One project is to finish the collages from last weekend’s workshop. Getting there, but going from a little sewing to finishing edges to painting some canvas to mount a couple of pieces to watching paint dry!

While the paint is drying, I started to work on the vintage fabric challenge from Karen Musgrave, using Rayna Gillman’s techniques. Rayna’s techniques are nothing new to me, but her thought processes while using them in design work are very helpful. I love looking at design from a different perspective than just what’s in my own head.

Now, this fabric is something else! It’s very sturdy, to start with, and heavier than many fabrics we are used to working with. I decided to start with the simple discharge process of bleach, and I thought initially that there was no change! When I put the bleached piece next to the original, though, it was definitely lighter, but no prettier!!!

So, strip piecing, here we come. Thought as long as the pink was so obnoxious that I would start by overwhelming it with all shades of pink, but then went with Rayna’s strip therapy method and just started cutting and sewing. Got interrupted by dry paint waiting for another coat and then looked at Rayna’s book again for any other helpful hints. She works much smaller than I do, so this is where I stopped for the day.

I’m thinking I’ll start re-slicing what I have done so far and work with smaller pieces…but I have SO much fabric, I was hoping to use up a bit more of it. Sigh…not on this challenge, I guess. I also need to incorporate the unbleached fabric…maybe do something else to it first!

In between sewing things, I’m trying to get a handout ready that has a bio, artist statement and recent teaching/exhibits on it for a meeting about a possible local store exhibit. I don’t have one bit of problem showing my work and talking about it, but writing about myself is hard! In this area, I am very far from feeling like a professional. I guess I know what topic of self-help books to look for in the library!

Early phone call this morning added one more thing, but it’s an automatic top priority. Grandson AJ is not feeling well and will be joining me today. Sad that he isn’t up to his usual cheerful self, but extra snuggle time is always desirable!

All right–that last layer of paint is dry so I can get back to work on mounting those projects and then more strips to piece and that collage to get stitched and another one to get mounted and…hop, hop, hop!!!

I had decided very recently that I should start getting rid of more of my commercial fabric, since I’m preferring hand dyes…and I might even get into screen printing more. And then these luscious batiks JUMPED into my hands when I was visiting the quilt store. They already have the type of designs I was interested in for screen printing. Neutral graphics–perfect!

This looks to be a very busy week or two coming up. Lots of unfinished projects that I feel NEED to be completed. My work is moving in a different direction and I want to explore it. It may be temporary, but I don’t want to someday say that I thought I might want to explore a creative direction and never took the time.

Taking some items into a local business later this week, too. They always have artist’s displays–good art!–and I want to get in on it!!! I want a variety of display options for my work so I need to pick a few to show them and get them gussied up for their best presentation.

And I don’t have an artist’s statement or resume in any good format, so I need to put together something that will be decent for that, too.

Did you know that it’s tax time, too? I’ll bet that won’t come as any surprise to you, but the drudgery of getting everything organized needs to get done. OH–you keep everything organized and up-to-date all year long? I may have to hurt you badly out of jealousy!!!! So, that’s another yuck chore to do…

And fun stuff like the vintage fabric challenge…pictures as soon as I have some results, but I’m getting the inkling of an idea about how I want to use the fabric. Very nebulous, but most of my quilting plans start out that way.

Mostly I need to get off the computer and get to work!

Now those of you that know me in person, know that I can often be quite sarcastic and might be skeptical about the above paragraph. This was NOT my sarcasm speaking. I learned an incredible amount at my weekend workshop with Laura Cater-Woods and I truly get excited when learning new techniques and processes that I can apply to my textile work!

I took a few pictures of what we were doing so that you can have an idea of how we played.

Admittedly, I was the skeptical one when I signed up for this workshop. I didn’t think this was really an area that was right for me. But I’ve not done much collage work and what I have done never made me very happy, so this sounded like a ready-made mind-expanding experience. An exciting adventure, right?

Workshops like this are hard for me to pack ‘stuff’ for, even though ‘stuff’ is my favorite supply list ingredient. It seems as though I always bring the wrong ‘stuff.’ And, of course, this was the case…only because the new environment brings new ideas and when I gather supplies it is from a base of the old ideas. This means that I’ll make whatever it is from whatever I bring, but it’s often not what I would create if I were picking from the whole studio of materials. But…hellooooo…it stretches your imagination and creativity to work with what you have and not what you wish you had!

So what did we actually do? Start with some type of base–fabric, paper, soil filter cloth…whatever. If you have an idea, great–start placing fabric, paper, quilt pieces, “stuff” on your background. If  you don’t have an idea, do the same thing until you start liking what you are placing and moving and using. When you are happy with even one thing, make it ‘permanent’ with fusing, or glue, or gel medium or stitch–whatever is appropriate for that part.

Continue and continue and continue, one part at a time until you think you are finished. Then step back again and decide if you are ready to perhaps quilt, perhaps paint or write or stitch in some more details. At some point, you declare it done, with finished edges and ready to hang or place on a shelf if your finishing takes you in a more sculptural direction. Done!

This sounds kind of simplistic, but the whole process depends on your artistic viewpoint and getting to what you want to express. I thought it would be quickly slap on some stuff and call it good. Not so. Taking time and thinking it through make for better design decisions and better finished projects.

That’s the kind of adventures I like…stretch the mind and not a hamstring…break through to new ideas, not break an ankle! Oh, yes, I’ll stick with my safe life adventuring, but it’s just as exciting to my textile passion as the adrenaline rush is to a skydiver…and my worst fear can then be getting my fingers stuck together from the glue I’m using…even safe accidents in my world!

I think we should change our name again…we ARE quilting goddesses! We have the power to create and our passion is truly magnificent. Of course, our choices are all divine…OK, OK…but we have lots of fun while we play with all things fiber-related.

We are looking at several challenge projects this coming year. I’m mentioning them here because you may also belong to a group that likes to play and these ideas may appeal to you.

We are going to create a quilt–or something–with which we would “Feather Our Nest.” Or call it a Treasure Chest or What I Would Want on a Desert Island…

We are going to create a Me Quilt. A self-portrait, kind of…a quilt that represents how we see ourselves, literal portrait not required!

We are going to do a Baker’s Dozen again, because it was so much fun the first time we did it and the group is bigger now. We put 13 something’s in a bag, put the bags on a table and select one. We make a quilt using some of everything in the bag, add anything we want and use any format we want. Then we get our own “stuff ” back! I forgot that part in the original and put in some stuff I didn’t like…and now I have it back, but transformed by one of my creative goddess friends into a beautiful wall hanging!

We are going to do a Fractured Flower. Small groups, take a flower picture, interpret it, return it to the group and cut into as many pieces as people in group (3-5 is best) so everyone has a piece of every interpretation and then put it back together again.

We also want to do some gel plate printing, some shibori dyeing, some kitchen/garden resist dyeing and printing, some collage work–maybe a musical chairs type collage–work ’til the music stops then move on to the next piece!

We have so much fun planned that I want to meet more often! It is so rewarding to work with creative people. The ideas flow and spark so many other ideas. I highly encourage you to find someone in your area to share ideas with, even if it takes more than one try. You will never regret it and you will also never run out of ideas or FUN!

Indulge yourself and refresh your creativity! It’s worth the time and you make great goddess friends.

I’ve been fascinated with Rayna’s book because, of course, that’s the type of work I do and the basic premise of my own book. Couldn’t wait to jump in on this one and we have complete freedom to annihilate…er, experiment on this fabric! I’ll try to remember to take pictures as I go along. That is part of challenge–documentation, but I’m notoriously bad at stopping in the middle of something to take a picture!!

I’m not sure if altering the fabric as a whole will be my first approach. I may try different things on small pieces of fabric at a time. Don’t know for sure…after looking at this fabric, I want to take a bit of time to think!

I went to a different bead store today, too. And all I could think about was whether I would work on earth or fire next…

These are the beads I bought…I still don’t know if it’s going to be earth or fire!!!

Started with simple stacks.

When I taught the basics, using Christmas trees, I worked out some of the kinks. There was a good possibility that I would be teaching non-quilters how to bead on quilts, so I needed to figure out a good, quick, pre-quilted foundation for each student kit. Fusing the design piece to the background was the first step, but it was hard to figure how many because I was offering several different designs. (Glad I made extras, though, because the students wanted to make more at home! Hooray!) This time, I’m only offering one design, and even that isn’t a shape design, but a square with a design drawn on it, fused to a background. The square started out at 8″ and when I began beading, I saw that it would take tons of beads and tons of time, so back to the drawing board–making the whole project a bit smaller and easier for students to finish.

Decided on using Fireline thread, rather than the red Nymo.

It’s easier to bead if you don’t have to worry about how your threads look on the back, so each quilted piece will have a backing added for a nice looking finish. I tried batting alone, batting with a fusible interfacing lining, batting with fabric lining, felt and ultra suede. For the Christmas trees, I ended up using the batting with fabric lining and I have since decided that it was a little bit of overkill for the small amount of beads we added. The batting with the interfacing would have been plenty sturdy enough and still show the quilting.

For this little heart project, I decided to incorporate the “batting” as part of the design. I’m using felt for a background behind the little fabric square and will finish with another layer of felt and a bit of quilting after the beading is done. Two reasons for this–the design has room to quilt the layers together after beading and the felt does not need a formal edge finish, which is not part of what I am teaching. Hopefully, this will make it easier for non-quilters to participate and envision themselves finishing the project.

Of course, knowing me, you will expect that I couldn’t use traditional Valentine fabrics for a class taught near that date. We will use a variety of pink and red beads, but, as you can see, the felt is charcoal and the fabric square is taupe, beige and gray. A little longer shelf life than a Valentine, but could be a Valentine for someone!!!

So there you have look at my design process:

Design   Size   Fabric   Background   Beads   Backing   Finishing

Nothing to it, right? Hush, now–don’t tell that to everyone or I would never have a class to teach!

Here’s the finished sample and I give you full permission to make one of your own, but I’d love it if you were near enough to take the class with me. Meeting and getting to know my students is a joyful experience for me and I’d love to meet you!

Aaaah, what a sweetie! But I don’t have him all the time, so laziness keeps me from posting, too!

Waterfall–done again! This time I think it’s the final done. I added lots of black to represent rocks and I’m happy with it. I could add and add and add and then be disappointed that it didn’t look real, but it was never intended to be realistic so it’s time to quit!

(Click for larger image)

Here’s also a detail of the bottom area, just to give you a feel of looking at it up close!

This thing is very heavy and I need to explore options for hanging/presenting. I don’t really want it in a frame or on a canvas–I like the beaded tapestry feel of these ‘creations.’ I do think that these heavy beads would benefit from some additional support; I just don’t know what yet.

And now, movin’ on…told the bead store that I would try and have another class, so I have to develop a sample and get it advertised. Most bead store patrons are jewelry makers, though, and when I tried at the quilt store, most quilters are NOT interested in the beaded embellishments. I’ll keep trying, though, just like I keep trying to get more people interested in free-form piecing. Every once in a while it strikes a chord with the right person and I’m pretty sure that’s my goal!

I’m finding that I am not as passionate about ‘spreading the word’ as I once was. I love teaching and I really believe that anyone can have great success with this type of piecing, but it may take more dedication than I have at this point in my life to really promote what I do. Maybe going back to hobby status rather than (almost) business status would be best. However, I do like to show off what I do and I would love to find a market and sell a few things. Is it just winter blahs or complete lack of ambition? Don’t know yet–need to work on finding out!

Wacky Quilters meeting this week, and it’s an idea session. Looking forward to that.

The waterfall project is definitely getting better with the addition of rocks at the base of the fall. It needed those big, dark masses to anchor all the variety of the beads in the water. Once I decided on these beads

I started putting them in clusters at various locations. My beading projects mostly use a variety of beads and this project really needed the mass of a single color to anchor that waterfall.

After I establish the largest areas, I will decide if I need to go back in and add more beads to each cluster to really bulk them up. That’s going to be a visual decision and I’ve always believed that you need to make visual decisions visually…so it needs to be ‘finished’ before I can decide if it is really finished or needs more beads!

Also thinking about teaching–I’m not doing enough of it, but there is only a limited number of people interested in free-form piecing in this area. I want to add beaded embellishment but the number of people interested in that is even less than for free form!

How far do I want to travel and how much work do I want to look for? Thoughts to contemplate for the beginning of the year. I’m getting pretty comfortable being lazy, retired and only working on fun things for myself…

  So, here’s a mixture of big turquoise beads and smaller round beads. Then I tried some huge shell beads with mother of pearl shiny bits.

Big statement, but it didn’t seem to really fill the spaces correctly. I tried a mixture of both of these. Still not right. I tried some stone chips, hoping that a more natural look would be better. Nope.

Buttons were suggested, stuffed fabric bits appliqued in place, glittery hand made beads–lots of suggestions, but nothing struck just the right note.

Then my genius daughter gave it some more thought and came up with the idea of broken buttons, going for a more jagged look. And how will I apply those, I asked skeptically?  Aren’t there triangle, square tile and cube beads from which to choose…and how about a single color for more impact? She’s usually always right on with her suggestions–I like it! I’m down to two choices now–glittery gold or bronzy-black cubes.

Which do you like better?