Quilt magic

Cut fabric apart then sew it back together. Repeat.

 
In the 1940's in the coal region of Pennsylvania, my mom's friend Sue made a number of cotton scrap quilts tops. Sometime in the 1980's she gave two of them to my mom. They had never been completed and were in a bin with a quilt top Mom appliqued for me, but didn't complete before her death.  I've been looking at these and visualizing them made whole and useful.  The 40's quilt top had many fabrics throughout that had not held up to the years and so the structure of the quilt top had failed.  I spent an afternoon cutting the squares apart, and then cutting the salvaged squares into four 2 inch pieces.  Now, I am sewing them together with solid colors as exclamations bisecting the 4 squares.  We'll see where this goes.  I'm thinking I will use a dark neutral as sashing between groups of blocks, but I may just work out the colors and values and join the blocks directly to each other.  My vision for this is still evolving, but I love the energy of the small prints, complex plaids and naive florals.

Presenting Scrappy Cat...

Scrappy Lamb has a new friend.  Another cuddly friend made of cotton boucle with bamboo rayon fiberfill, Scrappy Cat has features cut and sewn from felted wool scraps and has joined the lamb in his pen.

Sometimes a project just is too much fun to stop with one.  I love the feel of the cotton boucle in my fingers as I am stitching it, and the rich textures and colors found in my bag of wool felts and vintage button twist delight, too.  I hope these friends bring a smile to your life, as they have mine.
 

New babies and joy!

Good friends have a little baby (their first!) on the way.   Today I pulled some favorite bits and pieces out of my scrap bin, and 'Scrappy Lamb' was born.

Scrappy Lamb's body is cut from a vintage cotton boucle, and I used bits of wool felt for paws, ears, nose and pupils.  His tail is a triangle of pale blue shearling, with the leather pulled through a slit to the wrong side.  He's stuffed loosely with bamboo rayon fiberfill.  

Making him is how I spent my afternoon. I sat on the couch trying to keep cool, stitching all the detail features and appliques by hand, then ran the seam joining back to front on my machine. He has an oval base hand stitched around the circumference to allow him to stand.  

This was a fun project and I am always amazed by the way inspiration and ideas creep into my mind and life.

Working styles

For many years I had a decorative painting and costuming business.  I operated this out of a cathedral ceilinged 
600 square foot free-standing studio just a short walk across our yard.  One half of the space was kept clean for a sewing/fitting area and design/drawing area (no clay or wax there!) The other half (with the sink!) was where the messy stuff happened.  

After a fall left me with mild traumatic brain injury, I have had to change the way I approach my work.  I had the best occupational therapist in rehab (shout out to Olivia - I love you forever!) She helped me re-structure my creative life and put systems in place to manage the "stuff" of creativity.  With her guidance, I defined my two 'highest priority' mediums (encaustic painting and sewing.)  Everything else was donated to Lancaster Creative Reuse, family and friends. Now, I work on my dining room table in the center of my home, surrounded by my family.  I work intensely for short periods of time, and take many frequent breaks.  I keep my current projects in bins on a rolling cart so I can easily set up when I'm working, and put it away at the end of my session.

Such a simple solution to prevent being overwhelmed by the stuff of creativity...
Maybe it would work for someone else?

Here's a link to check out-
http://www.lancastercreativereuse.org/

Time flies...

Wish I could figure out where exactly the last 4 weeks have gone, and I extend my sincere apology to faithful visitors for the gap in posting.

I know that there was some travel across the state of Pennsylvania and to Maryland, and a few days spent quilting with beloved friends, and some family meals in there, too.  Oh, I worked in my square foot garden, too. The rest of the time I am not so sure about what I was doing or where the hours went.  I know not much creating got done.

 

Watercolor underpainting

This afternoon I am committed to returning to the encaustic project from my trip along the Susquehanna River back in April (already 3 months ago!) I am going to post the encaustic work in phases rather than waiting until I decide to stop working on a painting to post a photo.  It will be interesting for me to see it in a freeze-frame evolution.  This is painting number 1, after the first washes of paint and 'burn in.'  That term refers to applying heat either with hot tools in the wax or heating the air over the painting to bond the colors and layers of wax to each other and the wood support.  Some basic physics comes into play here since the darkest pigments absorb heat more quickly, and there can be some interesting and surprising outcomes because of this.

 

 Encaustic painting phase 1

 Check back soon for phase 2 of this encaustic painting...