A Finish

I finished a piece this week that I can't remember when it was started, it's something that I'd pickup on occasion and work on. It's a piece of repurposed fabric that was bought at a yard sale several years ago. It's been rusted and tea stained, stitched, and then encased in gel medium on a  11" x 14" painted canvas.

I woke up this morning with an idea to add rust to a few of my old indigo pieces. I've rummaged through what I have and pulled out these four.

They are now out in Studio B with a few strategically placed rusty bits on them, hopefully next week I'll be able to show some transformed pieces.

We are expecting a great granddaughter in September so I've started a quilt for her, a rather simple star quilt in the fabric that coordinates with the room decor (at least I hope it does).

2018 Weekly Leaf #26, halfway through the year!

Before stitching

After stitching

2018 Daily Stitching #2, days 29-35

Background and some peacock colored french knots while I try to figure out what to do with the blobs in the upper fight corner.

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

A few pieces finished

This week I finished a few pieces, the green silk piece is done except for the sleeve.

35"H x 38"W

Have no idea what to name it. It was dyed using thickened dyes and originally was going to be a whole cloth quilt(back in 2009 when I did it). I wasn't thrilled with it after dying it and put it in my reject basket. Earlier this year I pulled it out, cut it up into squares and rearranged them.It's still not one of my favorites but at least I'm happier with this version.

I finished the hand stitching on a small piece of vintage fabric that had been rusted and tea dyed.

I plan to mount this on to a canvas and have been auditioning colors to paint the canvas.

I've chosen the middle color and have one coat of paint on the canvas. I've started stitching a companion piece that was dyed at the same time.

Also got two of the donation quilts quilted and bound.

Weekly Stitching

 Signs of Life: the five universal shapes.

wk #30

Thirty weeks 

The next group will be  bit different. I've ripped a piece off of this canvas that I have had in Studio B for several years. I would pull it out every once in a while and add something to it, after some recent additions I called it done.

I ripped about nine inches off the left side because I didn't care for the red in the upper corner. I will use part of what I ripped off. The shapes will be appliquéd on and for them I'm using some faux suede upholstery samples that I've been saving for over twenty-five years. Time to use them or get rid of them.

I'm not sure what I'm doing yet but I have faith that it will somehow come together. 

2017 Daily Stitching #2, days 45-51

Lots more french knots

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

A great summer

I've been really enjoying my summer, my first full summer since "retiring" from vending at Quilt shows. I haven't even been to a quilt show in the past year! I sometimes miss the routine of daily production in the studio, but am much happier just dyeing and printing fabric when ever I want. The best part is doing what I want ,not what I hope will sell. When I was vending that was always on my mind, what will sell, what samples do I need to make to get something to sell. I don't miss that at all.

I will be teaching a class in Studio B on Monday evening July 26 from 6:30 - 9:30 p.m., on paintstiks. So if you happen to be in the Weiser, ID area and are interested let me know.

I've added more small pieces to my rust collection this summer. The photo below is stuff that I have found in the past 2 months, most of it from my garden area. I keep thinking about using some of it as embellishments on an art quilt. I have a rather large collection of rusty stuff and use a small part of it to rust fabric. For some reason I'm just attracted to it and keep picking it up.



I've also been working on my "This is not a sketchbook" project. These are some recent pages I've done.




I'm using scraps of fabric that have fusible on them already (I have a large box of them) and I have at least one circle in each composition. I like doing several at a time, so I'll do three or four pages several times a week.

My favorite thing I've been doing this summer is water aerobics. It's every afternoon at 5 p.m., the hottest time of the day and I'm in a nice cool pool. Today is suppose to be near 100 degrees so it is going to feel so good! The pool here is only open until the middle of August so I'm taking advantage of it while I can. Our instructors for the class are all about high school age, in fact all the employees at the pool are, that's why it closes when they go back to school.

My big bummer for the summer has been squash bugs. They have totally destroyed my squash plants that on Monday were looking very healthy. I had read somewhere to plant icicle radishes along with the squash to prevent a problem. I did that and things were looking good until the middle of this week. Oh well, I can buy squash at the fruit stand down the road a bit.