Playing at work...

I have a great job!  Some days are filled with "play".  Tomorrow our library friends group will be in to help prep Christmas decorations.  Today I am working on the prep work before the prep!!!  My theme this year is a nature theme including butterflies, birds, and what ever else I come up with in the next week... 

This morning I worked on this canvas to hang near the circulation desk.  Black gesso, tissue paper, gold paint with a stencil, and a flock of butterflies I found when cleaning in the back stockroom (I have no idea where they came from). It is a good day, I have paint on my hands!

 

Crazy Woman in the purple skirt

The background began with one of Beth's stencils.  Thank you girl friend!

Ice Dye

I've been on vacation from work this week. It has been so nice to do "a little bit of this and a little bit of that" all week.  A little bit of ice dyeing always makes me smile!

This fabric started as a very bright watermelon color. Too bold for my liking.

I used "nickel" (pro chemical & dye) procion dry powdered dye on top of a layer of ice.  This piece is my favorite of my little experiments.  You can still see how bright the watermelon color was on the right side of the fabric.

A close up view:

"Amethyst" dye.  Too purple for me.  Off you go to another dye bath...

"Wisteria" and a little "Amethyst".  Not crazy about this one either:

journal page beginnings

This morning while Jon went to physical therapy, I played art girl for a few hours.  It felt good to get a start to a page:

Crazy Women / Cat Woman

The cat is from fabric that I made Jes a shirt many years ago.  Many, many years ago!  He is nearing 27 years old and I think he was probably 2 years old when I quit sewing for him.  I'm so glad I hung onto some scraps and could smile remembering my little boy and his homemade clothes.

Sunday morning appreciation

Fall is my favorite season.  I am thankful to live in the midwest with the beautiful fall colors.

Death...

I came across this picture while searching for "Swedish Death Cleaning":

I vaguely remembered the movie from college days. Do you remember, "The Seventh Seal"?  

It came out in 1957.  Before I was born. Barely...    Now it is my reminder to clean!

Art Journal

I haven't worked in this journal for a very long time.  That needs to change!  Today is art journaling day at the library, so I will share some of the pages to hopefully inspire a few of my friends.

Crazy women / green butterfly

Yes, her wings need tons of beads!  Another good vacation/traveling project for February.

Men of the Bible / 3 inch blocks

The blocks for the Bible study are pieced 8 inch blocks.  If one did all 100 of the blocks and put it together the way the instructions have you do, it makes a king sized quilt.  Way too big for me. 

I shrunk the pattern to 3 inches and decided to do an outline of the block.  This ends up being a rather long story about my failure of using home grown indigo dye.  Thank goodness for procion dyes!  They never let me down.

I have started stitching my blocks using free motion and heavy thread on my machine.  The thread broke a number of times while working on these sample.  I think a different needle is needed.

Swedish Death Cleaning

Swedish Death Cleaning.  Sounds either morbid or extremely tiring, right? 

I read about this on Treehugger this morning and believe it will be my new "thing"..    The idea is that you start at about age 50 and work on downsizing so that when you die, there is nothing much left for family to deal with.  (Except fabric and art supplies!  haha)

So, I'm a little late getting starting  (8 years late) but better late than never.   Actually, I have been getting rid of things. I just need to be more aggressive. 

Some things (like this old typewriter) are just really hard to part with.  I bought this at a yard sale before Jes was born.  He turns 27 in January.  When he was little I would put a sheet of paper in and he would bang away on the keys for what now seems like hours.  It was surely only a few minutes, but what young mother doesn't appreciate even a little bit of free time?  At some point he broke something on it, and it no longer types. 

Maybe when he is home in March, I can tell him the story and let him finish taking it apart for an art project...  Or maybe he will just roll his eyes and throw it away. 

Crazy Women

I borrowed the stencil from my friend Beth.  She must have a zillion stencils! I've decided that this block will be a good one to take on my next vacation to do some major background filling and stitching to beautify her dress.  For now she will just sit and wait for February...

Stenciling

I found a plastic doily at my aunt's house.  They make great stencils!  A little paint later:

Men of the Bible

My Bible Study Quilters are doing Men of the Bible this year.  We started 3 months ago and I finally have my ideas and have jumped in to catch up with the group.  My plan is to do 20 large men blocks along with the 100 blocks representing men from the Bible. 

No, he is not holding a gun.  It is a cane.  I will need to make another stencil using a view that looks more like a cane.  It didn't occur to me that it didn't look like a cane (since I took the pictures!).  Note to self:  It is always good to get girlfriend feedback before getting too far into a project!

Blocks so far:

This is the picture I used of Jon to create the stencil.  

 

deColourant

Beth shared a bottle of deColourant with me.  What FUN!   Apply the product, let dry, and then iron away the color.  I used a stencil for this sample and applied it with a foam brush.  Yes, I will play with this again!

Crazy Women

The goal is to do one woman a week for 3 years to end up with 150 or so blocks.  As I am not filling the blocks with tons of stitching, they are taking less time.   Down the road I hope to add more stitch and bobbles as inspiration hits.

This one was a bit challenging - it was difficult to push a needle thru the rusted fabric.  I am currently working on a different project where I am machine sewing on rusted fabric.  The thread keeps breaking.  It is good to do small projects to learn and solve problems before jumping into a full scale mess!  Maybe a metallic needle and stronger thread will help?