of the broken trunk onto that. I was not particularly thrilled with this so used it for the back.

Next I used a purchased hand dyed fabric on Etsy for the back ground and fused to it a free hand cut out of the trunk in brown fabric. The trunk, branch and berries are embellished with machine embroidery. then quilted with a free hand leaf motif.

 “Boo Hoo Wahoo” 

Lesson learned – don’t quilt through the canvas. The needle leaves holes.  You can see the other members work on our UT blog here. Enjoy.

Yard Art

While wandering around El Dorado Springs last week we stumbled upon this yard art. Anything goes don’t you think?

Slow Progress

Because the weather is so wonderful, the deck is being rebuilt, and the vegetable garden calls, little time is being spent in the studio. “Cover Lovers Askew” has been embellished with a fancy satin stitch and is ready to quilt and there she sits – waiting.