A bit of joy, and a bit of sorrow

I have been working hard, in the studio.  Housework much less so.  It shows.  This week both my dishwasher and A/C gave us grief.  the Dishwasher is being replaced, provided I can find a plumber to set it up for me, but the A/C will have to wait ( where is September when you need it??).  So every minute spent in the studio contains a little bit of guilt.

The class sample for my collage class at the end of September is finished and looks fabulous.  I ended up buying a length of a batik for the backing and binding.  While hand stitching the binding on I realized what a joy it is to work with a fresh, crisp, top quality fabric.  While the fabric I use for my hand dyes is fairly good quality, the multiple washings, involved in the process, soften it up, and makes it a little bit more of a chore to finish really well.  While I was just planning to use this piece as a teaching sample I think it has turned out nicely enough to put into my gallery show in December.  Here is both a close-up and a full view

My Bonsai Tree is coming along nicely.  I had to put it aside while working on other deadlines, and hope to get back to it this weekend.  I had sketched it out on the background, with machine basting, completed all of the background quilting, and then started work on the thread painting.  DH, who looks in once in awhile had seen it  with just the basting and background done, came in, took a second look, and remarked " Why are you doing the clouds green?"  He had seen the spaces left for foliage as clouds in a sky. (Marked with X's in the picture Go figure!

And where is the sorrow, you ask.  I have been working on a larger sample for my class in the middle of "September.  This is a machine quilting and Free Motion class, to which I have added a second day dedicated to Feathers.  I have been attempting to make a finished sample of Machine Trapunto feathers, since my original sample was sold at the July sale.  I used an absolutely gorgeous piece of hand dye, for which I selected and ordered special thread--a 100 wt Kimono silk.  Since I had been disappointed with the blue piece--now titled "My Blue Rag"--where I had used a closely matched thread colour  to the background, I chose a slightly darker, rosy red, to go with the variegated rosy brown/beige background.  The trapunto stitching was finished, and the extra batting carefully cut out (two days work).  Then all of the feathers were quilted.  while doing that, I was having difficulty  where the water soluble thread had obliterated my marked lines, so decided to wash it out as soon as the basic feathers were finished, and before I tried to do the background filling stitching.  The piece was thoroughly wet with a huge spritzer, and carefully blocked.

Looking at it today, those places where I had difficulty following the lines were very obvious, and the water-soluble thread didn't come fully out, leaving dark lines behind..  I carefully took out and re-stitched the worst of them and started doing the echoing around the feathers.  Not pretty. There is no way I can take out all of the stitching--it is 27 inches square, and densely quilted.  The fabric was a special one, and there is a lot of money invested in thread. The thread colour is a little overwhelming, although the YLI rosy beige silk background thread seems to work well.  The end result is unacceptable.  I cannot figure a way out of this problem.  Time to take the rest of the day off, and then  move on.

Back into production

Have been buying supplies, getting ready to go into production.  I already have a couple of hangings in progress, and I hope to have one ready for beading by Thursday, when we travel to the cottage for about 5 days.  Space limitations, and the presence of young grandchildren, mean not taking along the sewing machine, so I hope to have a good selection of handwork to take along.

Today was a good day in terms of supplies.  For a couple of years I have been wanting to introduce cabochons into my beading, and have been looking for someone to make some for me, without much success.  I thought I had someone.  I was told that if I could produce a pattern, she would be happy to make some for me.  Yeah, sure!  When I actually showed up, pattern  in hand, she found every excuse in the book not to do it.  I very quickly realized that the basic truth was that she just didn't want to do it. This made me determined to find someone. I next approached the Manitoba Crafts council, who referred me to one of their members--June Derksen.  A very gracious lady, she let me explain exactly what I wanted, and determined how flexible my ideas were.  She then gave me a tour of her studio, and we selected a piece of glass to work with--different but more exciting than my vision. She reviewed the process with me so that I could understand how the cost might change depending which options I chose.  Finally a price was negotiated, and the deal made.

I an SO excited!!

OMG!!

This weekend was the  "Big Sale".  For the first time in several years, we had huge crowds, as the sale was part of the 50th Anniversary of a small local town.  This town has a highly educated population, and a high median income level. These people buy art, and I have sold several larger pieces in the 7 years I have been there for what is an annual  ART, but not craft, sale.

My husband and I set  up two side by side booths, one for him to sell the older stock that had been reduced in price, and one for me to sell the more recent pieces.  We were run off our feet.  This is the first time DH has actually participated in the selling activity.  In the past he has acted as a cashier, sat in someone's booth, for security, while they took a short break, or even acted as a "gofer" for anybody involved in the sale.  ( I jokingly refer to him as my "roadie")  But this time he had to get out on the floor to "flog the wares".  I just couldn't deal with the volume of customers on my own.   For the first time ever, I was able to accept credit cards, and what a difference that made!

When the dust had settled, we had sold just about every wall hanging I had there, including the pricier ones, and even a couple that never made it to the display.  My lower priced items are pretty well cleaned out.  Wooden boxes with hand embroidered inserts-gone.  ( I have been trying to sell those for 15 years)  I had known that I would have a chance to talk to the owner of the LQS, and had taken along a teaching sample of machine trapunto and FMQ'g--very, very traditional work ( my design, however).  Another vendor saw me showing it to the store owner over to one side of the room and rushed over, cash in hand, saying--"I want that".  A second vendor approached me just before we opened the second day and purchased a small tote bag, then danced ( yes,-- danced) around the room showing it off.  Artists were buying my art!

As with many sales, there was some down time.  This is when you have a chance to talk to other vendors.  Several of the conversations turned to why it was that we got so excited about making a sale.  When someone actually puts down money for our art, it is a validation of our identity as artists.  So many of us have trouble seeing ourselves as having value as artists, and this external validation has a tremendous impact on the way we view ourselves.  Over the past 24 hours, I have been trying to reconcile my intellectual understanding of this, with my emotional internal inability to believe it.  But so many customers openly told me  "I've never seen anything like this!!", I now have to accept that my work is unique and has artistic merit

Willow Tree finished

Yes, finally.  Here is the full view of the piece. It ended up about 20" by 30", and is faced rather than bound.  Since I wanted to emphasize the wide open spaces of the prairies, I felt that any sort of binding would provide a firm frame that cut off the idea of infinite space.

  The trees were thread painted using Superior Fantastico in a variegated brown for the main colour.  I then added highlights with Fantastico in variegated beiges, and low lights in Sulky #30 in a matt brown.  Here is a close-up.  The highlights and low lights sure made a difference in adding depth to the trees.

The final step was in free motion quilting the snow in the foreground.  I tried several patterns that I have been using for years, taken from photos I took years ago.  Nothing seemed right, but then I went to a Leah Day design called Lava Rocks, and, some minor modifications, it worked very well.  I'm quite pleased with the result.

Willow Trees

Lately, I've been working on a hanging featuring Willow Trees, with a working title of Prairie Wind Break. After a bit of research i was ready to start, but had to delay a bit while I figured out how to mark my images onto the fabric. I knew it would be fmq'g/thread painting, so that meant some stabilization to prevent gathering and rippling. So I layered the fabric, stabilizer, and then batting.  I machine quilted the sky, and added fabric to create a horizon line.

Next, I sketched out the entire scene, full size, on paper.  Full size allowed me to blend entwine the branches, as I wanted the trees very close together, and allowed me to measure and gauge the relative positions of the trees--and to do it in pencil, with an eraser in hand.  Finally, I transferred position marks to the fabric with water erasable pen.

Next, I traced each individual tree onto tracing paper, again with the positioning marks.  Then, one at a time, I carefully, positioned my tracing paper, and carefully a securely taped it into place.  Then, stitching through the paper, I fmq'd the basic outline of each tree.  The biggest and worst part of the process turned out to be removing the paper after each tree was stitched.

Here is the third tree stitched and ready to have the paper removed, and the 5th tree in place ready for stitching.

Once the thread sketching is finished,  the next step is to do the thread painting, but that will have to wait until the thread I ordered arrives.  I tried to order it from my LQS, but, no luck and no stock and a bunch of attitude.  I would prefer to support local stores, but sometimes they make it difficult.

I also have a preliminary picture of the latest Shibori piece.  it is pieced and quilted,but no yet bound.  I am very pleased with this, as I managed to do all of the quilting with no mares nests on the back of my piece.

And a close-up.

Prior to starting this, I had forgotten doing leaf prints over top of Shibori dyeing.  I am very anxious to try more of this.

I promised pictures.....

The first is a mixed media collage that is about 12" by 12".  Like the next two this started with an acrylic mono-print.  I then tried some rubber stamping, machine quilted it,  and added dyed cheesecloth with my embellisher.

Next is a close-up.

The next piece has had dimensional pieces added as well a a gold metallic ribbon.  I think this is my favourite.

And close-up.

The third caused me a bit of grief. There were originally three black butterflies rubber stamped in the lower area under the dark discs.  The just didn't seem to work and I spent several hours going through all of my "unusual mixed media pieces"  ( read junk) but couldn't find anything that really worked.  I was still worrying about it when I went to bed.  I finally figured out that the actual piece of fabric I was working with was about 16' by 16" but the finished piece was only 10"by 10". My proportions were confused.  In the morning I put the frame I had planned to use over it, and all of the proportions just fell into place.  Mind you, finding the right beads took quite awhile, as well.

And the close-up

The final piece is much smaller, about 6" by 6" before framing.  I had actually been working on this for over a year.  The charm is a sterling silver earring that was given to me by a friend. I polished it up and put lacquer on it to preserve the shine.  Most of the other beads etc were also found objects.

And the close-up

Today was spent doing the preliminary work for not one, but two larger hangings. The first one was the scheduled activity for the day, but I had to paint some fabric first and, given the humidity, it just wouldn't dry.  So I started fooling around with some dyed fabric and managed to get a second piece put together and ready for quilting.  By  then I had decided that I really didn't like the colour  of the fabric that had been painted, so I washed it all out, and painted it again.  Now it may not be dry for a couple of days.

But it feels so-o-o good to be productive again!

Warm weather

Yesterday was the first day of summer and we are certainly feeling the heat.  However there is lots to do in the basement studio. I had just finished three mixed media collages, and had been framing them. Now it's time for things like screw eyes and wire for hanging.  DH joined me and we spent most of the day working on finishing these pictures, and creating hanging devices for quilted hangings that I want to take to the big sale in mid-July. I wanted to find a small quilt to take to my very small quilting group at the local active living centre, but instead found four more hangings that will be quite suitable for the sale and might even be considered for my gallery show in December.  They needed hanging rods, as well, but first needed sometime outside in the breeze as they had been stored in a cedar chest, resulting in quite an odor.

It was supper time when we finished all of this.  That may be the "Royal We", as DH seemed to do most of the work.  Given the heat, and how steadily we worked, we are now both almost ready to drop.  But there is now a wonderful collection of items to be offered at the sale.  Tomorrow I will try to post some pictures.