In the FIBR2RT group, we have a new challenge "Green in More Ways than One". My mum was quite proud that she had over 100 spools of green threads in her stash, so I decided I would use those threads in my piece. 

A couple of years ago I learned about an artistic/psychological process called neurographic drawing (here's a link to a demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoIgdt-uQR0). It involves creating a line which crosses and re-crosses itself, creating something that sort of looks like neurons. Once the line is done, you smooth out all the intersections and then colour in the cells. Very satisfying! 

Mum also had a roll of very heavy Solvy, so I decided that I would create a piece for this exhibit using just thread on Solvy.

The piece will be a lot of work and I thought it would be a good idea to start the process with something smaller.

I put a piece of the heavy Solvy in my hoop and drew the design on it using a sharpy. Then I started filling the spaces with threads - using one colour in each space. For each thread I used the same thread in the top and bobbin - lots of bobbin winding. Some of the threads were much more cooperative than others. Some would just not cooperate, so I will NOT be using them in the larger piece. I liked how the width of the free motion foot create a nice circle within the hoop.

Once I finished covering the spaces, I needed to reinforce the lines and found some narrow twill tap which I folded in half and sewed on to cover the lines. I also put a line of tape around the whole circle. Then I trimmed the excess Solvy, basted the whole thing to a piece of muslin (to help it keep its shape) and removed the Solvy with very hot water. I then mounted it on a pale green background on an artist's canvas (8" x 8").

Here is the finished piece. I'm glad I did a test piece. When I do the full piece, I don't think I will put the outside border and I need to find a better way to round off the intersections to give it a more neurographic appearance. But all in all, a very useful experiment.

Above are some fabrics (IKEA curtain offcuts dyed in indigo, some hand painted flowers, and some branches from my Mum's stash. and some remnants of matte board.

I made the flowers by fussy cutting the silk into blossom shapes, adhering it to some dyed pellon and coating it with matte medium, I used an old plastic egg carton to give some dimension to the flowers and embroidery thread for the centre.

The process of making the box involves cutting the matte board to specific sizes, covering it with fabric and sewing the pieces together by hand. The lid is made in basically the same way, but needs to be carefully measured so that it fits snugly, but not too tight. I had planned to use the branches made by Mum, but they weren't working and I found I had a small piece of fabric exactly right for cherry twigs and wrapped it around some pipe cleaners. The blossoms and twig were anchored to the lid by hand. Below is the finished box.

Just after I finished the box, I took an online class with Jenn Houlden. She did a pre-workshop session and suggested that participants could get stated on their backgrounds. I looked at the stuff that I had out for the box and thought "why not?" Below is what I was looking at.

I made the sky from some indigo dyed t-shirt material - I put fusible on the back of two pieces, cut one with vertical wavy lines and the other with horizontal wavy lines. I then wove them together, pressed them to adhere to each other and to the batting, then quilted with a nice shiny thread.

The land was made using a stitch and flip method for curved piecing. Even though it was effectively quilt as you go, I added a few lines of quilting to make the piece lie flat.

And I am  very happy to report that both these pieces were accepted into the Cherry Blossom Textile Translations show and, if you are in the neighbourhood, you can see them at the Silk Purse Gallery in West Vancouver from April 9 - May 4 (check their hours before you go).

My mother died on the winter solstice (she went peacefully and pain-free). Some of you know that she was a textile artist, very into thread painting and making amazing landscapes and portraits of animals. We always shared our fabrics, threads and bounced ideas off each other.

I took on the task of sorting through her stash and going through it reminded me of so many conversations about techniques, inspirations and design. I had intended to submit a piece to FAN's new exhibit, called I Am..., but thought in early January I had no inspiration or energy to figure something out. But going through Mum's stash made me realize that I am my mother's daughter - we love the same aspects of textile art and inspired each other's work.

So I decided to try and do a piece using just materials from her stash - yarns, dyed cheesecloth, a small silk painting by one of her friends, some beads, some Angelina, dyed silk cocoons and some velvet.

I loved the circular piece of silk painted by her friend and decided it needed some more dimension and some beads. Then I experimented with some of the dyed cheesecloth and it started to turn into a night landscape.

I wanted to depict Mum's energy leaving the earth in some way. After experimenting with some big spirals, I realized that small crescents made from Angelina and dyed silk cocoons would give the effect I wanted. I still wanted to have something on the horizon, but most of my attempts to evoke trees didn't work. Until one evening a small piece of organza with embroidered patterns on it jumped out at me. I'm not sure what those roundish "tumbleweeds" represent, but I think they fit.

I finished the piece in time to submit it for the I Am... exhibition, so it will be travelling for the next 2-3 years.

I belong to a local art group called FIBR2RT. Last summer we got together for a play date, including some work making marks with credit cards and thickened dyes. These are 2 of the 3 fat quarters that I painted. I was thinking of an abstract piece showing the destructive effects of fire and also the renewal that comes afterwards.

I made a pattern of intersecting lens shapes on fusible interfacing, then assigned either the green or red dominant to each lens. I kept a copy of the pattern and numbered the pieces, before cutting them out and fusing them onto the appropriate fabrics.

I machine pieced the lenses together, checking with original pattern. It was pretty tricky in places (I probably should have started using this technique with a simpler pattern). I then layered the top with black felt and embellished with beads. I had originally planned to finish with straight edges, but found that I liked an organic shape for the piece.

Sometime in the past few years I acquired a piece of green and gold background fabric fused to a pieced of batting, obviously intended to be a table runner, but with no pattern attached. It languished until a couple of weeks ago, when I started thinking about Christmas dinner (as one does in the middle of November!). I dug out some Christmas-y fabrics which have also languished for awhile and figured out a simple pattern, basically with keystone squares and strips of fabric attached in a quilt-as-you-go fashion. Either my piecing was not square or the base was not cut properly (I couldn't tell), so I needed to trim the base to fit the last strips. A simple machine binding, finished with a decorative stitch and here it is.

A fun little project and I think it will look nice on a white tablecloth, with a winter arrangement of some sort in the middle. Thanks for dropping by.

I wanted to explore the potential for using sharpies and alcohol a bit more, plus I received a different type of paper towel to colour with my inktense pencils. I started with the sky on my favourite light blue silk. I learned that, if I ironed the silk to quicken the drying process, lines formed at the edge of the spreading sharpie ink - not what I intended, but it may be useful in the future.

These paper towels took the inktense quite nicely and I added a scrap of kimono silk to create some water.

I started creating texture on the land elements using some of the fancy stitches on my Janome Horizon machine. The two pieces of brown were essentially the same (as seen above), but when I added different stitches, I like the difference in texture between the foreground and mid-ground.

Finally I added some quilting in the sky and some vegetation silhouettes on the horizon.

The finished piece is 8.5" x 10". Thanks for dropping by

At our last Vancouver Guild of Fibre Arts meeting, we were challenged to  produce a small embroidery on felt using letters or words in some form. I scavenged through some of the scraps and beads I brought with me and the stash everyone else brought and decided to make a small pillow with an "A" on it. (There are lots people in my life whose name starts with A.) I started it at the meeting and loved using beads on top of fabric scraps and felt. I may need to re-do the blanket stitch on the edge, but it is done for now.

A friend showed me how to use coloured Sharpie markers and isopropyl alcohol to make some interesting "bleeds". So I grabbed some pale blue charmeuse silk and my trusty Sharpies and tried it. The picture below shows the before (Sharpie scribbles in several colours) and the after (with isopropyl alcohol dropped on). Quite a change!

Once I was satisfied with the blobs, I needed to add some stitch, using some of my favourite threads.

And the background needed some anchoring in the form of echo quilting. Here is the finished piece (12" x 15").

A fun little project and a new tool for the future!

​Thanks for stopping by.

A friend showed me how to use Sharpie markers with isopropyl alcohol to create some interesting "bleeds". I wanted to explore this a bit more, so I grabbed a piece of light blue charmeuse silk and set to work.

Here's how it works. On the upper left of the above picture are scribbles using a few colours of sharpies and on the right what it looks like after adding some drops of alcohol. I then did some thread work with some of my favourite threads.

The background needed some definition, so I added some echo quilting. Here's the finished piece.

A fun exercise! Thanks for dropping by.

On a whim, I enrolled in a free class through textileartist.org with Deb Cooper. She was interested in getting people to go with the flow and use the little bits we all have, do some embroidery and collage and then dye the piece using tea and/or rust. These are the materials I found around the studio. The base is an upholstery sample, there's a bit of embroidery on tulle from making my daughter's wedding dress, some ribbon, various threads and lace and some beads

This is what it looked like after an evening of playing and stitching. Then it was time to dye it. I decided to put it flat into the tea and steel wool instead of rolling it. Before I show you the front, look what happened on the back - the darker part on the left is where there was some glue and paper left from when the piece was in a sample book. If I had realized it would be so interesting, I think I would have used this as the front. Live and learn!

And here is the front. I was surprised at how much some of the fabrics and threads took the dyes. And some of the ones I expected to absorb more didn't. It was a fun exercise.