A Little Bit High, A Little Bit Low

Yesterday was a studio day.  Lots and lots of sewing ensued.  Even a little wackiness (Lilo and Stitch on the DVD player, earlier McCartney on the turntable, some Shiva Nata in between to loosen up and calm down).

Butter and Egg Road, still in process, the photo print and the fence sewn in place.

A view of the printed out journal page, embellished with machine embroidery.

Detail of the stitching on the image.  I outline stitched the main images once the piece was sewn to the quilt base with satin stitch.

The apron sewn down and the piece is complete with the exception of the sleeve and label.  I really like how it turned out.  When I was in college, my watercolor instructor told me “you really like to work high key”.  I am embarrassed to admit, I didn’t know what she meant at the time, but I can see that in this piece.  It’s very pale, with just the hints of reds in the apron and hollyhocks to make it pop.  No embellishment needed.

And now on to the next piece:

“Day of the Cichlid”, machine embroidery with bobbin drawing, and reverse applique.  The piece at the bottom is auditioning.  When it is complete, it will also have cutouts like the top sections.

Detail of the bobbin drawing.  I used crochet thread for those passages.  Looks like this will be another high key piece.

Back to work, I have circles to cut out!

Moving Right Along

Floral Medley is complete, including sleeve and label (usually the very last thing that gets done, ok well it is always the very last thing but sometimes it is months after the rest of the piece is finished).

Final measurements, 26.5” x 35” (67cm x 89cm)

Now it is on to the next piece

Butter and Egg Road, inspired by the colors at my Mamaw’s house.  The apron was a thrift store treasure, and the hollyhocks are from a journal page that I scanned and printed onto fabric.

I am machine embroidering in the image to add a bit more color and texture.  When that is complete I will either satin stitch it in place or use the black bias tape that I used earlier this year on a different piece.

The Pellon interfacing fence that I’m going to applique onto a piece of off white batik fabric.  This will sit in the lower right of the piece and behind the apron.  I may also apply the apron to a backing piece of fabric, using the same method I did for the doilies on Floral Medley.  This makes it much easier to apply the threadwork to the quilt sandwich, and I’m really happy I stumbled upon this method while working on this set of work.

Back to the studio.  Have a great weekend, y’all!

The Best Part of Waking Up

Is getting to go to the studio and play! 

This piece has been in process for enough years that I don’t remember when I made the yellow base.  I have been purging the studio and came across it, and when I saw the colorful textiles in the Wavy Gravy movie, I knew it needed to be a floral scene.

The butterfly is an extra machine embroidered butterfly left over from the piece I made for The Artful Storybook.  He’s sat in the pile of in process works for two years now.  Doesn’t he look pretty flying above the flowers?

Here’s a detail of the picking process.  I made these fabric yo yos when Izzy was an infant, they come in handy for so many embellishing chores.  The crochet pieces are found objects from second-hand shops.

A different detail of the yo yos set in the center of pieces cut from the white doily.  If you look carefully, you can also see the machine stitched detail on the poppies.  I used crochet thread in the bobbin for that effect.

I chose to back the orange doilies with this African brocade from Becky at St Theresa Textile Trove.  It will help with the contrast against the bright yellows.

And another detail of the doily as finished flower.  I am going to go back in and add some veins in the leaves, either with beads or sequins, once the piece is ready for its final embellishment.  The poppies were sewn separately and beaded separately before being appliqued to the background, and the stems are zigzag stitch done over rattail satin cording for extra dimension.

I love when a piece comes together like this.  Everything here has been in my stash for quite some time, just waiting for the opportunity to be made into art.  The finished piece will be on exhibit at the High Road Gallery in Worthington OH as part of the upcoming FABRICations exhibit.

In Process

I have taken the cardboard bases I showed you last time and have been collaging like mad, using color copies of personal photos and images of my other artwork.  These are still in process, I need to do a final basecoat, I think of gloss varnish, as opposed to my usual matte varnish finish, to help bring out the colors more.  None of them have titles yet, and I may add grommets to the top corners and run colored wire along for display purposes.

All of these measure 5” x 7” or 7” x 5” depending on the orientation of the image.

The photographs are of my daughter.  In the top picture she is wearing a crocheted dress that was made by my grandmother for my mother.  I have a picture of her wearing it, and I’m sure somewhere there’s a photo of me wearing it.  Now it’s back with my mom, who is planning on having it framed in a shadowbox.  The bottom picture is from my Frida Kahlo phase, circa 1988.  I took a lace scarf and some fake flowers from Woolworth’s to make her headdress, and bought real Gerber daisies from Kroger’s. 

More art about art, this piece has a copy of on of my MOO cards.

When you have an interesting embellishing material, consider making copies of it to use in collage.  This leaf is an Indian applique I picked up from Treasures of the Gypsy.  I have a whole sheet of images of these appliques that I use for collage fodder in my journal and on pieces like this.  I also crocheted the little purple flower, but found doilies work as well.

You can tell these are in process because you can see the difference from where I applied the matte gel medium to adhere the images to the cardboard substrate and the original painting.  The background papers are both painted on the contractor’s paper, starting with a layer of gesso first.  I’ve been cutting out stencils in addition to using the Print Gocco fish screen and Speedy Cut stamps.  It’s been fun to put all the different patterns and colors together.

If I can find them, I have some coffee bean beads that would look cool on this piece.  I adhere the three dimensional embellishments using Golden Heavy Gel medium, it’s easier to apply to a specific spot because it’s so thick and it fills in the gaps on the bigger pieces so that it will stick to the surface.

More of the Indian applique copies, a contemporary button and a vintage embroidered applique enhance the copy of the cow quilt I made for myself after my Gran died.  I rarely make pieces that are specifically for me to keep, but this is one of them.  Using the image in this way makes it possible for more people to see/own it, and enables me to keep the original.  It’s kind of like licensing, but I am the one reproducing the image.

More buttons.

The seam in the cardboard really shows up in the photo, but isn’t quite this obvious in the original.  The sunflower charms are fairly dimensional, which is why the heavy gel is good for adhering them.  You can also see more detail of the fish print I talked about earlier.  That’s the yellow paper I showed in a previous blog post.  I am really happy with how it turned out.

I am also working on small canvases, 4” x 4”

On this one I used color copies of an old beadwork to make the landscape.  You recognize our friend Bessie from the earlier images.  I love her little purse and the bird on her shoulder.

Another one using my daughter in the heirloom dress.  The sunflower is an applique left over from the piece I made for The Artful Storybook.  It’s machine embroidery on fabric that is stabilized with Pellon interfacing.

We are all made of stars.

This one is 8” x 6”.  I used some canvas I painted with Setacolour paints as the background for the photocopy.  The star punchouts are from a sheet of scrapbook paper.  The composition was missing something, and it occurred to me that I could use some buttons from my stash to fill in the corners.  This is also when I realized I could embellish the cards.  Sometimes the solution is so obvious, isn’t it?

Is That You Moe Dean?

For that someone special, a little bit of Roswell for a night on the town. Beam me up!