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Archive for the ‘My creations’ Category

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Thursday, April 25th, 2013

defussedquilt

 

Number one – I am on serious overload of picky, time consuming left brain stuff that I need to do to keep afloat.

Number two – I need some balance in my life. I need to take some creative breaks to keep myself sane.

Number three disclosure is that shrink-a-dink textile I have been working on.

This is a closeup of what it looked like when I last took it out of the dryer.

blackfuzzyquilt

 

Eeeuuw! I was about to throw it in the trash, and then my creative wanna be, Karen, commented that she had had this very problem and almost got carpal tunnel from picking out the fuzz. What? She removed the fuzz? So, with renewed enthusiasm, I went after it last night. I decided there must be an easier way. I grabbed my needle felting brush pad and used it. This is what it looks like, now, – the brush that is.

blackfuzzbrush

 

And this is a detail shot of the stitched piece – much better.

defuzzedquiltdetail

 

I still wish it had shrunk a bit more. I may throw it in hot water and the dryer again to see what happens.

I discharged another piece of silk for another attempt at this.

newdischargedblacksilk

 

I have been neglecting the stitching together of my 3x3s so for the last two nights, I have done some stitching. These have been stitched together so far.

3x3update

So, there you go. A look into my crazy life.

 

Disappointment

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

shrinkquiltstitched

I finished the stitching of the discharged silk to the wool pre-felt. I really was excited about doing the shrinking. Here is a detail of the stitching.

shrinkquiltdetail

 

I used up 3 bobbins and this spool of thread which looked great with the fabric.

shrinkquiltthread

 

When I took the piece out of the dryer, it had hardly shrunk at all and the felt was pulling through to the top of the silk. It is really not even worth photographing. I am so disappointed because I so loved that little sample I did yesterday. I am wondering if I did too much stitching or if a large piece does not shrink as well. It was going to be my SAQA auction donation. Now, I have to start over!! Well, I did say it was an experiment!!

I am really tired and cranky tonight because I had to get up so early for my ultrasound. My doctor does not work on Tuesday so I have to wait until tomorrow to get results.

I will leave you with some pretty from my neighborhood walk. Red was the color of the day.

redjapanesemaple

 

neighborhoodred

 

 

Honey, I Shrank the Quilt!

Monday, April 22nd, 2013

silkwoolshrinktest

I decided that before I got to far into this experiment, I should do a sample to see what might happen. I love the results. Nice organic texture and it shrank up quite a bit. First, I just rinsed it in hot water and threw it in the dryer with a towel. It shrank a bit, but not enough. Next, I washed it in the washer with a towel, in hot water and then put it in the dryer and Voila! – just want I was hoping for.

I have finished the stitching in one direction, now I have to stitch vertically. I hope to get that done tomorrow.

silkwoolstitching

 

I have to be at the hospital at 7:30 in the morning for an ultrasound of my gall bladder. I am wondering what they will find. I have been feeling icky all day — hives on my legs again and abdominal pain. There is something going on.

I had a nice week-end. I met one of my blog readers for lunch on Saturday. Kaylin is from Seattle and is going to start classes at Oregon College of Art and Craft in the fall, with a fibers major. She was here for orientation. We had a great time over lunch with her friend, Carol.

I have been busy with SDA work and getting the Artists Among Us database done. I have 60 artists with an average of 12 pieces of art to be coded and entered. I am going to train someone else to help me. I am hoping that this is the last year that I will be doing this job. I am trying to keep on top of things, just in case I have to take time out for gall bladder surgery.

 

OOXX

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

CongdonXXOOFull

 

I can finally show you the quilt that I was working on  and only showed sneak peeks. It was for the Dinner at Eight invitational show which will debut at IQF Long Beach and then go to Houston. The theme this year was “An Exquisite Moment.”  That theme threw me for awhile, and then I thought of hugs and kisses from my grandchildren. Those are most definitely exquisite moments.

I had in my mind that I wanted the piece to be luminous and full of vibrant color. I ordered hand-dyed silk from Frieda Anderson. I used Mistyfuse because it hardly changes the hand of the silk. I created X and O blocks in different sizes and worked them into a layout to fit the required size of 24 inches by 60 inches. I decided that diagonal machine quilting would work best to tie it all together. I used silk thread in 6 different colors and randomly changed the color as I stitched. Here is a detail.

CongdonXXOOdetail

 

I love this quilt. It made me happy to make it. You can see all the artists who were juried into the show on the Dinner at Eight blog.

I am in the vortex that I knew would happen about now. Two important events for which I have a lot of responsibility are requiring lots of my attention. I am trying to stay calm and carry on. One is the SDA conference registration. Right now, I am dealing with workshops that had to be canceled for low registration, notifying people, issuing refunds, etc. Registration fee goes up on May 1 so there is also an influx of people registering before then.

I am also setting up the Artists Among Us database. Our event is May 17-19. I have a PC laptop that was donated to the Arts commission. The PC and I are not really getting along very well. I did manage to get all the artists into the database. Now I have to enter all of their art work inventory.

So that is my life right now. It is not forever. I will survive. I may not blog as often.

Always Something

Friday, April 5th, 2013

Gerrieyellow

Last week when I was sick, I looked in the mirror and saw something like this. I had just had my hair newly re-dyed  and the combination of the copper colored hair and yellow skin, gave me the creeps. My first thought was, you should never have gone copper again. My second thought was, you really look like death warmed over and crawled back in bed.

The other thing that was going on was a case of the hives on my lower legs and feet every night. The worst itchiness. I had to slather myself in cortisone cream.

The yellow cast to my skin and the hives went away when I began to feel better on Friday.

So, this morning, I was telling my daughter, Stephanie about the hives that I had while I was sick. She has the hives quite often and has done lots of research on the causes. She told me that many people have hives on their feet during gall bladder attacks.

A light bulb goes off. Yellow skin. Hives. Severe abdominal pain. Duh. So I e-mailed my Dr. and then had a talk with her advice nurse. The nurse really felt it was a virus. I said, make sure you tell the Dr. about the hives and the yellow skin and remind her that I have just lost a bit of weight.

Long story, short, the Dr. e-mailed me back and said she had ordered blood tests and an ultrasound.  If it is my gall bladder, I certainly want to get it taken care of, but even minor surgery in my life right now is a daunting thought.

I am happy to say that I got the big silk quilt finished and photographed and submitted to the invitational show. Around the 22nd of the month, when juried quilts are announced, I will be able to share it with you.