New piece - Faces...done

When in doubt, I turn to faces or trees, sometimes at the same time.  I wanted to use a soft sheer on top of the busy fabric I chose but also wanted it to have some kind of image.

 My son who draws incredibly well, did a number of faces I turned into silk screens.

 I like how subtle it is and it even tones the blue down. this might work.

 I added a little bit of writing to the bottom layer

 and decided that a narrow band of black might work well to divide the fabric.

 The yellow fabric on the side was discharged with an image of writing.

 I then matted it in mat board with an 8 1/2 x 11 opening. I still have lots of scraps left though!

New piece in the works

I love doing these small pieces; I've been making a lot of them for the upcoming fair with the Southern Highland Crafts Guild. Pulling out all the scraps hoping to make a dent in my stash gets me fired up.

I'm pretty messy, leaving no surface untouched...

including my ironing board...

and design wall.

And what is it about cats and fabric.

and their need to sit smack in the middle of it.

My 3 studio assistants keeping watch over my fabric makes me laugh.

I had some sheers along with deconstructive screen printed fabric.

I tried many combinations; the blue in there is throwing me and I'm thinking of covering it with a sheer.

I loved this piece created with a sink mat (looking like rocks) and dyes, but it was too busy for the other fabrics.

I'm experimenting with using a softer sheer with some burned edges to lay on top; I know it needs more but will just have to play with it.

Leftovers

I recently posted this quilt - "River's Edge"on my blog; - most of the fabric was made using the deconstructive screen printing technique. 

 I really liked the fabric and had little bits and pieces left over. It's a difficult fabric to use with other fabrics so I decided to make some smaller pieces.

 This piece was made for the Galleribba online gallery for small wall art. Quilts have to be 12" or less on all sides. "River Rocks" has only 3 pieces but I was happy to use them up.  The "rocks" in the one piece keep the ongoing theme.

And after all was said and done, there were still more leftovers so I made this very small piece - 8" x 10" and matted it making it an 11 x 14. I have a small series of works done in this format.

I have a few threads left....wonder what I can do with those  (-:

I'm leaving for New York tomorrow for my husband's high school reunion. We will also get to Ground Zero and a visit with my 2 best buddies from 5th grade...great fun.

Until next time.

A New Small Piece

I've been working on another small piece, this one to be mounted inside a mat board. 

I started with an image of an old window and added some silk noil on the left.  Noil is a real coarse silk that's very nubby; it takes a dye beautifully but doesn't print clearly because of the coarse texture, but the color worked so I used it.

 I thought I wanted to use a tree in front of the window so I silk screened the image using black textile paint. The image wasn't real clear which I liked in this instance.

 I also added some gold couching thread along the seam line,

and stitching around the tree...

and some gold paint sticks on the tree for highlights. I love using paint sticks. They are so easy and give good results.

After quilting the piece, I used double stick carpet tape to attach to the mat. I like using mats for smaller pieces; it's an easy way to finish the piece - no binding or facing and ready to put in a frame.
Til next time....

Small Studies - Leaf 2

I really like doing these small pieces, especially when time is limited and I want some instant gratification. I created this small piece a little while back,  but never got to posting it.  

I started with some hand dyed fabric.

Using my favorite leaf stamp, I stamped on silk organza which had been painted with Dye-na-Flow.

I loosely cut it out and finished the edge with a wood burning tool which gives that nice, dark edge to the leaf.

Using some marbled fabric from my stash, I combined it with very bright colors.

I used some metallic couching thread on some of the edges to add a little sparkle.  The transparent leaves were placed on top and stitched in place using a monofilament thread.  The stitching was done using the natural vein lines of the leaf.

Stamping was done on the yellow fabric to add some zing and the whole piece was placed in a pre-cut mat. It's quite a small piece but with the addition of the mat, it really has some presence.