Living and Dyeing Under the Big Sky: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

Mail Art Project - Week Fifty Eight

"Pretty Face"

Hand dyed cotton, overpainted with acrylic. The screen printed face is something I found on free clipart, but I modified it (redrew it without the hair).

The text printed to the right is a screen print I made from an old ledger book my maternal grandmother (Grandma Marie) used to have. I cherish this ledger book because it has a lot of my grandma's writing in it. She was a schoolteacher before she married and she took the minutes of at the school board meetings. The screen print I used for this piece is a page of minutes from a school board meeting. In the back of the book, Grandma had written some recipes. I just love this book for the eclectic mix of my grandmother's life that it contains! I am sure that in hard times - paper was hard to come by and that is why she used the back of the book for writing her recipes.

Today's Quote:
"Women are like tea bags. We don't know
our true strength until we are in hot water."
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Buck Deer in our Yard

We very frequently see does in our yard, but today we had these two nice bucks hanging out down towards the ravine.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

On to the Next Beet Print Piece

The next beet gelatin print piece was ready for machine quilting, so I got started on it. This one is on a fusible batting. I love not having to pin, but I have discovered this one is too large for the fused batting approach. I am getting some puckers.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Triple Beet Panels on Stretcher Bars

Yesterday, I showed how I glued my quilt to a prestretched canvas. Here is the result.

You can see how I finished the edge of the quilt with a specialty yarn (hand dyed by me) zig-zagged to the quilted edge. And also how I stitched over the pebbles with a variegated pearl cotton (in the very colors I used in the quilt)

And here is the piece in it's final form:

And a final detail.

I don't usually have difficulty coming up with a title for my work. It usually comes to me in the final stages. This time - it didn't happen for me. I would welcome suggestions. Thanks!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Glueing a Quilt to Stretcher Bars! Yikes!

A while ago, I shared the final machine quilting for a Beet printed piece that is for a WAV group challenge. Part of the challenge is to create a piece that is mounted somehow to a 24 x 36" stretcher bar. For mine, I picked up a canvas at Michaels and painted the edges multiple times to get just the right shade of brown. Because my quilted piece comes almost (but not quite) to the edge, I decided I could not really stitch it it place (my preferred method because then it can be removed for a quilt show if need be).

I have glued quilts to stretched canvases before, but never have I done one this large. Kind of tricky. I wanted to be sure I got the glue all the way to the edges, but not too far because the glue is kind of shiny, while the canvas is painted with a matte finish. Any glue that got beyond the quilt would show, even though it dries clear.

The glue I now use for everything is "The Ultimate". I find it holds virtually everything together and it is a polymer glue - so no toxic fumes. This is the same glue I used to attach the beach pebbles to the front of this piece.

For this particular application, I did dilute it very slightly with water because the glue is super thick. Then I applied it to both the back of the quilt and the canvas using a sponge brush. I started with the quilt resting in position on the canvas and folded it back to apply the glue to each half separately. I waited a few minutes until the glue was just barely starting to develop a clear skin on the edges.

Then, I carefully folded it back into place and pressed it carefully into position. It needs to dry at least 24 hours.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Sense of Adventure - Cover Art

The show catalog for the SAQA show; "Sense of Adventure", has just been released. I was happy to have work juried into the show. Last week, a package arrived from SAQA and I was surprised to discover my piece, "Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire" was selected for the cover of the catalog! It is the red and black piece that makes up most of the cover art!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

More Art from the Bair Family Collection

John F. Herring, Sr. and George Cole
A Wooded Landscape with Farm and Haywain
36 x 8"

Monday, October 24, 2011

Mail Art Project - Week Fifty Seven

Halloween Postcard 2011

Halloween is a week away, so I am sending out the Halloween postcard out this week.

I started with this beautiful hand dyed fat quarter (below)

I folded and pressed along 4" and 6" lines. I wanted it to look like the sky at dusk with a full moon, so I block printed with this spiral hand carved block. I used gold and opaque white fabric paints.

Then, I screen printed the bats in black and machine quilted before cutting them apart.
I use a glue stick to attach cardstock to the backs. I use a wide, close zig zag to finish the edges.

This week's quote:
"A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween."
-Erma Bombeck-

Extra postcards are going out this week to Elizabeth in Pittsburgh, PA; Deighna in Middlebury, CT; Sue in Queensland, Australia; and Louise in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada.