Thursday, October 19, 2017

Just stitching

It's been a quiet week on the creative front, but I did go thru some old stuff and purged! One was blocks from an exchange done in 2000, an online stamp carving group held an exchange of ten inch blocks printed from a stamp that each individual had carved. Most of the participants were not familiar with fabric printing since the majority of the group worked only on paper. Out of the twenty blocks I received only three appealed to me, but I've kept all of them for seventeen years. They have moved into the box of fabric pieces that my grandkids use when they are here and creating.

The other old project was a top done as a round robin exchange back in 2003, I've found a piece of fabric that will work for backing and it will get quilted and added to the donation pile.

There was more "stuff" that just got thrown away, it feels good for it to be gone!

The three little tops I was piecing last week are in the process of being finished, one is quilted , the other two have the leaves stitched but are not quilted yet.



Weekly stitching
Signs of Life: the five universal shapes week #42

The stitched circle
With threads gathered up
After dying and threads removed

Attached to the background


2017 Daily Stitching #2 days #129-135
French knots again


I'll be linking up to "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching".

Thursday, October 12, 2017

More small pieces

I'm in the process of making more small pieces, both leaves and yoga inspired. The yoga inspired ones were printed a few years ago and were languishing in my pile of possibilities. They are cyanotype on magenta fabric, using some shapes cut out of heavy dark paper.

I've got three canvases painted a dark navy waiting for me to attach them.

I've also started the piecing process with a couple of the wet cyanotypes on turquoise fabric. This is how they look this morning on my work table.

The fabric that was used for both of these is from here.

I did  bit of experimenting with one of my other wet cyanotypes, I dipped it in a soda ash solution to remove some color. This is before.


And this is after.



Weekly Stitching
Signs of Life: The five universal shapes week #41

This group of five will have much less intense stitching than the last one! Since I had an active indigo pot and had taught a class on shibori, I decided to do some stitched shibori dipped in indigo. Each shape is on a piece of silk noil and I'm stitching them to a linen background that was also dipped in indigo, but for a very short time so that it is lighter.

The square  stitched before the threads were gathered.




After the threads were gathered.

After the indigo bath, drying, rinsing and threads removed, but before ironing.

Week#41

I love the texture that I get using a running stitch. It's very similar to Kantha stitching. I also dyed the #5 pearl cotton in indigo.

2017 Daily Stitching days#122-128

The hexagon is filled in and some french knot shapes have been started.

I'll be linking up to "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching".

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Wet cyanotype, reupholstery and more french knots

I played with a few more pieces of wet cyanotype this week using some old pretreated fabric and I'm quite happy with the results.


Because the treated fabric was past its prime it didn't get the usual intense blue, but more of a blue gray. I will probably use  these in another set of small leaf study pieces.

All the ones that were finished last week were hung today in various venues around town.

I finished the quilting on my abstracted overgrowth.


Last Spring I dyed some heavy weight hemp fabric to use on my big old chair. It was finally done last Saturday and is so comfy. Here's a combined before and after picture.

Weekly stitching
Signs of life: the five universal shapes
weeks 36-40  All french knots


It has been wrapped around a ten inch canvas.

There will be no french knots in the next five weeks!!

2017 Daily stitching days 115-121
Starting to fill in the hexagon shape


I'll be linking up to "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow Sunday Stitching"