More This ‘N That…

Last week I was playing around with some ideas for new art. I painted some construction fence designs to have cloth to use. I actually found that painting the cloth with fabric paints was rather therapeutic. I enjoyed doing it, although I don’t know if I would have the patience to do all my work this way. Painting a stenciled design is slow going at best. Here is the progression of the cloth.

Then I wrote quotes about fences on it.

I also started some new small pieces for the art fair coming up in December.  Free form piecing was the technique of choice and using scraps of fabric in the same color scheme made sense.  I could sit and do free form piecing all day long. I used leftover fabrics from a larger piece I did earlier in the year for a show. Funny how I pieced with the same colors I painted…

Now, to layer and stitch.  I just laid the mats on them to see what they looked like.

This week I don’t think I’m being nearly as productive, but I do have a couple of rag quilts to work on for a girl from my church.  She wants them for Christmas presents, so I got started cutting all the squares and batting for those yesterday.  Today I am making a flopped recipe for gingerbread squares.  Ah, life.  Tomorrow I am meeting up with a good friend to celebrate her birthday.

Serendipity Printing

I’ve been sickly this week, just a cold, but still had to push on and get some silk scarves dyed and printed for another art festival this weekend.  Starting life as the dropcloth for printing a scarf…I think I see the start of a new piece…I added some more marks to it.

Besides black, I used Dharma’s Greenish Brown color, doubled.  It looks really brown when first printed, but after batching and washing, it looks more olive brown, drab olive, whatever.  I like it.  This is on cotton, not silk.

Dropcloth Art…

It’s not finished!

Bags, Bags, and More Bags…

At least I’m having fun!!!!!

What I’ve Been Doing…

It’s been awhile again since I’ve blogged…I’m getting so lazy!

Update on the Arts Council show…I got a call last Wednesday that I have been awarded an Honorable Mention award…yeah for fiber! Rayna wrote me a nice note and said that this is extra special because this is recognition in an art show.  Thanks, Rayna.

Update on the Runaround Bag…I decided not to go with those antique buttons.  Instead…I think some fun, funky buttons are called for…

I have been dyeing some fabric to replenish my supply.  The multicolored ones sell pretty well for me.  The striped ones were hung on the clothesline and I poured the dye on them.  That was sorta fun if you can keep the dye off your toes…I may do more, mostly because I would like to use them myself.  I also soda soaked some white cotton and hung on the line…and guess what showed up?  The Japanese beatles swarmed the white cotton…go figure…they must like the soda ash.

Last week I prepared some discharged black sateen pieces to sell and to stitch on.

I will be making more of these…”painting” on black cloth with dishwashing gel is too much fun.

More This ‘N That

Woohoo!  I feel like I actually got something done today.  I got a sample bag made, and it went pretty fast.  This is the Runaround Bag by Lazy Girl Designs, made, of course, in my hand dyed fabrics.  One fabric has paintstik designs on it.  I didn’t have a 12 inch zipper to match the fabrics, so making do with the yellow one I did have.  I think it looks just fine…it makes  a yellow stripe.

Front…

Back….with a heart embroidery stitch used as topstitching…

How about some antique buttons added…?

This is a cute pattern and makes up fast.  The finished bag measures 7 1/2″ x 9″. I have patterns for sale.

I am planning what shows I will be attending this fall and what I need to have done as far as samples.  This bag is one sample I wanted to make up.

On another note, I was juried into the annual Working Together exhibit to be on display at the Evansville museum from July 11 to August 28.  This is an Arts Council exhibit. I have shown this piece in another post on this blog.  It is …But Words Will Never Hurt Me (Sticks and Stones). I am happy it will be in this exhibit.

Rust dyed cotton sateen, discharge dyed sateen, screenprinting, stamping, stenciling, cotton thread, handwriting.

Observations Worth Noting…

I love it when interesting discoveries come along.  That’s part of the fun of this artsy lifestyle.  I decided to dye paint a large (1 yd.) piece of fabric for a background a couple of weeks ago.  Normally I would paint with a 2 inch sponge brush, but because of the somewhat daunting size of the cloth, I decided to roll the paint on with a sponge roller.  I used a sturdy metal handled paint roller about 4 inches wide and probably 1.5 inches in diameter.

I was very surprised and pleased with the results.  Using the roller gave the paint on the cloth an unevenness of coverage that I found wonderfully stimulating.  With the large open background the variety of pattern and nuances of colors happened (I think) better with using the roller.  I sprayed water on to help the colors move and blend.  Try it and see what you come up with!

Where Does The Time Go?

Where does the day go?  I got up at 6:30 this morning, didn’t get dressed and immediately went to the sewing machine to finish the quilting on my new Words piece.  Some days I do that.  I stay in my pajamas. I planned on working on this art piece yesterday…but my husband has been rained out of the field since Sunday afternoon and so I never got to touch the quilt.  After he went to bed last night I worked on it, then got the quilting and squaring up done this morning.  I am still adding paint highlights to it, but here is a sneak peak.

It is called “Sticks and Stones…but Words Will Never Hurt Me”.  This is my second one.  Rusted cotton sateen, screened designs with procion dyes, handwriting, stamping, and painting.

Oh yeah, Facebook and Twitter now “demand” my time too.  My Twitter name is Katheeann if anyone wants to follow me. I spend too much time checking them since I am new to them.  I always do that with something new…play with it a lot.  I also got a good deal on a new Sony camera yesterday…I’ll probably play with it a lot too.

After the quilting is finished, now I can move the sewing machine back to my messy workroom.  I set the machine up on the kitchen table to quilt anything larger than a tablerunner because I don’t have the table room in my “studio”.  Now I can clean off the table so my husband doesn’t go crazy.  Not that we eat there…we eat in the living room in front of the tv.  The kitchen table is not needed for much of anything.

I need a whole day to clean up and possibly organize my sewing room.  Maybe tomorrow?  Unless I have to mow grass or go to town or clean the house.

Working…

I finally made up my mind to WORK yesterday, but of course the phone has to ring.  When I am mentally geared to get something done creatively, I simply cannot give my focus away by answering the phone.  I am not wired for that.  And with struggling to get back on a schedule and really wanting to get some work done…I can’t handle interruptions.   Does anyone else feel like this?  I have less than a month before the art fair, and I know how fast that month will go.  Of course… I will have to leave and go to the Paducah quilt show this month too…it’s only for two days…

Anyway, yesterday was a day to explore some new ideas and techniques for me.  Sometimes when I explore I am pleasantly surprised and pleased with the results.  Some days I am not, and then I feel like I have “lost time” because I really want to get something accomplished, but I have no results in order to guage that by.  Does anyone else feel this way?

There were two pieces that had been bugging me…they were mounted on plexiglass, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were “unfinished”.  They actually needed a “framing” look.  So I did play around with some ideas and came up with this.  I think they look better.  I guess at least I got that “done”.

Fragments of a Life #3

Sometimes after not working creatively in my “studio”  for awhile, it can take me some time to get back into the flow.  March was very busy what with traveling, teaching and vending, so there wasn’t much creative time.  But I am ready to get back into it!  I think I did manage to get another piece in a series started.  I did some screening on a piece of rust dyed fabric…no picture as I need to save that back while I do more work on it.

New Work…

Remember a very peaceful red/blue-green piece I was working on a few weeks ago?  Well, I  decided it was too one-dimensional… so I painted a very diluted layer of black paint on it.  I like layers.  It still wasn’t done, so I rolled some white gesso over the black paint.  Too much white streaks..still wasn’t done and didn’t have a name either.  I got out the paintstiks and brought some color back in over those two layers…AND got a name!  Now it’s finished and ready for the Arts Council exhibit.

Weathered Places

I have to say, after working on this piece, Linda and Laura Kemshall’s practice of working everything out on paper first makes a ton of sense.  It got pretty scary adding subsequent layers to this piece after all the quilting was done.  I knew it wasn’t done, so I took the plunge, but it did almost take my breath away and make my heart race.  I haven’t developed the practice of planning ahead of time…that just doesn’t seem to be the way I ‘m working right now, but sometimes I felt like I just had a very close call…