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.

Yellow Challenge

My latest challenge is to make a yellow quilt. I’m not overly fond of yellow and have been dragging my heels but a day or so ago I ran across this yellow retro butterfly print in my stash and began to wonder if I could do something with it. The butterflies are huge, like –  8″ x 11″.

Yesterday, while at the Quilt Sampler shop in Springfield, MO I saw this batik and said to myself, “YES” and bought it.

Then came home and started pulling out other fabrics. I think I can make this all work together. and it just might be fun. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Stay tuned.

Eco-dyeing via India Flint

After reading Eco Dyeing by India Flint and since I live out in the country of the Ozarks, I’ve become interested in what colors/dyes are available from local plants. Here is my trusty old stainless steel dye pot from my weaving days of dyeing yarns. I’ve place jars of fabric with various plants into a water bath in the pot and boiled it for many minutes. These are the results from yesterday on silk.

  

Dark, almost black pansies

Red Sumac leaves

Dark purple petunias and orange marigolds.

MAY FLOWERS

Although the weather has not been the greatest, and Spring has been late in coming, it’s been worth waiting for. I have never had more beautiful flowers. I really don’t think I need to say anything, just enjoy.

Winter’s work

You saw each of these block individually as each was finished. Now you see them all together as one. I’m not even going to bother cleaning up this photo ’cause Spring has sprung and there’s too much to be done.  Glad this got finished before work began outside. I should mention that this was made of all scraps, a little cotton, a few silks, and lots of polys. 44″ x 44″. You see some of the stuff that either inspires me or is awaiting use.

And here is what I’m proudest of:  a Jack in the Pulpit that was gifted and planted last fall. Larger than life!

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.

Visual Inspiration in a Farm Supply Store

 

Echinacea

Purple Cone Flowers excite me almost as much as Poppies. Maybe I’m just a flower nut. The latest issue of the Missouri Conservationist has an article stating that there are five species of cone flowers. Which are these?? There is no answer at the bottom ’cause I don’t know! This  big cluster is over by the State Park.

 

 

 

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.

Trip to Joplin

This week included a trip to Joplin to meet other art quilter friends for lunch and to see the traveling SAQA exhibit “Sightlines.” Lunch at the Red Onion was delicious and “Sightlines” at Spiva Art Center was exceptional, in my opinion. I would urge you to see it if you can.

On the way home we passed this sidewalk exhibit and couldn’t pass it by without making these two photographs.