Desert Moonrise...

In the new Quilting Arts this month there is an article entitled, "Creating with Silk - Painted & Beaded Trees by Betty Busby. I loved one of the silk paintings she did and decided to try something similar.

Because I don't have any sheer white silk, I did my painting on sheer white muslin and painted with watered down acrylic paint. My focus on this piece was to try a new stitching technique.

Instead of threadpainting and following the contours of the elements in the picture which is what I typically do in my Neocolor pieces, most of my stitching was done with a horizontal orientation - to create strata in the earth and the mountains and layers in the sky. I used a very light stabilizer to back this to avoid puckering while stitching. I will now apply a piece of batik fabric to the back to finish it off.  Not sure what I'm going to make with it yet.  But it will make a nice textile for some use.

With the duration of girl's weekend coming to a close, after church, Sabrina and I are both spending the remainder of the weekend in the studio. She, organizing and packing up her art supplies for her classes next week, and I plan on doing some more painting from some of my "own" photographs this time. I want to try this again. I learned so much from my first go at it.

I do believe I felt a taste of Autumn in the air this morning when I let the corgis out at 6:00 a.m. Not as humid and a bit of breeze. North Carolina weather says it's only going up to about 69 tomorrow.

Come on Fall - I am soooo ready!!

Sunday's Stitches - May 2

Remember the colorful little Neocolor piece I was working on last week? THAT is what I decided to use for my Sunday's Stitches project this week.

Before I started stitching it, I ironed it on the HOTTEST setting for a few minutes to set the color. I couldn't wait to get started on this as it is so colorful and would give me a chance to use some of the yummy thread that I recently purchased from ThreadArt.

Originally I was going to hand stitch this, but I decided to free motion it instead and maybe do some hand beading in the end.

Good choice.

When I painted this piece, I deliberately painted flowers in separate "sections" as I knew I was going to cut this all up and use the different sections for different things. I like doing that - cutting stuff up and then doing something different with the pieces.

One section has tulips, another has some sun- flowers, one section has a giant sunflower and then I did some Gerbera Daisies. I still have to finish those daisies.

At this point I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with all of these pieces, but I think a few postcards, at least one AECO, and one or two other small things.

I'm always sorry that I didn't make the Neocolor piece bigger. This is the second or third time I've done a Neocolor piece and wished I did it about twice the size.

Neocolors are hands down my favorite medium to work with and I've only scratched the surface with these. It stung a bit when I bought them 'cause they are a bit pricey - I paid over $100 for my set (I think they're around $160 for a set of 84) but they are worth every penny and I love love love them.

As for the free motion, I've got a long way to go - but I can see my stitching getting better every day.

Painting and stitching together - how cool is that. The ultimate form of self expression!

What do you have on your drawing table, sewing table, cutting table, long arm, short arm, or workbench??? And what is YOUR favorite art/sewing/painting supply?



Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live.

Van Gogh Iris Slice Quilt - Continued.....

It's been a while, I know. You may recall, I participated in a group project wherein we each selected an image, sliced it up into five pieces and handed out one piece to each artist to interpret. I received all the pieces back months ago, got frustrated with this and put it aside. (You can click here to see the history and beginning's of my Van Gogh Iris art quilt slice project.)

I've had a hard time getting the pieces to fit together properly and just put it away for a while. Well, I got it back out this past weekend and am bound and determined to complete it. The pieces have now been stitched together and I am in the process of adding painted details to unify the pieces. Once I finish the painting process, I plan on adding some beads and hand stitching. I may or may not add machine quilting/stitching, depending upon how my hand stitching comes out. I'd love to just do the rest of this all by hand.

I'm so glad I brought this back out. I'd like to get this finished and maybe get it in to Symposium. We'll see.

Updates.....

It's been a hot and stormy few days off and on. I love stormy weather -- the thunder, the lightning, the wind -- very inspiring. When it's not raining, it's too hot to be outside, so I've been inside working on two projects this week: 1) some hand stitching on Starry Night... (note to self: do NOT use medium when painting on needlepoint canvas which will later be stitched. It makes for a very painful %(%)$(#**! experience for my fingers -- pushing the needle through the stiffened canvas); and 2) I also began working on a new art slice quilt last week.

This is my "slice" of the still life picture that one of our cyberbee members selected as her art quilt:

I apologize for not knowing the artists name who painted this still life.

Step 1 - I selected a nice textural piece of burlap for the foundation. With a wash of medium, it takes acrylic paint well. I laid on the first round of color on the burlap, as well as painted some detail on the hand dyed orange circles I cut out.

I satin stitched (with orange rayon thread) 3/4 of each orange down (after careful positioning), and then stuffed the oranges with batting for dimension. I didn't like how the batting looked (too lumpy) so I got out some of my loose wool and used that. The wool is able to be pulled into fine tufts so it contoured very nicely. I then finished stitching the oranges. This was harder than it sounds. I did think to cut the oranges a little larger to make up for the mounding, however I had a few distortion problems because the fabric was painted -- but I think I worked those out.

The nature of this still life is a bowl of oranges with some loose oranges setting on a white tablecloth - with LOTS of shadows. I painted the tablecloth and shadows on the right side, but wanted to add a bit more texture and dimension by actually adding some fabric that I dipped in uva and water with a little starch, shaped it into the folds, gently stuck pins straight down to maintain it's shape while it air dried. Now I'm going to go back in and paint in the shadows, add more detail to the oranges and background and I'll be done. (click on this one to enlarge)

This slice quilt is particularly challenging for me I think in part because of it's simplicity, and in part because I'm just not crazy about working "still life" art. I feel I need to be too precise - and there really isn't much room for error, or to fudge with embellishment or thread-painting. In my opinion, in order for this particularly slice quilt to be successful -- the colors will needed to be matched right on to do it justice.

I should finish this today or tomorrow and will post a side by side comparison when done. We will be presenting Jean with her slices this Saturday at our quarterly meeting. After that -- there's one left to go - a poster of a "woody" car and surfboard which should be a fun challenge, as well.

As I mentioned, I've also been doing some stitching on my Van Gogh, Starry Night.

I haven't really experimented much with embroidery or hand stitching -- so I didn't really have many supplies. Sabrina has a nice collection of embroidery floss -- and I sorted through that and then stopped up at a local shop The Lazy Daisy which has an incredible selection of cotton, silk, rayon, organic, hand dyed, and every color you can imagine of flosses and threads -- and picked up a few additional colors and needles. So far so good with this and I can see where this project can take on a life of its own! I'll keep you posted.

I've been around the last week to visit a few of you and will continue to make my rounds as I have a lot of catching up to do. I am enjoying all the eye candy out there and reading about what's been going on. I've been trying to post my vacation "slide show" but the third party that "hosts" this engine is not working properly -- so hopefully it will be up later in the week.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.