Heat

Here in the Northwest we are experiencing a record breaking heatwave and let me tell you it is hot!

These are Phoenix temperatures not Idaho temperatures. My garden is on a drip system but the plants are really looking stressed. I'm so happy we had central air installed a few years ago. It's about 100 degrees F right now (2:40 pm) and our hottest time of the day is usually between 5 and 6pm, so it's going to get warmer.

I realized today that I never did a blog post last week, I guess I was busier than I thought. It was fiddle week , and I did spend some time volunteering. We also had company for a few days, so I guess those are my excuses for not posting.

The Weekly Leaf
 I took a workshop on Katano sewing machine stitched shibori from Ana Lisa Hedstrom while I was at the SAQA Conference in May. Here are a few of my samples and pictures of her work.

I decided to try and do leaves with this technique, my leaves look nothing like the designs she gets but I'm finding them usable and I learned some things that I need to improve on.
This is my pile of samples after dying but before removing the stitches.

After the stitches have been removed and the fabric ironed.

 The smaller samples are the ones that are the correct size for my weekly leaf, so this is the one I used.

Week #25

More of these may show up as the year progresses.

Week #26
This week I did a blueprint with a couple of leaves I had picked up after a bit of a wind.

In the sun.

 Before rinsing.

Dried and ironed.

Week #26

Daily Stitching updates

Silk Fragments #170-#180

Sari Ribbon #98-#108

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

One more road trip

We've returned from one more road trip, at least three more to go this summer. It seems we are either home all the time or gone all the time. This past trip was to visit two of our kids and their families, one with a new home and the other with a high school graduate. It was fun but it's feels really good to be home. Now if I could settle in for a bit and get something new started I'd be happy. So far my daily and weeklies are all I've accomplished.

The Weekly Leaf

This week I used the gelli plate, a stencil from Stencil Girl and Jacquards textile paint. The paint was rolled onto the gelli plate with a brayer and then the stencil placed on top.

A piece of scrap fabric was used to pickup the paint in the open areas, then the stencil was removed and I printed what was left on the gelli plate onto the fabric.

Week #24

This is how the first 24 for this year look.

Daily Stitching updates

Silk Fragments #162-#169

Sari Ribbon #90-#97

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

Playing

I'm going thru one of those times when I want to start something new, yet don't know what. I have several ideas in my head, scribbled on scraps of paper and even in a sketchbook, but nothing is gelling. I've been pulling out fabric for each idea, or figuring out what fabric to dye and then just not feeling it. Yesterday I pulled out the back and white mono prints that were done in early March, squared each one up and then cut them into quarters.

Then tossed them up on the design wall, first in a very boring pattern, but at least I got them up there.

Then I started playing with them and forgot to take pictures, but this was how I left it.

More interesting but it still needs some tweaking. I'll be gone for about five days so it will probably stay this way and wait for me to return.

Dell Thomas purchased my auction piece at the SAQA conference and has it on her blog, this week.

The Weekly Leaf
This week I used another one of my SolarFast prints made with Jacquards negative generator . Here's the negative that I used.

Then I spread the SolarFast onto a piece of hand dyed fabric, placed the negative on the fabric, let it sit in the sun for about twelve minutes, and here's the results. The picture was taken after I started stitching.

Week #23

Daily Stitching updates

Silk Fragments #156-#161

Sari Ribbon #84-#89

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

I don't have a lot to show again this week. I have finished quilting a stack of donation quilts and have one more ready to go.

The Weekly Leaf

While we were on our trip a couple of weeks ago I picked up a leaf that was  different than what I find at home. I traced the leaf with pencil, then placed the tracing face down onto a rubber block and rubbed on the backside of the tracing to transfer the marks to the rubber.

Used both an exacto knife and a small proved linoleum cutter.

Tested the stamp on scrap fabric and paper.

Mixed a few colors of paint together to get the color I wanted and stamped onto my fabric.

Week #22

Daily Stitching projects

Silk Fragments #149-#155

Sari Ribbon #77-#83

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"