My Leaf Stash

Last week I mentioned that the leaves I used for my weekly leaf were from my leaf stash, well this weeks leaf is also, so I thought I'd give you a glimpse of my stash. I pick up leaves all the time, especially when I'm away from home. Most of them get pressed, sometimes I use them right away for a gelli print or a solar fast print.

The plastic container below is about 4" deep and is overflowing. This is my in house stash.

 The next group are my stash out in StudioB (the building in my backyard). First up, layers of leaves, many between paper towels in a cardboard box. This weeks leaf is on top.

  Below the box,  more layers of leaves, most of these are quite large.

  Then on the table, under the plastic panel that I do soy wax on, and between some fabrics are a couple of very large ferns that I brought home from a trip to western Washington. They grow there, but not here in our high desert climate.

I find that always having different leaves available I'm never short of inspiration for my weekly stitching.

This week I used a leaf that I picked from a hedge in Tacoma, WA last June on our way back to our car from my Grandsons graduation. It had been in the pile of leaves being pressed and when I pulled it out the pattern on it amazed me, it didn't look like that when I brought it home.

I printed on to fabric treated for my ink jet printer, put misty fuse on the back, cut it out and fused it to a yellow hand dyed fabric.

Week #42

There are now 7 rows of leaves.

Daily Stitching updates

Geeli prints #285-291

Only 4 more rows to go!

Shades of orange #212-218

I did add more stitching to the hands this week and I'm calling it done. I made each hand all three colors instead of just one.

The Makers Hands

57"x57"

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

A big yellow hand

I stitched the three big hands in the center of my Maker's Hands piece and from a distance all you can see is one big yellow hand.

Up close the other two are more visible.

I think the next step will be to add more stitching, if it works I'll show you next week.

These are the nice heavy threads that I'm couching down.

The Weekly Leaf

I frequently walk by a Japanese Maple tree and the leaves are looking pretty dry and ragged after our hot dry summer. Luckily in Spring I picked a few of the fresh leaves and pressed them and while going through my dried leaf stash I came across them again. I used them with the gelli plate and Jacquard's textile paint.

Week #41

Daily Stitching updates

Gelli prints #278-284

Shades of Orange #205-211

I'll be linking up with "Off the Wall Friday" and "Slow SundayStitching"

A Visit from an Internet Friend

A long time internet friend was in the Boise area and I finally got to meet her. Kathleen Loomis and I were both doing daily pictures about six years ago when we became internet friends, so it was really nice to finally meet her and spend a good part of Saturday with her. Lisa drove her out to Weiser and we spent a couple of hours in my studios and had lunch. We did a lot of sharing of artwork and talking. Kathy showed us her delightful travel stitching, long strips of linen with highlights of her trips depicted in stitch.

After lunch we went back towards Boise and spent some time at Kathleen's studio. What an enjoyable day, it's so much fun when you meet a kindred spirit for the first time and you get along like you've been friends forever.

Part of our discussion involved my "Hands" project that I had put in time out. Both Kathy and Lisa had some good suggestions on what to do about the black hole. I got excited about it again and spent some time on Sunday enlarging a tracing of my hand, then cutting out three of them to use as patterns for some stitching.

My plan is to stitch around the hands in the primary colors, using #3 pearl cotton. I've ordered the colors I need and they should be here by the middle of the week. The white hands will be going away, but I think the heavy colored thread will add enough interest. I really do want to get this done, I've been working on it for over a year. You can read more about it here.

For a change of pace, I played around with some of my rusty bits and different types of tea.

The tea stained the fabric the color, and the tannin in the tea made the grey/black marks when it came in contact with the rust. Here are the  pieces afterwards.

The top two have some possibilities, but they may also just end up as samples in a pile somewhere.

The Weekly Leaf
I got out my TAP(transfer artist paper) and printed a leaf, cut it out and ironed it to my fabric.

Above is the leaf I used and the transfer ready to stitch. I like the subtle changes in the color of the leaf on the fabric.

Week #40

Daily Stitching updates

Gelli prints #271-277

Shades of Orange #198-204

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