Halloween Holiday

Yes, I think Halloween should be a National Holiday! After all, it’s my husband’s birthday and our anniversary…41 years! It’s also a day for dressing up and playing, for being someone else for a little while, for candy and treats and children’s excitement and laughter. Unlike the pressures of Christmas, where we have to get the right gift for everyone, Halloween is pure happy enjoyment.

My grandson, the wonderful Mr. AJ, is crazy about fire trucks and ambulances and anything with lights and bells and sirens. What could be more fun for him than being a fireman for Halloween?  He also loves trains and tractors and dump trucks and diggers, but since he thinks they are alive and real, it’s a little more difficult to dress as a combine! So, fireman it is and he is so happy! That’s what a real holiday is all about!

My husband and I are so very lucky. We have every “thing” we need, though a million dollars and a descent into decadence would never be rejected! We have wonderful children, a marvelous grandchild, huge extended families with whom we have great times. We live in a good place (except for the hateful mid-winter blah time!) and have interesting hobbies that we love.

Life is good and I am grateful, but would it really be too much to ask for a real Halloween Holiday? I think NOT!

Screening…

More screen printing with thickened dyes today…results for me were very mixed. We had our usual over abundance of supplies, screens, stencils. Couldn’t have asked for anything more.

We screened and stenciled and just painted on the dyes.

And we all ended up with dye covered hands to show just how hard we worked and how much fun we had!

However, much of the dye from my fabrics did not take…just washed right out. I know that we used up some old dyes, so my guess is that that was most of the problem. I was impatient and did not leave the fabric to set as long as usual, but the dye I mixed fresh today worked fine. So, lesson learned…use up all your mixed dye quickly. Don’t try to use old stuff!

But it was fun…………..

Fall Inspiration

There is always inspiration to find in the outdoors–or in a conservatory–and I can almost already see the quilts that will be made from these.

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It’s so worth leaving the studio to see the wonders around us and be refreshed and inspired!

Remnants Collage-Critique Me!!!

I finished my collage from Lynn Krawczyk’s class. There would be nothing I’d like more than a few critiques. I have my excuses ready…seriously, though, I appreciate educational criticism.

Thanks!

WIP

The sunflower project will be ongoing for quite a while. I didn’t really grasp how long it takes to do encrusted beading on a piece…and now I’m using some teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy beads to make color outlines on the petals. It’s working out well so far–click on the pics for a closer look.

The plan is still to use the bigger, chunky beads to fill in between these lines, but I will not be covering every inch of fabric with them!

All my company will be leaving today, moving on to visit other relatives and then head back home. It’s been a wonderful visit and I’ll miss them. They, however, will NOT miss the cool weather…I guess they love living in Florida for a reason!

And I will have no reason not to get this project done as quickly as those teeny, tiny, itsy bitsy beads will allow!

Always Good—New Learning

Finally was able to catch up with Lynn Krawczyk and take her class on Remnant Collage. She is the screen printing queen, but this class covered so much more! I was hoping to expand my knowledge of screen printing, and I certainly did. However, the focus of the class was how to create a collage from those small bits and pieces that we hoard because “I’ll use that someday…” and someday finally came. I learned so much about creating depth and interest from the background up…it was exactly what I needed, what I felt I so lacked. Lynn did a great job and I loved that she had time to give us the individual help and attention that we all needed. My most valuable “take-away” I think, is that she believes it’s not enough to say you don’t like something. You need to analyze WHY you don’t like it and figure out what needs to be done to fix it. And she offered so many different fixes…I feel a growth spurt coming on! I may not do a lot of work in her style of collage, but everything I learned can be applied to my style of working also and I plan to use it.

I took tons of pictures because everyone was coming up with so many unique, cool ideas that we all wanted to capture them for future reference. I’ll just put them in a slideshow collage for you so you can get an impression of all the creativity in action as we all developed our projects! It was wonderful.

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FYI: this might be my only post until next week. Lots of family coming for a visit and I’ll be enjoying them rather than working in the studio!

I Must Be Crazy!

I am well and truly obsessed. I can’t get enough of this beading stuff!

Center of the sunflowers–

Had to stop for bedtime, because I couldn't keep my eyes open!!!

Aren’t these beads fabulous?

What a variety! I love them!

One section done!

And this is what I have planned for the petals…

Big, chunky beads...

Too much over the top? Should I go with smaller beads, and waves of color lines? My heart says it’s a dark piece and over the top will be okay. My brain says it might be more effective to have lines of color rather than flashy hunks. Maybe there’s a way to have BOTH!

I really think I must be crazy!

Do More, More, More

Not too long ago, I would have declared this piece done at this point and been very happy with it. (The photo looks very crooked, but it really is quite straight!)

This thick thread would have been a wh00-hoo extra just a few weeks ago.

 

Now I want to see it with more, more, more stuff! I have so many beads that will look good on it…

I don’t know if I should try to limit myself or go totally over the edge.

Help!

Day of Experiments…

News flash…watching discharge paste dry is just as exciting as watching paint dry! And it takes just as long…

This is the stencil I decided to try out with the discharge paste, and with the paste still wet, you can see what it’s supposed to look like.

Learning point #1–if you only put the paste around the edges, that’s the only spot that will lighten up…and it leaves a line, and the tree doesn’t show up too well.

So I went back over the piece all the way to the edge with another coat of discharge paste. I couldn’t eliminate the line entirely, but it made the tree stand out a little…no, a lot…better.

Learning point #2–stencils with fine lines need to be well stuck down or the paste will leak underneath and the final color will not be as bright/dark as the original. Sometimes this is fine, but on this particular tree, I think I would have liked brighter pink all the way through.

Final edition: this fabric wasn’t awesomely beautiful to start with, but it worked for an experiment. I probably won’t use this piece, but I learned a lot.

Experiment 2–Smooch paint sticks

These are like little airbrushes in a bottle, with metallic. The colors I bought are generally dark, with one ‘vanilla mist.’ I only sprayed a couple of colors on this fabric, using stencils again. The paint came out a little heavier than I had thought and ideally I should have masked around the stencils as I used them to avoid overspray.

You can see the metallic glints better in the gold than the navy.

Just a spritz of red, too! There is a piece I have that I thought was finished, but I’m thinking that with careful masking, adding some shadows would enhance it. With heat setting, this would be more permanent than pencils and I like the spray better than a brushed paint.

More experiments need to be done with this stuff. Oh, yeah, clean up on the stencils was a simple wash in the sink. That was a good thing!

And my felting experiment? I’m going ahead with that as originally planned. The heavy bags of beads I pinned to my small block pulled on it a little, but not more than I would expect over unevenly distributed heaviness. The beading I have planned should be just fine…and the responses I got from everyone encouraged me to try it out. Wool felt might be better, but I’ll try that on the next one.

Experimenting…

Not with the fun, new toys but with felt. I thought my sunflower would work if I used felt instead of batting…flat quilted surface and firm support for the beads. I asked for input from the quiltart list and several people told me to use wool blend felt instead of poly blend, and of course it’s poly blend that I have.

I didn’t want to wait…but I thought maybe I should at least see and feel the difference at the store (I’m going tomorrow) before I decided. And the felt that was laying out on the table seemed to be getting a little wavy edge just laying there. So I figured out an experiment…

I cut a piece of the felt, quilted a block, washed it, twisted it up when I was wringing it out, used my hottest iron setting to iron it and then hung bags of beads to simulate bead weight and hung it up. I’m going to see if there is any pulling, twisting or waviness before I go any further.

I want to do needle felting and beading on a regular basis and I think I want to use felt more for batting and even backing, so it will be worth it to me to experiment a little more and see how different commercial products work. I also have some felted wool sweaters and yardage that will be seeing the needles of the felting machine soon, too.

I guess my whole artsy life is just one big experiment…when I quit experimenting and playing, I’ll most likely no longer feel like an artist—or I’ll be in the next life!!!!!!!!!!