Weeks 31-35

Week 31, 27 eT

 Since my birthday is on the 27th, I am obsessed with the # 27.

The green swirl is the last letter of my first name, and the first letter of my last name
as I sign it in my signature

I used silk and sheers

Week 32, The 70's

This patch had been donated to me and several months ago, if not years, I had

made the patch into this small quilt

The colors and feel of the fabrics reminded me so much of my childhood

I decided to repurpose it using a variety of surface design techniques

I painted on it

Used bubble wrap to stamp patterns on it

Used paint sticks and fabric gel pens to decorate the piece

Then I appliqued some fabric, sheers, and scraps of netting

Adding final touches with some stitching

This piece was a whole lot of fun to work on.

I tried to be spontaneous and not over think any design choices

Wk 33, Peace

Artist Maggie Weiss presented a thermafax workshop at her beautiful studio

in Evanston for Illinois SDA members

Here she is running an image through the machine

This creates a screen so the image can be reproduced many times

Here we are making our prints

Maggie explains the different paints to us

I made several prints and made them into small postcards

I accidentally printed on the wrong side, so I screened a peace the correct way

This is to remind you to live with peace inside and outside yourself

Close up of stitching

Wk 34, Maneater

I had so much fun repurposing that patch (I have 3 of them) I decided to do another one.

When I was about 10 I crawled into my brother's bunk bed and decided to see what

listening to music was like. I turned on the clock radio and the song

Maneater by  Hall & Oates was playing.

I listened for a while and decided that music made no sense, a woman can't eat a man.

I turned the radio off deciding music was not for me.

I used several surface design techniques on this piece too.
I now need to have the radio on at all times and love music.

Wet Felting, Week 32 Journal Piece

Fellow fiber artist, Frances Krueger-Jackson offered to teach me and a friend how to wet felt.

The process startes with laying out the roving on a sheet of bubble wrap

You can see how beautiful and rich the colors of the fibers are

Next we get the fibers sopping wet with soapy water

We put another layer of bubble wrap over the fibers

roll it up with a towel and rock the roll it back and forth for 15 minutes

This is just the first step in getting the fibers to hold together

There were several steps of beating, rubbing, and slapping of the piece

to make sure the fibers all held together securely

Here is the finished piece

It was a lot of fun and a lot of work to make

and I look forward to doing it again soon

Week 27-30

Week 27, Tracking

An experiment with fabrics and beads

Week 29, St. Patrick's Day

Represents the fun we had going out for corned beef sandwiches and Guinness

on a beautiful sunny and warm St. Patrick's Day

Week 30, Spring

An experiment with reverse applique

I layers the color fabrics under the black, stitched the shaped,

then cut the shapes out of the black to reveal the color fabric

Febuary Pieces 23-26

Week 23: Art Doll

I was doing a unit on sewing that culminated with my students

creating an art doll, so I needed a sample.

Week 24: Five

Used 5 gum wrappers in 5 colors, a half of a $5 I found,

and metal rings recycled from bow ties

Week 25: Heart

Thread painted in sections of a heart doily from a thrift store

for Valentine's Day week

Week 26: Squares

I awoke to this vision of squares

then added the wooden beads and ribbon

January Journal Pieces 18, 20, 21, & 22

Week 18, Intention, AKA Word of the year

I started with blank muslin

Wrote in some intentions with a Pentel gel roller for fabric

Then added the first layer of color with water soluble crayons

Used a rubbing plate and shiva paintstiks to create the concentric circles

Letters were done with Misty Fuse and a sheer fabric

Week 20, Elements

 Found and acquired objects

Week 21, Two Gold Ladies

 Experimentation rubbing shiva paintsticks and lace followed by first time gold leafing on silk

Week 22

 A friend gave me a piece of felt she made and I combined it with some fabric I dyed this summer

The whole piece is hand stitched

Thanksgiving piece finished

This is a peice I started for Thanksgiving week and recently finished

I wanted to express my appreciation for opportunities,

combined with support, that have allowed me to blossom and grow.

I started with this picture

I sketched my hand with a Pentel gel roller for fabric and painted the background.

I created the flower pot using painted batting.

I free motion quilted these details

I made leaves using scraps of green fabric

After several weeks of trying to figure out how to make the flowers I stumbled across a bag of napkin holders at the local thrift store that were perfect. I added some color to them with Shiva Paintsticks.

The last step was to add some dimension to the leaves with stitching so they curled.

December Journal Pieces 14-17

Week 14, Circles

For this piece I experimented with stamping techniques.

I started stamping with the end of a pool tube.

Then used this sponge I found at the local grocery store.

I used the edges of various abjects I found around the house, including
bubble wrap. I sewed on plastic rings from milk cartons and added some hand stitching.

Week 15, More circles

I used small metal circles that I collected from disassembling satin bow-ties.

Week 16

An experiment in composition and found materials

Week 17, Christmas

I wove together neck straps from the disassembled bow-ties and

used sheers for the objects.

We had fish and a big blue bottle of wine for Christmas dinner.