The Moth Bag

This is the last of my linen bags. All of the others sold very quickly, and I am very grateful to those of you who purchased them. Each bag seemed to find its way to the person who was the perfect fit for each one.

 The bag exterior is 100% Linen. It is hand painted, hand embroidered, and machine quilted by me. The interior of the bag has a laptop, iPad compartment, 2 side pockets, a zippered pocket, and 3 other smaller pockets inside for carrying smaller items.

Leave a message if you are interested in this item. The cost is $300.00 plus shipping; leave a comment if you are interested in a purchase. Note: This bag has been sold. 
Stencils used: Moths,  Scrolls, and Lattice.

Tuesday Drop-In Class

This is a linen bag that I am making. The hand embroidery is still in progress. It has been hand painted with my stencils, and it will be machine quilted after the embroidery is finished.

For the past few months I have been teaching a drop-in class at Eureka Fabrics in Eureka, CA. It is always interesting to see who will turn up, and it is never boring. I love having a roomful of people, but I also enjoy having just  a handful of people that I can give my undivided attention to.
Although the focus is on quilting and fiber art, we basically cover whatever it is people need help with.
Starting August 1, 2015, we are starting on hand embroidery where I will be teaching most of the basic embroidery stitches, and then we will move on to make a journal cover utilizing what we have learned. The class info is listed below, and you can sign up here: Eureka Fabrics.

For the first two weeks we will be working on a variety of hand embroidery stitches, and the third week we will be making a journal cover using some of the techniques and stitches you have learned. The journal covers will be simple projects you can finish in one afternoon.

Schedule:

·       Tuesday, August 4, 2015:: Hand Embroidery Basics, 1-4 pm

·       Tuesday, August 11, 2015: More Hand Embroidery, 1-4 pm

·       Tuesday, August 18, 2015: Journal Covers, 1-4 pm

Supplies:

For Hand Embroidery:

·       White or light-colored fabric, 4 10” squares

·       Embroidery needles in assorted sizes; my favorites are size 5/10.

·       Embroidery hoop, anywhere from 5”-7” will work best

·       Embroidery thread in 2 colors that contrast with your fabric

For the Journal Cover:

·       You will need to bring a journal or sketchbook with a cover that is not too flimsy.

·       Fabric large enough for the outside, and you will also need fabric for the inside of the cover.

·       A button for closure if desired.

·       Embroidery threads and other items for embellishment.

·       Batting if you wish to machine quilt the cover.

Note: The fabric needs to be large enough to cover the front and back of the book plus enough for seam allowance. It will be easier to embroider if the fabric is not cut to size yet.

When deciding which images to use for this bag, I wanted to use something I had not worked with before, so the moths were perfect. This particular species is known as the agrius cingulata (pink-spotted hawk moth). The actual moth is more pink than red, and I found it in the book Night Visions by Joseph Scheer.

This is the other side of the same bag. It will be embroidered differently from the front of the bag.

Bloom: Painted, Stitched, and Embellished.

I am working on a new piece titled Bloom. It incorporates many techniques that I have been working on improving lately including painting, stitching, creating depth and dimension, and color value.
 I am almost finished, and I am down to the final hand embroidery now. This has been a really fun and challenging piece, but I have had a lot of fun creating it.
 It all began with a little square of fabric that I started as a demonstration on how to create a central motif without any marking in a workshop last summer at the Mendocino Art Center. I wanted to do something different, so I painted the dimpled longhorn beetles in metallic pink and purple with Lumiere paints.
Then I decided that I might as well add a few embroidery stitches to it and use it as a little sampler.
The piece floated around my studio for the past year. It would surface occasionally, and I would often think that I should do something with it.
This first image is a mockup I did in Photoshop to help me decide on the proportions and composition. I call this my cartoon, and it is actually the most important part as far as I am concerned. I often do a lot of preliminary sketches just to help my ideas gel.

That was a photograph at the upper right of the initial painted and hand embroidered piece.

All of the hand painting was done with my Textile Design Stencils.

The stencils I used were the Beetles, Moths, Poppy, Small Stones, Lattice, Passion Flower, Moths, and Springtime. I love combining them in different ways.
 The finished piece is 36" x 52".

The inspiration for this piece was the amazing diversity found in nature, and how we are rewarded for taking the time to notice and appreciate the details of our surroundings.



The gold and blue circles were hand dyed silk that was appliqued on. I hand painted the two strips and the background separately before putting them all together. I was concerned that if I made a mistake I would have to redo the whole thing, so this was a much less stressful situation.
From there on it was all just filling in the blanks. Although it is involved, that is the easiest part for me.

 

This is the Indonesian lantern fly framed by the poppy. The curved vertical unstitched areas create nice little ridges between the rows of stitching.

These are dimpled longhorn beetles. The center was painted with the passion flower stencil, but I haven't decided how to embroider the middle of it yet.

Now you can see the detail of the background. The gray stripes are 1/2" wide. 

I will post a full image when the piece is done. I still have some hand embroidery to do on it. Here are the details of what I used to create the piece: Better Black Kona cotton, wool batting, Neopaque and Lumiere paints, Aurifil thread, DMC and Weeks Dye Works embroidery floss.

 I would love to hear from you, and don't hesitate to ask any questions.
Also, I have two WORKSHOPS coming up in the next couple of weeks if anyone is interested.



It Must Be Spring: Almost a Tutorial

     I have been thinking about bright happy colors lately. In my weekly ongoing for art class with the fabulous Mimi La Plant, we have been doing color studies for the last several weeks. We have been doing LOTS of mixing, and learning to use warm and cool versions of each primary color to create the perfect mixable hues. It is challenging and rewarding.
     Mimi is such a great teachers, and color happens to be a specialty of hers. I am so happy to have the opportunity to study with her and learn from her vast experience as both a painter and an art professor.
     So, I am challenging myself to work in new color palettes and spread my little wings. Pink has never been a favorite of mine, but now for some inexplicable reason I seem to be drawn to it.
     This project was supposed to be a tutorial on painting, but as often happens I was too anxious to get started. I forgot to take a beginning picture of this t-shirt that I purchased for $8.00 at an outlet store. And then, by the time I started painting, I completely forgot about the tutorial. In case you wondered, I never ever get distracted.
Stencils used are my Textile Design Stencils, and the paints are from Jacquard.

I painted the pink strip down the center by drawing the curvy shape on freezer paper, cutting out the center section, and ironing it to the shirt. Next I just placed my stencil over it and painted. Once the paint dried a little, I peeled off the freezer paper and repeated the process on the sleeves.

Now I am starting the embellishment. I recently received a shipment of hand overdyed embroidery floss and pearl cotton from Weeks Dye Works, and I am in love with this stuff. The colors are gorgeous. It's interesting in these photos how different the colors of the floss look on the white background of the first photo versus the way the colors look on the green in the second photo.
 This is a sample for a workshop I am teaching next weekend at the CNCH 2014, a fiber artisan's conference, that will be held at the Oakland, CA, Conference Center. I am so happy to have been invited there, and there are already 19 students registered!
 I am participating in Nina Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday blog roll, so please check out her site along with the other artist's involved. Thank you.

LINEN BAGS

For quite some time I have wanted to make some heavy weight linen bags. After searching for several months, I finally found some heavy upholstery weight linen that I am really happy with.

I absolutely love the weight, textural appearance, and the feel of this fabric. Sometimes I have a desired result in mind for a project, and the reality of the finished product is far from what I had initially envisioned. It was certainly not the cases with these bags.

Cotton Duck Cloth: Front

I had made my initial prototype with cotton duck; it was fine to begin with.

Cotton Duck Cloth: Back

Next, I made three bags in the heavy-weight linen. Even though the linen was very heavy, I knew that the bags would need additional support. I wanted them to  retain their shape even when sitting empty.

I went to the local fabric store to purchase what they had on hand to use as a stabilizer.

I happened to have a fair bit of Annie's Soft and Stable stabilizer on hand and decided to use it as I had been itching to try it out. Annie's bags are very beautiful, and her products are great.

I washed the linen first, and then dried it in the clothes dryer to remove any sizing. I then hand painted it with my Textile Design Stencils using Jacquard's Lumiere and Neopaque paints. After heat setting the paint with my iron, I assembled all the layers of the bags: outer fabric, stabilizer, and lining.

I finished the bags at 10:00 pm: the night before I left to setup my vendor's booth at the EBHQ (East Bay Heritage Quilters) Show in Point Richmond near San Francisco, CA. I think that I got to bed at 11:30, and I was up at 4:30 the next morning to prepare for the 6 hour drive.
 I didn't even have time to photograph the bags before I left, so here are some quick snapshots in my booth.

 These bags were a really generous size: 22" wide x 14" deep. The stenciling came out really well on the linen. The funny thing was that when I first painted a sample, the stencil stuck to the linen so well that I thought that something really sticky must have gotten on the back of the stencil. It was only the fibers from the linen grabbing hold of the plastic.
 I do have one bag left if anyone is interested: Linen Bags 

Special Note:
I am happily participating in Nina Marie's Off the Wall Friday blog roll, so please check her fabulous blog out here: Nina Marie Sayre
Thanks Nina Marie! 

Ferns: Making Progress

Here is the latest version of my fern piece. As you can well guess, I didn't finish it in time to give away at Christmas. However, I did fall in love with this little piece somewhere along the way.
Since the last photo posted, I repainted the background with more Setacolor. I am much happier with the color now. I darkened all of the areas between the ferns with a russet and a teal paint and then added more gray and turquoise to the sky to get rid of the distracting white.
 I then dug through my stash and found this raisin colored silk that came from an old kimono. It was too bright, so I wadded it up and splashed some dark brown and black paint on it and set it in a window to dry. I am much happier with it now.

And the dragonfly is a female Halloween Pennant ( Celithemis eponina) that I made using metallic silk organza for the wings and dupioni for the body. I added the detail to the body with Tsukineko inks and my Identipens and then hand appliqued the body on.
The "streamer' like pieces are simply bits and pieces of different silk stitched onto solvy which was then dissolved. I call them kite tails.
 I am anxious to get back to work on this piece, but now I am too busy with work, so it will have to wait for a while.
When I occassionally find the time to create my own work I am reminded of how much I love doing this and why I started in the first place.
 In case you wondered, I picked another piece from my inventory to give to my friend so that I didn't feel too guilty about keeping this one for myself.

Purple Poppy Dress

Here is another of my upcycled clothing pieces that was hand-painted with my Poppy Stencil. This was a 15 year old cotton knit turtleneck dress that spent the last several years hiding out in the back of my closet. I have so much fun making these pieces, but it is even more fun to wear them.

The ruffles are made from hand-painted silk organza. Now I have started embellishing the clothing with a little bit of hand embroidery and beading. It's amazing what a little bit of texture and sparkle can add to a piece.

 

I think I this could be an ongoing project. I just pick it up in the evening when I feel like doing a little handwork and add a few more stitches. I am putting together a tutorial on this project for my Free Newsletter that is coming out next week if anyone is interested.