A small piece finished.

I finally finished the small 12 by 12, that was started in a workshop with Bethany Garner.  I posted about the workshop awhile ago, but had never been able to devote a day to finishing the piece.  Not spectacular, but a simple little collage.

Here is a full view and a close-up.

Juncos

Having received the thread I needed for thread painting, I got to work on my latest piece, and have finally got it finished and hung in my studio.  I've been wanting to replace a framed embroidery, there, that I did in 1992, but have had problems with size as the area is over my ironing board, and the space is limited.

A few months ago, I blogged about doing a series of mono-prints on cotton to use as backgrounds for a series of hangings.  This is the first piece in that group.  I use the word group, as I'm not yet sure that there will be a series.  The mono-prints I chose for this piece were black and ultramarine blue, and there were three of them.  I first made a rough draft of my plan to determine the size of my thread painted focal point.  Then I did the thread painting.  I chose Juncos as the subject, as I very much look forward to the three weeks they visit my feeder, both spring and fall.

Next the surrounding pieces were cut and assembled, and the entire thing machine quilted, some of which was free motion. There was enough of the mono-prints left over to be able to piece the backing.  I usually add a false back to my pieces, but am toying with the idea of maybe entering this in a judges exhibition, so have allowed the quilting to show.   That is very scary for me! Here is the full view.

  And the reverse.  Because of the possibility of showing it, I've used an exhibition-size sleeve.

 And here it is on my wall, over the ironing board.  I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network, and maybe Nina-Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Fridays.

Practising

The thread I need for a special project has finally arrived.  But, it's been along time since I did any FMQ'g, and since the project involves both FMQ'g and thread painting, I figured I better get some practice in, before starting work on the project. I took one of the pieces I painted last week, and decided to cover it with matchstick quilting, done with free motion.

I've been doing matchstick quilting for a few years, but I was recently told that the lines should be no more that the length of one machine stitch apart, and mine are more like 2-3 stitch lengths apart. So my second goal was to work on making them closer together.

The background is a cotton Damask table napkin, about 20 inches square, that had been LWI dyed.  I then put some  dark lines on it with fabric paint.

I found that it is much more difficult to make the lines exactly parallel when they are longer, and that I was smart to do a practice piece before starting on the main piece. Here is the result. 

First the front view.  As you can see, I tried to alter the direction of the stitching within every defined space.

The effect might be more easily seen on the reverse

Having put this much work into it, I'm hoping it can find some sort of use, perhaps a tote bag.

I plan to link this with Nina-Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday, and The Needle and Thread Network.

Searching

I engage fairly often in a bit of "navel gazing".  We're told that we are each our own worst critic, and I think this is true.  Over the past few weeks, I've been searching for inspiration.  I've cruised the internet, and spent a fair bit of time in my personal library, trying to find a sense of direction with my art.  While thinking about this,  my need to stitch has lead to five charity quilts, of which three are now finished and ready to go.  The other two just need some simple machine quilting, and binding.  But the time has come for action.  

The weather prediction was for a hot sunny day, so I was up early this morning and prepared to go to my garden and paint fabric.  I planned to use fabric paint, acrylic paint, and was ready to "just do it!" My mantra for this year.

It's been a couple of years, so I started out with an old familiar task-sun printing.  But then creativity took over.  I got out some hand-dyed fabric that hadn't quite made the grade.  ( Nothing has "made the grade" lately, but that's another story.)  

Just as I had started, having brought half my studio outside, the wind came up and dark, threatening clouds rolled in.  So much for weather predictions!  However, despite the wind, and loss of the sun, I carried on.  By the time I finished with fabric paint, more than 3 hours later, I had 10 pieces laid out on the grass to dry, although only 6 are shown in the picture.

This is a previously dyed piece, that I over-painted with the green, and then put the 5 lids on to sun print.  The rocks are to hold everything down in the wind.  After it was dry, the resulting circles were void of green, but there is still not enough value contrast to make them stand out as much as I had hoped.  I 'm thinking of some hand stitching around the edges of the circles.  This can best be described as cheating at  clamped Shibori, but since the original dyeing was Shibori based, I feel no guilt.

The next picture shows painting over a bas-relief sculpture.  This is something I've tried in the past, but with mixed results.  The key appears to be the depth of the bas-relief, and this plaster ceiling medallion appears to be just about perfect.  I found it at a yard sale yesterday for a dollar, and certainly plan to use it again.  I have a glimmering of an idea about doing some circular mandala pieces, and this might show up in one.

If you look in the upper left corner of the first photo, you can see a plain purple ( trust me, it's purple- not blue )piece with three white ceramic tiles on it for sun printing.  I had written it off as a total failure, until I removed the tiles and found this.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it's a "keeper".

The other pieces are still working their way through my brain, and I have a couple of ideas, but nothing firmed up yet.  But after almost three years of artistic block, I feel wonderful at finally having "something", and I can't wait to get down to it.  Those other two charity quilts may just have to wait.

I plan to link this with Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday, and The Needle and Thread Network.