It's Doing It Again!

There's a road out there somewhere.

I'm trying to pretend this isn't happening, so I'm playing inside today. I decided to try the  flour-paste resist technique on this not very interesting piece of snow-dyed fabric. The funny part is, the fabric looks much better in the photo than in real life.

I added the flour paste, using a thinner layer than last time,  so that it would dry faster. I'm wondering if when the paint gets applied, it might seep through this thinner layer . I also scratched some arch shapes into it with a skewer.

  

While I wait for that to dry, the first thing that I will do (before going out to shovel) is sew a label onto this scrap quilt I have been making.

The white fabric is leftover strip piecing from a Christmas project, and the blue is an orphan piece of Year 2000 fabric picked up at a guild meeting. It was fussy cut to omit the "2000". The next picture shows the quilt set up on my table, ready  for pin basting.

I pinned on some tissue paper with the design for the center. Since I wanted a thread-sketched look, I sewed this once, then took the paper off, and went over it two more times.

An outer section of flames was free-handed, and the other areas were filled in with various spirals, echo quilting, and stippling.

I finished the binding, using the rest of the Year 2000 fabric a couple of days ago, and I will attach the label now. Not a bad use of leftovers. I'm going to call it "Winter Sun", in hopes that we might see some! 

A Bag For A Day At The Beach

I think the colors and flowers on this bag that I just finished are perfect for a casual beach day.

It may not be as wild as the last two bags that I made, but it has a secret. See what is hiding on the inside?

This should be just perfect for someone who likes to spend time at the seashore.

Creative Cue: Side

I have gotten way behind on my Creative Cues, but I'm trying to catch up. Here is my sketch for Week 15 Creative Cue, Side.

Ginny and Weasley, side-by-side, as usual, enjoying a fresh, organic apple stick from our tree. With apologies to Nuage, we think these are the best apple sticks around. But since you can't get ours, you might try the apple sticks at Potentially Crazy. Every bunny needs apple sticks.

As for the drawing, it is another free-motion sketch, done on my sewing machine. This will be the last of these for awhile. I plan to try something else for the next couple of words. Hopefully, I won't lose a finger in the process.

Hope you are having a sunny day!

Lunch Break And A Work in Progress

Time for lunch. For these guys, the sound of the vegetable drawer opening is akin to an electric can opener for cats. 

We are taking a short break from this, which is putting the improved free-motion sketching skills to work

Hope you are having a sunny day.

Creative Cue: Band

The Creative Cue for this week is  Band.   Since the high school marching band has been a large part of our lives for the last six years, I relied on my parade pictures for this drawing. I had to do a lot of simplifying of my photographs to make this work. It was complicated by the fact that the uniforms have many asymmetric details, which can really skew your perspective! For example, those points on the back of the marchers are not in the center of their backs.

For those of you who know my Second Daughter, this was from an early part of her marching career (middle school), when she was still playing trombone, not sousaphone. And her curls were still short. Time really flies!

Late Again On My Creative Cue

Last week's Creative Cue was "shake".  My free-motion drawing was based on a picture taken on our Good Friday trip to North Adams. Technically this is not a shake, but it is as close to one as we generally get around here. And it was being shaken as we drove over pot holes!

The word for this week is "band", which I thought would be easy, with all the marching band pictures I have taken over the last six years. But, all the drawings I came up with yesterday looked like "blobs", not bands. Back to the drawing board, no pun intended.  

(Edit:  I just checked out the other drawings for shake. I  like to look after I post my own, but this time I wish I had looked earlier. Check out Paddys Daughter's photo of her dog shaking. If I had seen that first, I might have drawn Ginny shaking her feet at me as she ran away. Of course, the meaning of that is NOT as warm and nice as a dog shaking paws!)

Creative Cue: Rich

Growing up. I had three brothers. Actually, I still have three brothers, they are just spread all over the country.


I must watch too much CSI. That last statement just sounded so wrong!

Starting over.

I have three brothers. The oldest one was known by his middle name, Richard, or usually Rich, when we were kids. Now he goes by his first name, but that is not important here. When I saw that this week's Creative Cue was rich, I immediately thought of him.

Since he obviously doesn't fit the dictionary definition, I put that idea aside. I tried to decide on another picture. But all week long, I kept coming back to a picture of him with his first daughter. He had his kids at a little later age than the rest of us, and they are his princesses. Finally, I saw what had been jumping up and down in front of me all week. When this picture was taken, he was feeling very rich.  And here they are.

You can tell that she is already making her opinions known, and he may be feeling a little overwhelmed, but he was definitely happy.

Mom, Sis, I don't know which one of you took the picture, but I hope you don't mind that I used it. Thank you.

Creative Cue: Tip

Still catching up here, so this is last week's Creative Cue. The word was tip, and these are some tips that are pretty important around here. Some are sharper than others.

"Mom, You Said We Wouldn't See Those Again For Three Months!"

The word for this week's Creative Cue was "clip". Once again, I made my drawing on the sewing machine, using a free-motion technique. 

You can just imagine the naughty words going through Weasley's mind when I brought these out for reference. If you think bunnies don't know naughty words, then you've never had one run away from you alternately flicking its feet in distaste, and thumping!

Hard to believe we have already done ten words. It's fun to come up with your own interpretation of the words. It's even more fun to see what spin others put on them, and to read the stories that go with their drawings.  If you haven't joined in yet, check out the new word when it goes up tomorrow at Three Creative Studios, and give it a try.

Creative Cue:Stem

The word for the past week's Creative Cue was "stem". Since I like working from my garden, I immediately decided to do a sketch of some dried up stems of last year's garden. But somehow, I just couldn't get started. And then all of the sudden, on Thursday, an image of a bicycle wheel popped into my head. My sketch is part of a wheel, complete with valve stem.

Like all my sketches for this series, this was done with a free-motion technique on my sewing machine, in black thread.

Yesterday was our first sunny day in I don't know how long. The buns really enjoyed it. 

They followed the sun across the room and back, all day long. Like a rabbit sun dial. Here's to another sunny day today, for us, and for you also.

Creative Cue: Cookie

This week's Creative Cue was "cookie". Here at this house, we did far too much research on the subject. As a result, the jeans are a little more snug, but I did get a nice sketch out of it.

While I like how this turned out, I do hope that next week's word has nothing to do with food!

Sometimes You Need More Than Coffee

Last week's Creative Cue was "morning". I had already done a sunrise picture for "East", so I decided to go in a different direction for this week.

After all, it's not morning without the coffee! The next word is "cookie". Guess I'll have to make some, so that I can draw them more accurately. 

We need more than coffee around here today, though. Second daughter came down with a stomache bug in the middle of the night. Luckily, she is old enough to clean up after herself, but it doen't bode well for the jazz band kids that she spent yesterday evening hanging out with. 

And on a more serious note, Ginny refused to eat this morning. It seems to be a case of wool block, which can be deadly for rabbits. Angora's can be prone to this, what with all the hair, so when they are near full coat, I try to watch them very closely. It can be hard to know exactly what is going on, as they share food dishes and litterboxes. It doesn't help that Ginny does all the grooming for both of them. Weasley rarely grooms himself. And he is very unhappy today because I have separated them. As of last night, Ginny was eating heartily, and behaving normally, so hopefully we have caught it early enough that we can work through this without too much trouble. I will keep you posted.

Tomorrow I am hoping to be able to get together with friends, to make something from this fabric.

Aren't they pretty? With any luck, I'll have good news, and a finished product to show tomorrow evening.

She's So Excited!

The Creative Cue for this week is "Tie". My drawing is of Second Daughter in her newly purchased prom dress, for her Junior Prom. It is a deep, almost navy blue, that matches her beautiful eyes. It was the first, and only, dress that she tried on. Now she just keeps saying, "I'm so excited!".

Like the other drawings, this is done in free-motion on my sewing machine.

Who Says They Have To Match?

Here is my drawing for this week's  Creative Cue. The word this week was "odd".

These would be the feet of my Second Daughter. She prefers to wear her socks mismatched. She says her day is usually better if her socks don't match.

Like my previous drawings for Creative Cue, this was free-motion stitched on my sewing machine.

There should be a new word out tomorrow. If you haven't yet, think about joining in. Its really interesting to see what other people associate with the given word, and how they go about making their drawing. Or, I guess I should say artwork, because so far the posted results have ranged from simple sketches, to photographs, collages, and even small quilted/beaded works. Jump on over to Three Creative Studios, and check it out.

Rolling

The word for this week's Creative Cue is "rolling". My free-motion sketch is of my rolling pin, working on some cookie dough.

My rolling pin was purchased on a trip to Vermont, early in my marriage. It has rolled out many pie crusts, and even more cookies. Cookies are important here.

 When First Daughter moved into her college apartment she complained about not liking the rolling pins available to her in the stores. I think she wanted mine, but that wasn't going to happen (mean mom). Eventually, I found Vermont Rolling Pins, and she got her rolling pin for Christmas. Her's is much wider and heavier than mine. Wouldn't want to get hit with it, or drop it on my foot!

I found this piece very hard to photograph. The woven plaid background did strange things to the picture, especially if I got any closer than this. I wonder if any of you have experienced this, and how you have dealt with it.

It's very cold and windy here today, so its a good day to sew. Stay warm, and have a fun weekend.

Torii Gates

If you have come here from the website of my friend Mary Grace, Welcome! I hope you enjoy your visit. If you don't know Mary Grace, visit her at Hooked On Needles. She likes to try all sorts of needlework, and is very generous with sharing her knowledge.

Torii Gate

This piece from the last post is finished. It's a small quilt, only about 11 inches by 12.5 inches. It is called Torii Gate, because it reminds me of pictures of beautiful Japanese gates. I've never seen them in real life, but who knows? Maybe someday I will.

Here's a secret about this quilt. It was made from left-over strips of fabric that have been mashed into a drawer over the last 20+ years of quilting. The drawer can't even close anymore, so for the last year I have been trying to work from it. I haven't made a dent in the pile. I would show you a picture, but that would be even more embarrassing than telling you....

Another secret? This was supposed to be a test piece for something I want to do with some of my hand-dyed fabric. But, I think I like this more than the one I was planning. Maybe my dyed fabrics need to get more exciting.

Torii Gate, detail

This detail shot shows some of the quilting. I did it the same way I have been doing my free-motion stitched drawings for Creative Cue , going over the lines several times. The result is a heavier line than I usually use for machine quilting. It seems to give the drawing a stronger role in the quilt.

In place of a traditional binding, the edge was zigzagged, and then I applied an edging made of twisted yarns. I have been using this technique on some of my smaller quilts for several years now, especially when a regular binding looks too heavy. To do this, I first choose several coordinating yarns, and hunt down my spindle (that I use to spin bunny fur into yarn).

Then the yarns are twisted together.

When I get the right length, Weasley gives his approval. (Or, since he's a rabbit, his disapproval.)

In this case, I removed the yarn from the spindle, and let it double back on itself. The resulting yarn was stitched to the quilt using a tiny whip stitch that just caught one strand of the yarn. The stitches are not visible on the quilt, because the yarn puffs up to cover them. On some quilts I have used larger stitches, made with embroidery floss, that are visible, as a design element.

I encourage you to try this. If you don't have a spindle, tie your yarn ends to something solid, and start twisting. It's a fun look, and gives you another reason to grow your yarn stash!

A Good Dog

This week's Creative Cue was "heel". I used my sewing machine to do a free-motion sketch of my Dad, and his old dog Oreo. Oreo passed on not quite a year ago. He was a good dog, even if he did flunk obediance school.

"Heel"

This time, instead of tracing paper, I put my drawing on Solvy dissolvable stabilizer with a marker, and then layered it with fabric, and a heavier tear-away stabilizer. Then I free-motion stitched with black thread. It was nice not to be picking small bits of paper off the drawing with tweezers. Two things that I found to be an issue were:

1. The Solvy was sort of stretchy, so I had to be careful not to pull and distort my image.
2. It was hard to see my stitches, as they seemed to sink into the Solvy. I couldn't easily check the tension. In some places I had to go back and add more stitching after dissolving the stabilizer. This was because I discovered that I had only stitched those areas once, and I like the effect of a double or triple line of stitching.

Still, I would probably use the Solvy again, unless the drawing were a very intricate one that might be too easily distorted.

I hope you like this one, I am pleased with it. Can't wait to see what the next cue will be.

 

Creative Cue: East

Last spring, I took a fabric painting and dyeing class with Sue Bleiweiss at the Danforth Museum. I really enjoyed it, learned alot, and continue to learn from her blog. Sue has another website with two other artists called Three Creative Studios. Recently they started a program where they give weekly topics to be used as drawing exercises (or painting, photography, etc.) They call it Creative Cues, and you can read about it here.

I didn't think that I would have time to participate in this, but when I saw that this week's cue is "East", I couldn't stop thinking about a photo I snapped last fall. It was of my parents and their friends, watching the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean. I would show you the photo, but maybe they don't want their PJ's on the internet.

I decided to make a free-motion stitched version of that photo. I put my drawing on tracing paper, which I layered over fabric and stabilizer. Then I stitched through all the layers. This is the result.

"East", 6" by 8", black thread on batiked cotton

Sorry about the darkness of the photo. I need to get better at that.  I like how this picture turned out, although I would probably simpify the ocean and sky if I were to do this again. Some other things I learned are:

1. My free-motion quilting needs to get smoother.

2. Not having a batting underneath, and having paper on top, really affects the tension of my machine. If I do more of this, I will have to do some testing to get this right.

3. Take a couple of vision restoring breaks on a complicated drawing.

4. Look for a disolvable stabilizer that can be drawn on to replace the tracing paper, as removing the paper tended to pull the stitches, especially on lines that were only stitched one time.

5. If using the tracing paper, put a tarp under the chair for catching all the paper bits during removal. Or sit in the bathtub (empty), and collect the paper bits that way. Of course, your family might think you are weird if you do this, but since mine needs no convincing....

This was alot of fun to do, and I will definitely be doing more free motion pictures.

You may have noticed that I added a profile picture. That is Ginny, who ordered me to gave permission for me to use this photo.

                              

 Weasley was sleeping, as usual.