Stuck

I have been working on a piece this week, a continuation of exploring the shoreline. Quilting is finished (I think...), and I have added the felting I planned on. A surprise was adding some angelina fibers to the roving, to get more depth and and water-like appearance.

I do like it so far, but at the moment I'm stuck. I have it hanging on the design wall to look at often as I go about the room. I don't feel yet that it's done. It isn't fully "saying" what I want it to. Something is missing...though I am not sure what that is yet. Hopefully as it hangs something will come to me? 

Despite the fact that there is so much cottonwood fluff in the air, I am going to brave going outside and head to a local lake. In need of firsthand photos and sketches of the shorelines to continue my explorations!

Perhaps I will see something that will work with the "Stuck" piece?

Putting in the Time: Part 1

It is often very difficult for us to admit to ourselves when we have gone wrong. Sometimes, it takes a long time to admit it, change our course and start moving in the right direction. I'm no different than anyone else in this respect.

I went to school for graphic design in 2001. I had been in school for less than two weeks when 9/11 occurred. It was disastrous to the advertising industry. From my prospective the nation went paranoid, and hasn't returned as of yet to a state of normalcy. Of course, at the time I was much younger (I need a moment to digest that I now consider 25 to be young) and didn't realize what was going on while I was in school.

It was a bit of a shock to me when I graduated with a 4.0, to see that I was competing against people with ten times or more the experience I had (zero), and who were willing to work for far less than they deserved in an entry level position, just because they needed any job they could find. It was also a shock when I realized that even though I am generally a competitive person by nature - this was more than I could handle. The advertising world is cut throat, and I'm just not cold blooded enough apparently.

I never did get a job in the advertising business.

Throughout all of this, I was making quilts - traditional quilts! I remember, not long after I realized that I had wasted disgusting amounts of money on a career degree that wasn't for me, I needed to create. I didn't have a studio. I didn't have a decent sewing machine. I didn't know fusibles existed. But, I had an idea, and needed to get it out in fabric.

It's called "Tree Guardian", and while I am still proud of my first fiber art piece - it's embarrassingly technically flawed! To my credit, all of the pieces are hand appliqued, and not horribly either. (I didn't know about fusible yet, remember?)

I didn't know it at the time, but the machine I had, I would come to find out would NEVER work for quilting. It was a $60 machine, and the tension to this day is still awful even on a straight stitch. This caused me so much frustration at the time that I often wanted to quit - but I kept plugging away. It wasn't until I bought my used Bernina 1260 several years later, that I realized I wasn't as bad of a quilter as the backs of my pieces would have you believe! (Relief!)

Looking as this quilt now I know that I have grown and learned many things. I know now that quilting must be evenly spaced, and no large gaps left to sag. I'm better with tension (mostly due to decent machines most likely, but still!)

Sometimes it is good to look at older pieces, to see how far we have come. It's also good, to remind us that we probably still have a ways to go, and may have become complacent.......

I've learned that you should not have this much open space in a quilt or it sags.

I have learned that you can work with the fabric for quilt design.

Again, you can't have huge open spaces!

This is the tension that the $60 machine nearly ALWAYS had. So frustrating, and I am very thankful that I now have a Bernina 1260 and a Bernina 820 to quilt on!

....stop back in tomorrow for part two of Putting In The Time...

I'm An Auntie!

I became an aunt for the first time this morning! Meet Alexander Jesse Carroll! Here he is, only a few hours old! He was already holding his head up and trying to look around, no I'm not kidding! :) We also got to hear some adorable hiccups!




On to some fiber news!

I'm offering free shipping on all my etsy pieces! That's right, FREE SHIPPING! Stop on by the online shop and take a look! I'm anxious to clean out the stock, to make room for this summer's creations! :)

Etsy Buy Handmade stephanieforsyth

Home Bound Day II

I will be staying home again today I think. The snow has stopped, but it is currently 1 degree right now. Yuck! No worries, I brought several pieces home for embellishment, and I need to sit down and schedule out the month of March!

I took another picture of the crow piece, during the daylight. The yellow loves the sunlight!



This is the second piece that I did last night, with the embellishments done:

I love the lizards little eyes!

These are the two pieces I plan on working with today:


I'm not sure yet what I want to do with them. But, I'm excited to have lots of straight lines and organic shapes to work with!

Stayed tuned for updates of the pieces when they're done!

On a Bender!

I have just been on a three day bender with my good friend Norma Riehm! No worries, we're talking a creative bender! She came up for a few days for a play date with me at my studio. Not only did we play, but we did some awesome repurposing! I'll warn you, there are a TON of pictures today!

First I will share the surface design frenzy we played with. Norma brought her massive collection of Shiva sticks! We spend...I'd say 8-10 hours playing with them. We didn't come home from the studio until between 9 and 10 last night!

PART I:

This rubbing was done using a stamp that Norma carved. I love how the red pops off the hand dyed piece!

This small piece was doing doing a rubbing using stamps carved by Sally Kiser, my best friend.

I'm still not sure what I will do with this piece yet...

This one was done doing a rubbing using another one of Norma's carved stamps.

This is done using a store bought rubbing plate.

These glowing snowflakes were done using freezer paper!

I wish the colors came through more true on this piec,e it's actually a couple shades lighter than it appears here I think. (Though the enlarge click on picture is a bit better.) This was also using stamps that Norma carved.

These Beehives are from a drawing I did onto freezer paper, then used an exacto knife to cut out the small slivers where the beehive lines are. The yellow is a honeycome fabric!

The shasta daisy is from a store bought rubbing plate, the gold border image is a quick stamp that I carved yesterday before we started.

For this piece, I used a large sheet of freezer paper, and cut a cirlce in the center, to use it as a stencil to keep the circles edges neat. I thinking this is a night piece in need of something "wingy".

I think this is my favorite piece that I did. I again used freezer paper as a stencil, first layering in the darker starburst in the center in dark brown. I then removed the start stencil area, but left the circle around it, then stamped in a lighter flesh toned colors on top. I was aiming for a sand dollar, what do you think?

Norma tried the sand dollar image too, but also put in this awesome stenciled dragonfly! I love teh coloring on the dragonfly!

This was our work area yesterday. We line 3 of my 8 foot tables ende to end. That's right, we had 24 FEET of table running down the room! And thank goodness, we needed a place to lay all of the shiva pieces for drying!

PART II:

First of all, let me tell you that Norma is one handy-dandy chick!

Secondly, I must say, when other artists/renters move out of the building, they often leave a LOT of it behind, that gets put near the doors with "FREE" signs on them. Normally it's junk, but Norma must have an aura of luck, because we struck gold this week!

Keep in mind, all of the pieces will soon be painted in bright colors to bright the place up.

One of the "finds" was a cutting table! Ingredients: two kitchen cabinets with the tops ripped off and one old door! It is fairly high, which is good because I'm fairly tall! I no longer have to bend over to cut! Woohoo! And the kitchen cabines (the two wooden sections on the sides) have a rolling drawer on top, then a cabinet underneath. The top is a simple door, without all the hardware. And, my rolling shelves fit nicely in and around it.

You would never guess that this was just two shelf ends when it started. With Norma's carpentry skills, she put a couple of hinges on it, giving me a folding display. But then we thought, wait....shelves! So after a trip to Home Depot, and purchasing 3 inexpensive closet shelves, I not have an AWESOME corner display shelf! It will soon be cobalt blue and red-orange! (Watch for pictures in the next couple months or less!)

There was another set of shelf ends, but they did not match up as well for hinging. So, we simply leaned them against one wall like ladders, then used two closet rods we found in the free pile, and put pieces on to display. Super easy!

This is my first display wall! Notice the upper right hand. That red grid piece was an earlier find - I fell into a dumpster retrieving it and recieved multiple bruises getting it out! (Yes, I dumpster dive!) Norma helped me use rope (50 feet/$10 and I have a ton left) to suspend it from the ceiling above my cutting table - AWESOME!

When we got to the studio this morning, there was an old dresser drawer sitting outside next to the dumpster! It's so prettily shaped! The front arcs out, and the hardware on the drawer is beautiful! I hope to strip the paint off the hardware, paint the drawer a nice bright color (it's already painted, so please don't yell at me for painting wood! lol), and then either add legs for a table, or place it upright, and make it into a shelving unit/display unit.

Norma has gone home now - and will probably be getting home in the next hour or so. I'm sad to see her go so soon! I swear we could have played for a week! (Though I think we would need to start napping! LOL)

She really helped me get a HUGE leap into displaying my artwork - something I really needed help on! I also got to learn more about Shiva sticks, as well as stamp carving. It's so nice when people can get together and just start creating and playing. It helps to have company now and then, to feed off of eachother's energies.

After I create with someone, I often receive a "creative high" that can last days to weeks. It's just inspiring!

So thank you Norma for coming, and sharing your talents, your products, your creativity, and your handywoman skills with me! I owe you big time!

Doing Time

I put in some much needed practice time on the long arm today. I got the white fabric/batting loaded onto the frame, then picked a pretty thread for the top:


Then I pulled out my bobbins, you can see what happens when you do thread art - I have umteen different bobbins filled with an array of colors, let's see if we can use some up:



Here I tried some clam shell type filler:



A few more fillers:







A little bit more detail:




Fin:



So there is a day of play on the long arm.

Tomorrow I will be mopping and clearing tables, because I am hosting the MCQ Board meeting at my studio Thursday night.

I was blown away today when I received my The Quilt Show newsletter in my email! One of my quilts was chosen for a sashiko tutorial from Bernina! (Now if only *I* had a Bernina! lol) But, it was wickedly awesome to see my quilt on there, and on the newsletter page on the site!

Here's the quilt they put in the newsletter:



It's really funny that this happend, because just this morning I was thinking about The Quilt Show, and how thankful I am that it exists! I was so disappointed when they canceled Simply Quilts, and then when I heard about The Quilt Show I was really happy! But what makes it even better I think, is how they connect quilters from all over the world! I love it!

Awesome day!