Becka’s Project Journal

From the textile collection at the V&A.  The label on the piece reads:

Linen embroidered with colored silks, metal thread, seed pearls and black beads in back, satin, chain, ladder, buttonhole, detached buttonhole, cross, arrowhead, interlacing, pattern couching, coral and two sided Italian cross stitches with speckling and bullion and French knots.  The sampler is inscribed Jane Bostocke 1598 and below;- Alice Lee was borne the 23 of November being Tuesday in the after noone 1596.  This is the earliest dated English Sampler so far recorded.

I wasn’t ever quite satisfied with my stitched self portrait for the Stitch London exhibit.  I needed to finish a couple of little tiny things on it and I was doing a lot of procrastinating and not really excited about it.  I had a day off on Wednesday and so I started over.  This one I am very happy with.  I went with embroidery – longs and short stitch, chain stitch, couching, lazy daisy, chinese knots, a few beads & some handpainted lace…  All in shades of green, because that is my favorite color.  I will finish the other one eventually for some other something, but this one is on its way to London.

The Artwear Symposium starts for me today with artists arriving and classrooms getting set up and lots of paperwork.  So here is my artwear for the day: Space Shuttle Skirt!  Andy did the shuttle artwork & made the silk screen; we screened it on to my skirt; then I reverse appliqued the Earth and the moon and made a skirt.

As of tomorrow, I will have 3 art quilts on exhibit simultaneously at three different galleries.  How cool is that??

This is “Chicken Little”.  He is currently on display as part of “A Common Thread”, annual Textile Center members’ exhibition.  8″x9″, cotton fabrics with some handdyed by me, hand embroidered, hand stitched, machine quilted.  I made it originally for the MN State Fair’s “Quilt-On-A-Stick” but then I spaced out the deadline and didn’t get it turned in on time.  So I saved it so it could be in this show.

This is “Intersect”, which is on display starting tomorrow at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for “A Foot in the Door”.  11 1/2 inches square.  My handdyed cotton, machine pieced, hand embroidered.

And this one, “Why is a Raven Like a Writing Desk?” is traveling with the Original Sewing & Quilt Expo and is currently in Tampa, FL.

The MIA (Minneapolis Institute of Art) does a community exhibition once every 10 years called “A Foot in the Door“.  Anyone can enter a piece of art in nearly any medium as long as it fits in a box that’s 12x12x12 inches.  I can’t pass up an opportunity to exhibit something at the MIA!  This is a detail of my piece for the exhibition.  I won’t show you the whole thing until the show opens, that just seems like a spoiler.  This is made from my hand-dyed cotton fabric and embroidered with perle cotton thread. (Each of those squares is 1 inch, so you have a sense of scale.)

I love alphabet samplers.  This scrap of fabric was a remnant I found last fall and I have been waiting to make something fun with it.  It is a tan colored cotton, which is coated with a fine layer of metallic gold, so it’s slightly shimmery in person.  I decided to to a tiny little alphabet sampler with a goldfish.  And when I say tiny, here’s a photo for scale…

Wednesdays I always have a couple of hours between when I get home from work and when I go off to knit with some friends.  I thought I might try to do a regular Wednesday post of whatever random thing I am working on.  So here’s a start.

A little baby hat for a little friend.  She doesn’t have a name yet but she was born a couple of days ago.  And it’s Minnesota, so she needs a hat.  Why red?  It’s going to be an apple!  I am going to put a stem and a couple of leaves on the top.  I already made her a little stuffed pear and I am going to do a bib with fruit on it too.  So it’s a fruit theme for her gift.  (Pattern from Ann Budd Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns, with my additions.  Yarn: Queensland Rustic Wool superwash.)

My latest sweater.  I still have to finished the sleeves (which will be 3/4 length) and the collar (ribbed).  My friend Danielle gave me the perfect beach pebble buttons, which will go on this sweater. Pattern is Safire , yarn is Galway Worsted 732.

This is a research project.  There is a local organization here that asked for session proposals for an arts educators convention.  The theme for this year has to do with Native American tribes.  I have been wanting to put together a Native Americans unit for a while for the Textile Mobile.  We already have really fun units for textiles from Japan and India.  So I proposed a session on beginning beadwork in the Plains Indian style.  I have been pretty much obsessed with this kind of beadwork since I was about 6 years old.  This stitch is called the “lazy” or “lane” or “hump” stitch.  It is small sections of 6-8 beads stitched side by side in rows (you are looking at 2 rows in the photo).  It is used to fill large areas, so this is the stitch that is used to cover moccasins or the yoke of a ceremonial dress.  Your goal is to put 6 beads in the space of 5 1/2 so when you pull the stitch tight, it humps up a little, making the rows stand out a bit.  You can’t see it so well because of my color choices, but it is working for me ok.  Interestingly, I read that the stitch was developed to resemble quillwork, which was how these pieces were decorated before beads arrived on the scene.  Porcupine quills are only so big, so larger areas were covered with bands of quillwork stitched side by side.  I am stitching on some lovely buttery leather (acquired on my last trip to Prairie Edge).
One article I read suggested drawing some guidelines on with washable marker, which is a huge help.  I started the second row without and it was harder.  This will be a wide cuff bracelet when I am done.  For the workshop I am going to use larger beads (6/0) and embroidery thread on wool felt.

I love paisley.  I think paisley was one of the first patterns that I can remember being able to identify.  It’s like when you realize that a robin is a robin and not just another generic brown bird. I can remember a time when I would look for paisley when we were out shopping just to see if I could find any.  Anyhow, a friend asked me yesterday what I was working on after the holiday frenzy and this is it.

Paisley brooches. They are made from a couple of layers of nice wool felt, with a sort of reverse applique where I have cut patterns out of the top layer so you can see the color underneath.  Then stitched with beads.  I have been on a kick for brooches lately.  Something about wearing a lot of cardigans with turtlenecks, they seem to beg for a fun pin.  (I got the most amazing wooden owl one for Christmas from my mom & dad – I will show you that later!)  I am not sure that everyone is as charmed by pins & brooches as I am, so who knows if anyone will want to buy them, but I am getting ready to put a few in my etsy shop and I might take them to the Textile Center shop as well.  (I’d love to hear your opinions!)

Symphony No 5 in C Minor (Chickadee)

2009

8 x 8 inches

You can now purchase my designs on fabric from Spoonflower!

Go to Becka’s Spoonflower Profile and you can see the 6 designs I have available.  Order a swatch or even several yards to use for your projects.

• I have 2 designs inspired by 1930′s quilt fabrics.  Myrtle is my favorite.  The colors are warm and cheery.
• Two are based on my Animal Outlines embroidery designs (which you can find in my etsy shop.)  You could coordinate a hand embroidered t-shirt with a pair of pants all with a wild west theme!  How cool would that be?
• The oboe print is for Andy.
• The fishes are because, well just because I always have to have fishes.
• More on the way soon.

The fiber art community lost an amazing artist on Friday.  Although I only met Jean a handful of times, her work truly spoke to me.  I work every day surrounded by textile art and I remember the first piece I saw done by Jean and the “wow” reaction I had to it. The first postcard I designed for the Textile Center had a piece by Jean on it.  It was a lime green face with tendrils of hair wound through the words “mind memos”.  It was all hand embroidered with fantastic texture built up in the stitches.  I spent a lot of time looking at that file and the actual piece was even more amazing in person.  I am sad that I never got to take a class from her.  I will always remember how kind and generous she was when she taught classes for us.

You can see her work here and here. 

She will be missed.