Hands

I have been working on a project featuring my hands for over a year now and have finally finished. I traced my hands on to vintage linens and then filled the outline in with hand embroidery, working around the color wheel. The primary and secondary colors are done on the left hand and the tertiary colors are on the right hand. They were then stitched onto a background of black linen in a circular color wheel format.

The Makers Hands

56" x 57"

Here are each of the individual hands, each is 8" x 10".

Now that I've finished it I'm not even sure I like it. I originally had thought about entering it in a big show or two, but now that feels like a waste of money. Maybe if I step back away from it for a while I'll feel better about it.

The Weekly Leaf

This week I used the flat unmarked part of a styrofoam takeout box. The leaf was lightly traced with a  sharp pencil, leaf removed and then I went over the tracing with more pressure and a duller pencil.

Jacquard textile paint in burnt sienna was rolled onto the plate with a brayer.

The plate was then placed face down over the fabric with pressure applied.

Week #30

Daily stitching updates

Gelli prints #201-207

Shades of orange #128-134

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

A tribute to Yvonne Porcella

A call for entries went out earlier this year to do a tribute piece for Yvonne Porcella, you can read about it here. I rarely make a piece for specific themed shows, but as soon as I read about this I knew what I wanted to do. I was never fortunate enough to meet Yvonne but in 1994 she wrote a book that just lit up my mind, Colors Changing Hue.

I was just starting on my surface design path and totally devoured and tried everything in the book. One of the techniques was burned silk appliqué, I loved the way it looked and did one small piece. At the time I was a machine sewing only kind of gal and although I loved the technique I didn't do any more because it was hand sewing.

Fast forward 22 years and the first thing that came to mind when I saw the call to enter was appliquéd burnt silk. The second thing that came to mind was my memories of autumn in the north east. I already had dyed and painted silk in autumn colors because I've wanted to do an autumn piece since my last trip back there six years ago.

I've been working on this for several weeks, between trips out of town. This past week I finally spent the time to get it done.

Starting with the farthest away hills, all the little tree blobs are silk with burnt edges.

Adding more.

Now some closer trees.

And the finished piece.

Memories of a NE Autumn

Still have to take some good photos, get the sleeve on, a label, write up the tribute and about my inspiration and then get it entered.

The Weekly Leaf
This weeks leaf is from a large ivy vine in Tacoma, WA. I pressed it and brought it home. The print I'm using is actually from the leaf itself, in the photo below you can see the leaf on the bottom right, the first print from the gelli plate on the bottom left, the second print from the gelli plate on the upper right and the actual leaf print on the upper left.

Week #29

Daily Stitching updates

Gelli prints #194-200

Shades of Orange #121-127

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"

Published in Quilters Newsletter

Last week I got a big envelope in the mail with my advanced copy of the Aug/Sept issue of Quilters Newsletter.

Back in April I did some samples and wrote about Gelli printing fabrics. If you read my blog regularly you will know that I'm a big fan of the gelli plates and use them for my gelli print daily and frequently for my weekly leaves. So check out pages 50-53 for my take on using gelli plates.

Also included in the article is my circles and curves quilt that is made entirely of round gelli prints cut into quarters.

The Weekly Leaf
This weeks leaf is the one that I did for the article, a gelli print of three violet leaves. The first photo shows the first print on the left which is just the outline or shape of the leaves. The second print which is the detail print is the one that I use for my weekly.

 I save a lot of the shape prints and do machine stitching on them. This is the one I did for the article.

Week #28

Daily Stitching updates

Gelli prints #189-193

Shades of Orange #116-120

Linked to "Off the Wall Friday"