Very Scary

Someone broke into our house last night while I was on the computer posting yesterdays bird. OK, they didn't exactly break in - they pranced through my UNLOCKED dining room door. I did hear a sort of clumpy sound but exercised my usual ostrich coping strategy when I hear a funny sound at night. After about 2 minutes of being an ostrich I decided I really did hear something and I should look into it. I first noticed how damn cold it was by our front door (just off the dining room). I turned the outdoor lights on and made sure the front door was locked and made a mental note that glass doors and lots of windows are poor insulation. I went back to the computer and felt a definite draft that even an ostrich couldn't deny. OK now my heart is beating fast. I went back to the front door and noticed my dining room door was wide open and my family room door was slightly ajar. Yikes! The wind must have blown it open. No wind. I wandered through the house a bit to see if I felt a presence. I didn't. But I did decide I would be safest outside so I stood outside in absolute stillness and silence for 5 minutes until I started shivering. Should I call the police? Should I wake up my husband to help me check the house? Should I check the house myself. No. No. and Yes. I am not brave I am an idiot! I found nothing and felt nothing weird so I went to bed. Pillow over my head. Cell phone on the nightstand.

I woke up (5am)to my husband yelling (I wear ear plugs to bed) "Where's my wallet"? Right away, straight from a deep sleep I said "The person who came into our house last night took it".

At first light I found the wallet and credit cards strewn about our yard. Only the Blackberry was missing. Very scary, especially considering our house is somewhat isolated and we have lots of windows with no curtains.

Anyway, to the quilting. It seems appropriate to post this scary Hawaiian applique. My tutor is quite happy that I tried so many ways to find a way to enjoy this technique. Satin stitch-too flat and factory like. Fused- flat and dead appearance. Raw edge-like this best. Needle turn applique- too many narrow and sharp corners, usually I like applique. I have yet to hand embroider one of the fused sections. This is one activity and sample that I happily bury in the strata of samples.

Mola Bird

This picture of driftwood was taken during our boat trip to Desolation Sound this summer. I like the quilting potential of the cracks. The bird shape was an after the fact bonus. The history of molas and the colourful outfits of the Kuna Indians (First Nations?) of the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama captured my interest. Molas (literally meaning blouse) are generally extremely complex layers of colour and pattern. The designs range from complex geometric patterns to primitive animal shapes and everything in between, often all on one piece. The freedom of design and brilliant colours are a big lure for me. Molas are usually 13"X16" and come in pairs, one for the front of the blouse and one for the back. I wanted to use a flowered blouse in background like some of the images shown on this website. But the directions for this activity said to create a 2 colour mola http://www.galenfrysinger.com/mola_panama.htm

I extracted a version of the mola bird from the driftwood quite quickly; took a smidge longer to pick the colours and one hour to baste the layers around the motif. By the time all was said and done I forgot to watch the Survivor finale. I am really enjoying this technique. He looks a bit silly right now but I have hopes he will improve. A tail and legs will help.

I wish I knew how to get a photo in the middle of posts.

Broderie Perse Ginkgos

I always feel like I am getting caught up in my blogging. This post is 'what's up' almost right now. The objective of this City and Guild activity is to apply broderie perse applique technique to hand stamped leaves.

I used Setacolor fabric paint and a stamp made out of crafters' foam. The stamp is actual ginkgo leaf size. The stamping took place over a fews days. Day One: I stamped yellow and green on white fabric and let it dry thoroughly. I tried scoring some veins into the foam which helped a small bit.

Day Two: I wanted to get a bit of colour variation, but not too much. Ginkgos seem to go from chartreuse to brilliant yellow over night. I got into the red paint! I couldn't help myself. I wanted to try and get a brown fringe on the yellow but it didn't work. I noticed a watery wash helped to define the grooved veins a bit better.

Arrangement: I was fixated on using the centre threesome. I first tried circling the centre with another ring with all stems shortened, facing the centre, and tucked under the centre leaves. I hated to cut off the nice straight stems so I 180'd them to get the stems radiating out. Much more interesting to my eye.

Background: The blue fabric resulted from a very short audition. I just liked the combination. I see the stems hang off a bit. Oh well. Now to fine tune the arrangement before 'wonderundering' the lot. I am not sure how to finish the edges. My machine goes in for servicing tomorrow so I may practice a few hand embroidery stitches I recently learned.

Very Scary Hawaiian Applique

Traditional Hawaiian applique is not for me! First of all, I blame the colour choice on Halloween - when I started this. The only thing I enjoyed about this activity was cutting out the 'snowflakes'. Even this I should have paid more attention to as my motif is very irregular from one quadrant to the next. My lack of excitement over this activity explains why it has sat with the last 3" of applique unfinished for 7 weeks!

Applique experiments:

1. Needle turn hand applique. I tried following the stitching line that we used to outline the motif and join the 2 layers of fabric together. It seemed like I was forever stopping applique stitching and taking out these basting line stitches. Once the stitches were removed there was no line to follow. I finished one quadrant using the needle turn method prescribed, and then decided to free myself to experiment with other options in the other quadrants.

2. I used the Kate Pasquini-Masopust technique of starching the fabric and ironing the shape over a piece of posterboard to create a nice smooth edge all ready to stitch. Of course the sharp corners and tiny pieces in my motifs were challenging but at least I could enjoy the hand work somewhat.

3. Heat n Bond fusing made for a very very lifeless, flat look. which would have to be salvaged with stitching or embellishment. Satin stitch makes it look factory made.

4. Raw edge applique was the closest I got to satisfaction. Once I trim the edges better, (need to get some nice sharp small scissors) I think it leaves the most interesting look.

This is one activity I would be happy to leave unfinished, but we have to do some echo quilting. I have heard that hand quilting is quite unpleasant on batik.

Now to get at my mola design which I am very excited about. The broderie perse ginkgo is also proving fun and I can't wait to get at the isometric exercise. I'm loving the photo I have chosen for the isometric colour exercise and English paper piecing exercise to follow.

Flower Fossil Applique

I loved doing this C&G Heat n' Bond applique even though the fossil/shells turned out stiff as boards. I felt the embroidered edge was too fancy for the shell. So the sample sat for a week. But, the exercise called for machine stitches so eventually I went with fancy edges and lots of different patterns, thread and colour. The stitching went like magic. No breaks, bad tension or stripped threads. I started to really love the exotic look all the stitching gave the simple shell shape. The background was a struggle to find. The shells are gradations of pink and orange hand dyed fabrics. I was fixated on using a background that used similar gradation values in blue or green. It just wasn't working. This corally looking piece materialized one afternoon. Without a lot of thinking (for a change) I just added in a few of the brilliant green and blue blocks to meet the '4 patch' requirement for the exercise.

There are more and better quality images at my flickr page. Click on flickr badge on the right side of these posts.

Comments and Picture

Success -I got my picture onto my blog page. The box that accepts the copied url from my computer was operational this time. It took about 1 minute. Patience is definitely helpful on learning curves.
I've noticed the 'comment' section has been missing in the last couple of weeks. Whoopsy, I inadvertently hid the comments. I think it is fixed now for future posts. This post is the test.
I started a wish list of quilting books. This could be a handy place to keep a list of novels I want to read and ones that I have read. However, between flickr and blog surfing, my reading time has vanished.

Tie With Flow

The self imposed Bargello quilting deadline has been removed. Now I can enjoy coming up with a quilting plan and then enjoy the quilting without the ridiculous idea that I must get this done by a certain date hovering over me.

I have always envisioned a turquoise something and leaf shapes flowing through the Bargello strata stream. I abandonned the idea when I saw the huge size of the quilt. This tie is all I needed to spark my enthusiasm. While purchasing the substitute birthday gift - a sports jacket, I spotted this tie. The helpful sales clerk took it in stride when I asked her permission to photograph the tie. A first apparently! The flowing lines in the tie are just what I have had in mind all along. Now to adapt the lines to quilt size. I have to be careful to keep the quilting even and not too dense. I want this quilt to stay cuddly not stiff like a chunk of carpeting.

Mountain of Thread

I removed this mountain of thread last Sunday. It took 3 hours! Would it have really mattered if I had left them there? The black minkee, wool and top are all spray adhesived together. I have no idea how I want to quilt this. To get it finished by the 12th, I was going to quilt straight channels in the border and follow the curve of the bargello. BORING... to look at and to execute. For now, I stitched the perimeter of the interior to keep that straight and square. I also quilted in the ditch around the narrow border. The straightness of the borders are killing any creative thoughts that enter my head. The borders are a prison for the cente of the quilt. The quilt looks really great laying on the bed in the guest room while I work out a quilting plan.

Quilter's Block

I am trying to extricate myself from 3 areas of Quilters Block. If writers can have a block, quilters certainly can!

1. I did this stamp making exercise for C&G. I was imagining the gingko leaves being pelted to the ground in the huge windstorm we had 2 weeks ago. I tried out the as yet unused umber and sienna acrylic paint. I had no foam stamp material so I used various types of plumber's gasket to create the gingko stamps. It was fun figuring out how much paint to use and see the overlapping effect of colour and leaf form. I got carried away with the stamping and didn't love the look of the end result. Way too many leaves. I know...IT'S JUST AN EXERCISE! But. I feel I need to do it again with a bit of restraint.

2. The Bargello needed to be batted, backed and basted. I know... ONE THING AT A TIME - START WITH WHAT YOU KNOW. But. There were issues. I did the miters late at night even though I new better. What was I thinking? I eyeballed the miters! All the borders seemed to line up so I sewed them. All was not perfect even after redoing 2 corners. I guess I should have used a ruler and the angle thingee. The top lay abandonned for a week. Finally I got down to business to correct wrongs. Resting was just what the miters needed. Everything measured perfectly. All was square and flat and the border corners met quite acceptably. The black Minkee got cut and sewn for the back. The wool that had been relaxing over my railing for the past week got cut to size. I spray basted the back of the Minkee and laid the batt on top. I used the basting glue from Walmart. It doesn't seem very tacky. Nothing like the 3M spray adhesive. The layers will rest while I will remove the zillions of threads from the back and front of the quilt top tomorrow while I have my morning coffee.

One more Quilter's Block to go! My mind will get too revved if I start thinking about it just before going to bed.

Twisted Ribbon

54X66

The bargello strips, bit and pieces are miraculously together! Miraculous because I perservered the tedium and because I didn't run out of strata prior to completion. I have the borders cut and ready to mitre but may have to save that for the morning when eyes, mind and energy are fresh. Tomorrow I will check out the Wonderfil http://www.wonderfil.net/index_en.htm thread at Sew Fine for quilting considerations. The thicker rayon thread sounds interesting. The colours on the web site look just fantastically intrigueing.

City and Guild exercises are languishing but the bargello must be completed by December 12.

Bargello Taking Shape

Paying attention is the name of the game in making this Bargello. Is it possible I'm just not good at following directions?! A system eventually developed. I enjoyed doing this late at night when my mind is prone to wandering. I fell victim to 'doing just a little bit more' and had some very late nights. I loved watching the pattern tighten up with each seam. I am planning to give this to my husband for his 50th birthday in December. I'm worried that it is too pink. A dark border might masculinize it. I am definitely using Minkee on the back. His only request was that it be soft and cuddly. I guess that means pink is not a problem! I am thinking about quilting lines and will probably do the predictable and follow the curves rather than an all over pattern. I'll just have to see what the quilting gods have to say when that day comes.

Strata Swatches

Every now and then I have the need to slip into "Sweatshop" mode and do some factory work- (cut 20 of this sew 100 of this cut it 20 more times sew it all over). The timely offering of 'Twisted Ribbon Class' at Poppins Parlour suited me just fine. I also knew the instructor, Gwen, would be adding ideas that add quality to the project.
The first class consisted of selecting 20 fabrics that will be used to build 5 stata. The stratas will be cut into various widths and arranged just so, with the end result being a 'Twisted Ribbon'. This is a tweaked version of Chris Timms 'Twisted Bargello' that I first saw in an Australian Patchwork magazine.
I kept coming back to the orange and corally pink colour scheme with it starting at white and plunging through a mossy green to the black depths. I struggled with the transition from pink to moss green but I made do and hoped for the best. Tomorrow I will post the partially finished strips as assembled on the design wall.

Shape in a Fruit Jar

Under the duress of procrastination I finally got 10 ‘shape’ pictures to Catherine for the Module 3 City and Guild exercise. The shape images were to be found in our own homes and gardens- no cruising the internet for excellent and inspirational photos for this exercise! My yard, things and photographic skills just don’t thrill me. Or so I thought. It turns out that looking, really looking, and opening my mind to what I see leads to even more seeing. (I thought I knew that.)
The fruit jar photo session was a good lesson. I hauled my beans and rice jars out of the cupboard thinking the form of the jars and various sizes would take care of one shape photo. My first background was white, way too harsh for the light, but I noticed interesting overlapping jar shadows playing out on the white background. I'll explore that later.
The beans have curiously perfect shapes and colours. DNA is an amazing 3D photocopier. It’s usually best when DNA doesn’t get too creative. Now the beans interest me and I decide to take a photo from above, I’m thinking circle shapes are good, so off come the ill fitting zinc lids and glass tops. Imagine preserving food in these things for families of 13 hungry farm boys. The thought of the absolute necessity of preserving such copious quantities of the harvest to sustain a large family overwhelms me. Now I notice the glass tops have interesting and varied regal crowns. Some lids have stars and other pattern embossed. So I decide to photograph the whole lot. The glass has subtle hues of greens and blues and clear with different size bubbles capturing the breath of the glass blower. Yuck.

My dad collects fruit jars. He has all the more intensely coloured jars including at one point the much coveted brown ‘Pansy’. He would put them in the sunlight to bring out more colour. Coloured jars were distained by the farm wives of the day but coveted by collectors today. Now I realize I have a personal connection to these jars. So much for having nothing that interests me in my house.
Now on to the compost pile.

Box Fish

box fish
Originally uploaded by Zé Eduardo

This fish is the latest background on my desktop. The more I look at it the more interesting I find it. Notice the hexagon pattern on the body. I love the translucent fins with the green tinge. The lips...well they are just fun. The background is fantastic, I think I have some fabric that would be perfect. It is very unlikely that I will ever get to Bonaire in the Dutch Antilles so I am loving the photos that 'Ze Eduardo' has been uploading to flickr during the last few weeks.

Cole&Me2

I absolutely cannot figure out how to put this image in my profile. I'm going to sew!
Cole&Me2
Originally uploaded by materialeyes

Hawaiian Snow

I’ve started Module 3 of the City and Guilds Patchwork certificate online course. 18 or so activities in this module with lots of hand work. I decided to get a head start on one of the final activities knowing Hawaiian style quilting is not for me and there would be much procrastination going on at every opportunity. It was fun enough cutting out the snowflakes- certainly messy enough. The flakes I liked best were angular and detailed. I knew those would pose extreme appliqué problems. I felt I couldn’t select the simple and gently curvaceous one because it would be ‘too easy’.
I really like the overall effect of the white flakes on black. Before seeing this photo I picked Halloween colours, orange and brown batiks.
I read a little bit on the history of Hawaiian quilts. Quite fascinating! Here is a snippet summary. “Before the first contact with whites (haole), the Hawaiians were making a type of Quilt called a Kapa, which was made of fabric pounded from the bark of the Wauke (paper bark or mulberry) tree. On the top layer they would print geometric and snowflake type designs, with a thicker layer in the middle and a smooth bottom layer or lining. They were sewn with fibres gathered from nature and needles fashioned from shells or the rib of the palm frond. From http://www.hawaiianquiltartist.com/ Thank goodness the Kemshall’s don’t have us ‘fashioning’ our own needles from natural sources…yet! I shall post the Halloween Hawaiian block in a few days.

Disperse Dyeing Results

Disperse dyeing is full of surprises. It is so exciting when you peel back the freshly pressed paper and see how the dye and fabric sublimated. The purple paper was in fact a brilliant blue. The dull red was fuschia and the mustard yellow was bright lemon. Very alarming! I was forever looking for my paper of ‘mud’ colours to iron over the whole works to tone it all down. My mud ran out and I just had to deal with it.
I tried several fabrics and loved the intensity of a 100% polyester ‘satin-like’ shirt with a heavy drape. My favourite is the last one, shown here, printed on the same polyester fabric. Very pale and pleasant. Too bad there was so much red dye left in the top left ginkgo. At this point I had learned there would be no fixing the bright pink with another layer. More than 3 layers proved more disastrous than not.
I stumbled onto Barbara McKie’s disperse dye work at http://mckieart.com/... again. She must use disperse dye in a large format printer to get her images. What is with these fibre art studios that don’t have a thread out of place?!

Disperse Dyes and Ginkgo Leaves

Yesterday I got my new painting area organized enough to paint computer paper with disperse dye. I read Linda Kemshall’s book ‘Color Moves, Transfer Paints on Fabric’ quite thoroughly before starting. I have been looking forward to doing this final Module 2 activity since July. I really liked the transparent effects when the paper was ironed onto the various synthetic fibres. But first…I had to get the paint on the paper.
The disperse dyes are very watery so the first few papers were drenched and runny. The cute little paint palette was too small and the watery paint spilled every where- not at all like the tidy pictures in Linda’s book! I thought it wasn’t working out very well so I added some thickener. This seemed to control the liquid much better.
I laid plastic wrap on the red, yellow and blue (looks purple to me). This made for great texture. After I had these basic colour sheets I started painting the positive and negative ginkgos that I had cut out. Freezer paper would have made sharper images but these will still be useful. I started mixing the primaries but did not get oranges like I was expecting and green was not going to happen. I must have contaminated the blue with red somewhere along the line.
This morning I checked out the dried pieces and was thrilled with the colours and did not miss the blue. The runny watercolour-like pages are actually very interesting when I lay the ginkgos on top. I think I have enough painted papers and possibilities to entertain myself this dreary October afternoon. Now to heat up the iron, thanks Doreen, and see what colours I really get.

Kiwi Jewel

14"X18" , click on image for quilting detail

Acrylic Paint Inspiration

My first blog entry was ‘Kiwi Mosaic’. This completed quilt is ‘Kiwi Jewel’. I really like it. Usually I just enjoy the doing and feel quite indifferent once the challenges are faced, decisions are made and the work is done. Translating my original kiwi acrylic still life into this mosaic was absorbing and challenging from beginning to end. Don’t be fooled by the small size! The border was a gorgeous piece of hand dyed fabric that resulted from Darlene (co-Fabricator) generously sharing her dyes this past July. I used up every square inch of it.
How to quilt the kiwi section was a big stumbling block until last week; when I bought a funky printed batikish fabric from Poppins. As I was pondering how to quilt an oval motif, my eyes landed on the swirly, sort of round shapes, in the fabric that squished in and around each other. It was fun to stitch the pattern. I couldn't resist adding the yarn around the large border. The chartreuse looked so great with the purple. I just realized this might be an example of complementary colours.

Tomorrow is the first day of a Bargello workshop, 'Twisted Ribbon' at Poppins with teacher Gwen Ledyard. I think I have my 20 fabric picked out. I look forward to the feedback of her experienced eye.

Transparency

I first picked a few leaves off of my sycamore tree then layed them on sheer fabric which was on top of a piece of glass. Using my very hot burning tool I burned an outlined of each leaf, lifted the excess sheer and peeled the leaf off of the glass. I just love when a technique works so slickly.
Using a metal ruler I burned a lot of rectangles out of a lot of different colours of sheer. Some shot, some not. I found it frustrating to try and control the placement of the sheers so opted for a willy nilly arrangement. Always something was not working with the arrangement. I'd move one thing and create a problem elsewhere. Finally I decided to accept this arrangement. (I see a few things I am going to change!) Nothing like a picture to see the flaws!

The goal of the City and Guilds exercise I was to observe the effect of laying yellow over blue vs. blue over yellow and was the layering effect the same result as in the paint wash exercise. However, I got caught up in where the heavier colours were laying with respect to the lighter colours and with respect to the leaves. I'll do a more structured experiment with colour layering tomorrow.

Flickrd

Finally I have started a system for organizing my photos. I decided to go with flickr.com. My user name at flickr is materialeyes. Its free for now but I will want more than 3 'sets' to organize and access my photos. For $25/year you get unlimited photo uploads and unlimited sets. I really love the ability to have so many tags. So far I have quilting, line and texture sets.

Picture organizing is really cutting into my already limited quilting time.

I'm posting the king size quilt I made for my dad a few years ago. I still really like like the quilt it but I love the cherry bedroom suite he made for us.

Log Turtle

Everyday bloggings are too daunting for me. Surely I can manage once a week. That is my new goal. Over the summer I managed to make a second version of the Fabricator group challenge to create a playing card (6 of spades) in the manner of a famous artist. I gave the first 'card' to my dad for his 75th birthday only to find the group of 'cards' was to be displayed in various venues in the coming year. I am happy to have this hanging on my beige walls.We just decided today that our next group project is 'Portals'. With so many fantastic doors in so many styles it is tempting to do a literal interpretation. I'm intrigued with Frank Lloyd Wright's glass doors but like the idea of working with a palette of fresh fun colours and creating a wonky batch of doors.I have inevitably reached the City and Guild's assignment in Module 2 to quilt the kiwi mosaic pictured in my June blog. I've decided to lay a fine, white netting with a smidge of iridescence over all the mosaic tidbits. Now to find the quilting plan I decided on in June!I couldn't resist posting this fun little log cabin block, also for C&G.

My pictures did not make it. One more try.

Kiwi Mosaic

Day 2 of blogging. I feel a little more relaxed. My C&G 'free applique' is complete and finishes the last activity for module one. I'll see what Catherine has to say. She will likely want more achromatic samples. I really enjoyed all of he activities and learned so much. I think I will copy the e-mails that I sent to Catherine and somehow add a pocket to my sketchbook so when I finally am able to call myself a fibre artist I can look back at the start. A before and after of sorts.
Yesterdays idea of posting all of my activities for unit 1 is not going to happen! It is hard enough handling the ideas each day brings.
My voyeur habit that started on flickr is now in effect with the C&G textile group I joined. I like to 'watch'. I may join flickr if only because of the copius numbers of photos I have.
This is my mosaic. Where to from here? I'm thinking a diagonal jagged line following the tiles to eliminate the heavy shadow. I don't mind the rectangleness though. It's at the wait and see percolation stage.
I played with my kiwi mosaic in the kaleidoscope program. The possiblilites are endless and they all look great. I ended with this kaleidoscope.

All blogs start somewhere. I will begin with Activity 10, City and Guilds Course 7922-03, Patchwork and Quilting Online. I will work back to Activity 1 with the plan to have a diary of my work and progress since I started the Level 3 certificate course April 27, 2007.These are the colourwheel dyeing exercises that I sent to Catherine. I can see I will have to create that imaginary person I am talking to for this to feel real.