Mola Jacket

Machine Embroidery is my other love. Done on a recycled sweatshirt.

Nature Art Quilts

This series incoroprates my love of gardening to my love of fiber art.

Rusted fabrics, tree bark, coconut fibers,

seed pods, painted dryer sheets, dried moss,painted fern impressions, shiva oil sticks, painted & burned tyvek paper, yarns, thread painting found objects.

Board Book Results

I'm having great fun playing with my little board book. (See "Something Different", April 2009.) My plan is to use it as a canvas for quick compositions and experiments.

As my first creation, I made this little paper collage of a strawberry. It was fast and fun! On the facing page, I taped off squares into which I'm spreading various acrylic mediums, to create a sample board. That's fun, too - and useful. I've also done quite a bit of documenting on that page, recording the products and techniques used on both pages.

FYI: As a collage glue, I used diluted gel medium (gloss.) Just like I do with my glued fabric collages, only with a higher water ratio.

Interesting link: I was inspired to do this little collage after seeing the work of Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson. She does fantastic work!

Take Out

What in the world is a group of fiber artists doing with a simple take out container? From May 9-July 12, 2009, The Brevard Art Museum in Melbourne is holding an invitational exhibition starring artwork created from this humble little box. Submissions had to be original in content, concept, and design, use the container provided by the museum, and be 15 inches or less in their final form. Always up for a challenge, three members of The Dirty Dozen submitted artwork and now have their creations on display. Each used fiber in some way, and will soon individually post about her piece. What will become of this little white box?

Necessity is the mother of invention.......

I'm involved in a photo-challenge and have been struggling with this image.  I'm just not a landscape person.  I've looked at the image many ways, undecided, and finally uploaded it into Photoshop.  I tried a bunch of different filters and still couldn't see something I wanted to work with.

(Note: Click on images to enlarge) 

Finally, in desperation, I started drawing lines on it.  After I'd finished, I realized I'd created something similar to Ruth McDowell's pieced patterns, but much more quickly than the ruler and tracing paper method.

Quickly flipping the pattern horizontally.......

....and turning off the image layer (the first layer I started with) by clicking on the eye next to it, Voila!  I have my pattern. 

 

Print and start sewing!

I'm not a big paper piecer, but it seems to be working for this project and now that I've figured this out I feel lots more ideas brewing in the back of my mind!  Here is the bottom half of the quilt, in progress.  It will be embroidered and embellished before it is done.  (Update--to see the finished piece, click here)

Finished or Almost Finished?

I've almost finished the quilt inspired by our play day at Riverhouse. The first photo was the inspiration for my abstract quilt. The second photo is the quilt in process - almost finished! My mother-in-law swears I should call it "done" but my original inspiration included the circular bruises from hammer marks on the wood. I think I have to follow my instinct and add the circular element. Although I love the strong geometry of the piece now, I also want to stir it up with something different.

Something Different

Lately, I've seen some really interesting art books. These are usually books that have been altered with a variety of mixed media techniques. They look like they'd be a lot of fun to create, so I've decided to give it a try.

I started with a board book, purchased at my local childrens' consignment shop. I painted the pages with gesso, and propped it up to dry. Because some of the pages briefly touched, the gesso got "messed up" into a frost-like pattern. No problem: I took detail shots of the cool pattern and then smoothed on another coat.

Now that my book is dry, it's on to the fun part!

P.S. If you're not familiar with gesso, it's the stuff that covers prepared artists' canvasses. It provides a good base for just about any medium.