Definitely Not My Favorite Color

Well, green can certainly be my favorite color but this particular manifestation has not ever been on my favorites list. As if there were not enough distractions this summer, I managed to give myself a behemoth case of poison ivy about two weeks ago and while my eye is no longer swollen and my chest and arms no longer feel like ants are establishing a colony on them, I do still occasionally have a spot that I have to remind myself not to itch. I hope my efforts to eradicate a small patch of this truly noxious weed in our yard were successful.

You may notice that I was able to finish the texture piece I described in the last post--mainly because it was one of the few things I felt like doing.  Certainly couldn't go out anywhere in my socially unacceptable state!

Stitching

 In the midst of our moving madness in March I began to experiment with taking my hand-stitched texture in a different direction.  I pinned together a top layer, batting, and backing, ran a couple of quilting lines across it to hold things in place and began stitching down strips of hand-dyed fabric, scrunching and wrinkling as I went. I was using three or four rows of perle cotton, # 8 or 5 on each piece, although I ultimately decided 8 was better with an occasional 12 thrown in.

I wasn't exactly sure where I was going with this, although I had originally been inspired by a photo of amazingly colorful hardened lava that I discovered in my search for volcano images for that little commission last fall. As the rows of color grew, I began to be motivated to see what the next strip of fabric would produce--and the quiet stitching was a great ballast as my world rocked and morphed around me and my definition of home shifted eastward.

Of course the texture is a big part of this piece so a photo doesn't capture it fully, but here it is:

And here is a detail that gives you some of the feel of it:

When my five-year-old granddaughter asked to see what I was doing, she looked at it and then got up and came over and kept running her hand over it--an appropriate response I thought.

My original vision included letting some of the background show, but I fell in love with the texture.  I had always planned for the stitching to show, hence the perle cotton, but I had also planned to include more stitching in some of the flat valleys, a plan I abandoned as the piece took shape. It ended up being 20 1/2 x 19 3/4".

This is my contribution to Nina's Off the Wall Friday, so you might want to check out the other postings on her site.

My Favorite Color

Rose of Sharon beside our house

Three's Company

Time keeps flying and I perhaps need to put a priority on posting. The settling in process keeps being interrupted with crises like a leaky roof--not a great surprise, but we thought we would be able to wait at least a year to tackle this project. Not only did we have to choose a roofer but we also had to decide on a color for the shingles--not an easy task for someone who likes to actually see a fabric on the working wall    before she makes a final decision.

But I have been doing some work as well. Sitting and stitching at my studio window has restored my spirits on many afternoons. And I finally have something to show for it.

I had begun with a piece of intriguing snow-dye up on the wall and then I kept adding bits of hand-dyes until I got that zing that told me it was working. I am still experimenting with just fabric stitched to fabric--no fusing involved.

  So stitching all the pieces down gave me lots of that quiet stitching time.

I have always liked working with threes for its symbolism and design possibilities and that is where this piece began to take shape. It ended up being 19 1/2 x 13 3/4" and I christened it "Trinomial." Photographing it proved a challenge since my tripod and photography lights are still in Pennsylvania, but the color is not too far off.

And if your life has been quiet enough that you are still reading this, thanks for the company! And check our what's happening at Off the Wall Friday.

Settling

Last Sunday we officially made the move and after a seven-and-a-half hour drive that turned into ten with the UHaul truck, we found ourselves in our new home amid towers of boxes.  Organizing my studio looked daunting every time I (or Terra, who is always willing to help) looked in the door:

But today the studio looks like this--

still a little disorganized but it is beginning to feel like a good place to work. A working wall is up--and I actually did some quilting work, not just organizing work yesterday. Today Tom got the shelves for my hand-dyes put together so I can empty more boxes of fabric tomorrow--and tomorrow the weather wizards have promised an end to this mind-numbing heat wave that has been smothering us. So I have big plans for the morning!

And if you are still with me in this new space I am creating, thanks for the company!

Connections

My mother would never have described herself as a quilter--or a textile artist, for that matter, but she did make a yo-yo quilt that she began in the early 1940s. As I was packing and cleaning today, I came upon her quilt and decided it was a good day to air it and then refold it.

Happy Mother's Day!

Metamorphosis

Among the packing for our move, the cleaning for possible buyers, and the decision making, I have made time for fabric--and the proof is in the local challenge piece I finished--well, the facing is not sewn down yet, but you won't notice that. The theme this time was "creatures," and I finally settled on one of my favorite subjects--butterflies.  But, for a long time, a subcategory of butterflies has fascinated me: caterpillars. I have always loved the little surprise of finding a brightly colored and intriguingly patterned little critter crawling up a stem or leaf and, while some are clearly pests and wear out their welcome very fast, it is worth sharing some parsley, dill, tomato or milkweed leaves with others. So I have been photographing them for a while and wondering how I could abstract them into a quilt.

When the challenge came up, I decided that this was the time to give it a first try. I had also been wanting to revisit using photos in a quilt. I decided on a Black Swallowtail Caterpillar, described as "charismatic" by one photographer, here shown chomping away on my dill.

For the background, I took several photos of some parsley, another favorite of this little guy. In manipulating these in Photoshop, I liked what happened when I applied "Colored Pencil" to the original, but the idea of movement, change, narration in the piece began to grow in my mind's eye so I decided to combine the original with the manipulated version and then place references to the caterpillar between panels of parsley. I printed the photos on EQ Printables Cotton Satin, took a deep breath and began to cut. And here is what I came up with:

I was going to create the yellow dots with a resist but one try convinced me that this was not the time to work on discovering how to get a pure solid black so I opted for commercial black with the yellow octagons fused on.

For obvious reasons, I named this "Metamorphosis"--a big name for a piece that measures only 9 x 14 inches. But it also honors the transition I am going through.  Time will only tell whether I turn out to be a butterfly or a beetle but whatever the outcome it certainly is an adventure.

And if you are still with me, thanks for the company!

I am linking this post with Nina-Marie's blog.