Let's Make Some Noise...

 Earlier in the summer, I took part in a 30-day sketchbook event with artist Karen Abend in which I stitched a small vintage-look fiber collage (see some others at the link) each day. I knew my goal was to include many of them together in a journal, and at last, I've compiled the collages and completed the journal. It's awaiting a title, so make a suggestion in the comments if you have an idea. This project is another "crinkle" book, meaning the pages have a wonderfully crackly sound as they are turned. A noisy journal!

And the reason for the sound is that the pages are made using recycled plastic liners from cereal boxes. I learned the method from Kristen Robinson, and showed my first journal in this blog post last March. Interesting bits of paper, lace, and trim are encased between two sheets of the plastic, covered with parchment paper, and briefly ironed to adhere them together- thus embedding objects.

You can see the doily in this photo is embedded in the plastic. Then I stitched the collages on the fronts and backs of the pages. Some of the collages are made with free-motion stitching on paper, while others included used and dried tea bags, thread bits, and lots of other quirky things lying around in the sewing room!

This vintage girl photo is sewn to a tag with beads and faces a free-motion cityscape stitched on cheesecloth and a tea bag. Once all the collages were sewn in place, I stitched a line of decorative machine stitching around the edges, and bound them together. The book is lying on a lovely piece of rust-dyed fabric gifted to me by a quilting friend.

Burlap, sheet music, old postage stamps, buttons, even corrugated cardboard bits found their way into the pages. So the pages are very tactile and just invite a touch, but then they make the most satisfying sound to boot. What fun.

There is something so appealing to me about vintage photos. This wedding couple is a pair from one of Tim Holz's series of paper images you can purchase if you don't happen to have old photos of your own relatives. You might think this book put a dent in the large collection of found materials in the sewing room, but I can't see a discernible difference- there is lots more! Another book may be in order.

The back cover gives you a glimpse of images from the other pages inside along with the random threads embedded inside. Transparency is another bonus of using these recycled materials in bookmaking. So think "handmade crinkle book" before you toss out another cereal liner, and upcycle!

Cool Off Summer with Ice-Dyeing...

When all the fabric in a stash isn't quite enough, what's a quilter to do? Dye some, that's what! This cotton piece is one of several I created in a recent ice-dyeing workshop. The results are just fascinating. This piece was made using a "mandala fold"- manipulating the dry white cotton fabric to create folds that resist the dyes and create the radiating pattern. We piled 10 pounds of ice on top of our treated and folded fabrics which were in a large plastic tote, applied the dyes by squeezing them over the ice, bagged the whole shebang, and let time do the rest. There was no peeking for 24 hours while the ice melted. Then we could rinse and reveal the results. That was quite an exiting moment.

Here's another mandala fold. We used three dye colors and the placement of color is quite left to chance. My colors were Hot Pink (lightest and brightest), Peony (lavender), and Dances with Raisins (an eggplant or deep wine color) all purchased from Dharma Trading Company. For our method of ice-dying, we mixed the dye powder in plastic bottles to make a liquid coloring agent we squeezed onto the ice-covered fabrics.

This deep fuchsia piece was created by folding the fat quarter of fabric in a simple accordion or fan fold and securing it with rubber bands.

This one is also an accordion fold which was then folded in on itself to create more of a resist.

Casual scrunching of the fabric resulted in this splotchy effect that reminds me of fireworks.

Our tools of the trade included a dust mask and gloves worn for safety while handling the powdered dyes and mixing soda ash solution to soak the fabrics in to make them receptive to the dyes. And they were worn while mixing urea crystals in the dye solution in order to intensify the results and retain the color. So this was serious business. Our special cotton fabric was PFD- Prepared for Dyeing, which meant that no starch or other surface additives were present in it that would prevent the dye from penetrating the fibers.

Our dye-masters were sisters Celeste and Merri of Goatfeathers Studio, both of whom have done a lot of fabric dyeing. Their aprons were just two of their inspiring examples. They managed to lead a group of nearly 25 to amazing results while keeping the workroom spot free! It was great fun, and I'm sure there is more ice-dyeing ahead for me!

The Girls of Summer...

All the beautiful flowers in bloom and hot, hot days- it's summer for sure! So out come the Flower Ladies. I learned to make these with Barb Owen of How to Get Creative, and they are simply a creative arrangement of magazine images. Barb provided a download for the faces, which is appreciated- I'm just learning to draw faces and mine might not look so serene.

Piecing these ladies together is a lot like piecing a quilt. There are lots of creative options, and moving the bits around to audition them is fun.

Of course, it makes for lots of scraps, but then so does quilting! This tutu girl may be my favorite, but it's hard to choose because I love the star crown and leaf wings of the first girl and the bright painted daisy of the second. Now to explore the uses for these Summer Lovelies.

And summer for us has always included a visit to Maine. Oh, the freshness of the air, and the beauty of the rocky coastline! So beautiful. We were there in the Kennebunkport area for a week and had lovely weather and lobster. Refreshing.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your summer.

Porcine and Other Fiber Adventures...

Quite a few of my textile projects get their start on our quilt guild's freebie table. Such is the case with this hoop hanging featuring a flower-bedecked pig. A farm fabric with all sorts of barnyard animals was there for the taking. So was the wooden embroidery hoop. Our daughter is a fan of pigs, and supports several sanctuaries. I thought a hoop hanging might be just right for her. The only items I needed to purchase were the pom-pom trim and some felt to cover the back of this piece. I used fusible web, fabric, paint and embroidery floss from my stash and spent a few enjoyable evenings embroidering the accents. She looks like a star to me!

Also completed are 30 little stitched collages done in a vintage style as part of Find Your Flow- an online class with Karen Abend. Every day I'd combine bits and pieces, and assemble them on the sewing machine.

I pulled items from the assortment I've collected over the years, knowing that "someday" there would be a use for them. Someday has finally arrived, and I like how they go together along with the good feeling of recycling. This one has some old lace in the background, bridal trim, a stamp and vintage image atop a cleaned up tea bag.

More lace, yarn, tatting and trims combine in this tag that features a transparency image.

Here's another transparency with bridal trim, vintage buttons, another tea bag and a bit of sheet music.

Don't you love these twins? They are part of the die-cut vintage-look images by Tim Holz. The background is book paper, tea bag, cancelled stamps on a tag that is gel printed.

Toward the end of the 30 days, I departed from the fully neutral look by doing some free-motion stitch drawing and added color with Inktense pencils. All of the participants really gave their creative minds quite a workout. It was lots of fun, and my collages will go into a journal eventually.

Never content to work on only one thing at a time, I thought I'd show you this pile of goodness. It's on its way to becoming something soon. More will be revealed in time. No wonder my sewing room is often so out of control! In a good "messy fun" way of course.

A Wild Garden...

It's that time of year when gardens are taking off with wild abandon. This "Wild Garden" quilt is one I started several years ago. The piecing and machine sewn applique pieces were the easy part. The project started out using a LizzieBCre8tive! pattern. I added the pieced border and changed the flower style a bit. The slow-down came when I began to machine quilt it. One big downfall for me in quilting, or in any project really, is thinking "this won't take long". I get started, then bog down. There was more to stitch than I anticipated (as usual), so the quilt got set aside for a time. At last our guild issued a challenge to complete some of those languishing projects. It was just the motivation I needed to get cracking and finish this one up!

In our Fiber Art Bee, we are doing a book study of Deborah Boschert's Art Quilt Collage. One exercise was to identify personal symbols that we consistently use in our work. I discovered that this bloom I call a "splat flower" is one of mine. They seem whimsical, playful and free, which is often the goal for my work.

I love the twining vines and two-toned leaves also.

In addition to quilting, I get a lot of other projects underway. Throughout June I've been participating in artist Karen Abend's Find Your Flow -a 30 day creative practice. My commitment was to sew a small collage each day of the month. The goal is to make some art a daily practice, to more fully explore one style of our choice, and to be accountable by posting our work in a private Facebook group. It was a very good practice and it caused me to stretch as I considered the materials and how to combine them in new ways each day. I also stuck to a neutral palette for the most part, though there are touches of color towards the end. Messy stitching created the message and the heart on a tea bag in this little fragment.

Keeping it simple with a free-motion stitched bloom sewn on lace and a cardstock piece.

Here's a vintage bathing beauty photo stitched to a tea bag, atop a scrap of lace fabric. The old stamp and a bit from bridal trim accent the collage. I can't get enough vintage-style art! And I'm pretty fond of recycling bits and pieces of fabric and trim along with unusual materials. I'm planning a journal to showcase the collages together. Stay tuned!

Now What?!!

Just take a piece of muslin and some dry-wall paste... WHAT?? Yes, that is the formula for making this art book. I made this following along with an online class taught by Donna Downey titled Metamorphosis. And that's how we began. After spreading the paste on both sides of the muslin, it dries with a flexible weightiness to it. And a few wrinkles and cracks which enhance the texture. This book has four sheets, which is to say 8 two-sided pages.

Once dry, the pages are ready for paint, stamping, stenciling, image transfers, and anything else a creative mind can come up with. The neutral, grungy look is intentional. I don't know yet what these pages will house- some type of imagery. But I await the inspiration to continue!

In addition to the binding, which is sari ribbon, the book also got a tassel made with yarn, fiber strips, and rhinestone trim plus sparkly beads. I like a binding that is bushy and full of fiber, inviting touch.

Here's a backpage view. This was so much fun to make, and I've got leftover joint compound, so I know I'll try more journals like this- maybe with printed fabrics and more color. Donna calls this an "ARTbook". I call it a Slap-Journal because the weight of it makes a satisfying slap when the pages are turned or it's set down on a table. At the same time I was working on the journal, I was enrolled in Karen Abend's online Sketchbook Revival. It was a free class featuring a series of video lessons by a variety of artists, from bookmakers to sketch artists to mixed media artists and water colorists. Quite broadening and enlightening. Karen has followed it up with a 30-day creative practice called Find Your Flow in which participants are encouraged to commit to a daily practice for the month of June. 

The look of the journal prompted me to commit to making a layered and stitched fabric and paper collage like this one each day. My plan is that they'll be incorporated into a journal of some sort when the 30 days are completed. Maybe even this journal, though I'm envisioning something else at the moment. But I have lots of time to decide.

I worked on the journal while visiting Disney's Flower & Garden Festival 2018 at Epcot. It was lovely, and I enjoyed the displays and the refreshing foods like this watermelon and lime cooler.

We also visited Animal Kingdom for a day. It was overcast and a little drizzly which brought more animals out during the Safari ride than usual. There were several impressive Silverback Gorillas watching us watching them.

Can you see the lion king and his lady atop this rock pile? Such a fun place to visit.

When Fashion Week Came to Town...

A runway show at an art museum- what could be more fun? Our local Appleton Museum of Art offered several fashion designers the opportunity to create a statement piece and a small collection of garments inspired by one of the art objects in the museum collection. Then, on a warm and pleasant evening, models walked the runway, showing off the work of the designers. This gown, from designer Leeann Kroetsch, is worthy of a one-of-a-kind wedding and was rich with stuffed work and embellishment. 

This headpiece stayed firmly in place, despite a slight breeze blowing, so my hat is off to the model (no pun intended). The Stefania Costanzo gown had an over-skirt of gold strapping and a wide hand-painted flounce. You can see lots more photos by professional photographer Demilio at here at his site.

Julia Chew, the designer, wore her own inspiration garment beautifully. A carved Chinese jade pagoda was the inspiration piece.

All of the fashions were seen in the museum courtyard, and the runway itself went around the circular fountain. It all made for a splendid event.

Fiesta! The vibrant color against black made Hermione Elma's dress an eye-catcher. And it was covered with embellishments, bling, and trinkets which I found appealing. A quote I recently found says "the thing with bling is that the more you have, the more you want." Ain't it the truth?!

Perky, flirty, and colorful, this dress had floral overlays on the bodice and a full skirt of layered circles.

The back interest on this piece was stunning- gold, intricate lacing, and yards upon yards of tulle. I should write runway commentary, right? Seasons of Project Runway have caused me to see details I'd likely miss otherwise.

The fashion show was held in conjunction with this exhibit, which was very well done. No photos allowed as these are items not owned by the museum. As we wandered through the exhibit, the models and designers were standing next to each inspiration piece so show-goers could chat with them. And speaking of Project Runway, Fabio Costa of the recent Runway All-Stars season was scheduled to speak on Sunday about fashion inspiration. However, his flight arrangements from Brazil could not be completed at the last minute, so we missed hearing from him.

But wait, there's more! Jan at Laughing Dog Arts blog surprised me by sending this lacy and layered minibobber just for being a loyal follower of her blog. She posted about these recently, and you can see more here. At first I thought to put it on a journal cover, but now think it will get a pin back and become a wearable. It can go right on my own "accessory wall" (a Project Runway term). The piece began on a base of denim and then went in lots of directions, including some hand embroidered details, buttons, and fabulous frays. Many thanks to Jan. Notice the photo background also- that's the hand-print envelope the gift traveled here in. Lovely, lovely- all of it!

Joining in my recent festivities was none other than Elvis in a 1963 Bonneville! Yes, there has been an Elvis sighting at a local car show and I was able to snap a pic.