Creative Cue : Egg

Here's my interpretation of Egg.

I've been wanting to try Zentangles for quite some time. I thought an egg-shape would be a perfect shape to start doodling on ... I did this in a meeting at work this week. Good to keep the other side of the brain occupied. ;-) I used just a regular ball point ink pen. That ink reflects the camera flash. I see why real artists use better pens. It was fun! I'll be doing more of these little gems.

It also reminds me of Joe Egg, a black comedy I got to work on in college. Hmmmh--isn't that a blast from the past!

See other Creative Cue interpretations for Egg.

Creative Cue : Bulb

Garlic Bulb. Side and bottom view. I colored the side view with my new watercolor pencils. I really like the effect!

This would also be a neat one to do as a small quilt so the bulbs of the garlic puffed out some with Trapunto. So many possibilities, and not enough time!

See other Creative Cue interpretations for Bulb.

Everyday Inspiration : Found on the Front Porch Steps

Tin Lizzie Class

Last night, I took an introductory long-arm class from It's Sew Rite, the local Janome dealer who also has a Tin Lizzie in store which they rent out for a very reasonable fee ($10/hr!)

This is perfect for me!
* I don't have to invest $10K to have one of my own
* The rental rates seem very reasonable
* They offer training and support
* They are right here in town
* I don't have to make room at home for a long-arm set-up
* This gives me the chance to try it out before investing so much into it (only to find out it's not for me)
* I have something like 5-6 tops waiting to be quilted

This will be a while new era in my Quilting Adventures. Whoo-hooh!

First night -- it really didn't seem all that difficult. I thought loading the quilt onto the machine might be difficult, but they showed me a method where you baste the quilt back onto these long zippers that make it easy to remove. Then you zip the backing and top onto leaders. Although it was an introductory long-arm class, it was not a beginning sewing class. What I know already was very helpful and somewhat transferable. I can already think of several ways to make threading the machine a little easier.

Now I'll be looking at pantographs and long-arm classes and on and on and on!

So I ordered a 1/2 set of the zippers, and will decide on a "starter quilt" with pattern quilting motifs -- though maybe I should do a cheap and easy practice piece? What do some of you seasoned long-armers recommend?

PAPER!

Just got a shipment of yummy papers from Creative Papers Online.
Feast your eyes on these beauties destined to be journal covers :

Parfait Dyes for Shelagh's Creative Challengers

Parfait Dyes "simmering."

I started a new Creative Challenge with Shelagh Folgate this month. It's sort of a mystery project -- we don't quite know what we'll end up with, but we'll learn some new techniques along the way.

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This piece is on the Aurora muslin I usually use. I threw it in as sort of a control.

The rest are on old bed sheets which I'm sure have been bleached once or twice (or many times more). These colors are much more muted.
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Any preferences as to which one I should shred for the next step?

Creative Cue : Speak

This is a version of a Native American Talking Feather. It's used in groups of people. Whoever has the Talking Feather has the right to speak without being interrupted. It's crowd control and courtesy rolled into one. We used one in a Storytelling Class I took in graduate school. That was one of the best classes I ever took in college!

The feather happened to show up really well on this twisted log cabin quilt which is currently on my design wall.

See other Creative Cue interpretations for Speak.

Creative Cue : Road

The Road to Faery Glen, Isle of Skye near Uig in Scotland.

Give me these ever-changing skies any day over blue skies and sun!

There was a Caribbean Cruise a few years ago where just about all of my favorite sing-songwriters would be performing. I seriously thought about buying a ticket. Then I remembered : I melt in the sun. Aside from the music, it would not be a good vacation for me from an environmental standpoint. If it had been a slow train across Siberia, or a Cruise up Alaska's Inside Passage, it would have been perfect!

See other Creative Cue interpretations for Road.

May Rusted Scrim

This is a piece of scrim I rusted with the May set a few posts ago. This was wrapped around the rusty pole with the rest of 'em. This worked out better than I though it would as I wasn't sure of the fabric content of the scrim.

May Rust Dyes

Here's what I did over the Memorial Day Weekend :


The Arashi pole-wrapped fabric about to be unwrapped ... I have some beautiful rusty poles who are more than happy to be of service to the world again!

The other is a rusty cookie tin that has also found new life as a rust dying vessel. I soaked all my fabrics in a 50/50 solution of water and vinegar. The I lightly (barely) rung them out and wrapped them around the poles. For the old cookie tin, I crumbled some white muslin, then sprinkled some rust dust on top of the crumbled fabric. On top of that, I emptied a tea bag. Covered it with another piece of fabric wrapped around a trivet, covered it in plastic and let it sit for a day. After 24 hours, I checked their progress and added a little more of the vinegar-water solution to make sure things were not drying out, and let them sit for another day. I think adding the extra vinegar water a day later helped to "melt" the tea so it gave some nice watercolor effects in the purple-grays.

The rusted cookie tin gave me my favorite piece of this session :






Detail from rusted cookie tin with tea.






This is the image transfer from the rusty trivet. I set it atop of the cookie tin, so the edges were dipping into the tea topping. It made the edges a nice purple gray. Unexpected, but pleasant!

Here are some of the other pieces. Some of these were done last year with the Purple Misses Alternative Rust Dye Method. Unfortunately most of the color washed out. However, some of them kept a rusty pastel undercoat to them ...