Pandora Painting

Yesterday we had our regular Pandora art group meeting. We decided that we need to have more "play dates" in amongst our regular meetings so, with the new Rayna Gilman book in hand, "Create Your Own Handprinted Cloth", we went at it. If you have ever wanted to try some"deconstructed" stuff (or for that matter, to take out any latent frustrations) get this book!

Did you know that just letting loose is F-U-N?

I let all inhibitions float out the window and just painted with abandon. I had originally dyed a half yard of fab and then decided to add to it by dyeing again in blobs (who the heck knew why).

Well.......I ended up not liking the second round that much (1st pic) so I put it aside and eventually would have come back to it. I did name this piece "Potcake" after all for a reason.

When we decided to paint and experiment I thought, why not see what the third time will bring. I started by using the brayer to paint stamps then painted the image that I got on the brayer onto the fab. That wasn't enough!! I then stamped a grid work all over...hand got real messy here...it was soooooo cool.

That wasn't enough either! HA! So I decided to use some Lumiere Paints, Halo Gold and Pearl Blue. I pulled the seal, with included handle no less, off the dark blue that I had not opened yet and held it in my hands. Mmmh....

I screamed with wild joy cause (brainstorm here) I could use the jar seal as a painting tool (so don't throw yours away next time, hee hee). So then, what else? How bout some splatter? Bring out the toothbrush. Started to splatter, took too long then just rubbed the brush in the paints and scratched it across the surface. VOILA!!!!

I LOVE IT! Don't you?

BTWm be sure to check out Susan's post about our painting adventure here.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Jounal Quilt Entry

Got in my studio today but don't say hurrah for me just yet. Spent most of the day doing paperwork that had been neglected for the last few weeks. I am all caught up now, but just with the paperwork mind you....not with the computer work, so a small hurrah would be appropriate (smile).

In the next few days I will also have to get to work on updating my website and.........reveal my little secret thing I've been working on. Stay tuned for that.

Here's a pic of my entry for the Houston Journal quilt challenge. I can show you it because I ran into a frustrating problem and therefore didn't get it finished before the deadline.

I painted the whole piece but because I painted a few layers over one section it didn't take to being machine quilted well. I would have to say it protested strongly and must have thought it looked quite good just painted.

Here is the traitor and I've made sure to point out the culprit in the pic above. I was quilting it to resemble a gust of wind (you know...the AIR element silly) coming in from one direction. You can see the first swirl I created. They're some big a _ _ needle holes aren't they?

Thing is I really liked this piece too. This would have been my first juried competition too (pouting lips here).

Oh well.........on to other things.


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

July TIF Concept

Sharon says:

"The challenge this month is perhaps a bit obvious but I am going to ask …What is it to be at the half way mark?"

One of the things I'm proud of concerning this TIF challenge is that so far I've managed to keep up with it (except for May's of course which seems to be an ongoing, ever changing thought process on "how to describe myself as an artist").

I generally tend to finish things I start, mainly because I tend to harangue myself for not getting it done (while still procrastinating about it mind you). So the fact that I am at the halfway mark doesn't suprise me much. The fact that I am up to date with it is definitely knocking me off my chair (and some of you may know this about me...but love me anyway, hee hee).

Sharon took her concept apart and started thinking about it like this.... "Half" /"Way" /"Mark". She sees this leading into all sorts of directions.

One of the things that triggers my mind is the word "mark". I find I'm thinking more and more about mark making in terms of surface design and the workshop with Lyric Kinard I took last month has really brought it to the forefront. Remember I already have a fascination with words since I was a young tot so going in this direction isn't far off the mark...

......get it?..........off the mark????

HA!

Anyway, I've already have a piece started where I'm exploring mark making. I started with this dyed piece of fabric (above).

Then I filled a squeeze bottle fitted with a metal tip (easy to find at art/craft stores like Dharma Trading or Dick Blick) with a 50/50 mix of Jaquard black textile paint and textile medium.

...wrote on it a mind map of words related to my thoughts on this piece.

(sample writing at left)

I then tried flour paste resist, painting on it with Dye-Na-Flow paints. I pinned the fabric down to a base layer of white felt (double layer) and, on top of that, a torn section of an old sheet. [This helps keep the table from getting messy and makes a sturdy pressing base for surface design work].

Above you can see the flour resist painted fabric. I did however unpin the fabric to move to a more convenient spot. NO NO!....don't do that, leave it in position to dry taut, then unpin and scrunch the painted flour paste.

The effect was not exactly successful as you can see. My original idea was not to have the blobs but I think it's still usable, definitely needs more words.

The dots are drips of paint I dropped on it instead of painting in with a brush (very impatient person that I am, want things done now darn it!). The grayed out area in the center is the ONLY flour paste resist area.

So.......I would say it needs more.

Next, I'll use either a sheet of dotted computer paper and/or sequin waste to paint over (or under, haven't decided yet) in another colour.

At right is a smidgen of what I intend to do on this background piece but I've been so obsessed with trying out a bit of surface design that I went ahead with it on this one.

I have been carving some stamps and finally got all my supplies in to make some silk screens. More about that later.

What kind of surface design projects are you up to? Have you tried flour past resist? If you have leave a comment and let me in on the tricks for success....please, please.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Stash Quilt Finished

I've been told that my "blog needs some loving" (podcast by Alison Stanfield ), that I should pay more attention to it and treat it like a baby.

You know the kind...they pee and poop (on automation) but can't really do anything for themselves. Why I would take on another child I don't know but I do enjoy talking to y'all (you'd think I was feeling my southern roots with the "y'all" thing. I don't have any southern roots in me at all......I'm a tropical lady at heart).

Anywho, I was going good for a while then....poof.......it stopped (I know it really was me that I stopped but I gave this baby life I can give it all the blame too).

So today's post is called catch up. I've been getting ready for my daughter's 16th birthday party and preparing for the Sheppard tribe (my family) to decend upon my house. Plus I am hosting my annual Dye Party next week and still have a couple of pieces to finish for deadlines that are looming. Okay, that was catch up, now on to the good stuff....ART.

Here's the lastest pics of one of things that has taken me away from you. I'm still doing the TIF Challenge and did finish my June piece but never posted about it (yes, shame shame you say). If you recall, June was about stashes. I showed the literal pics of my stash and below you'll find my interpretation of it.



My stash started out real large (the bottom stone) because, if you remember correctly, I went thru my "greedy" phase as if the fabrics manufacturers would run out of fabs at any moment. As I climbed this ever fantastic cairn of stones I've created I realize that my stash did not (yes I said "did NOT") have to be THAT big, especially as I've resigned myself to now making smaller pieces. This one is measures 13" square.

I have not yet reached the peak (come on now......you ever think I'll have that little bit of fabs that represent the cairn's peak????). I don't know that I ever will or, for that matter, want to but I'm getting closer to finding the center, MY center, the comfortable place, the reasonable phase where fabric obsession is not necessary any more. I'd say I'm somewhere between the middle red stone and the gold one.

I am okay with having what just what I need instead of what I think I ought to have.

Have you had a stash redo recently or planning one? Have you made a "stash" piece to represent your "rack of fabs"? Leave a comment and let me know where you are in your stash phase or, for that matter, anything else on your mind.



See you next time "In the Hayloft",

New Artwork

I was priviledged to take a workshop with Lyric Kinard this past Saturday. We worked on a surface design sampler of techniques including carving stamps, screen printing and beading.

Thanks to a fun time and a great instructor, today I actually finished the project from a workshop for the first time. Yippee!

The technique sampler is a great way to to learn a few things without taking an intense workshop on one technique you're not sure you will use again.

For instance I am so into carving stamps these days and learned some great tips from Lyric AND I've discovered I love, love, love screen printing.

So much so that I'm now trying to find a thermofax machine (old fashioned mimeograph) that someone has hidden somewhere just collecting dust so I can make my own screens.

If you know where I can get one on the cheap, let me know PLEASE. Until then I'll have to send out to Lyric to get them made.

I really like the finished journal. I'm thinking Christmas gifts this year.


journal spine

back cover

stamped/foiled word

inside cover

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

What are YOU Drawn to?

Today is MONDAY!

Time for a post (bet you thought I forgot...HA!).

My FAB group met recently and I posed a question to them. I showed them 4 pieces of work that I had recently finished and asked them to tell me what was the common factor in all of them.

My thinking is that with their input I would get some more feedback on the direction my artwork was taking.

I see myself gravitating in a new direction. Don't misunderstand, I will keep designing quilt patterns because I still love making traditional quilts with a contemporary twist, but I think I'm defining, in a singular way, what kind of artwork really inspires me to create.

I've mentioned here already that I'm drawn to colour, line, shape and, more recently, texture (as opposed to pattern).

These are the art quilts that draw me in, that speak to my core, the ones that can suggest realism but does not convey a specific image; the ones that use colour as it's main tool and informs the piece with line and shape.

It got me to thinking about how each of us defines our art. Have you formerly thought about how and why you produce the things that you do?

What draws you to a textile piece in a show or gallery? What about it speaks to YOU?

Are you a person who prefers realistic images, pieces that tell a story and gives you images to respond to or do you prefer pieces that you interpret as you see it, where you get to inform the piece with your own thoughts and feelings?

BTW, the pomagranite piece at left is unquilted. The design you see is done in a dry erase pen on a piece of plexiglass, my way of auditioning quilting patterns.

I take pictures of each one as I draw them and can then refer back to see which one works best. This is not the pattern I have chosen to machine quilt it with.

If you've been reading my blog you've probably seen some of the things I've been producing . What feedback do you have? Any concise thoughts on the direction you see me taking?

No worries on me being offended. I say if you ask the questions then you must be okay with the answers you get.


See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

QA Online Festival?

Imagine going to a quilting festival but not getting out of your jammies!

Quilting Arts will be hosting an online Festival the week of May 29 - June 2nd. It sounds so very cool that I thought I should give a heads up to it.

From what I hear you'll be able to:

• Discover new quilting tips and techniques
• Shop for the latest quilting, embellishment, and surface design supplies
• Meet and chat with quilters from around the world
• Take exclusive classes with top quilt artists
• Win prizes every day!

Check out their Festival web page here to sign up.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

The Piece That Wasn't Supposed to Be

I design patterns. I like designing patterns. A friend suggested, however, that I design a quilt pattern around a particular fabric line, get some attention coming my way. So off to the quilt shop I went.

I chose 9 different fabrics from the April Cornell line "A Little Romance" by Moda Fabrics . Had the quilt in mind that I was going to do and skipped all the way home (taking literary liberties here...me skip?)

The small quilt I had in mind only needed 1/8th yard of 8 of the fabrics but I got a full 1/3 yard (big spender I am huh?) of the beautiful mint green solid you see below.

I washed and ironed the fabs and got ready to create. I cut a background from the solid green and laid it on my worktable. Somehow, 4 hours later I came up with "Windy Day". Not one blessed piece of the April Cornell fabric made it into the quilt, not that I didn't like the fabs mind you.

Moral of the story, sometimes you gotta go where the muse takes you (yeh, she found her way back to me eventually).

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Punche Needle Mania...Oh No!

A friend and I have recently discovered punch needle embroidery. Boy is that darned stuff addicting. I finished the above piece in about 6 hours over two days. I just couldn't stop punching that fabric. My kids thought I was obsessed because every time they came into the room there I was hunched over this small frame...poking that tool again and again .

My husband was on a business trip when I started this piece and when he got back he just couldn't get use to the punching noise so I had to stop for the night on day 1. Oooh man was I having serious withdrawal symptoms that night. All I could thing of was the fact that I would get to it tomorrow.....

" Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow,
you're only a day away"

Anywho...I thought to put it in a frame but I have an idea for a small quilt. Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish it this coming week.

Isn't that about the cutest little house you've seen? Speaking of houses, been working on a new house quilt. Will show that soon.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Art Dolls with a Twist

A friend told me last night at our guild meeting that she likes to read my blog but thinks I should update it more often. Well...me thinks she's right. I have been amiss and will make every effort to keep it better updated. Thanks RM, I really appreciate your honesty. It's not that haven't been in my studio working, I just haven't had a chance to post and let you all see that I've been working on.

It didn't help that my modem got fried (3 days without internet) in the brutal thunderstorm we had last week. The rain came down in sheets and blew patio items all over the place, couldn't see out the windows because the rain was so heavy against the glass themselves. Anyway I am back online and love the new little dolls I made.

Growing up I really didn't play with dolls much, at least not the cuddle up kind. I loved making paper dolls though and all their clothes . I use to forget sometimes to cut out the little tabs that helped the clothes stay on their bodies...whoops! My sister and I had a whole set of them.

I saw an article in the magazine Art Doll Quarterly, summer 2007 issue, and knew I had to make one...okay....I kinda got carried away. I decided to make 6, one for me and a couple of quilting friends.

I painted a large piece of 90lb watercolour paper with Pebeo Setacolour paints in a rainbow effect. I knew that some of my friends liked certain colours and cut out each card with their colour in mind. Then it came time to embellish...yummy! I wrote, painted some more and stamped. To get the charms to stick to the heavyweight paper I use heavy gel medium. These are a few of the finished cards.

Each doll has a different personality and as they sat on my worktable for a couple of days, I contemplated whether I should add more. Alas..........no. In the end I decided just to add the arms, legs and the head by punching holes thru each part and connecting them with square brads (found in the scrapbooking section of the craft store).

I was going to mail them to each person but thought not, even though they fold up quite nicely on themselves (see back of doll below), It was better in peson seeing them unfold their special dolls. I wish I was still as agile as the picture shows.

Here they all are, kicking up their heels in joy at having been created!

The 1st and 4th dolls are obvioulsy way too cute to kick up too much in their pictures but that's not their real life personalities though. Those two really kick _ _ _ sometimes! So watch out for all these girls, they ROCK baby!

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

A Week at Quilting By the Lake

It's 9 am and I'm sitting in Syrcuse Airport waiting to board a 12 o'clock flight, the first of two flights to get me back home to my family. It has been a long three weeks traveling but I would not have missed it for the world.

This past week has been wonderful and I feel as if my creativity got a kick-start, a big nudge from a very genourous intructor, Bill Kerr of FUN QUILTS. He and his wife, Weeks Ringle, usually teach classes together but my classmates and I got a rare chance to work just with Bill at the Quilting by the Lake Conference. The staff of QBL and the staff at Morrisville College (part of the SUNY University system) were fantastic at making each participant feel right at home.

QBL started 26 years ago and there are actual participants who have attended all 26 years, if you can belive that! One of the longtimers was Sally Davis, a former quilt shop owner and friend from my NJ days, with whom I had the chance to renew a friendship when we bumped into each other on the grounds of the campus. It really was like old home week for me because a few of the members of the the fantastic guild I belonged to in NJ were there as well and it was good seeing them as well.

Bill's class, "Idea to Quilt" really helped me see that the process to a finished piece does not have to be full of details. His suggestion to distillate an idea to it's barest essentials was so key for me. I realized I didn't have to put the whole cow in the cereal just to get a bit of milk. One of his tools I think I will use from now on...maybe not for every quilt... is to create a maquette. Having never heard the term before I was intrigued. A maquette is a small version (say 8 x 10) of an idea that might just be a colour study or a function study to see if what I envision will work. I came away with all sorts of ideas and different techniques, not to mention a whole lot of valuable information, resources and germinations of ideas for the next few quilts.

I cannot finish without mentioning my quad mates. We we housed in one of the dorms on campus that had four bedrooms, a kitchen and a sitting room or common area as it is referred to. Me and my friend DeLane, who I convinced to come on the trip with me, made two new friends, Sandy and Eva from Toronto, Canada. The evening activities were over by 8/8:30 so we were were usually back in our rooms soon after that. I can't tell you the amount of nights we just stayed up talking and laughing with them. They are a hoot and I miss them already. We promised to try and bunk up together again if we attend QBL at the same time but in the meantime we will definitely keep in touch. Here are the four quad sisters themselves: Sandy, Eva, DeLane, me.

I am exhausted from traveling and I haven't even begun this leg of the journey yet. I have some good memories and made some new life-long friends (especially all my classmates) and will definitely be back at QBL again...maybe not next year but certainly the following year. QBL is an experience you shouldn't miss, think about coming with me next time. It has been a fantstic, fun, brain swamped week and I am eager to get back into my studio and play.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Back and Going Again

Oh my goodness!! It's great to be back home at least for the next few hours at least. We got back in Thursday afternoon all safe and sound and I got to sleep in my own bed!! What a blast that was! Even after all that traveling and time change can you believe my body still got me up at 6:45am on Friday. It caught up to me though b/c I was in bed by 8pm last night totally konked out.

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning to fly to NY to attend the Quilting by the Lake (QBL) workshop I signed up for. It should be so much fun not doing anything but qulting for the whole week and having my friend DeLane along for the ride. Whoopee!! I am busy packing supplies (and obviously still online) and machine and clothes and all those things I think I shouldn't forget (but probably will anyway and will have to beg to borrow from DeLane or any other poor soul who happens to sit next to me in class).

One quick story...the day before we were supposed to leave I had hubby drive me to a quilt shop I found and afterwards we stopped at a pub he remembered frequenting way back when for a drink. (The English love their pubs and there are plenty of them around to be able to stop for the proverbial drink). Anyway...everyone sat down at a table overlooking the River Thames and what was next door but a beautiful garden...so I proceeded to take out the camera and take some pics (BTW, my daughter accused me of having more time for the camera than her this trip...uhm, so what if she's right this time?).

I am busy clicking away trying to get all sorts of shots of flowers and foliage and water and experimenting with certain views, that I took no notice of the barman come out to ask me to please come back to the pub's side of the area because I was trespassing on private property (cheeky girl) until hubby stepped in to get my attention. Oh the shame of it. NOT! I did returned to the pub side and continued to take pics, with my hubby just smiling and shaking his head. I had informed him when we first started the trip that my focus, including being with his family, was to look at the English world for ideas for all sorts of things depicting line and shape. I came back with almost 700 pics that I now have to sift thru and sort.

It was a good trip and not at all as long as I feared. I promise as soon as I get back from QBL to post some of the pics I took while in England, especially the ones from the Living Rainforest that I promised.

See ya next time "In the Hayloft",

Working with Line and Shape

First a little background on an Art/Crit Group I belong to. There are five of us; Judy, DeLane, Jean, Christine and myself, who meet once a month to crit each other's work and work on any new techniques one of us might be interested in. One of the things we decided to do after each session was try to create piece of quilted art out of the small samples we produced.

At Judy's house we had a fantastic session the other day (okay...so it was a few weeks ago), where she has us working from Katie Pasquini's book "Colour and Composition for the Creative Quilter", in particular, the Line and Shape chapter. Following the directions in the book we proceeded to produce six pieces, four of them in black and white only.

Our first piece we had to use linear lengths cut from a fused black fabric which was then subcut into different widths. There were no restictions on how long or short each shape had to be but you had to choose one of the compositional arrangements from the "Nine-Patch of Composition" suggested in the book. I came up with the piece at left.

It was extrememly hard at first to think of what to do and I just sat there for a long time waiting for something to come to me. The pieces I design are usually not so off the cuff and therefore it takes a little longer for me to produce a finished piece. That's one of the reasons this particular session was so good for all of us...more of a don't think, JUST DO kind of mentality. Something I want to do more of in my work.

Working with fused fabric helped because you didn't have to think about how you were to get it onto the background. There were some anxious moments though trying to get the completed piece over to the ironing board to fuse it in place. Minor expletives were uttered by some.

The second piece was to have no lines parallel to the edge of the foundation and have some form of diagonal placement. When I finished this piece I was not overly enamoured with it. Can't place my finger on just why yet. Sorta boring I'm thinking. You can see where a fused black shape that was part of the semi-circle in the lower left was lost in transport somewhere from Judy's house to mine.

The third piece had to be created solely out curved shapes. By this time I was more confident that I could produce something fairly quickly and was really pleased with what I came up with. It was easy to guess my circular composition layout. If you turn it so the large black shapes are on the bottom it looks like a burning fire. Real cool this one.

At this point in the process I was impressed with what could be produced from different lines and shapes. The shapes I used in the composition were not strictly curves (though not the straight linear pieces I was using before) but their placement suggested a curved shape which I think enhanced the design. I learned a lot from this piece in particular.

The last exercise had us combining any or all of the shapes we'd previously cut but using a fourth composition layout. I wanted to make use of an asymmetrical composition with a negative space without creating unbalance or tension. The heavier shapes at the top add the needed balance (or anchor) to the whole piece that the bottom doesn't have. I also noticed that the curved shape in the lower right and the thinner strips in the bottom center helped to balance the piece as a whole, as well as creating movement, so your eye goes to the negative space and back up to the undulating thick strips. This in turn moves your eye around again. Pleased as punch you could say I am.

Here is a preview of everyones pieces. I think we all did a slam-up job...now to put it into a quilted piece...mmmmhhhh. The coloured pieces were the second part of the exercises we did composing with shape alone and a focal point. these we chose not to include in our finished black and white study. I'll post those as soon as everyone gets them to me.


Jean's and Judy's work


Christine's and DeLane's work


See ya 'In the Hayloft',

Finally Done...Yeh!

Been trying to catch up with paperwork and do get some studio time to finish up some pieces but with kids out of school interuptions abound. Connor, my six year old, just wants to go shopping for Pokemon cards. Will have to indulge him soon to get some peace. Thinking of making a DO NOT DISTURB sign with a timer for my studio door just for these "special" interruptions.


My first child, Andrew, graduated from high school this past Sunday and that was a lovely feeling to experience since it almost didn't happen. As late as two weeks ago he came to me to prepare me for the fact tha he might not graduate but things worked out in the end, thank goodness gracious.


I finally finished an applique piece I had been working on for the past few months. I know, I know...it is small so why did it take so long? It's hand applique people! I just started getting into it so the going's a bit slow...machine work has always been my speed (vroom, vroom).


This one and the other one below are an applique design a friend, Susan Knapp, wanted me to test for her. She did hers all in pink batiks. I told her I'd do four of them but so far have only got 2 of them completely finished. Not bad for a newbie to hand applique, huh? Now for the quilting...hmmm.

See you in the Hayloft,