to try something new. It's hot outside and the AC is working just fine. so I am content to stay inside and play. I pulled out an old issue of Quilting Arts and found Lisa Kerpoe's article on using rice cereal as a resist. I mixed the cereal with water and filled a squeeze bottle and played on two pieces of fabric.
Sometime on Saturday I will paint them and put more resist on in another design when they dry. I want to layer and see how this all works.
I've started sketching some new stamp designs. Hopefully next week I will have time to stamp and stencil on more fabric. I just need to make some things.
Thanks for stopping by.
Karen
I made it to Friday, the day of the ice melt - finally. The fabrics were lovely. I am often more pleased with the results of ice dyeing than regular batch dyeing in containers. And this time I got a very pleasant surprise, sorta an added benefit.
As an attempt to keep ice from falling through the grid where I arrange the fabric for ice dyeing, I covered the grid
with a piece of muslin (the kind I use for backing fabric). It worked well. The ice stayed on top of the fabric. When I picked the fabric up, I was surprised to find a nice grid design on the two pieces of muslin.
Hmm, I'm using them again today with two more ice dyes. I'm curious to see how they look after more dye in different colors. I might have to consider using them for something.
What has surprised you lately?
Karen
particularly when dyed fabric is involved. This morning, I got a very early start, knowing I would be out most of the day and evening. I really, really wanted to dye some more fabric. So I was in Walmart at 8 am buying ice so I could get some ice dyes started. By ten am, I had two containers set up with three pieces of fabric under the ice and one yard batching in a bucket. I went out and about, had a yoga lesson and then dinner with a friend who is recuperating from knee surgery. I got home at 10 pm hoping to see some 'new' fabric but there's still ice piled on the fabric. Arrggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Tomorrow, always tomorrow.
Karen
After QSDS I put four projects to finish on the design wall and sat and looked at them, not quite knowing where to begin. I worked on building layers of earth for a tree-with-roots-showing piece. Time to build a sky - put up this hand dyed piece - not quite sure. Have to live with it a bit.
So, I tidied up a bit and came across a UFO that I quickly knew how to finish and did it! As I worked on it (those hoochy stars and geese from months ago), ideas began to sprout for the next steps on some of my QSDS beginnings. Lesson learned: never underestimate the power of a UFO. Here it is completed. It will be a charity quilt.
As I flipped through a sketch book, a photo popped out that told me what to do with one of the QSDS pieces. The piece will be a tall piece with vertical 'stripes'. As I started fiddling with fabrics to try, it hit me that this is another piece about roots. I guess there's a theme or series happening here.
Fun to be working playing again and to have ideas flowing. I want to focus on playing and avoiding the w word - it grabs me in the wrong way lately.
Thanks for visiting. Karen
Busy week. Got home in good time on Monday, even got laundry done that day. It's always an adjustment getting back to the routine of home life after a conference. The conference was exactly what I needed on several levels - a creative whack on the head - time around so many creative people - time just to concentrate on my work - and most of all, finding my confidence again. I'm still pondering all that.
I have to share these photos of the sky on the drive home. I was driving across a mountain in Western Maryland and felt as if I was in the clouds. The sky was beautiful, the clouds almost surreal.
Actually these clouds stayed with us through Wednesday. Something about a cold front that came from the north with these puffy clouds so close to land -- at least that's what they felt like to me - I felt as if I could reach up and touch them. Nature is so wonderful.
Now that I am home and unpacked and reorganized (all that fabric had to be put away in some order), I put my unfinished pieces from QSDS on the design wall and was pleased to see that I actually have four I want to finish. The wall's a bit crowded, but makes me eager to get moving on these.
But first, some family time tomorrow, celebrating Matthew. And Judie is picking up her mom's quilt tomorrow - that could be a nice gift to give her mom on father's day - I'm sure some tears will flow. It's been nice to create that for them.
Time to crash right now. More tomorrow or Sunday.
Karen
First, here's the photo of the final version of Rootedness. I like it and so did others. I will quilt it after I get home - along with the other pieces I have been working on here.
Today, the class, Seat of the Pants Construction, with Cynthia Corbin began. The morning exercise was to cut squares and rectangles and create a composition (I forgot the rest of the guidelines). No longer intimidated by abstract design, I put this together.
The afternoon exercise was to work with a photograph that we brought from home. I have several photos of tree lined paths that I want to work with, so here's how far I got today. I still have to work out the tree canopy/leaves - also to be done at home.
Tomorrow will be a new exercise. I like Cynthia's way of moving us along. She is encouraging and gently nudges us past bumps.
Karen
Here I am in my dorm room. The first class is completed, we had the banquet and tomorrow starts class two for me.
Our last two days in class this week were spent on our final project, which could be one well-thought-out project or several studies for a series or later project. I was somewhere in the middle. I thought and thought about what I wanted to do. The abstract work we had been doing just did not feel right for me. I chose not to stay in that vein, but was not sure what to do next. A dilemna of sorts for me.
I have let too many things bother me during the past few months and my confidence level was sub-basement. No need to go into all that, just to say I felt empty and numb on some levels, especially when creativity was involved. Nothing seemed to click or blossom. As I wondered about what to do for the final project, I briefly thought about the series of paintings that I did years ago entitled "The Rivers of Prayer". I have been asked to create a banner in the style of those paintings. I thought I was finished with that theme and those images. Well, through a series of synchronicities, I realized I still had thoughts and images to develop in that theme. And I became energized to do some new work. I began a small piece as one of a series that could lead to the banner and all sorts of things clicked inside me. Here is where the project was Thursday afternoon, with roots and a river. I added the sprouted leaves and the moon to finish it (photo to come).
My energy shifted quite quickly and all sorts of ideas began to flow in me for new work, including an abstract way to depict a photo I had brought with me to QSDS.
So, obviously, I am not finished with this series, The Rivers of Prayer. I got so caught up in the work, finishing the first and starting the second, that I forgot to take photos (I'll try tomorrow).
When our instructor asked what I discovered during the project, I simply answered "my confidence". A true gift for which I am very grateful.
Karen
