The Ledger

  

 

I have been busy working on Karen Ruane's class,
An Embroiderers Ledger

Summer

It is really summer in Texas. All work outside is scheduled for early morning or late evening. The only good thing to do outside in the middle of the afternoon is go to the river, jump in and float around until your fingers start to wrinkle.

Yesterday, I stayed inside and made yogurt. I haven't done that since the 70's. I would make it in a glass "sun" tea jar and leave it overnite on top of the hot water heater. I lost the recipe I used and so,  just stopped making it. Recently, I came across that recipe on the internet. Isn't the internet wonderful? The recipe is from the Whole Earth Catalogue, circa 1972 (I think). Maybe you remember, if like me, you are a grandmother.  So I made some yesterday. I didn't have a Sun Tea jar (they all have spouts on them now), but I put it in another glass jar and left it in the hot water heater closet overnite. Voila! Yogurt. If you don't live in the country, you won't realize just why I am so pleased. It is a long way to town for a carton of yogurt. With my own supply, I can make smoothies and frozen yogurt to my hearts content. Or just eat it with a spoon of course.

Here is the link if you would like to make some too!
http://www.southernpaddler.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2264

Possibilities?

This is one of the pieces I dyed the other day. It is a piece of an old cotton pillowcase, 15.75 x 59.75. It has a soft fuzzy look about it which I sort of like but then sort of don't. I suppose I should get some nice new white cotton to work on. Something with a high thread count. Anyway, this was fun. First I crunched the piece up in a small container and poured fuchsia dye over it. I also sprinkled on some dry powder. I don't remember what color. After it was processed and dried, I tied up marbles, and/or rocks randomly, a la tie dye. But I always think that is a little boring, so I doubled some of those back on each other, folded, scrunched and tied some more. Then I put it back in the same container and poured Wedgwood blue dye over it. It stayed in the dye for over 24 hours. Can you believe I let it alone that long? At any rate, here it is. It is too much the same value, so I should do something else to it. Maybe stamp it? Hand paint on it? I know I will probably embroider on it! Or maybe I should just cut it into strips and use it in something else. Do another piece on better fabric.

Lisa, if you are listening, what do you think? Anyone else?

Playing At Dyeing and a Useful Drying Rack



I knew there would be a use for this dog pen!



It makes a great drying rack.

This is my favorite! 

I Try A Flour Resist!

 

My husband ordered a supply of Procion dyes for me for my birthday. I have finally decided to do all that. I did some of it in a class with Lisa Kerpoe, but I never bought all the stuff myself. I just continued to dye with textile paint, Rit and Koolaid. Oh, I do use Indigo thanks to my friend Bobbie and other natural dyes. (You have probably seen some of my natural dye experiments on this blog.) I liked not using chemicals. But the time has come to do more.

This said, I have to confess that none of the above has anything to do with Procion dye. But I am getting ready. For instance, I have mixed my chemical water! But I had some waiting time and so I decided to experiment on the two pieces above with a flour resist.  The blue one is an indigo dyed scrap with some discharging (toilet bowl cleaner) and the other is a monoprinted piece of white twill. It is ready to be appliqued with circles cut from another monoprint. If you look closely, you can see the basting threads. I have plans for this piece.

I really intended to paint over the crackled flour resist with some of the new dyes. However, I am not a very patient person. I had already waited over night for the flour resist to dry and I didn't want to wait another six hours or so for the dye to take. I wanted to see what it looked like! So I painted it with textile paint and here is the result. Next time I will use the dyes.

Silliness

 

Knots and Hexagons Oh My

 

What Is New Here

 

How I Spent Sunday

 

Show Me The Way To Go Home
9 x 24
(in work)

Commercial fabric, discharged, pieced, hand quilted

Fiber Arts Show

 

The show my Fiber Arts group is having opened today.

A Bird's Nest In Her Hair

 

Here is another doll. I meant to show you her picture the other day when I posted the Mermaid, but I don't like these photos. Obviously the flash went off and so there are unwanted shadows. And then you can't see that she is holding the bird from the nest in her right hand. You can see the "arms" of the stand which looks really weird--like someone is standing behind her or something. Oh well. It does show her boots which I had the most fun making. When she returns from the exhibit, I will try to get a better picture for my files. This doll reminds me of what my Dad used to say to me when my thick curly hair was a mess--"Your hair looks like a bird's nest!"

Toggle Beads In Action

 

Toggles/Beads

It is a grey dull Sunday. It looks like it is going to storm, but I don't think rain is in the forecast. I had some chores to do in the studio this morning, preparing pieces to deliver to a show tomorrow. Not my favorite thing to do, so when I finished that, I thought it would be fun to do something frivolous with the strip I cut off my latest quilted Journal cover. When I square up a quilted piece, I can't seem to make myself throw away the cut off piece if it is any size at all. So today, I turned the strip into Toggles or Beads. See below.....

I cut the strip into sections, rolled them up tight

 

and whip stitched them together. Then I found some buttons and threaded them on each end using Pearl cotton thread. I tried a couple of different ways to tie them off. If I really want to go crazy, maybe I will add some seed beads. Cute, don't you think?

I do have a confession to make. (If your name is Karen, don't read this. You know who you are!) I did use some "Fray Block" on the edges. I am just playing with these!

I Promised You A Mermaid

Months ago, I said I would post a photo of my Mermaid doll, but then I couldn't find any photographs of her. Then with the move and other personal complications, I forgot all about it. Well now she is going to be in an exhibit, so I got her out, dusted her off etc. Now she is ready for her close-up!

Sea Princess

10x10x10

 hand painted fabric, wire, polymer clay, beads, yarn, ribbon, shell 

and then there was May