Friday Favorites

This is the third time I have started this post.  Blogspot doesn't seem to like it very well.  We'll see if I make it this time!

First, remember last week when I decided I was not playing enough?  Well, Margaret agrees that playing is important.  So, before I talk about my favorites for the week, let me tell you a bit about my play for the last week.

I tried out Katie's direction for making a fabric stash string.  Below is a picture of two small balls of string that I made.  It is easy to make and I was surprised at how little ugly fabric it took to make a loooong string.  I had kinda hoped it would use up my stash of ugly fabric faster. 

After making some more I plan to use the string to play in Chapter 4 "Continuous Lengths" of Janet Edmonds's book Three-Dimensional Embroidery.  I am really looking forward to that.  Maybe I will make something that looks like Penny's bowl of beads or Karen's.  I even have fabric beads waiting to grace the right bowl.

When I first started making the string I thought I would couch with it.  I bought a new book from Interweave Press on Couching.  I will probably do that in the future but the current string won't go well with the current couching experiment as seen below.  This started out as a failed monoprint.  Now with the addition of some stitching and some couching it might actually turn into something.  It is not finished but has some hope now.

And I probably have not done anything to this painted fusible piece since I showed it to you last but it was lost for over a week and I am thrilled it is found again.  While I was waiting for it to turn up, I watched Linda and Laura Kemshall's Design Matters TV.  I watched the episode on painting fusible.  Was nice to know I did it correctly.  My year's subscription to the show is my dear husband's birthday present to me.

Friday Favorites

Jill at The Quilt Rat shows off her discharged moth with a new crazy quilt technique she learned from Bev White.  Remember Jill's post where she showed us how to make that discharged moth?  I had forgotten it so I was glad to see the moth again.  Beth, Rosalita, Kathy, how about we play like this next time we get together?


Arlee at Albedo---Chronicles of Concupiscientia Oculorum shares a mini embroidery tutorial on making a raised buttonhole stitch.  Haven't tried it yet but I think it will look lovely with my hand dyed pearl cotton on my heart of steel series.  I included this posting by Deb at More Whiffs, Glimmers, and Left Oeuvres because of its relatedness to embroidery.  Deb says that she can do fancy stitches but rarely does anymore.  I find that the same in my work.  I want the embroidery to add to the quilt but not take it over.  I think her little crosses would fit the bill. And I think that Deepa's knotted chain stitch variation might find its way into my work too.  The more open variation feels too fancy and frou frou but I like the elongated stitch variation a lot!


Sherrilynn Wood at Daintytime has started a tutorial on making a crazy type quilt she calls a Mini Keepsake. She has several tutorials for it but my favorites so far are the one on piecing curves and the one on fitting together the pieces like a puzzle.  Those tend to be the hardest part of improvisational piecing for me.


Okay, my play for this coming week has been inspired.  I hope yours has too!

Drawing Class Update and Friday Favorites

 Drawing Class
I am really psyched!  For my drawing class, each student needs to choose an artist for a class presentation.  I checked with my instructor about choosing a modern, living, fabric artist and she approved.  I chose Elizabeth Barton for several reasons.  Primarily I suppose, I really like her work.  But just as important I think is that she writes a really good blog.  She has many posts that show her work from the beginning photograph, to her drawings from the photo, and then to the finished quilt. And it is not just the pictures but she talks about her thinking process along the way, stuff like why she emphasized this and not that.  Lastly, I chose her because her use of drawing to turn the 3-D world into a 2-D quilt is my reason for taking a drawing class.  Seemed like a good fit to me.

Anyway, I am psyched because I wrote Elizabeth Barton and she sent me an email back.  I was concerned that the only way I could do the class presentation was to capture pictures from her blog and website.  Would that violate copyright?  I was not sure so I thought, better safe than sorry, and I emailed her for permission.  ***fingers crossed***  She said "yes!"  Woot!

Friday Favorites
Module 5 of Sharon B’s Stitch Worksheets are ready and, for a short time only, are for sale at half price. This module of instruction for hand embroidery includes 17 stitches, most of which I don't recognize. Fortunately, if you need some of the basic stitches in order to understand these more advanced stitches, she has FREE links to the introductory stitches at the bottom of the post.  And if you need some more embroidery thread, this site is giving away 3 free skeins.

Some people like this kind and some people like that kind of fusing material.  Laura weights in with her opinion.  Sounds like WU WU is her mostest favorite although she does talk about different material/techniques have different requirements.

Carol Sloan at the Sketchbook Challenge gives us a little tutorial on how to paint/draw a tree.  A pine tree actually.  Hers turned out looking pretty good.  I will give it a try but will use my fabric gel pen and Inktense pencils on fabric whether than water colors on paper.

In case you have not yet tried Citra-Solv, here is a tutorial posted by Lyric on the Sketchbook Challenge .  At the end of the tutorial she says you can color the black and white image in a variety of ways.  Here is what I did for the November Challenge of Interpret This!  The quilt started with a picture I transferred using Citra-Solv.

 Thanks for reading!

Friday Favorites

This week I have been finding so many wonderful art quilts that I want to make when I grow up;  I decided to focus mostly on them for my Friday Favorites.  Oh, my friends, how you inspire me!

Jane at Janeville has finished her last piece called Thistles and Rosehips for a nostalgia series.  Look at the layering of fabrics, the use of hand stitching without that taking control of the piece, the uneven edge, the inclusion of machine stitching with purpose, the more detail you see when you get closer.  Yes!  (think of When Harry Met Sally)  Yes! that is what I want my mature work to include.

Check out Beth's moccasins  which are her entry into Volusia:Wrapped in Fiber. Aren't they inspired?!?  I love that they have a message.  Again there is the handwork but  handwork is not the only technique used. They have found objects included on them, applique, painting, and stamping. They would warm my heart as well as my feet.

Quilts from Deb at More Whiffs, Glimmers, & Left Oeuvres could be included in my list of favorites most any day of the week but here with Taken by The Night she spells out a little of her process in putting together her little bits of this and that and turning it into something magical. I need to develop that patience to let things start to speak to me before I start to stitch them in place.

Arlee is another one of my favorite artists and this is why.  Again, see the layering of fabrics, the use of both hand and machine stitching, the playing of the stitching with the rust images without being an echo or over powering them.  Yep.  Good art.

Okay, there are a couple of technique blogs I want to mention here. First is Terry Jarrard-Dimond who gives a mini lesson on value in quilts. Then Gloria Hansen who photographs, photoshops, prints, then burns her images (a woman after my own heart!). And last Jude Hill who produces such magical slow cloth finally gives some short videos showing her process.  YEAH!

If you are interested in following my technique driven blog, And Then We Set It On Fire, now is a good time to sign up as a follower.  Laura has announced we will be playing with Shibori for the month of January.  Time to gather your supplies so you can play with us!

Judith

How much rice is in your bowl?

Here is my entry for the Art for Hunger exhibition in Augusta, November 1-19.  All pieces are for sale for $50.   Size limit was 5 inch squares so the hand dyed black cotton is 5x5.  It has organza circles machine appliqued and hand embroidered "rice."  It is sewn to a mat of high rag content paper and is hung on two chop sticks.

My voice

Artist tend to have a style that is distinctively theirs.  As I have been experimenting this year I have wanted to find something that was distinctively mine.  It does not have to be a brand new technique that no one else has ever done--but wouldn't that be fabulous and make me famous--but it does have to be something that when people see it they will say, "I bet that is jdemilo's" 

So, as I was sitting on the couch adding more handwork to the Center of the Universe I started to realize that I really like doing handwork.  I like that better than heavily encrusting my work with machine quilting or embroidery so that the piece can't even bend.  I like it better than fussily drawing patterns or fusing 12 zillion pieces of fabric to tell a story.  Not that there is anything wrong with those techniques; they just don't sing of me.

I like doing handwork.  I like that it takes me back to my young days as a Merrihand and Gay Note in the Primary where I first learned hand skills.  I like that it is portable.  I like that I can sit beside my husband while I do it.  I like that I can let my mind wonder while my fingers are busy.  I like the feel of my love going into each stitch as I work.

I don't want to be an embroiderer like my grandmother and follow other people's patterns or even like the quilters of old with their crazy quilt where embroidery was added just for the sake of more stuff.  I want the handwork to tell a story of its own in harmony with the fabric.  Fabric that I have designed with all my new surface design skills.

I am so excited to be adding my new surface design skills to my old skills and singing a song that is all me--my past, my present, and now I think my future too.