Stitching for Indigo

I've been doing some hand stitched pieces to dye in indigo. All my years of dyeing fabric and I've never done indigo, so it must be time to give it a try. While watching the Olympics I've been stitching circles on various fabrics. The picture shows silk noil that hasn't been gathered yet and some silk habitoi that has been gathered. I just love how the fabric looks with the running stitches in it.

Woven, stapled and rusted has been published

The latest (Spring 2010) issue of Art Quilting Studio magazine, a special publication from Stampington & Company, has a small quilt of mine in it. My artist copy of the magazine came yesterday and I found my quilt way back on page 127. I almost didn't recognize it because the colors are off, the gray looks like blue in the magazine. The instructions I had written, have been revised and are wrong, but I've been published and it goes on the resume. I spent quite a bit of time on the old resume during the past week and now it's brand new and reflects the new me. The quilt hasn't come home yet, I sent it in about a year ago. I've had a few other items published by the same company, I've had scarves in Belle Armoire, a jacket in Altered Couture, and a small piece made of drier lint in Green Craft. They do several different publications and at one time I had subscriptions to a couple of them, but I let them lapse and haven't missed getting them. My taste in magazines has changed also.

A new direction

I've been in San Antonio all week, today's the last day. The piece that I'm standing next to was what I thought of as a vertical piece,but as you can see I'm standing there with my mouth open in awe realizing it looks better horizontal. It's been a good week, I feel much more comfortable with the direction my work is heading and I'm starting to settle into the change, and I've got lots of new ideas.

More circles

These are two more mono-printed circles, I've been having fun doing the mono prints but I still haven't decided what to do next with them. Of course there are a few that didn't come out so well, I have quite a pile of things that haven't made the cut, some I may rework, others become clean up rags.


These two are small, 6" on the left and 5" on the right. I did some minimal stitching on some scraps then used matte gel medium and applied them to canvas boards. They will probably end up being mounted on mat board or a painted canvas. Just something that I wanted to try. All my artwork has been shipped to San Antonio for next weeks class, so I'm feeling a bit lost and am trying to keep busy. I could clean both studios so that I'll have a nice clean slate to start with when I get home from class, but so far that hasn't happened. I leave very early Saturday morning and will be gone for a week. I'll try to take pictures while I'm in class and share them, but no promises.

Fifteen Circles

I'm getting ready to pack these up and send them to San Antonio. As a group they are one of my four pieces that are due. The plan is to hang them as a group, unfortunately I don't have a place to hang them all to take a good picture, so they are laying on a table. My goal was to do positive and negative images using a variety of different techniques. So they include buttons, lutrador(both Black and white), needle felting, stitching, puff paint, fabric fused and fiber etched,flour paste resist, and mono printing. Then they were all stretched over 10" square frames. I enjoyed doing these and have ideas for more.

Another circle

I've been working on finishing up all my pieces for my final assignment in the artcloth mastery class. But took the time to play with some mono-prints. The one above is one of my favorites. The quote in the center is "At the still point,in the center of the circle, one can see the infinite in all things"ChuanTzu. I came across the quote in some reading I was doing and felt that I needed to include it in some of my art work.

Tote Tuesday

Tomorrow will be the start of the fundraising auction Tote Tuesday. All proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society. I've donated some of my hand dyed fabric, rick rack and cheesecloth,to the Have a Heart Tote. Also in the same tote is the book "Digital Essentials" by Gloria Hansen and a piece of collaged artwork. There are many different "Totes" available, all put together by fiber artists. Check them out here. Scroll down to preview and take a peek.