In Betwixt and Between

WIP Wednesday and Off-the-Wall Friday, that is.

This is another week in which I'm filling in for Lori at The Crafty Lady.  (She's got a booth at "Creative Stitches and Crafting Alive" in Edmonton.)  If you're in Lacombe tomorrow or Saturday, do drop by!  We've just had some shipments of yarn, and there's lots to see.  :-)  Of course, if you're in Edmonton, drop by the Show and see Lori at The Crafty Lady Booth.  She'll be the gal with great yarn, red hair and a big grin.  Tell her I sent you!

Monday was my first "usual Monday in Lacombe" since the end of June; I got back to my Anglican Rosary (10 a.m.) followed by coffee, aquacize (11 a.m.), lunch and Woolly Theology.  Dropped the finished shop sample off for Lori to take to the Creative Stitches show in Edmonton:

"Girl's Cropped Cardigan" - Schachenmayr SNC Inspirations #162
Yarn: Bravo Micro Crande

Tuesday...haircut; mow lawns (front and back): clear out beans (now finished) and weeds from garden; nap; read...

Wednesday: guy hired to clean furnace/ducts (first time in 5 years at least) didn't show; called his cell; found out he was stuck in northern Alberta with a broken-down vehicle, awaiting parts.  When I called, he said, "Gosh; I guess I'd better call my other customers, eh?"  Sigh....Re-booked for 2 weeks from now...I hope...

So...what to do with the gift of a day sans the noise and interruption of a Duct-cleaning Machine?

1. Start with a drawing (based on a real-life model):

2. Trace it onto the fabric.  I used a mechanical pencil.

3. Paint it with stitch.  I used black thread and FMQ:

4.  Quilt it:

5. Then paint it with Tsukineko ink, acrylic paint, Fabrico marker, textile medium, textile paint...

And there comes the rub.  Look closely at the green leaves, especially on the lower left of the photo.  Sigh.  Too much liquid = running.  Nothing I did could save it.  Even after drying it doesn't meet my standards.

What to do?  Dye more background fabric; re-do the drawing and stitching and quilting; paint again -- with less liquid and more control.

This is my piece for the 15 x 15 "Time" theme..."To Everything There is a Season".  Apt, no?

Meanwhile, the "Wasabi Hat" is finished:

"Wasabi Hat" on a dinner plate

And I've started Hat #5 in my "10 Weeks, 10 Hats" self-challenge.  Truth be told, I'm almost finished it, as I have only the decreases to the crown to do.  In quiet moments at TCL, this is what I'm doing, so I should be finished sometime tomorrow and on to Hat #6.

And after work this evening I trundled over to the Lacombe Memorial Centre (LMC), because the "10 x 10: The Unknown Artist" exhibit was supposed to be hung today.

I didn't realize the LMC was closed...the Library, which is open till 8 p.m., was shut off from the main area by a sliding door...the kind that's really a sort of wide 'mesh'.  Even so, I was able to get a sneak peek:

See the green piece, the second from the left?!  That's mine!  Whoa!  "Tree Study II" is right up there near the entry to the exhibit!!

And here are the details of the show:

I can hardly wait to see the whole thing.  Of course, I'll be at the Preview evening on Wednesday... Excited?  Who, me?  ;-)

Maybe I'll hook up to Off-the-wall Friday, just for fun...

Have a great weekend!

Working on the Work

Now that Tree Study I is finished and posted with the rest of the wonderful 15 x 15 quilts in our "Texture" challenge, I've moved on to Tree Study II!  This one is going to finish at 10" x 10" and be mounted on stretched canvas that size, because it's my donation to a silent auction fundraiser for the Lacombe Arts Endowment Fund.  This is the body that sponsors the annual Art Show and Sale, and gives scholarships to local arts students.  It's stated mission is to "[be] a catalyst designed to build a legacy in perpetuity for the arts that supports the education, awareness, appreciation and development of the arts thereby contributing to the quality of life for residents of Lacombe & Area."

The theme of this exhibit is "The Unknown Artist" -- meaning that the works will be displayed without any identification.  Artists are asked to sign their work on the back of the pieces.  The subject matter and medium are up to each artist.  The work will be displayed in the Lacombe Memorial Centre from September 12 through 29, during the annual Culture and Harvest Festival, and there's an opening night preview allowing attendees to purchase work for only $200 per piece -- a first come, first served sale for those people only.  Pieces not sold on that evening will be available for the Silent Auction with a reserve (minimum) bid of $100.

None of my local friends follow my blog, to my knowledge...but just in case, so I can remain relatively "unknown"...I'll post a bit about the process but not the finished piece till after the exhibit is hung.  Of course, I expect to be the only textile artist in the exhibit -- based on the participants in the annual Art Show and Sale -- unless someone using textiles, unbeknownst to me, is participating!  That alone would peg my piece right there!

Detail of Mountain Ash tree with fungus/moss

Anyway, back to the process.  In an earlier post I showed you my plans for working with water soluble fabric.  I have some early results and am very pleased:

Embroidery worked on soluble fabric

See the wee holes in the fabric in the above photo?  Those appeared because I left the piece on my work table under a partially open window -- and we got a thunderstorm!  Yes, some rain came in and...well, let's just say the fabric lives up to its name!  :-)

Section of embroidery on soluble fabric, before washing

 In the next photo, you can see how the fabric dissolved in water, leaving wee gaps (planned).  The embroidery is wet in the photo, so shows up darker in colour than it does when dry.

Section washed and drying on a towel

Below is a view of my 10 x 10 piece, bordered in complementary fabric which will be wrapped around the sides of the stretched canvas given me by the exhibit committee.  I've auditioned the washed lace on the piece and as a result, have prepared some more of the soluble fabric for stitching.  My current task is to finish embroidering several more small bits of "fungus", and then to attach all to the quilted background with a few tiny beads in toned-in colour for more texture and for a sense of dew/damp on the bark that was there when I took the original photo.

And...that's as much of it as you'll see for the next while!  Later in September, when the show goes up, I'll post a finished photo and, I hope, photos of the other pieces, as I fully intend to be there for the opening reception on September 18!

Before I get back to my stitching, I'll link this up with WIP Wednesday over on The Needle and Thread Network.  Pour yourself a cuppa, sit back, and enjoy reading about what everyone's up to!

Facing Auditions

It's a rainy day here in Central Alberta.  Cool and drippy.  Soup-for-lunch weather.  Indoor Studio weather.

Earlier this week I had a session outdoors with painted used dryer sheets, which I distressed with my heat gun.  Great fun, but very smelly and definitely something to be done out-of-doors.

Yesterday I quilted and trimmed my Texture piece for 15 x 15: "Tree Study I".

This morning, I faced it:

I wasn't sure it needed anything more, but I had these fun pieces of distressed painted dryer sheets...so I've taken a couple of auditioning photos:

Audition #1

Audition #2

The differences are subtle...but I'm leaning toward the second one.  I don't think hand stitch alone would get me the effect I want -- it seems to be all (the dryer sheets) or nothing at all.  Any thoughts?

Under the Wire

I'm writing this in a hurry to get it posted before I leave for my weekend workshop because...

Summer School starts this weekend!

Yes...the encaustic workshop marks the beginning of my self-directed "Summer School", and I'm finally in a place where I can get excited about that because....ta-ta-ta-da!

"Back to the Garden" is essentially finished -- enough that I photographed it and completed my first page on the 15 x 15 blog.  The picture isn't part of the more-on-time submissions post, written earlier today (the administrator lives in the UK, so the time difference is significant -- 7 hours from my home in the Mountain Time Zone).  However, if you click on the "Artists' Gallery 2013" page, you can find me and see it.  I have yet to face it, label it and attach the sleeve, but that will be done early next week so...I can breathe more easily.

And soon I'll be able to reveal all about my Burgess Shale Project piece for SAQA Western Canada.  All the quilting and embroidery has been done save one small detail, and the binding, label and sleeve.  I am to have it finished in the next week and delivered to Patti, the curator of the travelling exhibit, by June 10 -- so stay tuned!

Now I really must finish packing and get outta here!  Have a great weekend!

P.S. and just because I can, I'll link this to Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday.  :-)

Back to Work

...in more ways than one!

Got back into my studio today.  I'd spent a good part of last week cleaning it -- what a delight to see the floor again!

On the left -- what you see right in front of the door -- my cutting and ironing surfaces, a bookshelf (far left) and storage.  On the right -- Pookie in the Cat Basket by the south-facing window, my sewing area, and the edge of my 'rack' which doubles as both fabric and thread storage and -- sans baskets and hooks -- the stand on which I display my wares at the Lacombe Art Show and Sale.

Although I was bursting with ideas, and have two pieces to complete within the next 4 weeks, it was tougher than I thought to get going.

I eased myself in by auditioning some hand-dyed fabric for the background of a 'whole-cloth' piece I'm doing for 15 x 15.  This is a new-to-me group I was invited to join last month, and this is my first piece.  There are 15 artists and each piece is to be 15" square.  There's a different theme each month; for May it's "Garden".

At first I thought I might use the theme to work out what I want to do for the second piece -- a 24" square piece for SAQA Western Canada' next travelling exhibit, based on the Burgess Shale Project -- but in the end, I went with something different.

I grew up in the sixties, and was 16 in the summer of 1969, the summer of Woodstock.  I have always loved Joni Mitchell's song celebrating that festival, and have been thinking of these words:

We are stardust; 

we are golden -- 

and we've got to get ourselves

back to the Garden.

I've titled my piece 'Back to the Garden'.  Having selected a section of the hand-dyed fabric -- a parfait-dyed piece I made several years ago -- I took the plunge and cut an 18" square.   I sandwiched it and spray-basted it -- and hung it on my design wall while I contemplated the quilting of it.

Currently my 'regular' machine -- the Husquvarna Lily 555 -- is at the "sewing spa" (Homespun Seasons in Stettler) for her annual tune-up.  I'm due to pick her up next week.  Meanwhile, I'm using The Work Horse -- a manual Husquvarna 225 -- just to give her a bit of exercise.

I had her tuned up almost a year ago and haven't used her since, so I began with simple piecing and put together the May Block of the Month for my "Cinnamon" quilt (remember...those kits I have that I've vowed to assemble -- one per year (at least) till all three are finished and given away?)

Here's the May block -- my least favourite pattern, a flower basket:

Assured that I still knew how to sew (grin) I moved on to quilting "Back to the Garden".  I tried FMQ...with top and bottom thread the same weight...and had Tension Issues big time.  The only way I could get the top and bottom thread to meet in the middle was to lower the tension almost to zero!!  Not fun.  I frogged it all and decided to go with 'regular' stitching (i.e. feed dogs UP)...and created radiating lines -- reminiscent of the sun's rays -- with golden polyester thread (Sulky 40 wt, colour #942) in the top and blue cotton (same weight) in the bottom (the back is a blue 'tree' print and I wanted it to blend.

Here's what it looks like on my design wall*:

*Please bear with me if the photos aren't my usual style.  I'm just learning the new photo capabilities of this lap-top and haven't found all the bells and whistles yet!

So...you can see from the photo that the sun's rays are coming down from above...the garden is the purple-green-brown area at the bottom.

There will be star-shaped and seed beads spangled across the sky (top half)...and hand embroidery in the bottom.  I'll probably envelope/face it rather than bind it.

It's now been trimmed to 17" square...only a bit more to trim, before I bead and bind/face.

And yes...there is work of a different kind.

Yesterday I popped in to The Crafty Lady (my LYS in Lacombe) to get a new gizmo for managing my DPNs (double-pointed needles)...having lost my original one on a plane somewhere in recent travels.  There I found the star-shaped beads I'm going to use on BTTG (above), and bought 10 to audition. 

Then...Lori, the owner/manager, asked me if I would be willing and able to work for her in the shop one day a week.  Thursdays, to be exact.  Reasonable wage, 8 hours' work, staff discount...and I can knit or hand-stitch when it's quiet.

I came home, prayed, checked the fine print in my pension file, checked my calendar, checked my heart...and said "Yes!"

I start May 16.  If you're in the area, do drop by and say 'hi'.