one star and scale

I added a pieced star to the big neutral patchwork from the last post. I have a lot of ideas I have been anxious to try and so I have already started marking this one up. I have been daydreaming about scale. These leaves above are bigger...

and today I am daydreaming of taking that further, and further.

patchwork yardage by color

I am trying to work on organizing the studio for a new year and new intentions, trying to make sense of what stays and what goes. I have been thinking it might be worthwhile to piece together fabrics of similar colors into larger cloth.  Hoping this will be easier than dealing with all the loose scraps and starting from scratch for a cloth base for every new idea. Nothing too fussy but maybe lining things up now and then if it makes sense. Not a new idea to work ahead this way, but new for me especially at this scale. I hope to go big.

I think it will smooth out my process a bit if I can work on these larger cloths now and then, preparing base cloth for more detailed stitching. I can cut from them as needed and continue to add to them during the in-between.

Piecing the bits together is a wonderful process in itself, not thinking too hard about what goes where, choosing fabrics based mostly on their color and pressing seams as I go. I have found fabric I forgot I had. I am really hoping this bit of working ahead will help me dive right into an idea with the cloth piecing bit already under way.

sensitive edge

This is a little whole cloth quilt - leaves hand stitched and stars machine stitched - with a bit of flannel for batting. I made one very similar and then this one to work on a few things I learned from the first one and so I will go towards the next ones with what I have learned from this.

I am really so excited about this edge. A sensitive edge maybe?

But for today - my biggest sweetest boy is eleven.  We will be busy preparing and partying these next few days.

More stitching next week.

warm it up

I have been using a lot of golden colored fabrics - I am very fond of the cool indigo/warm yellow combination. I have run out of the golds. Yesterday, I made a bit more with scraps on hand and some turmeric. I have possibly posted about this before but here it is again, labeled this time so I can find it later and recall how I did it. (top to bottom fabrics: walnut dipped cotton, white cotton sheet, beige mens dress shirt fabric)

1.5 QT saucepan filled with water and 1 TBS of turmeric. Fabric is sort of scrunched down in there.

I stirred it around just a little bit as I heated it to a really bubbling boil. Let it boil for maybe just a minute or two and then removed from heat and let sit for a couple of hours.

I rinsed with cold water until water ran clear. Fabrics had sort of an orange appearance before washing. I threw them immediately into the washing machine with a load of yellow friendly laundry. 

Back to beautiful gold after machine washed and dried, twice. Turmeric dyed fabrics can be expected to fade over time. I haven't found mine to fade much but maybe I just haven't had them long enough? Wondering too if the walnut dip for example possibly acts as a bit of a mordant? Wouldn't that be nice?

I really like the rich, natural warmth in the fabrics that already had some color. The walnut dipped cotton on the left. The mens shirt fabric turned out beautiful too, that one maybe the most surprising.

Probably don't need so many photos, but some warm colors like this in the middle of winter seem so nice. Happy warm up.

number one

The week was wobbly. Very cold with school delays and one day off. No glimpse of any sort of getting back to a routine yet. Maybe next week.

Sketchbook time needs to be scheduled I guess. I hold it up as such a special activity and I sort of wait for the perfect time to do it and so I don't. Maybe make it the first thing instead of the last thing. There's my start to the "new for the year" list.

a sketchy new year

I thrive on the optimism of a brand new year and I usually have quite the detailed list made out for what I hope to do. I am a little late to the party this year due to some crazy cold/flu thing that knocked me out for a week right after Christmas, but I am catching up. I did manage to stitch up a few oak leaves, which has stirred up a lot of leafy ideas again.

I am going to draw for a few weeks to get some ideas onto paper - more likely to make it onto a cloth if I can work a few things out in the book first. There are a lot of things swirling around and I hope to pin them down before they get away from me. I will also work on a bit of a list for a brand new year as I go.

Cheers! to 2015.