Next projects

I was gently pushed into making an entry for the Glen Rock Quilters' Challenge: Wine, Roses and All That Jazz.
I agreed, because I happen to have something already half made!
This
This is a quilt made with gold fabric, music fabric for the binding and for a previous exhibition, I temporarily attached some postcards. They were a gift and I had to give them back, but I still have this quilt.
Unfortunately the gold organza I used cannot stand the heat of the iron necessary to have something fused to it.
But I can make some elements and just hand stitch them on.

The deadline after that is "Down to Earth" I don't want to make anything that takes too long. Painters are lucky in that respect, they seem to be able to do a painting in a week with lots of time to spare.

At the moment, my thoughts are going to a snake. This is an outside exhibition, could I make a fabric snake that curls and that can be hung from a tree?
What if: I cut a wide spiral out of fabric, wide enough to stitch the edges together, stuff it to make it into a kind of spirally sausage??

I can then decorate it with stitching, beads and whatever.

Hands and Gloves is finished!

Here it is! It is 26" square, mounted over stretcher bars.
I am very happy with it.

Stitching the gloves on

This is a bit of a boring job, but it does look nice. Better than if I had been able to use a machine stitch, which was my original intention. I couldn't do that, because the foot doesn't move freely over the kid leather. I believe it needs a roller foot, which I don't have and don't want to buy.

What I do like is whipping another yarn through the stitches so, even before I finished the stitching, I am experimenting.

This is a relative fine thread that can be used with an embroidery needle.

This yarn is much thicker and I had to use a big needle with a very big eye.
It hides the original red stitching a bit more, it is marginally harder to use.
What does show well on these photos is that the kid leather is very fine and I am conscious that it really IS skin as I push the needle through.
I think I will be going with the finer thread.
I bought the yarns, threads and some fascinating fabrics at the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane last Friday.
Threads and yarns from The Thread Studio and fabric from  Beautiful Silks.

Also bought a "Studios" Magazine.  Our house is for sale which means that, eventually, we will move into another house and I have an opportunity to redesign my sewing studio. I like the one I have, because although it is only small, we had the house built to our specs, so I have been very happy with my sewing studio, which, in fact, I have always called my sewing "room". As we very likely will move into an existing home, I will have to work with what I get!

Creating background

The quilt sandwich is made and is approx. 32" square.
Layers: Iron on interfacing on the bottom fused to bamboo wadding fused with paper backed fusible to the Dupion Silk.
I made templates of the outline of my hand in 3 sizes. (resized in CorelDraw).
25 Hand outlines are drawn on the back of the quilt sandwich, which is the interfacing.

I went through my threads and yarns and selected 2: an orangy hand spun silk thread, given to me many years ago by an 80 year old lady called Norma, a variegated jeans topstitching thread.
I made a test quilt the same as the main quilt and tried them out.

I liked the orange thread the best, with it slightly lumpy texture.

Deconstruction 1 and 2

What if....
I opened up one glove, so I could applique it and see both sides at once?

This is what it looks like. Because you can't see the thumb, you can't appreciate how unpleasantly organic this object looks!


Next: just cut each glove in half, so I have 2 outside and 2 inside pieces.

OK, this was an experiment and I was very much prepared to sacrifice this pair.
I don't have to sacrifice the 4 pieces, but I learned NOT TO USE STEAM ON KID LEATHER!
It makes it shrink like plastic would.

Next step:
I have a piece of gorgeous magenta Dupion Silk for the background. Thought I could tuck it, but tucking needs more fabric than I have.

Round...like a circle in a spiral

These are the first words of the song.

 

Here the music score with lyrics has been scanned in, twisted in Corel PhotoPaint. That design has been printed on cotton. It will be attached to the background with free motion stitching, keeping to the spiral design. 

Until I am ready to do that, I will put it on Vliesofix but I won't take off the paper backing till I am sure of where I want to put it.

More ticky-tocky

 

It is looking good, isn't it!

I love the way the organza mutes the design of the fabric underneath. 

The stars are now defined.

Being able to design on the computer and print has made this element so much easier. especially the numbers on the clock. 

What I like about blogging this project is that, even though I think I am not getting anywhere, I can see progress.

I've ordered the wrought iron quilt hanger, I am committed to enter a new piece in the Musical Gems exhibition at the end of next month. Thank goodness for deadlines!

I am going to start on another element, while I consider how to design the hands of the clock with a sense of movement.  If I can't think of any way to get that effect well, I'll just put 2 hands in.....

What about realistic drawing?

I tried.
I really tried.
I was even successful every so often.
However, I found myself not wanting to do the actual drawing. I knew I should practice, practice, practice. I read books and articles, I tidied my work table. I downloaded a lovely reference photo of a pair of old boots, graphed it up and intended to copy it that ways, square by square.
It went OK, but I wasn't happy doing it. 
I started to think back about projects that I enjoyed so much that I couldn't wait to get back to them and I realised, I am a designer rather than a fine artist.

I love design, I love using all kinds of pencils and pens,  I love working on paper. Why fight that? Why not combine my knowledge  and years of experience of design and my newly acquired knowledge of realistic drawing?

Here is the last quilt design I did. "Spice Stars" Please note: this is 2.50m x 2.60m and has some very intricate machine quilting.
I was very happy with that design.
Working with fabric and sewing, there are many more restrictions than there are with drawing.
As I have mentioned before, I am a member of the newly formed Somerset Art Scy Inc. Each Wednesday some of the members get together to work on their art. I decided to join them and also decided I was going to work on something enjoyable.
Got my pastel paper out and pencils, but found ordinary pencils didn't work well. Got my pastel pencils out and just drew some curvy shapes and then filled them in with further shapes.
I made them go over and under to provide some depth, I LOVE overs- and -unders
It is still a work in progress: initially I coloured in very tentatively.  RS suggested that I push down harder, to get more intensity. It stuffed up my work, because the pen outline is done AFTER the pastel pencil, having to go over it again meant I had to go over the black lines again.

You can see which parts have been redone.
I put the work where I can see it, and I know now I that the shadows I put in aren't correct. I should have put shadows where the shapes cross over, so I am not sure I want to continue with it as I can see so many ways I can improve on this now.
The main thing is: I enjoyed the process tremendously.
Deb is having a new course and I'll make that a separate post.