Ignoring the Voices

It's July.  :-)

It's peak Outdoor Studio time -- except when it gets too hot, or the thunder clouds roll in.

I'm still playing, still resisting the Voices that try to tell me that everything I'm doing must lead to something concrete, something useful...that everything I'm doing must be productive.

I've had to set aside the spinning for a bit because my 'death grip' on the fibres has given me some aches and pains (I need a better chair too, but that's another story).  Suffice to say, I wasn't practicing good spinning ergonomics and it bit me.  :-(

So...this week I played with marking and stamping, based on what I learned from Susan Purney Mark and Valerie Wilson at the SAQA WC Regional Retreat in early May.  I had fun and -- surprise, surprise -- some of it was also productive!

I wanted to see how the techniques would work on scraps of linen -- various thread counts -- that I have collected as left-overs from embroidery projects through the years.

I began with 'Asemic writing' on some 32-count, and it worked very well!

Length of 32-count linen;
asemic writing with fabric pen.

Asemic writing on linen - detail

I liked it so much, in fact, that I added it to what I've done with my retreat sample, and created a dozen art cards -- now available for purchase at Gracie D's Antiques, Collectibles and Giftware here in Mirror!

I then tried using the plastic wedge on wet linen.  Whether I did the marking, then sprayed it, or sprayed it before marking, I got mixed results.  I was using not only the black Speedball fabric paint I bought at the retreat, but also some blue Jacquard fabric paint and some green -- a Stewart Gill sample given me at a SAQA conference some time ago that was past its prime and needed water to soften it up.

Still...these ones have potential to become something (ahem!) productive...

Speedball black, Stewart Gill green and
Jacquard blue on closely-woven linen sample

Close up of the above

Speedball black paint on closely-woven linen

Black and blue - ditto

I decided I might have more success with stamping on this fabric, and I was right -- and it was more fun, too, because the fabric didn't fight the stamps the way it fought the wedge.

The green piece is a detail shot of a long, narrow piece of fabric (similar to the black-on-white above).  Clearly all three of these have potential to become productive!

I turned from fresh mark-making and stamping, then, to trying to make something of my retreat samples...

Playing on the design wall

In the end I came up with a piece I've entitled, "Wall" -- yet to be quilted.  Even its orientation is as yet undecided!

"Wall" - approx. 12.5" x 13.25" before quilting

I ended the week by finishing my long assembled Canada Day table runner -- based on a 'mystery' pattern from Quilter's Connection magazine, and done up in my favourites from Northcott Fabrics Canadian collection for Canada 150...

When I'd finished the binding, I used it as my banner till the thunder storm yesterday evening!

Linking this up to Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday...and wishing all my Canadian friends and family a wonderful rest-of-the-Canada-150-holiday weekend!

Happy July 4 to my American friends and family...for Tuesday.  I gather you've already begun to celebrate.  Enjoy!