A ROLL OF THE DICE

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I get stressed, heading to my studio space is something that always helps. We are in the middle of house selling negotiations, and also sorting through the many things we’ve acquired through the 14 years here at Refuge Cove…what to keep, what to take, what to toss.

For some reason, yesterday had enough moments of anxiety, that I wanted to RUN to my machine, but I didn’t have anything going. What could I create? What CF theme (Cyber Fibres, my quilt journal group) jumped out at me? What was inspiring me? Since I wanted to just to GET AT IT, I did the following:

1. Opened the drawer below my computer and grabbed two dice.

2. I rolled the dice and up came a 3 and a 5.

3. I multiplied the two together and there I had my number…15!

4. I opened my CF archives where I store quilt journal submissions on my Hotmail, and counted down fifteen until I came to…

5. Dawn’s piece with the theme of Ritual. In this piece she talked about how she and her husband love to share local fare with out of town guests. The piece featured a crab and wine glasses. It was soft and beautifully created with a lovely narrative. This was my new inspiration!

I have a good stash of fusibles, and I particularly like Steam a Seam Lite. I rarely use it, but it has been calling my name lately, and I’ve really wanted to take a break from discharging. I pulled out a good handful of orangey-ish  scraps and attached them to the fusibles, then cut out crabby shapes and assembled them on a watery, net-like fabric. As I was doing this on my ironing board, I glanced up and saw a small bag of Dawn’s rovings that she sent to us as a challenge last winter. I have never used rovings or the like before but thought these would be a good addition to my composition. I discovered there are a few tricks in using them, and despite a few frustrating moments, I really enjoyed the process. When completed, I got out my button stash and looked for some large dark “eyes”…I think they really help to define what this is all about.

“Caught in the Net of Dawn’s Inspiration” was fun to do! Thank you Dawn, for this inspiration and all your other beautiful work you do. (And likewise to all the rest of you!)

P.S. Recently I was hosted at Barb’s house during the Quadra Quilt and Garden Tour. Dawn invited us over for dinner and I was able to see her creative space and all her artistic soul spread throughout her home. Not only is she gifted as a fibre artist, but also in basketry (and probably in other venues too!) Thanks again Dawn, for a lovely evening!

DINNER FOR FOUR

If I had a dinner party for four, these placemats, although not exactly matching, might grace my table. I created them last week with the thoughts of teaching a class on discharging.
AND I also used them to fit a theme (carbonated) for my quilt journal group, Cyber Fibres. Here's what I shared with my group this week:

It’s the height of summer and I am feeling remiss at not participating in my QJ group for a while. But I have been working on projects, and want to share, so found a way to tie them in…

I believe that one day, someday, a CARBONATED drink will sit on these placemats.

I have been preparing for a class that gives participants a chance to explore discharging along with closed line stitching, so have come up with this placemat project.

First I made the one with the trees on the sides and then proceeded to the three with full place settings.

“Buen Provecho” is Spanish for “enjoy your meal” and this piece was discharged with Soft Scrub with bleach.  I think my favorite beer, Negra Modelo, will accompany a meal sometime.

“Expect a Miracle” goes along with a story about my aunt and uncle whose son, Joey, ran away from home at the age of 17 or 18, and they never saw him again. (It was the Vietnam era.) Aunt Dickie was full of faith and ALWAYS set a place for him at the table, even a decade later, and her reasoning was to always “expect a miracle”. Maybe a glass of champagne would be a part of this meal with the thought of him returning. I discharged this with Jacquard’s discharge paste.

“Marina May” is for a young girl in our community who is super sweet and super smart (age 3) and I wanted to make her something special. I think this would be a great project to help young children learn about setting a table (or any age!). Maybe this is something that our generation cares about and the younger ones could care less about?  Regardless, I hope she uses it. I discharged this with Decolourant.  (I find it odd that this product is made in the US and is spelled as it is.) Perhaps there will be a “Shirley Temple” or the like (now doesn’t that age me?) to accompany a special occasion.

So, how do you like how I morphed these projects into CARBONATED?

All placemats are approximately 17”x12”.

I used a flash, which I really didn’t want to do, but wasn’t willing to wait for better light…

LAZY DAYS OF SUMMER??????

Who ever coined that phrase, "the lazy days of summer"? In my world, there are no lazy days (except maybe that super rainy day we had last Sunday!), particularly this summer. It looks as though our home is POTENTIALLY sold, so my days have random moments of cleaning out closets, organizing boxes to save or toss, and the like. And then there's all the normal daily activities and routines I try to squeeze in.

Today I woke to find a new and exciting addition to my Kindle...the new issue of Quilting Arts magazine with MY article "Custom Lettering on Cloth". I'm so excited and hope I have lots of interest in the world of discharging so I can write more articles...I have many in mind. I spent my first hour this morning relishing in the delight of this new issue with all sorts of wonderful inspiration...not to mention my own. Be sure to check it out:

http://www.quiltingdaily.com/blogs/quiltingarts/archive/2014/07/07/quilting-arts-magazine-august-sept-2014.aspx 

An incredible, SUPER INCREDIBLE opportunity has surfaced for our wonderful "sewing ladies" in Mazatlan. Last spring Linda Hannawalt from Quiltworks in San Francisco wandered into their out of the way shop and became our angel. She took an instant interest and began shipping supplies to them and working with our leader, Toy, in finding other ways she and her organization could help them. Her group has the tradition of annually choosing an international group to work with and this year they have chosen our women.

Linda's group will be flying 11 of the women, along with Toy and my good buddy Bev to SF for 12 days (Oct. 26-Nov. 5) of learning and inspiration. She has sleeping accommodations above the shop, and a 15 passenger van to haul us around for field trips. Did I say US? Yes, I'll be in southern Oregon at that time so will travel on my own to join the group. I will be teaching a class or two to help raise funds for our ladies and may even have a trunk show of my "Signs of Life" project. So many days I am dreaming or planning or communicating about this amazing opportunity in our horizon. Let me pinch myself again to make sure this is really true!!!

Two weekends ago, I escaped my island and traveled over to Quadra to help with our guild's big fundraiser, the Quilt and Garden Tour. It was a glorious weekend and the gardens, not to mention the quilts, were spectacular. I was hosted by my friends and fellow Cyber Fibre member, Barb, in her lovely home in Campbell River, so we were able to share in all things "quilting" and "creative" when not helping at the tour. The quilt above, by Ellen Russell, is one of my favorites, beautifully pieced and appliqued, so mandala-like.

These, made by Sonya Craddick, burst of life hanging from the deck of this oceanfront home. Behind them are plastic sheets of plastic, just in case it rained. Thankfully they didn't need to be used.

Plus, there was so much inspiration wherever one looked. I particularly liked this shot of this greenhouse. Hmmm...

Back home, I was swept back into my routines...the garden, cooking, thinking about our move, AND the SALMON. Tom has been busily catching LOTS of fish in this unbelievably prolific salmon season. My current mode of preserving is pickling, under the guidance of our resident fish authority (and all things GOOGLE!).

And of course, let's not forget the creating. I'm loving the exploration of more discharging, in this case of my placemat using a thickened bleach product (soft scrub with bleach). I also I am working lots with decolorant and discharge paste to learn more about those products too. You can see I have fish on the brain too!

There are no lazy days here, just good ones, full of life and learning, friends and family, and a possible move in the future!

A LOVELY LOT

Yes, they are. I have been in a patterning and discharging mode lately, and lots of it. My palette is a rectangle about 12"x18"- a perfect size for me to play around on. After I finish the discharging, I sew it into a small shoulder bag. I've just finished a group of eight, just in time for me to take a welcomed break to Quadra Island's Quilt and Garden Tour this weekend. I'll be sitting in a garden with my "Signs of Life" collection.
Plus, I'll be staying with my friend Barb in Campbell River who is also keen on quilting and a fellow Cyber Fibre member. It should be a fantastic weekend, plus I'll get to see some amazing gardens.

Back to the purses. Here are some leafy ones.

Here are some lacy ones. I think they are my favorites.

Here are geometric patterns,

And here are some hand painted salmon on these two bags.

Now I am off to Quadra...by myself!

ANOTHER SALMON SEASON

Here in Refuge Cove the salmon are running. Tom had a two week spurt of successful salmon outings that netted more than a dozen beauties. It must have inspired me to turn some hand-painted remnants that I discovered in one of my fabric boxes (that I'm trying so hard to clear out) and turn them into small useable items (small shoulder bags). 

                                                   

Salmon invite other like-minded fabrics to join in on their collaborative fun...anything gray, scaley, watery, coral or blue in color, swirly and net-like. The pairings are intriguing. The outcomes satisfying.

 Hopefully the season, both on water and in the studio, is just beginning.

PATTERNS TO DISCHARGE

Lately I've been having lots of fun with pattern work (sketching and stitching) and discharging. Here is a pattern I put to paper and then later to cloth.

In this case I used Soft Scrub with bleach as my discharge agent, which takes out more color than Decolorant or Discharge Paste...so I was left with bright white circles that just invited colorful buttons.
I will soon turn this into a small shoulder bag...maybe this one will be a fun bag to hold my camera!
I've been making lots of bags lately and doing similar pattern stitching and discharging on them. Here are some examples of the process I go through.

I love to piece together different colors and visual textures to add interest to the finished product. After piecing, I stitched two different patterns I put into these pieced rectangles, one of flowers and the other of leaves.

Now it was time to discharge. On the leaf pieces I used Decolorant. On the flower pieces I used Soft Scrub with bleach, plus I wanted to try something different so I discharged a "positive" set of flowers and other I a "negative" set of flowers. Here are what they looked like after the discharging, but before I washed the out the reactive agents. Might I add that this was more discharging than I typically like to do, but curiosity got the best of me.

There was too much "bright" in the flower pieces so I tried to tone it down with one of my favorite dyeing tools - cheesecloth. I dipped my cheesecloth into straight dye (a very dark purple in this case), wrung it out and stretched it over my work surface. I then placed my soda ashed flower piece over the cheesecloth and proceeded to roll over it with a dowel to hopefully take on the delicate grid-like pattern of the cheesecloth.

I had never done this with a quilted piece before and I'm not sure I would try it again, as it left a few blobs. Maybe it was because of the fact that it was a thick, already quilted piece, or maybe because of the pressure of the dowel. OR maybe the piece should have been damp with soda ash instead of dry. Regardless, I am going to stick with just using soda-ashed cotton for this work like I have in the past. Here are the finished results.

DECONSTRUCTING LIFE AND QUILTS

I've had such issues with my computer these days...a big "boo hiss" to dropbox, internet explorer, and all the other unfriendly programs/browsers out there in ether land that have made me stay away from my blogsite.
OK, so now that's off my chest.
I've been on my annual spring, northern migration for the last three weeks, now settled back in beautiful Refuge Cove. The garden is bursting with growth, Tom is out catching salmon, and grandson Alden is here to help us out and enjoy all the good things this place has to offer.
Our home is for sale and currently we have an interested party that makes us wonder if this is going to HAPPEN. The thought of the BIG MOVE is getting me to explore boxes and bins, corners and closets, and start deciding what to take, what to give away, what to leave, and what to take to our friendly FREE STORE on Cortes Island. Oh yes, and I'm sure there will be things that head straight to the dump!
Yesterday I unearthed a box of quilting projects and there I rediscovered the above piece. It is basically just a sandwich here, with individual pieces representing a young boy with two fish, decking, water, mountains and sky, all basted on to a background of gray. It had the beginnings of handquilting. Let me repeat - BEGINNINGS. Since I know this is something I will never complete, I decided to deconstruct it. After all, it is about 4'x3' and that's a lot of good fabric and batting to repurpose for another project.
My grandson, now 18, was about 10 when he caught those two dogfish. He loved fishing and we allowed him to go out by himself to jig for bottomfish as long as he stayed in sight of the docks at Refuge Cove. The community here is one of those "it takes a village" types, and everyone watches out for each other, particularly when there are young ones around. (Now a teenager, he's not so happy about all the watchful eyes!) Since he was pretty good at fishing, it was not uncommon for him to bring home a lovely rockfish for dinner.
But on this day, I heard footsteps on my deck and the call of "grandma!, come see!" I opened the door to see dear Alden with 2 huge (relative to his size) dogfish, which in my mind are NOT good eating, and I wondered why he would drag those fish all the way up our hill. I know I should have been a gushing grandma and lavished him with fishing praise, but I did just the opposite: "I'm don't want those fish. Get rid of them!" His poor face, once excited, took on a sad look. "But John Campbell told me they're good to eat."
I proceeded to tell him that I didn't care what John said...those fish were not coming in my kitchen. (Yes, some people eat dog fish but the trick is to filet them immediately...which didn't happen.)
So out to the garden we went, Alden with the fish and me with the shovel. They were buried about 2 feet down.
Thankfully that didn't squelch his love of fishing...he continues to bring them home to this day...but no more dogfish.
So, seamripper in hand, I deconstructed that quilt, thinking back on that story and many other great memories we've had here at Refuge Cove. I thought about that fun-loving, adventurous young boy who now is a wonderful young man, contemplating the influence this place has had on him.
Already, one day later, half of the batting and backing is repurposed to make some small purses, but those individual pieces that are major characters in the life of my grandson's days here at Refuge Cove - the docks, the water, the mountains, the sky and FISH - are carefully folded and placed in a small ziploc, headed for a box to SAVE.