Wall Art #5

Today's project:

This print has been ready to mount as long as all the others, I just couldn't decide on the right background.  Today I was looking through my stash and pulled out this piece and decided it was the right balance for the blue.  It is a piece that was originally dyed green, and this summer I over-dyed it shibori style in blue, just using up some left-over dye.  I'm happy with the result.

Additional Wall Art

Previously in some August and September posts I shared some screen prints that I was making into wall art.  As shown before, these are some of the prints I started with.

I have now finished the 4th piece in this group.  (I know, slow progress.  I have been working on some other things, but several of the projects I've done this year have been for exhibits and can't be shared.  So while it may seem like I haven't been doing much, I continue to work on these "secret" projects.)

The piece at the bottom right is the one I have just completed.  I really like the look of the "stitch print" fabric as background - it really goes well with the simplicity of the prints.  The fabric is stretched over a 9x12 canvas and stapled to the wood frame.  The prints are layered with batting (no backing) and thread sketched around the image, then the edges are satin stitched.  The size of the print fabric was trimmed so it would fit inside the wood frame of the canvas, in order to be able to hand stitch the print to the background/canvas.  The hand stitching is done with #5 perle cotton and a running stitch.  I have a few more covered canvases ready and waiting for prints to be stitched on, as soon as I do the machine work.

Colorful Leaves

Back in March I did a post about a class I took with Laura Wasilowski called colorful leaves. Here is the picture from the previous post.

At this point, the 2 blocks are fused. Earlier this week I completed the other 2 leaf blocks, joined them, and fused them to batting so I could start the hand stitched embellishment. Here's what it looks like now.

If you enlarge the picture above you can see the stitching I've done so far on the bottom right leaf - blanket stitch around the edges. More to come - stay tuned!

Weekend Shibori Class - Part 1

What a great weekend in Lancaster, PA, taking a workshop at the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsman.  It was a full 2-day workshop learning techniques of Japanese shibori dyeing - methods of wrapping, folding, stitching, binding and clamping to create beautiful patterns and textures in fabric. 

Our instructor was Kachina Martin, who is a public school art teacher as well as craftsman and juried member of the Pennsylvania guild.  We started off learning about direct dye application on a scarf and allowing it to "batch" or cure, wrapped in plastic, overnight.

   This project would get a second technique and dye applied on day 2.

We also learned several stitching and binding techniques.  On this piece, rows of running stitches are pulled to tightly gather the fabric, then the thread is knotted to keep it pulled tight before dyeing.

Here's what it looks like after dyeing and removing the stitching.

Another technique we learned was pole wrapping.  Using pvc pipe, the fabric (or scarf or item to be dyed) is wrapped around the pipe.  As it is wrapped, it is bound with cord and scrunched together, so that a large amount of fabric takes up very little space.  Several scarves or pieces of fabric can be wrapped on the same pole.

This is the first piece of fabric that I pole wrapped.  You'll see that parts of this piece later have other techniques applied as well. It was folded in half lengthwise and positioned diagonally on the pole to get the chevron effect you see here.

That's what we did in the morning of day 1.  Look for another installment tomorrow!

Another Finished Quilt

The annual guild quilt show is not till June, but quilts we want to show have to be finished NOW for photography and planning, so along with Song Sung Blue which will be in the show, I was also working to finish another piece to put in the show.  This one actually got its start a few years ago at quilt camp, when I made the colored rectangles.  They were some hand-dyed pieces that I created textures on using paint sticks; I did each texture in the same color on each piece to see how the colors interacted.  Last summer I finally fused them to a black background, added the border and started the hand quilting.  Since it was kind of plain, and a color study, I decided to emphasize the colors with perle cotton and big stitch quilting. It's been a slow process, since I don't spend a lot of time on hand work, but it is finished!  This one is 24" wide and 40" long.

Bird on Pine Branch

In my last post I shared pictures of another screen printed mini quilt in process. Here is the (almost) finished Bird on a Pine Branch. Both the pine branch and the bird were printed with thermofax screens made from original photos.  I took the photo of the pine; my friend Elizabeth took the photo of hte bird on her trip to South Africa. All it needs is to have the binding stitched down on the back. I'm happy with how this one turned out.  This is also my entry for the January Color Palette Challenge at Patchwork Times. (The January entries appear at the bottom of the February challenge information.)

Screen Printed Mini Quilts

On January 3 I posted some photos of screen printed mini quilts for an upcoming VCQ class I'll be co-teaching with my friend Elizabeth - you can see some samples on her blog as well at Blog About with Elizabeth (http://blogaboutwithelizabeth.wordpress.com/).  I'm working on adding some hand embellishment to one of the pieces and thought I'd share an updated photo of work in progress.

Hopefully the differences are visible, in spite of the different lighting in the 2 pictures.  (Click on the pictures for a full size image.)  I'm using pearle cotton to add the "ricing" in the background of the screen print.  Its a variegated thread that I think helps pull in the colors of the border fabric.  I had to do a bit before deciding if I liked it or not, but I'm happy with the way it looks.  What do you think?