Maybe my Mojo is back!

Changing the flannel wall appears to have been a catalyst to getting my creativity back into the "groove".  The orange flower-like circles from the last post have been pieced, and machine quilted.  I am now adding the beads.  the white marking under the beads will be removed.  I apologize for the poor quality of the full view.

Then, needing some sort of challenge, I decided to try some batik using soy wax.  "Fools rush in", I guess.  I found an old slow cooker, and then found the wax at the local Micheal's store.  Having next to no idea what I was doing, I bought far too much wax.  I'll be doing this for years to come, if I try to use it up.  Not being a total fool, I hit the internet for instructions and found some good ones on the Dharma Trading Company web site.  Three days of artistic frenzy followed.  I completed three pieces.  Two appear usable, but one will have to be re-cycled into something else.  I found the biggest challenge in figuring out the use of different dyes to achieve a desired colour mix.  

This first one went into three dye baths.  It is about 24" square.

This second one only went into two dye baths, but the second one was the same as the third one in the above. Go figure!  It's about 30" square.

The most difficult part of it was getting the wax out. Tthis took a couple of days and involved four separate trips through the washing machine.  Each trip though faded the dye slightly, leaving me with two rather soft appearing pieces to take to the next step.  Given the softness of the colour on both of them, I decided to machine quilt them using 100wt silk.  This lead to a realization that I would probably have to buy more silk--Ka-a-a-ching!  But first I checked out what I have on hand and found five different colours that would work very well with the pieces.  One was not silk, but quite suitable for the type of quilting I plan on doing.  I don't have to buy anything!

But this means that thread bought on sale, on speculation, fits into my preferred colour schemes quite nicely.  Does this mean that my work is becoming predictable?  I had thought the green and yellow colour scheme was a new one for me.  Evidently not.  

On the other hand, I made a decision a couple of years ago that I would stop trying to work for salable pieces and just make things to please myself.  Looks like I've succeeded.  So I'm not going to worry, just continue to have fun.