And now for something entirely different....

Last weekend I took a workshop in Polymer Clay-Complex Canes.  This wasn't my first workshop, but I tend to make a bunch of stuff and then leave the clay alone for lengthy periods of time.  So what does this have to do with Needle and Thread?  I love to use the clay items in both my hand work and art quilting. Sometimes I use pieces as a focal item and design an entire small piece around them.  This is particularly effective if I use a background of needle felting, hand embellished , and then add a clay button or cabochon as the focus.  These pieces are usually about 8" by 10", and have sold well at craft and art shows--so well that I have none to show.

I also make beads.  One of my signature techniques of the use of mass beading on some of my more art-y pieces.  I love the challenge of making the pieces, and many of them have sold well, and for a good price. Again there is no picture, as I lost them all in a computer crash.  Oh Dear!

Well the best bet is to show you the items I created this weekend.
Beads, Cabochons, and some molded pieces. 

 Using the mold is very useful.  While one of the best features of the clay is the vibrant colours available, all polymer clay items can be painted with acrylic paint.  I've even toyed with the idea of using gold leaf on it. The grey faces are headed for the next reliquary I make, and the white ones may come into use, if the grey ones aren't quite right.  The discs are headed for a small embroidery.  The beads will just go into my collection of beads, to be used when the right project turns up. ( Oh do I have beads, more than I'll ever use, but great fun to play with!) The flat pieces toward the upper right of the photo will likely become focal pieces in smaller works.  I've got to think about the flat molded pieces, but tend to think they might end up in a reliquary as well.

And I still have lots and lots of clay to play with.

I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network.

Starting over

With the exhibition piece "going south", ( see previous post)  I decided to take a bit of a break before starting over.  This piece has been bugging me to finish it for awhile.  I have a pile of hexies that I hand piece, during those few moments when I'm watching tv.  It's always a challenge to figure out what I'm going to do with them once they're pieced.  I was going to make a knitting roll (organizer) with these, but it kept telling me that it wanted to be a tote.  Since the knitting roll would take another metre or more of fabric, and I don't knit, I agreed.  I FMQ'd it using Superior Theads' Fantasia 5207--a yellow/orange/red/purple variegated Trilobal Polyester, that I've found to be a very useful and versatile thread.  I use  my take on McTavishing, but once it was finished found that the quilting disappeared into the hexies.  The whole piece looked much better on what was to be the inside than what was to have been the outside.

Above is what was to have been the inside of the piece, with the FMQ'g complete. and below is what was to have been the outside of the piece complete with FMQ'g.  The basic square ( and it must be a square) finished to about 17 1/2" square, which was then bound.

Here it is clipped together ready to hand stitch.  

 Once it was stitched, I added a twisted cord of #8 perle cotton, and a plastic curtain ring wrapped with the same #8 perle cotton, so the closure could be tied, as well as a small carrying handle.

The finished tote is large enough to hold a hand work project and supplies.

I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network

Disaster!

Finished quilting my exhibition piece.  Very nice, I was well pleased.  Then to trim it.  I mis-calculated , and cut it 1" too short.  I cut it exactly as calculated and measured, but my calculations were wrong.  A whole week's work down the tubes. After some bad language, and a trip out to Starbuck's to defuse,  I sat down to talk to myself and ask " What now?"

Well, it's not a large piece.  I can probably start over again, and may well have enough fabric to re-make it.  I had used all hand dyes.  What a waste!  However, I don't have to have it in to the show until late December.  Lots of time.  And none of the appliques had been attached, so I have them ready to go.  One thing that I struggled with, and had to re-do was the actual size.  I had to add to both the length and width, and that can sometimes show.  So maybe not so much of a disaster.

But, not today.  For today, I think I'll sit down and read a book, maybe listen to soft music, and generally relax.

More green

The leaf prints came out very well, and I ended up with many more than I will use in the current project.  I plan to applique them onto a pieced background, and am now piecing that.  I have cut the squares 1 3/4 " by 1 3/4" so that they will finish to about 1 1/4".  

I have a  "portable flannel wall" made out of a piece of 2" thick styro-foam, 2ft by 4 ft.  I can take this anywhere I want to work, and lean it against a table or chair.  I did this, and then sat in front of it to arrange the squares in a good array.  They were then pieced, row by row.  Here it is in progress, and a close-up of the finished rows.  All of the fabrics are hand dyed, most of them by a low water immersion process.  I have tried to create a slow gradation from light to dark, from top to bottom, of the piece. Sorry about the poor colour in the close-up, The first picture is close to actual colour.  I had trouble with the flash, and the second one got over exposed.  I didn't realize that until I actually posted them.

As the finished piece will be entered into an exhibition, I won't be able to post it when it's done.  Sorry about that.

With the left over cut squares, I plan to piece them together into a square about 10" by 10", to use as a "doodle cloth" to try a couple of different options for quilting the piece, and for attaching the leaf prints.

I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network

Leaf Prints

There are a couple of small pieces on my worktable that I feel call for leaf prints, so today was the day.  The tree the leaves came from is very high, and my poor husband had to use a very long extension handle to knock the leaves off, but we got some very nice one, and the right size too!  We also discovered that the tree is infested with aphids, but that's another story.  

Since my current interest is in colouring and using older cotton Damask table linens, I used a large napkin that had been very gently treated in its past life, and was in pretty good shape.  I still stabilized it a bit with spray starch on the reverse side.

I'm very pleased with the result. My work space is fairly simple, a piece of glass to use as a palette, a bucket of water, two brayers, textile paint and textile medium, paper towel, and, of course, a bunch of leaves.  The fabric is stretched over a single layer of batting.  I put the leaf in the paint, wrong side down, cover it with a paper towel, and firmly press or roll ( using a clean brayer over the paper towel)to make sure all of the back is covered with paint.  Then, carefully lift the leaf off, position it on the fabric, cover with paper towel, and press again, ( using a clean brayer).  You'll notice that the fabric is marked to help position the various leaves. After they dry, and are heat set, I plan to stabilize the fabric with a light weight stabilizer and cut them apart with pinking shears.  They can then be raw edge appliqued over a pieced background.

I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network.

Today's progress report

The hand work continues, but I've also had a bit of studio time.  I mentioned that I had taken a Craftsy class, believing that the techniques might be useful in a sort of commission I have.  The next step was to design a piece to test the techniques, and see if they would suit one of my designs.  Well, I've finished that piece and am quite happy with the result, although it will never be suitable for any exhibition ( it's somewhat derivative, and there are a couple of places where the workmanship isn't quite up to snuff-mainly in the machine work)

Here it is, a full view and a close-up.  It is about 22" by 18".  The background is painted, and some of the fabrics are hand-dyed, while others are commercial, mainly batiks.

While all of this was going on, both my main, basement studio and the auxiliary upstairs studio have become a bit messy--quite a bit messy.  There is usually a short  "tidy up" ceremony whenever a piece is finished, and today's the day. 

Then, finally, I get to sit down and prepare a working pattern for the commission piece.

I plan to link this with Off the Wall Friday, and The Needle and Thread Network.

WIP_Hand work

The last few days have been mainly dedicated to watching the Olympics.  This means a chance to do a bit of hand work.  Usually I only watch tv for an hour a day, or less, so hand work can mean weeks or months on one project.  But there are now two projects getting close to completion.

The first is going to be a needle roll, used to store knitting needles and accessories.  I have patterned this to be similar to a roll I made to store my good quality paint brushes, that  works well. This latest one is at the stage of machine quilting, prior to adding the pockets to the lining.  The hexies are 1 3/8", and the overall size is roughly 17 5/8" square.  This will be more precise after the quilting is finished, but before the navy blue binding goes on.

The other piece is going to end up as some sort of tote.  It's been many years since I tried any Cathedral Window piecing.  ( Maybe 35 years?) I had a recollection of how I was shown to do it, but checked the internet.  Found absolutely nothing that agreed with the method I had been taught. So I had to "wing it".  Everything I remembered and saw on the internet told me that the squares were 6 inches square, so I cut all my backing squares 6".  I think what the actual instruction meant was that the finished size of the square would be 6".  My finished squares are 2 1/2".  Imagine trying to do the final diamond applique in that dimension!  However, it should be ready to assembly within a day or so, if the Olympics stay as interesting as they have been.  As you can see, the bottom of the bag will be squared off, but I'm thinking of adding fabric to the top, and then gathering it as a Draw String bag.  I'm dithering over whether or not to put handles on it.  Unfortunately, some of the appliqued square will end up on the bottom of the bag, and, if I do this again, I will design it differently.  The bag should end up about 25" around from top of one side to top of the other, and about 12" across  each side.  This will be lined in plain brown cotton.

 I plan to link this, as a WIP, with The Needle and Thread Network.