Stitching
I have been spending the evenings stitching. Meditative. And this skirt is going to be really cool when it’s done.
19
May, 2011
7
February, 2011
Spheres & Swaps
I just figured out a new kind of beaded bead – the sphere. These pieces are all on their way to the Textile Center shop this week. The sphere shaped beads are stitched around some thrifted vintage glass pearls. The finish on them looks like it has seen better days, but they are great to be the foundation and covered up with other beads.
I am also participating in a Valentine’s swap with CraftSocial.net. We were given a template and asked to create a heart. This is a sneak peak at mine with shisha embroidery on a metallic finish cotton. It’s on its way to Brooklyn. They will be posting a gallery of all of the hearts sometime soon.
21
January, 2011
Through the Looking Glass
This is my piece for “A Common Thread” annual members exhibition at the Textile Center. It is “interactive” art. The background of the piece is digitally printed fabric, which is a “QR code”. This is like a bar code and if you have a smart phone, you can get a QR reader app and scan this art. Then what happens? Your phone will zap you off to my website and a journal of the making of this piece, which you can find right here. Go there and read all about it!
5
January, 2011
The Return of Work in Progress Wednesdays
I can’t tell you what this is yet, but you can see the embroidery in progress (a whipped back stitch). I was posting these Wednesday updates pretty regularly and I stopped for some reason. Time to bring them back for 2011.
8
December, 2010
I am a finalist.
That’s my piece right there in the top row! The public voting part of the contest is done and now we are on to another round with a “final judging event” and some guest judges. I am so excited! Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by etsy to vote.
21
November, 2010
Cinderella
2010, 8 x 8 inches
Materials: cotton fabrics, hand dyed and commercially printed
Techniques: shibori dyed cotton, raw edge applique, hand-embroidery
I started this piece with the idea of making something a bit more abstract than it turned out to be. The shibori fabric that makes the water was an experiment. I didn’t want to get my whole dye kit set up, so I dyed it on the patio table using a textile paint. It’s a magical process called “sunpainting” and works very much like blueprint /sunprint paper you can buy. Paint the fabric, cover part of it with something that blocks the light and the shadowed parts of the fabric will stay lighter, the parts in the sun will get dark. I wrapped my drippy painted fabric around a PVC pipe, scrunched it together and set it in the sun. Every little while I unrolled a bit of the fabric as it started to dry, so the inside layers would get the sunprinting treatment. At the end, gorgeous ripply watery looking fabric.
This was created for a specific exhibit with the 8×8 inch size specified. Working small like this made me think of a macro camera lens and capturing only part of a scene, so I went looking for something with interesting feet that could be wading in my newly dyed water. An egret with yellow toes seemed to fit the scene just perfectly. The rest of the scene was assembled by cutting and layering the fabrics, stitching the edges and adding a little shading and shadows with a colored pencil. Last I embroidered her dainty toenails.
This was donated to an auction to benefit the Dahl Art Center galleries in Rapid City SD, where I grew up. The artists were anonymous until after the auction had ended, so I had to keep this under my hat. I hope it went to an appreciative home!
