Kit Lang Fiber Art

Phew!

2012-02-24T07:34:00.000-05:00

I'm really glad it's Friday! With everything that's been going on my blogging routine has been all out of whack - I'm glad to get back to some normalcy finally!

So, when I left you I had begun the background quilting on this piece, and have since finished the background quilting. .

And then I added the focal point of the piece - this white tree. As you can see, it's not showing up well - I'm hoping that quilting it with these copper and gold threads will make it pop.

Stay tuned... and have a great weekend!

!

Liebster Award

2012-02-22T00:01:00.007-05:00

I've been awarded the Liebster Blog Award!

“Liebster” is a German word meaning dearest, beloved or favorite, and the Liebster Award is given by bloggers to other bloggers - intended to showcase exceptional up-and-coming blogs with 200 or fewer followers. There is no evaluation committee or formal award process for the Liebster; but it's lovelier because it's recognition from a peer. Like the SAG awards! (Pic of my awards gala gown after the jump ...)

kidding!

I want to thank MR at Quilt Matters for the recognition. Please check out HER blog, which has already received the Liebster Award; MR is a prolific blogger and quilter who writes enthusiastically and engagingly about quilting and all of her many quilting related projects!

The rules for the Liebster Award are:

Show thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Post the award on your blog.
Bask in the love from some of the most supportive people on the internet—other writers and artists.
And best of all – have fun and spread the karma.

So, my nominees for the Liebster Award in alphabetical order are:

Beth at Sew Sew Art Beth has a wonderful blog full of tutorials, art and surface design and quilts.
Elaine at La Belle Helene, is a textile artist who makes beautiful, delicate knitted works of art, crochets, felts, hand dyes yarn and makes incredible sculptures
Frauke at Quilthexle`s World. Frauke makes quilts and art and beautiful hand-dyed fabric and has a quirky sense of humour that comes through in all that she does.
Mary at The Inside Stori. Mary is a textile artist, teacher and has a lovely, real time process blog. and finally;
Sandra Scott at Sandra Scott Textile Artist. Sandra is an infrequent blogger, but is worth the wait, as her textile work is beautiful, personal and meaningful; and she also offers workshops in a variety of fiber related genres.

I highly recommend that you check them all out!

And here is where I am with my work right now...

Partially quilted! Stay tuned...

Winner!

2012-02-21T00:01:00.001-05:00

The winner of the draw for Jennifer Chiaverini's latest book Sonoma Rose is... ::drumroll::

Jody, of Come Tarry With Me! Jody, please contact me with your snail mail address and I'll make sure the publisher sends you your prize!

and this is a new background for another Game of Thrones inspired piece I'm working on.

See you tomorrow for more progress!

Experiment done!

2012-02-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

When I left you on Wednesday, I was thinking that I had made a BIG mistake with those acrylic paint additions. The paint was too heavy, it obscured what I had done previously (which was sort of dreamy and pretty) and I wasn't sure I'd be able to quilt leaves on top of it in any meaningful way.

The paint was already dry, but I decided to try taking it up anyway with some rubbing alcohol on one of my boring green parfait dyed failures, and mes voila! A lovely mop up cloth that I really, really like! But that's not all, I actually finished the experiment...

Check it out! It looks almost the same, just a little deeper, which is what I was going for.

And so then I worked on my quilting to see if I could make leaves in a way that doesn't make my trees look like lollipops.

First I tried to do what I think of as a standard kind of "leaf" shape. It wasn't bad, all in all I think it'll be a fairly successful foreground if I were going to do a forest type thing.

And then I tried a more abstract sort of leaf - not really a leaf, but more the suggestion of a leaf.

I liked that much better, and I think it'll look good I think as a kind of background leaf - if I wanted another tree in the foreground to stand out more, for instance, this would be a good choice.

And then I tried this kind of pine-needly kind of evergreen sort of thing - which really - I mean this isn't a tree that exists anywhere in nature (lol), but this needle shape will be great for a future evergreen - and was really the most successful of the three, in my opinion.

So, this little journeyman piece had two purposes - to try and conquer the lollipop tree and to figure out what leaves work best. I like all of the leaves for their various purposes, and the lollipop effect was somewhat diminished, so all in all, a good experiment. More to come in future, never fear! I still have THIS one to quilt!

Don't forget about the giveaway - you can still enter until 11:00 p.m. tonight - I'll announce the winner tomorrow.

'Til then,

Decorate!

2012-02-19T12:12:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I was over at Andrea Harris' blog, "Millions of Thoughts" and won some cool stickers to give Jezebel a make over!

Now all I need is a nice orange Buddha to set it off - I don't think my purple and gold Buddha is fitting so nicely in my current sewing room decor!

And hey, don't forget about the giveaway!

A Rare Saturday Post...

2012-02-18T17:56:00.008-05:00

I'm doing a Saturday post because I want to remind you all of the giveaway. I don't have anything to say really, so check out this video I made instead:

and don't forget to check out the giveaway!
.

If you want to see it bigger - it's on You Tube as well. (I couldn't make it embed for some reason).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojdswzVSNFw&list=UUj0Z_Ilf0ssDu_iM1a0SsQA&index=1&feature=plpp_video

Giveaway!

2012-02-17T00:01:00.004-05:00

ETA: Okay my chickens, giveaway's over. Thanks for playing!

I was contacted by Jennifer Chiavernini's publisher last week who asked whether I'd be willing to do a give away of her latest book, Sonoma Rose.

For you, anything! All kidding aside, when I read the advance copy, I couldn't believe that I had been missing out on this series. I'm not quite done the book, but I am REALLY enjoying it. Although it's part of a series, I haven't read any of them before and am still able to read it as a stand-alone book. Ms. Chiavernini's writing is very readable, and the story really pulls you in.

"Sonoma Rose picks up at the climax of The Quilter's Homecoming, when Rosa Diaz Barclay flees from her abusive husband with her four children and her childhood sweetheart, Lars Jorgensen. On the run from her husband, his mob associates, and the federal agents investigating his crimes, Rosa and Lars make their way north, first to San Francisco where they seek medical care for two of the children who suffer from a mysterious ailment that has already claimed the lives of four of their brothers and sisters, and then on to Sonoma County, where they find work and sanctuary at an idyllic vineyard and winery struggling to stay afloat despite the constraints of Prohibition.

Rosa Diaz Barclay endured years of her husband's abuse, but one day Rosa realizes it is time to leave. Taking her four children and a few precious family keepsakes, Rosa flees, only to receive some unexpected help from her first love: Lars Jorgensen. Together the two set out to make a new future for themselves in the wine country of Sonoma Valley in Chiaverini's emotionally compelling tale."

from Jennifer Chiaverini's site

If you'd like to win a copy of this book, please leave a comment here up until Monday, February 21st at 11:00 p.m. and I'll announce the winner on Tuesday. The publisher will send the book directly to you. And if you'd like TWO chances to win, then go on over to Chris Daly's blog at Dye Candy and enter over there!

Chris is a talented fiber artist and purveyor of wonderful hand-dyed fabrics!Take some time to look around while you're over there - and if you're here from Chris' blog; welcome!

Good luck!

Okay, so bear with me...

2012-02-14T23:58:00.002-05:00

As you know, my word of the year this year is "intention" and part of that is that I'm no longer going to be making things just to make them (with the exception of my work for And Then We Set It On Fire, although I'll try to incorporate that work into what I'm doing for "real" as well); but I also need to do what I call "journeyman" work, stuff that doesn't really have a purpose other than to help me improve upon something I'm having trouble with.

And you know what I currently have the most trouble with, don't you? THOSE DAMN LOLLIPOP TREES!!!!! lol Why is that every time I try to do foliage I end up with lollipop trees? (Rhetorical question). Anyway...

You may remember this piece from back when I was doing the fugitive media experiments - this one was from the charcoal on fabric session and I decided to get away from the lollipop shape by building it up with acrylic paint.

Well, as you can see, all that happened as a result of that little experiment, was that I ended up with a deeper, more highlighted lollipop shape:

and I liked it better BEFORE I began fussing with it. Oy.

See what happened next on Monday. 'Cuz on Friday, I'm doing a giveaway in tandem with Chris Daly at Dye Candy two chances to win! Until then...

Happy Monday!

2012-02-13T11:28:00.001-05:00

Remember I told you that I had wrecked my prior ironing pad with my transfer painted work in November and I had to make a new one? I finally did. :) It was pretty simple: I used a piece of the melamine boards I had cut for the tables (which meant it was the same width as the tables - perfect!), covered it with 3 or 4 layers of batting, a layer of insul-bright and this strippy-stripey blue/green/yellow striped fabric and I had a new pad! (I've used it already for transfer paint work and it's perfect. No heat getting through that sucker!)

I also made...

New covers for my sewing machines (much simpler than the other ones); a new cover for my mini-ironing board (same method as above) - I use this one for sewing clothes; and a little pin cushion/snips holder/thread catcher.

I wasn't sure whether I would actually use it so I didn't make the thread-catcher of my dreams (mostly 'cuz I didn't have any); but I actually use it a LOT. Who knew?

Winter Is Coming

2012-02-10T00:36:00.022-05:00

My little transfer paint piece is complete. I've been reading Game of Thrones and my head is filled with images of that magical realism world; the kind of place where supernatural happenings and creatures blend seamlessly with the "real" world.

The Weirwood trees are white I know, but this one is in shadow, at dusk, in late autumn.

And it can both hear you and see you.

Process here and here, how to do transfer painting here

WIP Wednesday

2012-02-08T00:08:00.007-05:00

When I left you on Monday, I had just finished fusing my cuts of transfer painted fabric to my batting. As you may know, my usual practice is to happily throw stuff at a piece and be pleased with the result at the end, which was fine when my goal was to just "try" different techniques. But this year, I have chosen as my word of the year "intention" and so have decided to not start a piece without know what it is I'm trying to accomplish, before I cut a thread.

As you may also know, I'm a big joiner - I want to be a part of a group, enjoy the camaraderie and the fun, but then I find myself bored and drift away.

Melody Johnson is doing an art-quilt-along, and I decided that I would play along. But as she posted her tutorials, I found myself uninspired. Not by her work, which is really beautiful, but by the idea of spending time doing work that is essentially a copy of someone else's.

And though I initially pulled coordinating solids and started making vague doodles on a pad about what the finished product might look like, these transfer painted fabrics kept calling me with a very specific idea that has been sitting at the centre of my forehead for the past couple of weeks - so I drew a very different kind of sketch and got to work.

Once I had cut and placed all my pieces of fabrics, I quilted - quilting some of the tiniest lines with the tiniest stitches I've ever done, and after that; I quilted the green piece and knew it was coming to fruition. I wanted a background that was kind of moody and perhaps a little ominous; that had a hint of magic realism. Given that it took me nearly 10 hours to quilt it, I'm glad I liked how it turned out!

Once the piece was quilted, I took a piece of Vicki Welsh's hand-dyed fabric, and began to play with that. I had run out of steam a seam, so I cut the tree shapes out of paper and then lightly glued them down to the fabric using a glue stick.

My time at Melody's blog has not been for naught though, I used her "fuse directly to the batting" technique and her envelope back, and really like both results.

The finished piece will be revealed on Friday - I look forward to seeing you then!

P.S. - I'm having my surgery today, and I have postings set up for the next week - but I may be slow on the responses to comments - depending on how I'm feeling afterwards. Talk soon!

This is where I began:

2012-02-06T02:07:00.002-05:00

Remember back in November when I was teaching transfer paints at And Then We Set It On Fire? This was one of my experiments.

I always liked it and thought it would make for a great, moody, sort of atmospheric background. But I couldn't leave it alone, so....

I cut out an interesting shape and laid it on fusible batting....

And then I selected several more pieces of transfer painted fabric that I had made during that period of time and cut them to the shapes I wanted to make the background I saw. And then I fused 'em.

What next? Find out on Wednesday!

Playing with paint...

2012-02-03T09:56:00.002-05:00

I was working on something I'm going to show you sometime this month, and had some leftover paint, so I decided to paint some fabric with it.

I really like this one! (approximately 30 x 30, silk twill.) And then I did this one:

Which has a sort of moody, stormy feeling. (Also about 30 x 30, silk twill.) I'm pretty chuffed, considering they're just leftover paint that I didn't want to waste. I don't know what I'll use them for yet, but I'm sure they'll be put to good use.

Have a great weekend - let us all know what you're up to in the comments if you like - and I'll see you on Monday!

Shattered Sky

2012-02-01T08:22:00.001-05:00

First 2012 Finish!

This little lovely (48 x 40") all cotton, is the end result of my experiments with the prior "unhappy living together birthday blocks" ...

Which were then cut into slices and incorporated with other strips of coordinating fabric from my stash. I tested a lot of different fabrics, found the right ones and then laid them out (on my new design wall. Love it!!!!)

Normally, I would have stopped there and quilted it, but because I was working with Rayna Gillman's technique (through And Then We Set It On Fire), I added the slashed inserts. Totally not my thing, but I really like it just the same. Hope you do too.

But now I'm on to some of my own work. Looking forward to showing you the process!

Making progress....

2012-01-30T00:01:00.002-05:00

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend - I'm feeling sparky and happy and had a productive weekend. :)

When I left you last with this project, I had sliced up those odd birthday blocks I had received into two inch widths, and then I chose some fabrics from my stash to add to the project.

I fussed with the layout until I was satisfied with it, and then sewed it together with the additions from my stash.

And I ended up with this, but I didn't stop there!

Check in later this week for the big finish! :)

My Sewing Room, let me show you it!

2012-01-27T09:27:00.008-05:00

Well, good morning everyone - and welcome to my sewing room! I'm so glad you decided to come for the tour! :)

As you walk in to my room you'll see the predominant feature is the thread wall - hanging on the back on a pegboard. On the same pegboard, you'll find my rulers, some templates and a little bag I hang around my neck when I'm working that has scissors, tweezers, etc. in it.

Behind my chair, you'll also see that Charlie's aquarium got upgraded - in fact, Charlie's not even in there anymore - I got him some friends, he didn't like them, so Charlie got moved upstairs and the friends (plus more of their friends) now live with me.

As you turn to the left, you'll see:

Some of my fabric stash - yardage of 3 or more yards folded 12 inches across in the white boxes, and yardage of 1-3 yards folded in small lengths in the boxes. You can also see my drafting table, and under it a basket containing some WIPs and batting. (The cushion in the window is for the day supervisor.)

Inside my drafting table are my acrylic paints, watercolour paints in tubes, watercolour crayons, coloured and black charcoals, fabric dye crayons, pastels, micron pens and "gilt" pens in gold and silver.

If you look along that same wall you'll see my stretcher frames in various sizes which I use when I'm painting on fabric as well as a little bookshelf , which is just inside the door.

All of those shelves contain baskets with craft paints, the rest of my thread, and assorted bits and bobs (buttons in containers, beads, all kinds of things). On the top shelf is a portable container that has all of my various rotary cutters, scissors, marking pencils, regular pencils and pens, measuring tapes and small rulers that can't hang on my peg board (without making it look insane, that is.) The smaller containers to the right have in them a small colour wheel, and saftey pins, and the round black container with the white bow on top has my pins in it.

If you swing around you'll see almost all my dressers from Ikea. (Wait to see why narrow profile dressers are great idea in a sewing room!)There are 8 of them in total - four are stacked two by two on either side of the bookcase. In the bookcase are all books related to quilting, surface design and sewing, along with magazines of the same theme. There is drawer in the bottom of the bookcase which has another one of those black baskets with ribbons in it, and the rest of the drawer is packed with patterns.

On top of the dressers to the left are three of my seven (!) sewing machines and the aquarium, and on top of the others are more quilt magazines, a plastic container with all of my various kinds of brushes/ tools for using soy wax, a clock, a plant and of course, my selection of Barbie-dolls. ('Cuz every once in a while, to entertain myself, I make Barbie clothes - which eventually get given to my great-niece.)

And what's in my drawers you ask? The rest of my stash of course! Every drawer contains its own colour:

Or kind of fabric (in this case, tulle and mesh); and in one drawer I have oddments like blocks that never got incorporated into anything, or sketch quilts that haven't actually been quilted yet.

Under the table is this little basketry/shelving contraption which contains all of my dyeing things:

Like the above - each shelf has it's own thing.

And from this angle, you can see my design wall and my Judy. If you look to the left of the photo, you can also see peeking out where my rolls of steam-a-seam, stitch witchery, stabilizer, pellon and fusible interfacing live, and my iron is tucked in there too.

and that's my perfect-for-me sewing room! It's not quite finished yet - I need to add some more lighting above the thread wall, the drafting table and the design wall - it's purchased but not yet installed; and I need to make a new ironing pad as I killed my last one when I was doing all of that transfer paint/disperse dye work in November. (I also killed my tables - the heat actually cracked and split the melanmine surface, so I had to buy new ones!)

But I figured it was close enough to bright to show it to you. Maybe it'll give you some ideas for your sewing room too!

Hope you'll come by and visit some time! Maybe this weekend. :)

Playing with Fire.

2012-01-25T00:18:00.005-05:00

As most of you probably know, I am one of the contributors to a technique-teaching group surface design blog called "And Then We Set It On Fire"

This month, we have a guest artist/teacher, Rayna Gillman, and the work we're doing as a group is based on techniques in her book called "Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts".

I started with some blocks I received from a birthday block exchange I was involved in a couple of years ago. I had requested blue or purple stars and received mostly blue AND purple stars. In retrospect, I should have requested black and white stars and I would have had blocks I could actually make a quilt out of - live and learn, as they say!

However, they were perfect for the purposes of this month's technique - as there was very little I could do with them on their own. Just sliced up and rearranged is already a great improvement!

Stay tuned...

Hey, guess what?

2012-01-23T13:26:00.001-05:00

My sewing room is finished! And I have a queen sized top to prove it!

P.S. - It's on its side, cuz my garden wall isn't tall enough for it and my design wall (skippy dance) isn't big enough for it. :)

Hi!

2012-01-16T00:29:00.001-05:00

Long time no see! :)

I have recovered well from my first surgery, so have been slowly but surely been back at the work of putting my sewing room back together.

I'm in the home stretch now, and hope to actually get some work done before my next surgery. In the meantime, the wall of thread has gone up, and so has my very first design wall. New lighting is next, the tables will be put together, the last of the furniture painting will be completed - and then it'll be done!

Stay tuned...

MIA

2012-01-04T01:55:00.002-05:00

Gee, 4 days in and 2012 has already become WAY more interesting in ways I didn't expect.

First of all, I haven't spent any of my 2 week vacation in my sewing room because the renovation sputtered nearly completely to a stop. Here's where we are right now:

The laminate floor is down, the walls are painted (two coats of primer, one coat of paint), four of my Ikea dressers are painted (two coats of primer one coat of paint) and they're filled with scraps, one colour per drawer. Also take note of my new T.V. - a Christmas present from BSP! :) Seems like good progress.. but note to your left - those sets of drawers aren't even primed yet. So are not FILLED yet, neither are my books all on their shelves...

But wait, there's more!

Four (actually six) of these bins are filled with yardage - but there are ten more to be done.

This little corner for my paints and assorted surface design stuff looks great - except that most of those bins are empty - and their contents are still in boxes.

To add insult to injury, I've been quite ill. On December 23, I went to see my doc because a cyst I had on my shoulder for ten years became infected. I was given some antibiotics and an appointment to have the cyst removed (tomorrow). In the meantime, I developed an abcess on my gum, and a sinus infection - so I am literally filled with infection - leaving me headachy - nauseated, and exhausted.

And AFTER Christmas I had an ultrasound and two appointments with my gynecologist, who informed me that the remaining bits I have since my partial hysterectomy 3 years ago have prolapsed (quite painful, btw!) and you guessed it - one of my ovaries has an infected cyst on it!!! So in February, it's all going to come out. MORE surgery, hurray!

The result of all that is that I've been lying around in bed, running fevers, feeling crappy and moaning for ten days (poor BSP!) - with NOTHING going on in my sewing room.

However, Maggie-May has been faithfully keeping me company - here she is lying in my lap (where she'd been for about two hours) just before I started this post. So the news isn't ALL bad. ;)

So I'll see you post cyst surgery - and in the meantime, sew, quilt, or paint a line or two for me, will you?

Cheers,

Year In Review - 2011

2012-01-01T00:01:00.004-05:00

Well, it's that time already - I can't believe how quickly this year went!

But January first means two things for me - that it's my third blog-aversary (and 360th post!), and I've been quilting for 3.5 years.

I said at the end of last year's "year in review" post So expect to see more textile art pieces this year - maybe a lot more - and more quilts along the lines of Of The Moment, Zen Gardens, Passage and Once, I Was A Child. And that's pretty much what happened.

As the year progressed, it felt like I didn't produce very much, but it turned out, I produced a lot more - especially in the "quilt" category than I thought I did. I made ten quilts in 12 months! They were:

"Fractured" cotton velvet/satin, a quilt about the nature of our fractured lives.

"In The Pink" my very first quilt made with my hand-dyed fabric, but otherwise with no special meaning.

An un-named quilt - a gift for a friend's baby - made to her taste and specifications, not to mine!

"Spring" the result of a "play" session - not designed or planned, but thoughtlessly put together. I don't intend to ever make quilts of this kind again! (i.e. - thoughtlessly planned)

"Stepping Stones" my mise en abyme quilt, made from the scraps of my first quilt, which was made from the textile scraps of thirty-five years of sewing. A simple quilt, but one of my favourites this year.

"Test Pattern" - inspired by a T.V. test pattern; this was another quilt I really liked, though it didn't inspire much excitement in anyone else. Oh well, not every quilt can be a winner. :)

And hey, speaking of, this quilt was a straggler left from 2008 that I finally finished quilting this year. I was glad to finally finish it, but wow, I didn't like it! None of you did either, as there wasn't a SINGLE comment on that post. If you can't say anything nice ... ;)

So, what a relief to make something like "Phases"! Back to my familiar stomping grounds of linen and silk, a limited palette, and a contemporary feel. The moon goes through phases as do I, apparently!

"Off To Oz". This quilt and "Fractured" were the two quilts of mine that got a LOT of attention this year - about equal amounts, I think, although they couldn't be more different. This particular quilt was a real departure for me. A fun one - but I'm curious to see whether I have something else that's similar inside me.

The tenth quilt was one I sent to Japan post-tsunami, and don't have pictures of.

And then the art.

The art makes me laugh as I look at what I produced over the year - it reminds me of the schizophrenic oeuvre I produced in 2008/2009 when I was trying out every kind of quilt in every kind of style, trying to figure out what worked for me, what I liked, "How the heck do I MAKE the quilts I see in my head?"

"Happy wife, happy life" - one of my "inspired by Charley Harper" pieces.

Having done that already, I at least knew what this year would look like as I tried out new-to-me techniques, in an attempt to find the best medium to express what I want to say.

Take A Winter Walk With Me

Early in the year - on January 7, I tried this. I was doing "fugitive media' before I even knew what it was - as I had painted this little piece with acrylic paints before quilting it. I loved this piece but resisted it - it was too different from what I had done before, too far from my comfort zone.

Back Seat Driver

I went back to what was comfortable to me - only this time trying it with needle felting - but it didn't feel right to me any more. I knew that I needed to get out of that comfort zone or I was never going to get where I needed to go.

Failure To Thrive

In March, I decided to try a different version of the painting - I only showed it to you recently as I initially disliked it so much I didn't want to show it to you - but I like it better now, although I still see the room for improvement!

By The Sea

More needlefelting, combined with hand-painted fabric, this time with a lighter hand - and I liked the results better - but it still didn't feel quite like "me'.

"Newlyweds" another inspired by Charley Harper piece.

By the time I was done this piece, I knew this wasn't for me either.

So I tried a different method of needle felting and hand painted fabric. I LOVED it - needle felting all those fabrics together, and then finding the face within; but that was the problem. It all just kind of came together - randomly painted fabrics, and finding the face - what were the chances that would happen again?

We Are Mermaids Too

So, I gave it another shot. Needlefelted some of my hand-painted fabric together and then tried to "find" something in it. I didn't in the way I did with "Wood Witch", but I found a nice background for a mermaid scene.

Taking Flight

I tried some more abstract sketches as well - the art I'm drawn to as a rule is non-representational - I like the intellectual exercise and the emotional power I feel in abstract art - I don't like it when the story is already there, waiting for me to "read" it - but it turns out I'm not really any good at non-representational art. Perhaps as I learn and grow I'll be able to do so - or perhaps, I'm already doing it in my quilts, rather than my art.

Arboreal Oasis

I also tried going back to repair prior mistakes - with some success - although I'm not sure I like the "corrected" version any better, I learned a lot about something I called "ghost quilting" and it's something I'll put to use in future work.

Transracial Adoption

Around this time, I was asked to be a contributor to a technique driven blog in which a number of fiber artists tried out different techniques for the edification of themselves and others called And Then We Set It On Fire. It was to fill in for a couple of months, and since I was a follower and a tryer anyway - I decided to give it a go.

The first technique we were to try was fugitive media - techniques in which you apply things ordinarily applied to paper (water colour, pastels, acrylic paint, etc.) to fabric. Without knowing it, I'd already dabbled in it and I took to it like a duck to water, producing Transracial Adoption above, and

Erosion

With "Erosion" I knew I was really onto something - I loved everything about the technique and the method, and was sure I'd found my medium. (And "surprise!" it looked VERY much like the piece I produced the first of the year.)

In the meantime, I finished the last of my Charley Harper inspired series with Cardinal, and

continued to try new techniques with And Then We Set It On Fire, like the one I taught - transfer paints and disperse dyes.

And the unusual materials challenge through another group, in which I made quilts out of anything BUT fabric.

Towards the end of the year I re-visted some old favourites - shaving foam painting and needle felting to produce November.

So, at the end of it all, what did I learn?

My main learning is "how" I'm going to make the art I want to make. Fugitive media and painting on fabric is what I'm going to continue to explore in my personal work - my main goal for 2012 is to get better at it. And the quilting continues as it should. Fractured, Phases, Stepping Stones, even Test Pattern are all the direction I intend to continue in - I have plans for lots of quilts in the future - they're even designed already, if only I could find the time to actually make them!

My biggest accomplishments this year were being featured on or at "big" websites and at Generation Q Magazine and for 2012 I hope to do more of the same, and I intend to start showing, throwing my hat into the ring for some of the juried festivals.

In addition, I've been asked to become a permanent member of And Then We Set It On Fire so I'll continue to make sketches (or journal quilts) in different techniques throughout the year as I participate in the blog.

So that's my plan!

Thanks for being with me throughout the year - and I look forward to talking and sharing with you in the year ahead!

"I am seeking, I am striving. I am in it with all my heart."

Van Gogh

Happy Holidays to all

2011-12-23T10:58:00.000-05:00

I'm off for about a week - see you soon!

Happy Christmas

2011-12-19T00:04:00.001-05:00

(or holiday celebration of your choice)

In case you haven`t figured it out already - this will be a non-quilting related post . :) A teensy how-to follows though, for these and a few other little Christmas decorations I made for my office.

All of my materials are from the dollar store, which means that I`ve spent no more than $2 on any one item.

The simplest of course, was the vase of flowers. The flowers were purchased by individual stem at $1.00 each, the vase was $2 and the sand and vase filler were simply layered in like a parfait. Easey peasey!

In the first pic, there is a vase of the same size beside the one with the flowers. In it is a little tree in some vase filler. The tree started out like this:

and then I used a utility scissor to cut the plastic pot it was inl; and then cut the bottom of the pot out so that the tree would have a little stand.

Although the tree was still quite small, it was too tall for my vase, so I used a wire cutter to trim the tree stump, which I then put back in its stand for stability.

Mes voila!

I used the same simple process for this shorter, rounder vase; as well as come clippings from the Christmas pics in the first materials shot and made this little pretty:

Since these are so quick and easy to make (less than an hour for all three), if you like them, you can whip a couple up for your coffee or sofa table, or even a centerpiece for your kitchen table and still have plenty of time to finish whatever else needs to be done between now and Saturday.

See you Wednesday!

on my sewing table right now...

2011-12-16T00:01:00.004-05:00

This is just a little something I've been playing with on my kitchen table. "Kitchen table" you ask? Why yes! Haven't I mentioned that my sewing room currently looks like THIS:

the walls are primed...

that closet door is now primed too...

sadly, there's nothing I can do to make that window bigger...

and we're laying the floor this weekend. AND THEN, paint, furniture goes back in, fabric goes back in - I'm hoping that shortly after Christmas, I'll be back in business!

Failure to thrive...

2011-12-12T01:00:00.006-05:00

This was a piece I made several months ago. I was experimenting with a number of techniques, (not purposely, mind);I was trying to create the effect of trees in the background, mid-ground and foreground, so, using some of my hand-painted fabric; I quilted it to death, painted over, painted under, quilted some more, fused on top of, and I think, did a final layer of paint - all in an effort to make it look the way I saw it in my head - and failed utterly.

So I called it "Failure To Thrive" (a play on both words and the utter failure of the piece) and put it away. I never actually intended to show it to you, though the sharper eyed among you may have spotted it in this post ( like all my failures, I never give up on the - I always try to rescue them, make them over, prove that they can be beautiful despite themselves.)

I'm showing it to you today because it's part of a project I'm working on that will be revealed in the new year. Rayna Gilman is involved... and you can play too. Pick up her new book or enter here for a chance to win a free copy.

Talk soon!

and we have lift off!!!!

2011-12-08T09:01:00.003-05:00

I finally got my laptop back (it was actually ready 7 days before I was able to pick it up, but due to a miscommunication in house, they kept telling me it wasn't. ARGH.)

In the meantime, I was working on lots of stuff, but first up, playing with plastic!

Over on And Then We Set It On Fire, this month's technique is fusing plastic. So I played with this technique over the weekend, using grocery bags, dry cleaner wrapping, thickened plastic wadding and bubble wrap.

Mostly, I just melted stuff together. :)

I was interested in the types of textures I could get with the different weights of plastic; but because the dry cleaning plastic would have been excessively boring, I first put down two squares as a base, mixed up some craft paint on top, put another two squares of plastic on that and melted away.

Four layers wasn't enough, but 8 was, and I got some really nice results that were highly coloured, very pliant, and easy to quilt.

I also tried it with some white grocery bags for a less vibrant result, but in my finished piece, I layered the different kinds of plastics and some of the colours together.

I also tried putting "stuff' in between the layers: sequins, tiny beads, bits of fabric, plastic mesh and the like - with varied results - I may use those bits and bobs in other pieces in the future:

But often, the result was such a hard mass of plastic, I couldn't imagine using it in any way except possibly, sculpture!

It's not clear from the pic above - but this turned out be a lump of hard plastic that I wouldn't be able to get a needle through.

In the end, I took some pinks and greens and whites, (and little of the grey with sequins) cut them up, layered them and put them together in a little wall hanging. BSP *LOVES* it and thinks I should work with melted plastic all the time. It was fun - but that's enough for me. :)

2011-11-28T09:04:00.000-05:00

My little darling is now in the shop - the scanner got rid of "70 known threats" but there were 102 found!

I love that a service such as The Geek Squad exists, but they're not cheap! $314 up front (to get rid of the virus, and save my files) and possibly more when I pick her up. Sheesh!

However, life is short - as per The Holstee Manifesto, above, so I've found lots to do in the meantime. :)
I'll see you in a couple of days!

EEP!

2011-11-25T14:44:00.005-05:00

I'm not quite back from vacation yet, but I have been checking in online from time to time, and I clicked on link to see what Kate Middleton was wearing and my laptop blew up!!!

Okay, it didn't really blow up, but (literal) sirens went off, and I got all these notices from Norton, Windows Firewall and Windows Defender that said versions of "YOU ARE UNDER ATTACK".

And then Whoopi appeared and said:

(Okay, she didn't, but I seriously was expecting her to.) :D

That was last night about 7:30 p.m. and currently, my 'lil laptop (who I call BabyBelle) is STILL running a full PC scan and finding all kinds of issues.

I may have to bring her into the shop tomorrow but I'm not sure how long that sort of thing takes, so I may not have a post for you on Monday.

In the meantime, enjoy your fabulous post-turkey days (if you celebrate) and remember - be careful out there, 'cuz you could be in DANGER gurl!"

Leavin, on a jet plane...

2011-11-16T12:29:00.008-05:00

With apologies to John Denver. :) But before I go, I thought I'd show you this:

I couldn't pick up the gloriously glossy effect that this fabric has as I'm not yet that skilled a photographer - but it's really lovely. This is another fabric I made (36 x 24 or so) with the transfer print method that I'm demonstrating over at And Then We Set It On Fire this month.

The method was similiar to below - in the below case, I cut all my bit of painted fabric into roughly rectangular shapes and then glued them to another piece of paper paint side up.

(I had already written the on the backs of the papers their colours so I would know what the heck I was doing - as I was laying the down they all looked sort of blackish or blueish.) Anyway, when that was done,

I ironed for this "ta da" moment. (This printed part of the fabric is about 30 inches wide and 26 or so tall).

With the fabric before the jump rather than gluing the papers down I laid a piece down, ironed it, laid another piece on top, ironed it - etc. It was a much lengthier process which is when I came up with the gluing them down first idea!

Remember if you're trying this at home, that the key points are as follows:

1. I used pre-mixed transFER paints (not transperse paints) as well as disperse dyes (my preferred method) that I mixed myself to the following recipe:

tsp for a pale value
2 tsps for a medium value
4 tsps for a dark value; and
8 tsps for black

mixing the dye with 1/2 cup boiling water and a drop or two of synthrapol. For watercolour effects on paper, thinning with another 1/2 cup of water gave great results time after time, with no smell and virtually no mess. What mess there was, was easily cleaned up.

2. Using these mixtures and the pre-mixed transfer paints, I had the best results, by far, using art paper (from a sketchbook) rather than bond (photocopy) paper photocopy paper will work, but the heating process bonds the colour to the paper (cuz that's what it's made to do, after all) so you'll only get one or two good prints from it. I bought a couple of drawing pads and have been able to use that paper - so far, endlessly. (Each paper has had at least six kicks at the can.)

3. The higher the value of man-made material in the cloth, the better the result was, with 100% polyester "silk" turning out the best result

4. A very sheer polyester tulle had great results with printing on both sides showing through

5. These mixtures can also be mixed with thickener paste thinly mixed for paper, or using a thicker paste for printing, stamping or stencilling on paper very well.

6. Cutting out shapes and/or using resists gives really lovely results as well.

7. Put the painted paper face down on the cloth, and put another, bigger paper on top it all to keep the iron clean. While you're working, keep the iron moving, keep the iron HOT HOT HOT(no matter what the fabric requirements are - you have two layers of paper between the fabric and the iron to protect it)

9. the longer you press and/or the more pressure you apply when you press, the more brilliant your result is. (for me, with arthritic hands, elbows and shoulders, pressure was problematic, so if I wanted brilliant colour, I just increased the time).

So, the top piece, with it's lighter colours, was less pressure and time, and the bottom piece was done with more time.

That said, these pieces took about the same amount of time (over two hours). The top piece because the method of transferring the colour was more time consuming not, the bottom piece (glued method) because I applied the heat longer for more brilliant colour.

_______________________________________________________________________

So, I'm off on vacation again (spoiled girl that I am) this time to Savannah for a week, so I'll see you next Thursday or so, and hope you all have a good week in the meantime!

Cheers,

The beginnings of another painted quilt...

2011-11-14T14:35:00.001-05:00

I thought I'd try painting on silk twill again - only this time, I used fabric paints rather than watercolours. It's nearly dry in the pic above, so I'll be setting it aside soon for quilting. (But maybe first I'll fix the persepctive on that rail fence - maybe thicken it up and add some more leaves!)

However, to get to the how to - I started with about 1/4 tsp. white fabric paint and added just a drop of azure blue to about a 1/4 tsp base extender.

Mixed up, it looked like this. A lovely pale greeny blue. I forgot to take pics as I went along (I got so into what I was doing) - but on the cloth it looked like white, with just the slightest hint of blue - which is what I wanted for the clouds.

Then I used my handy dandy mini colour wheel to mix up some other colours.

A blue-er blue for the sky (remember, with fabric paints, all colours look wayyyyy more intense on the pallete than they'll end up on your fabric - but do some test swatches to get more comfortable.) Here are from left red/orange/blue (for those burgundy orangey leaves) copenhagen blue and goldenrod for a green, goldenrod and azure blue for another green, and just plain straight from the bottle green - all were mixed with base extender to produce:

Which were all of the leaves. Unfortunately, I just mixed as I went to make the browns and the greys, which was really dumb of me because now I have to figure out how to make some more grey, greige and beige that matches my already existing fence. (gulp!)

Wish me luck on that, and btw, how are all of you?

Hope you had a good weekend!

Always a bridesmaid...

2011-11-10T09:55:00.006-05:00

.....never a bride.

The third time I've thrown my hat into the ring, and the third time I didn't win. *cue the "whah, whah, whah" music*

I'm happy (?) to announce that Off to Oz - my entry in the Generation Q Magazine's Scrap Splat Challenge, placed second. Congrats to Flaun Cline on her win. (Her quilt really is quite lovely.)

But, can I just say: "AGAIN with the second place?" Perhaps one day I'll do a 27 Dresses type thing about all of my failed quilts.

Or maybe I'll just stop entering contests! *heh*

Talk soon!

Fern... a sketch

2011-11-07T01:21:00.003-05:00

Happy Monday!

I mentioned in September that I've been asked to guest host a month at And Then We Set It On Fire... and November is my month. The process we're learning together this month is transfer paint/disperse dye.

I posted the initial instructions last week, and this is my first finish using this technique.

I began by using this mottled yellowy brown background - which I created by first covering my paper with orange transfer paint, then adding stripes of yellow disperse dye over that, and over it all, droplets of brown dispere dye. I then smooshed all the colours together by making a pouncing motion with the flat of my hand. Once it was dry, I ironed it to my fabric. (To get a more intense colouring, I would have had to iron longer - but I wanted this mild version.)

Next, I used this orange/yellow combo (as above) and ironed sections of it over the mottled mustardy-yellow background.

This paper (now dry) is a combination of greens. The same disperse dye green, "au naturel" on the left, mixed with a little black on the right and a little blue on the blackish looking streak/drips on top. (All the mixing was done while wet.) I have to say, this particular paper is my favourite - it produces a nice yellow green, a brilliant blue-green and a leaf green - all in the same paper! I think I've used it on every single piece of fabric I've produced for the Fire tutorials (and that's about 30 pieces of fabric - so far! - which goes to show how many times you can re-use these papers.)

I got a fern from the garden and used it as a resist before laying different sections of the green paper above all over it. ( By the way - when ironing - I've been using a padded surface, a piece of craft paper, my fabric, the transfer dye paper, and then tracing paper over that to protect the iron - and the iron has to be dry, hot and constantly moving with good pressure to get good results.)

After quilting, I added some pastel dye sticks, watercolour dye crayons and a gold leaf pen to enhance, and then decided to add some beads - for once leaving them on!

And that was it! Big fun - I highly recommend it. :)

Playing...

2011-11-03T09:20:00.002-04:00

So, at the beginning of October, I was picking up supplies (dye stuff and things for my learning/teaching guest posting over at And Then We Set It On Fire), and there were a few other things I popped into my bag as well that I thought might be fun to play with - among them some discharge paste.

I'd never used it before but thought a piece of cloth like the above one would be perfect for an experiment. It was a double- fail dyeing experiment - failed in that it didn't turn out anything like what I was shooting for, and doubly failed in that it was a BORING fail. (Could there be a worse failure?)

So, discharge paste to the rescue and then ...

Ta dah!

In the pic above this one, I had already started using some discharge paste in the left hand corner - and liking the results, I went to town on it. I used a template that I had for assorted swirly curlicue things, and using them in whole and in part, I carefully discharged all over this piece.

I'm showing you the back because strangely, the effect was more obvious on the lighter side of the fabric than the darker side. I have no explanation for that, but as I conduct futher experiments with discharge paste, I'll let you know.

The two green bits are where I used the technique of adding some colour to the discharge paste so that it removes colour and puts it in at the same time.

I think this piece will be quite fun quilted up and embellished - and since the curlicues are so baroque, maybe I'll even go wild and add some beading, that will actually STAY on the quilt which would be a nice change as every single time I've beaded something so far, I end up taking them off.
So, that's my "play" for today!

GIVEAWAY RESULTS!

2011-11-01T14:37:00.001-04:00

I just realized I said I'd post this today, so I wrote all your names down on little pieces of paper, folded them up in equal sizes and asked my co-worker to pick one.

She picked ::drumroll::

Heidi said...: I wasn't totally interested until I read that blurb! LOL! Very intriguing now!

So Heidi, shoot meet an email with your snail mail addy and I'll be sending you a gifty! :)

Blogtoberfest Day Thirty-One! (and giveaway reminder)

2011-10-31T07:42:00.002-04:00

Phew!

Blogtoberfest is over! One month of posting every day, and today is the last day!

It was actually a very useful exercise for me. It helped me to be disciplined about my process and my work - knowing that I had to provide content every day forced me to get into my sewing room nearly every day. And that's never a bad thing!

In fact, it can only be a good thing.

And so, in one month, I produced:

Transracial Adoption

November

My Charley Harper quilt

In the Pink

Two wood quilts (I'll just show one here)

Erosion

Off To Oz

and Winnie.

NINE finished pieces!!! For some people, that's not very much, but for me (who has a full time day job and a family), that's an extraordinary amount of finished work in just 31 days.

I won't promise to produce that much work in a month again (sacrifices were made); but it was good to know that I can, with sufficient motivation. I've also decided that I should be more discplined about spending time in my sewing room - spending at least 1/2 an hour 4 times per week there.

I also gained 13 new friendly people (welcome to you all - I hope you enjoy being here).

So "Blogtoberfest" was nothing but a success for me!

For my regular readers - I'll be getting back to my normal pace now - posting 2 to 3 times per week - but maybe I'll produce a finish more frequently than 2 to 3 times per month from now on. :)

Don't forget about the Giveaway, and Happy Halloween!

GIVEAWAY - The Devil's Puzzle by Clare O'Donohue

2011-10-30T12:43:00.003-04:00

I don't know if you've been reading Clare O'Donohue's "Someday Quilts" series, but if you haven't, you've been missing out. But don't feel bad - I didn't know I was either!

The publisher contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would be interested in doing a giveaway of this book, and I said "Sure!" I mean, we all like givaways, right? When she sent me two copies (one for me, and one to give away) I started reading my copy and really liked it!

I pretty much only read on the way back and forth to work, and only if I get a seat - so you can imagine I don't read a lot. But this book is nice light reading, fun and entertaining, so I was quite disappointed if I didn't get a chance to read it on any given day.

I also wanted to make an oversized Devil's Puzzle quilt block for use in a tote bag or some such, but you know what, it turns out that a Devil's Puzzle quilt block is the very devil to make! (And y'all know that I suck at block making generally, anyway.)

So I found this picture of one that I posted instead. lol

Anyway, I also wanted to finish the book before I gave it away so I could honestly say I'd read the book, and I finished it last night.

Here's a blurb from the Amazon site:

After their quilting retreat upstate, the Someday Quilts ladies return to Archers Rest to prepare for the town's big anniversary celebration. But their plans are unexpectedly derailed by the discovery of a human skeleton in Nell's grandmother's backyard-making Eleanor the prime suspect in a murder. But a skeleton isn't the only thing that's long been buried. When a wave of vandalism raises fears that the town's bygone history of witchcraft has been reawakened, secrets are unearthed that could change life in Archers Rest forever.

Oooh! You've got to read it now, right? :)

You don't need to be a follower for this one: leave a comment today or tomorrow and I'll announce the winner on Tuesday, November 1.

Happy Sunday!

Winnie

2011-10-29T08:41:00.011-04:00

This is Winnie. Winnie's mommy named her Winnifred, but she hates that name, so her friends call her Winnie (you can call her Winnie too.) In addition to having bad taste in names, Winnie's mom is a witch. So Winnie has to wear silly clothes like orange and black striped tights, and has to learn how to ride a broom... and do you SEE a dog in this picture? NO. Winnie is allergic to cats and would LOVE a dog, but noooooooooooo, Mommy says "Witch's have cats. That's they way it's always been."

So Winnie plays with the neighbour's dog whenever she gets a chance. The neighbour, by the way, is named Lisa. Now THAT'S a pretty name (says Winnie.)

Anyway - if you'd like to learn how to make Winnie - the instructions are after the jump!

Normally, I would make this into a two parter - but given it's Halloween and nearly time for Winnie to shine, I thought I'd do it all in one go.

I started with this "colouring sheet" from Cart Before The Horse

And used the colouring sheet as a template and traced her parts onto tracing paper in order to use them as a pattern ....

and made my decisions about what colours to use, fused the bits (this was all made of scraps of course - in fact, in a lot of cases, scraps of already fused fabric!) and then used my pattern to cut the bits out.

I free-hand cut her legs, 'cuz how hard can that be, right? :)

For her, face, a little fugitive media got thrown in -

Dark blue dye crayon for her iris, light blue pastel for her outer eye, a mircon pen for outlining, and I made a boo-boo in that picture - I also used a bright pink dye crayon for her mouth - which I didn't try to "draw" - I just made a little splooch of pink and outlined with those pink and red markers.

As you probably noticed in the pic above as compared to this one, I decided to outline her in black using more of my fused scraps. But when I was done that, something was still missing... her collar looked too bare.

So I gave her a little bow.

I also made her cute little shoes which didn't come from the pattern - but I thought she wouldn't enjoy walking around on stumps - after all, her life is hard enough!

If you'd like to make Winnie - please feel free to click/print on that colouring sheet - s/he had offered it for free (only please don't sell the result as is usual in these cases).

After I'd made her a little hanging sleeve, she was done. A fun front door decoration, that took about an hour and 1/2 from start to finish (and that was mostly quilting time). If you make one, please link up here so we can all see!

Enjoy the day!

Welcome to Kit Lang Fiber Art

2011-10-28T07:20:00.012-04:00

and The Bloggers' Quilt Festival! I'm Kit Lang, a developing fiber artist, in Toronto, Canada, and I'm glad to have you here!

Thank you to Amy at Amy's Creative Side for hosting this festival, and thanks to all the lovely sponsors who help to support it!

Today, I thought I'd share with you a quilt I made called "Off To Oz!" that is completely out of my usual comfort zone, but one that I'm really happy with just the same. So, how did I end up making a quilt that wasn't what I usually do? Well see, what happened was...

Generation Q Magazine (have you heard about them? They're this great e-zine and online community for modern/contemporary quilters - you should check them out!) Anyway - GenQ had a challenge they called the Scrap Splat Challenge:

the brief was simple - Thomas Knauer would sent us 40 scraps, and we had to use them all in the completed piece. Long before the scraps came to me in the mail, I had two designs. Which design I chose would depend on what the scraps looked like when they arrived.

Well, when I saw the monkey butt (front and centre in the picture above); my design was chosen! (Process in this post.) And that was it! It was such a relaxed challenge; one that I really enjoyed, with a fun result.

Thanks for coming by, and make sure to go and see as many quilts as you can in this fabulous festival.

And for my next trick...

2011-10-27T07:04:00.001-04:00

I began by auditioning colours. First up:

How funny. When I was pulling the solids from my stash, I was sure that that coral pink was going to be the one. But even though it works, I'm not totally loving it. So, up next:

Well now. See, I was quite surprised by this. That turquoise and teal blue were way more interesting than the coral.

So then I thought I'd try it with a yellow green. Nope!

After I made my decision, I fused all of my squares,

and drew some flowers,

and whoa! Those red stripes across the orange on the black of my ironing pad - that looks awesome! A quilt in itself!

And, what the heck is THAT? lol

Find out tomorrow! :)

Come and take a walk with me....

2011-10-26T10:05:00.003-04:00

I had all my posts for this week planned and just as I was ready to hit "publish" this morning, I said to BSP, "Is it Wednesday or Thursday today?" I was going to publish Thursday's post. And then I couldn't find my Wednesdy post. But it turns out I forgot about Wednesday. Poor Wednesday!

So would you like to take a walk with me instead?

We'll start by walking over this little bridge - perhaps we can stop on the bridge, and look into the water, searching for turtles and little fishes and look at the watermoss on the rocks waving in the current. We can talk about things quilty or not, or sing.

Once we cross the bridge, we'll go into the trees, following a path that's just barely there - or wandering under the trees, being drawn in deeper and deeper. (Don't worry, if you're scared, I'll hold your hand, and we'll be sure to find our way back.)

We can play hide and seek amongst the trees, look up in wonder at their trunks:

Or dance like a wood nymph!

And then we could have a picnic in a leafy glade...

before making our way home, tired but happy.

Thanks for coming on my walk with me!

Tomorrow, I'll show you the beginning of the construction of my quilt for The Bloggers' Quilt Festival which begins on Friday. Are you ready? I am!

Erosion

2011-10-25T00:01:00.022-04:00

You know, for a first effort at painting on cloth, I'm pretty chuffed with this result! I was just kind of playing with the paint on the cloth, trying to figure out what it would do - not really trying to achieve anything in particular, so when the "plain" cloth as it was, was so clearly meant to be this ...

all I needed were my charcoal sticks (the bottom row in the pic above) and some pastels (top middle section).

And of course, some thread!

As I added the charocal and pastels to the piece and it revealed itself more fully to me, I thought about time. How it moves, how we think we are standing still in it, and yet it changes us without our even knowing, moving us along to a place that's new. If we resist that movement, standing firm in the place we've claimed, it will wear us down until we no longer exist.

But if we embrace it, let it take us where it will; we will all be made softer, purer with age ... and the kindness of erosion.

Winner of "Name That Quilt" contest and new work...

2011-10-24T07:44:00.000-04:00

So, I've continued to work with fabric paint, this time without the soy wax. I ended up with this:

But I didn't leave it like that of course, I went to work on it with the tools you see under it in my drafting table (yes, those would be fugitive media items!)....

and after some judicious application of charcoal and pastels, I painted over it with the 50/50 blend of base extender and hung it up to dry. Finished piece tomorrow!

And as for the winner of the tote bag and the name that quilt contest:

Shimmerwood Forest wins! Email me at kit.lang.ltd@gmail.com with your colour choices and your snail mail address!

And Ms Lottie - you too win a prize, only because you had me giggling so hard. I very nearly named the quilt "Robert" because it tickled me so much!

So you win one of my little lunch bags - they're plastic lined with a drawstring top and button closure.

Let me know what colourway you'd like at the same email address above.

Congrats to the winners!

Three hundred, eighty-five dollars and forty-six cents worth of thread!

2011-10-23T00:51:00.004-04:00

Wanna see what $385.46 worth of thread looks like?

Nope, that's not all of it....

And THAT's not all of it (love those luscious turquoise blues - one's a heavy mercerized cotton, and the other is a poly);

This lovely gold/brown/copper set

this mixed soft set,

this lovely grey/silver set; and

and these metallics.

Here they are all together!

As you can see, they've been temporarily installed on one section of my new peg board which has not been installed in my sewing room yet (which is wowzer/holy smackeral crazed right now due to the half packed, half un-packed totally disorganized state in preparation for full packing due to the new floor going in) (phew!) - anyway - the peg boards will go in once the walls are painted.

But in the MEANTIME - I went to The Creativ Festival today, can you tell? lol I go every spring and fall and stock up on thread and fusing products (which are both hard to find and expensive when you do, here); and I was hoping there would be an Aurifil representative there, but no such luck; so I bought my usual - about half WonderFil thread and about 1/2 Gamut threads (which may both be Canadian-only thread manufacturers - I don't know that, but if you can't find those threads where you are, that may be the reason why).

Anyway, what I like about BOTH of these companies, is that though all of my sewing machines are "fussy" about what thread they'll use, the one thing all seven have in common is that they all like these two brands.

Wow, I can talk a lot about thread, can't I? I'll stop now!

See you tomorrow. :)

Through the subway window...

2011-10-22T07:00:00.000-04:00

Whether you work in or out of the house, what do YOU see on your way to work?

Link up or speak up in the comments. :)

(And don't forget our name that tune contest - I think I'm going to have to give away TWO prizes because I'm so tickled by the names so far.)

Friday Smalls.... and why I love Friday (in case we're raptured)

2011-10-21T07:33:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure whether I've ever shown you this little guy - it's a quilted tissue cover I made to go with those little paintings - together they rest on one of the walls of my cubicle area. The black background is a heavy (HEAVY) satin, and you may recognize the bird as being cut out from the immensely popular "bird" fabric that Ikea had a couple of years ago. I still have a precious yard of that left.

And here's my list of why I love Fridays:

(card from Blyberg.net).

Next week, I'll have a finished art quilt to show you, a finished quilt, a fabric painting technique and one last giveaway (a fun one, I promise!); over the weekend I'll do a couple of slice o'lifes - should be a great week.

See you tomorrow! Or not, if we're raptured... if we are, thanks for the memories! ;)

Wood quilt number two - and a GIVEAWAY!

2011-10-20T09:12:00.001-04:00

Hey check me out! I accidentally made a wooden Christmas quilt! :) How does one make a Christmas quilt accidentally? Well let's find out, shall we?

You start by painting your plywood base flat black:

and then, you start playing with this:

Which is a sheet of tin.

I started out by seeing what it could do, and discovered that if I cut out triangles and then cut really thin strips into it, they curled up all by themselves, like this:

(that's actually a couple of said ribboned triangles put together).

So I painted my aqua swoops and used my silver tape to outline them, and then started laying my triangles that hadn't been beribboned on the background (I wasn't thinking "trees" at all, by the way), I was just laying them out in a pattern that pleased me.

and then I started decorating my triangles with washers, and bird wire:

with which I made a saucy/naughty triangle:

and by the time I added my little tin curlicues and some silver leaf dots and some big silver-coloured circle thingys (when I went to the hardware store I just bought things I thought I might be able to use - with no thought for what they actually were or how they were supposed to be used - or you know, their names!)....

So, by the time, I was done all that and looked at it, I realized I'd made a really big, wooden Christmas card! But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what to call it.

Which is where YOU come in. Can you help me name my Christmas card?

And if you pick a name that I like - as a reward, I will give you an iteration of this:

Now I know you might be thinking, "Whatevs, Kit - that's just plain quilted tote bag" - and you're kind of right.

But if you've been with me a long time, you also know that in the last two years, I've made about FIFTY quilted tote bags of my own design, and this one is my favourite one. Not because of the fabrics, but because it's perfect.

LOL

No, no, I'm not overspeaking. It's the perfect size, it's the perfect length to fit comfortably on my shoulder with a purse and the bag, it has two inner pockets to tuck my shoes in for work without getting the rest of the stuff in the bag dirty, it has room for my laptop in the non-pocketed section, the outside has a pocket for a book and another pocket for an umbrella (perfect for communting) - seriously, it's the best tote bag I've ever made, and despite the fact that it rarely goes with what I'm wearing, I use it every. single. day.

And if you pick a name for this quilt that I like, I will make one in your choice of colour scheme, just for you!

So, if you're a follower (one I can see over there ------->) leave me your best name (or names) for the quilt in the comments, and if I pick your name, you win the tote bag!

ETA: leave comments today or actually, through the weekend, and I'll announce a winner on Monday, October 24.
Gimme your names!

I Wood, Would You?

2011-10-19T00:47:00.004-04:00

So, after I painted the plywood background, I laid window screening over it (my "batting) and held it down with the metal tape. Then I took all those little bits of balsa wood, painted them, decorated them and laid them on the batting - more - after the jump:

I painted the balsa wood with simple craft paints from the dollar store, and then embellished some of the painted squares with manipulated copper wire, copper round thingys (don't be intimidated by my technical jargon);

or upholstrery tacks. I then further decorated them with more paint and a gold leafing pen.

The end result is a 30 x 34" 'quilt" made out of wood and wire and mesh that still looks quite "quilt-like". I'm pleased with it as a first attempt and just finished the "real" piece for the challenge (which I'll post tomorrow - and which comes with a giveaway).

In the meantime, I quite like my "unusual materials" quilt for what it is - and hope you do to too. :)

Okay, so I know you'll be asking....

2011-10-18T07:47:00.002-04:00

"What the heck are you doing with this stuff?"

Well, Quilt Art.com has this email list - art quilters from around the world are on it, and we all talk to each other about whatever we feel like. :) It ranges from the nature of art to personal stuff and everywhere else - but the reason I have this stuff, is I'm participating in a challenge on the group - to make a quilt from unusal materials - no fabric allowed.

So this is some balsa wood cut into 3.5 inch squares, and after the jump is some metal tape and mesh screen....

This is a big panel of light plywood, drawn on and then scored to prevent the paint from running,

And this is the wood painted.

Tommorrow - you'll see how I put these (and other) elements together, to make an unusual materials quilt.

'Til then....

Feeling in the pink!

2011-10-17T01:26:00.001-04:00

Hi all, hope you had a great weekend.

I had a working weekend, trying to complete some upcoming challenges due in the next couple of weeks, some things on my "to do" list, and holy cow - The Bloggers Quilt Festival is in TWO WEEKS.

(And I don't have my quilt done for it yet. But I'm not panicking, nooooooooooooooooooo. )

So, one of the things I worked on this weekend was finishing up this quilt called "My Little Sweet Pea". Although it's quite a simple twin sized quilt (with a rather long name) I'm still rather proud of it as it's made of all my hand dyed fabric.

I did it myself I did! The centre blocks are made from my first experiments with parfait dyeing, chronicled here.

And as you probably know, I've been working on it ever since, whenever I'm "in the mood". The last time I had it out, I realized that there was only another hour of work left, and promised myself I get it done before the end of October.

Yay me, I did!

Early fall....

2011-10-16T04:03:00.002-04:00

It's been an unseasonably warm fall here, so the leaves are only beginning to turn when they ought to have fallen off completely by this time.

Not that I'm complaining, mind - but I was hoping to get some "fall colour" shots for you. Instead, hear are some "early fall colour" pics I took last weekend when we were out and about... some of them will certainly be inspiration for future quilts!

I took about 20 pictures of these ruins for instance...

And about 50 different angles of this church, which definitely feels like a series in the making.

Taking this pic was taking my life in my hands - literally - I'm allergic to bees and wasps, and those red vines were full of them. But that's what a zoom lens is for. Avoiding bees!

Hope you're having a great weekend.

This week I'll have a couple of finishes, some weird and wacky, and another giveaway.

Should be fun! :)

Guerilla Art

2011-10-15T01:45:00.002-04:00

I live in an area that is "gentrifying", which is probably a fairly terrifying thing for the working poor who live here, as a neighbourhood that gentrifies never works out well for them. :(

The advantages for a family like ours though, is that the neighourhood is affordable, there are lots of amenities at our doorstep while still having a "family" feel, and there are all kinds of funky/cool things going on here. Real estate agents call our neighbourhood "vibrant" . I must say, it's a lot of fun to live here.

You can't throw a stick without hitting an art gallery or a bistro and unusual home-grown clothing stores abound, but it's still quite mixed use. There are some quite well off folks in the neighbourhood, lots of middle class people, working poor and some down and outer's all living quite happily together.

There's a women's shelter around the corner from the organic butcher, which is across the street from a park; where most Saturdays people from the neighbourhood play live music and kids play in the leaves, while other folks walk their dogs, or stop in at the neighbourhood coffee shop for a cuppa.

Next to the butcher is a wool shop where most days a group of ladies are knitting in their circle, which is beside an Indian take-away, which abuts an art gallery, which is beside a large applicance repair shop which is next to a high-end pet supply store.

Within walking distance, there's an assisted living centre, a library, a retirement home, several very upscale restaurants,

a diner, a run-down bodega that has just about everything, a shop that specializes in eyebrows only (which never seems to have an empty chair!); a second-hand goods shop, a tea shop, a charity shop, an adult puppet theatre that puts on shows four nights a week (no, I'm not kidding!);

two vets, a beach, a bird sanctuary, three big box stores, four shops that sell funky clothing made by the proprietors, and a consignment shop that sells designer-only clothing. And did I mention a bistro, pub, bar or high-end restaurant every few feet?

I think it's because four companies have their film studios a stone's throw from our neighbourhood that it's so artsy and mixed use. Perhaps as a result of this funky/cool vibe, one of the really fun things that happen here is Guerilla Art. It's everywhere, and as is the nature of it, constantly changing.

This was a recent installation. What do you think the artist was trying to say?

Charley Harper time...

2011-10-14T07:29:00.001-04:00

A few/several months ago, I was participating in a Charley Harper QAL of sorts - hosted by Ethne at Flaming Stitches. She had gotten permission from the estate of Charley Harper for us to either copy directly or be inspired by his work.

I made two pieces - one inspired by and one a copy, and said at the time, I had one more to make. Well, here it is! How to, after the jump:

I made it in the same manner as the others, except that this time, after I fused the fabric, I drew the reverse image directly on the paper backing, and cut them out, rather than make a pattern and trace it. Why waste the step?

For the corn cob, I cut out strips of already fused fabric and then further cut them into little square-ish shapes, and then placed them by hand, using a tweezer.

After I had placed all the bits on my pieced background, I ironed them down (with a sheet of paper between the cloth and the bits) and when it had cooled, pinned it to my batting and backing.

And then I quilted the dog out of it.

So here are the other two:

This one's the direct copy:

This one's inspired by:

And this one is a blend of the two. All three will be framed and will hang in our bedroom.

Aiyeeee!!!!

2011-10-13T07:25:00.000-04:00

So, yesterday, I showed you my latest piece, drying happily - I was quite pleased with it and was looking forward to working with the piece when it was rinsed and dried.

I mean, it looks so ... full of potential, right?

Well, as is my usual form, I experiment first, and look for directions later if my experiment didn't work out.

It didn't work out. *heh*

See, after I happily painted it, I thought "I wonder how you set the colour? I mean, if you heat it, the soy wax will melt all over the place, not to mention ' Hi honey. Sorry about the house being burned to the ground. See, I put this wax filled thing in the microwave and...." lol

So, I let it sit for 24 hours and hoped for the best. Broke up the soy wax and rinsed the rest off under hot water. And that was the sad, sad result.

*lets take a moment to mourn*

So, then I called the store where I bought the materials and they told me you have to roll it up in paper and steam it - over a pot of boiling water or with a clothes steamer.

I guess I'll do that NEXT time.

*heh*

Experiments and Play

2011-10-12T07:24:00.002-04:00

So, yesterday, I showed you a sneak peek of some fabric paints. I've been wanting to play with fabric paints for quite some time, and because of Blogtoberfest, I now have to produce a lot of content, I thought I'd give it a shot and see what happens.

As you can see, I started out with some silk twill, a stretcher frame and some silk pins. Unsurprisingly, I began by stretching a piece of silk twill over the frame, pinned it down with the silk pins, and then used:

Soy wax and a tjanting tool, with which I drew my design on the silk. The soy wax can be seen in the picture above as all of the gray areas. I'm sorry I didn't think to take pictures as I went along, but you'd be surprised how a tool full of molten hot wax flushed thoughts of photography from my mind! ;)

and when the soy wax was dry, I used these fabric paints, diluted with base extender, to fill in my doodles.

It's drying now, let's see how it turns out tomorrow after it's been rinsed and set...

November

2011-10-11T01:15:00.002-04:00

So you may remember that I was working on this piece a couple of weeks ago. First, I hand-painted my fabrics (a post on how to achieve this result is coming soon), but I was struggling with the leaf issue - I wanted it to look leaf-blown, but couldn't decide which leaf worked best...

I made a couple of different styles in a couple of different fabrics...

But finally decided that the "November-ness" of "November" was best expressed by no leaves at all.

Just a cold, Northern wind...

Oh, and the winner of two charm packs of Tula Pink's Neptune is:

Hiyacinth, who said "Terrific Tula Pink designs. They're so intriguing! " Congratulations Hiyacinth, email me your address and I'll send them along to you.

I'll be doing another giveaway very soon, so stay tuned...

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

2011-10-10T02:45:00.000-04:00

Today is a day for golf, turkey, playing with friends and family.

But recently, I've been playing with this:

Stay tuned.

Oh! And don't forget - you still have time to enter the giveaway. But you have to do it on THIS post.

It's Sunday, so let's do a giveaway!

2011-10-09T10:53:00.002-04:00

COMMENTS CLOSED FOLKS.

Another givewaway soon.

I have two charm packs of Neptune by Tula Pink, which looks like this:

It's a very simple giveaway:

No bells, no whistles.

If you are a visible follower; i.e. I can see you over there in my followers gadget ---------->

Leave a comment on this post today or tomorrow, October 10, and I'll do a random draw for a winner, and announce it on Tuesday, October 11.

Cheers,

::YAWN:::

2011-10-08T10:07:00.000-04:00

Jack says: "Is it morning already? Don't you want to go back to bed?"

I said, "Great idea, Jack!"

See YOU all later. :)

Happy Friday!

2011-10-07T02:24:00.001-04:00

Instead of writing about me today, I thought I'd write about someone else - or else's, actually, Men Who Quilt!

I'm talking about these fine gentlemen quilters...

All of whom are participating in the Men Who Quilt contest being hosted by Pigtails and Quilts.

You can vote for your favourite one by going HERE, clicking through the thumbs, choosing the one you like and emailing pigtalesandquilts with your choice.

And you can be a winner too, by stopping by her blog on a daily basis, because she's doing a daily giveaway too!

And hey, speaking of giveaways - I'm going to be doing a tiny one this weekend so pop in on Saturday or Sunday and see what's cooking! :)

Finished! (Fugitive Media part 2)

2011-10-06T00:06:00.005-04:00

As promised, here is the finished product of my first fugitive media experiments. It's called "Transracial Adoption" (explanation for the name at the end of the post.)

But now, to the explanation of the "how".

The original "finish" had these brassy-gold beads sewn around the edge.

But as always happens when I add beading, I didn't like it when it was done. It didn't add anything and in fact, I think took away from the lovely hand-dyed fabrics

Hey, speaking of those fabrics, they're the ones from THIS series of posts. But back to the beads, I never like them when I add them. I think I'm just not a bead kind of girl. Which is pretty shocking, given how much of a magpie I am.

But speaking of shiny things, something I did add and love was a little gold at the tips of the petals and to highlight some of the lines/veins in them.

I also used ordinary gel pens to add a little more definition with a good result,

And the final touch was to add some script with this Micron pen,

Which is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago:

Transracial Abduction

Lishanthi tells me
my blouse and earrings remind her of "home"
and smiles,
a soft light in her eyes.

I smile too,
warm in her afterglow
while she speaks of home:

food and comfort
and cousins both big and little who play
outside

it's small

but large with mama and aunties
who laugh and scold and call
“Come in this house now!”

and generations stretch out behind them like trees,
like afternoon shadows,

like a road to her heart's beginning.

And as she talks,
love runs through every word.

I nod and smile, and laugh along,

alone .

I wished I knew,
and felt lonely for a home I never had.

Kit Lang (c) 2008

When I first made the flower, I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but as soon as I combined it with my hand-dyed fabrics, I immediately "saw" my poem, and knew that it would reflect the beauty and warmth of Lishanti's version of "home"; while the dark shadows of the purples and lilacs expressed my longing for one like hers.

In a way, I'm sorry that this piece is just a journal quilt (or "sketch" as I call them); because it feels like a bit of a waste to have used those fabrics that I loved so much. On the other hand, because it is a sketch, there's so much room for development, so I could do a series that would evolve - both the techniques and the story.

This piece also caused a fair amount of acrimony in our household - both because of it's subject matter and BSP's firm assertion that "art should be pretty". BSP added that no one would want something "so depressing" to hang in their home. (!)

After a couple of days, we agreed to disagree, and I'm sure you'll see me revisit this subject again in the future. With or without BSP's stamp of approval. ;)

Slice 'O Life - one

2011-10-05T01:39:00.021-04:00

My usual practice is that before I go to sleep on the nights I'm going to post, I get into bed with my mini laptop: watch some t.v., upload photos and compose a post.

The other day I was doing just that, when Maggie-May (on the right) suddenly became very interested in the fact that my pyjama bottoms had a tie.

As she played, Mitzie (on the left) was curious about what Maggie-May was playing with, so she came to "investigate".

When I explained to them that I had to get back to work, these were the expressions I got.

Butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, right?

Fugitive Media - Pastels

2011-10-04T05:07:00.001-04:00

ETA: WE HAVE LIFT OFF!!!
(You should be able to leave comments now. Sorry for the inconvenience)

Yesterday, we were talking about fugitive media. The piece I was working on was hanging up to dry, and while it was doing so, I started working with some charcoal pastels.

For those of you not familiar with them, this is what they look like. For those of you who are, be happy in your knowledge. ;) In front of them are a couple of charcoal pencils.

(I apologize in advance for the quality of these photos - I was working outside on a beautiful fall day and the sun was either shining so brightly on my work that it was impossible to get good photos, or it was leaving me over the hours. )

I started out by sketching out my tree and ground with a charcoal pencil for my outline,

and then I used the sides of my charcoal pastel to sort of brush in the leaf area of my tree. I used all of my shades of green, the darker greens on the inner branches and the bottom of the tree;

the medium tones in the middle, and the lighter greens on the top of the tree and the left side, from where the sun is coming. I even put a little yellow on the very top.

and to do all of that, I used my very expensive blending tool...

When it was "done", I once again painted it with a 50/50 blend base extender and water.

Something different tomorrow - and on Thursday, you'll find out what happened to that flower!

'Till then...

Fugitive Media (watercolour pencil crayons)

2011-10-03T07:00:00.012-04:00

Last month's technique at And Then We Set It On Fire (a group surface design blog I'm part of) was Fugitive Media - where you use items normally meant for paper, on fabric.

I started with this piece of fabric I had dyed with procion MX dyes back in May. This was my second attempt at producing a mandella.
I thought it looked quite a bit like a flower, so I decided to use this piece to produce a flower using fugitive media. The first thing I did was....

Add some blue water pencil-crayon at the tips.

Then I added some green to the blue. You'll note I haven't done any blending whatsoever, because I knew that would happen naturally once I "painted" it with water.

I enhanced the pink lines that you see in the photo before this, with a fuschia water pencil-crayon,

and the added medium charcoal at the already feathered ends. Then I drew in some actual petals with a watercolour crayon (as opposed to a watercolour pencil crayon).

Now, when all of that was done, I blended the colours by "painting" it with water. And then in order to change it from a "fugitive" media to a "permanent" media, I painted it with a 50/50 mix of base extender and water, and hung it up to dry.

Here it is, hanging up to dry. When it's dry, I'll iron it to set what I've done so far. But of course, this is only the beginning!

More to come...

Blogtoberfest Day Two! (and Giveaway news)

2011-10-02T07:47:00.004-04:00

So, I thought I'd introduce myself to any new readers who are here for Blogtoberfest.

I'm Kit, and I make quilts to tuck up under as well as textile art. This is a process blog, so I show the "how" of what do, a heck of a lot of "in progress", my mistakes along the way (and you'll see a lot of those!) a couple/few finishes (depending on how inspired I've been that month) and sometimes I talk about the "why" of what I do too.

As I usually only blog a couple of days a week, to fill in a bit this month, I'll probably show you some inspiration, send you some cool places, and talk a bit about my daily life. Oh, and I'm doing at least ONE giveaway and I may do two or three or...? Keep coming back cuz I'll just throw them out as a surprise on any given day.

One of the things you also need to know, is that I rarely work on the same thing for a sustained period of time. I get bored easily, so instead of torturing myself by working on someting I've lost interest in, I move on to something else, and come back later.

These blocks are one such project. I originally started working on them back in January, and recently had them out to try the "Quilt As You Go" method, supberbly explained HERE by Mari Quilts at The Quilting Edge. Be sure to read and follow her instructions if you want to do this method, as I am TERRIBLE at following instructions. I see an idea and take off. It's only later that I come back and say "Umm, so what was I really supposed to do, 'cuz that didn't turn out so well." *hah!*

Of course, sometimes it turns out very well, and I don't have to go back.

But other times... *ahem*

Speaking of, I am sincerely not liking where this is going.

For my regular readers, we'll get back to our ordinary programming in November, but in the meantime, I hope you'll still pop in from time to time.

Cheers,

Blogtoberfest!

2011-10-01T11:26:00.002-04:00

I'm doing a crazy thing - I blame Deborah O'Hare!

I've joined Blogtoberfest!

A post a day every day of October.

*Ahem!*

Here's post one - more (and more substantive post) tomorrow.

Cheers,

So, about those trees...

2011-09-30T09:51:00.004-04:00

When I last left you, we were looking at something like this....

Which ended up as the above - and that's nice, right?

But I wanted it to have that wind-blown look - like an early November day when it's wet, and gray and the last of the leaves are falling from the trees before winter sets in.

And so I need leaves, right?

I fused autumn coloured fabrics and proceeded to cut out a bajillion leaves in on so many colours, and then I laid them out in a way I thought best expressed the wind coming from the west, blowing them into drifts against the trunks and ironed them down and had a look.

Ruh-roh....

Some news... x 2!

2011-09-26T10:39:00.002-04:00

Several months ago (when I tried parfait dyeing) I mentioned that I got the idea from this great process blog called And Then We Set It On Fire where every month, someone shares a surface design technique, and then everyone who is part of the blog (plus readers who want to play along) try the technique and then post or share their results.

Some of you may have noticed that I added a link to and Then We Set It On Fire last week. That's cuz I was asked to be a regular contributor to it! My first post to the blog about Fugitive Media went up today.

And the second piece of new is....

My quilt, "Fractured"

is being featured today on Modern Day Quilts, a blog I love, for it's inspiration.

And just so there's something new for you to look at:

something I've been working on.

Sooooo.....

2011-09-23T00:04:00.004-04:00

Remember this from last year?

It had some problems. Even more problems than I thought it did now that I'm looking at it almost a year later.

At the time, I could see it needed some work, but couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong with it - so I decided that painting the background would help.

I ended up with this:

Oh, ayuh, that's a whole lot better. *heh*

Shockingly, I didn't like it much better, and I nearly decided to toss it - but then thought that maybe I could recycle parts of it.

Ah! Nowwwwwww we're getting somewhere!

More fabric painting...

2011-09-21T00:01:00.007-04:00

If you are friends with me on Facebook or are part of my network on Google Plus, you saw me excitedly posting last Saturday morning about popping bolt-upright in bed at 11:00 p.m. rushing to my studio and working on making some fabric.

And this was the result!

You see, I've had this piece in my mind's eye for several weeks - maybe even a couple of months, but I was pretty much stumped about how to acquire or make the background fabric. But on Friday night, I had the EUREKA!!!! moment - and I had to rush off and try it right that very minute.

By 2:00 a.m. the fabrics were washed and ironed, and then I couldn't resist pieceing them - so I cut them up and arranged and re-arranged and auditioned and arranged some more until it looked exactly the way I wanted it to.

I was a happy but tired Kit when I crawled back into bed at 5:00 a.m. - but this was the result:

and you know that's just the beginning.

Stay tuned!

Fractured

2011-09-19T10:18:00.006-04:00

So, remember the other day, I was talking about working on that wall quilt with the flowers here, here, here and here (and probably elsewhere) and how I was saying I wasn't sure that my fussing with it was going to be helpful in the end?

Well it wasn't. (Big cheesy grin.)

See, the more I worked on the placement, the more I realized that it just wasn't working. Stumped, I asked BSP for an opinion and what I got was "I don't get it." *heh*

So then I explained - "Juxtaposition of angles and curves!" - "Life arising from/despite the darkness!" - "A conversation about the tension created by man vs. nature!" "assorted other asshattery!" :D

BSP said "Yeah, yeah I get that. Those intellectual ideas make sense. But that's not what's coming through on your quilt. It just looks like a bunch of flowers you stuck on a a black background.

I sputtered while BSP circled my design wall.

"But that black all broken up with the green - now that's cool.You should make a quilt with just that stuff on it."

BSP wisely left and I stared at the pieces on my design wall, and looked at my photographs, pondered my sketches and pondered and puzzed 'till my puzzler nearly broke (to mis-quote Dr. Seuss); and realized BSP was right.

Don't you hate it when your spouse is right? DAG-NAB-IT!!!!!! ;)

Anyway...

I took out the damn flowers and pieced together my black velvet and green satin bits, and pondered the nature of mental health/mental break downs, what living in our fast-paced, compartmentalized lives does to our souls, why it is that self styled "non-artistic" spouses are so damn opinonated and why it is that when they're right, it's so damn annoying?*

And by the time I was done thinking about all of that, I had finished my latest wall quilt.

The fun thing is, the entire quilt is made completely out of scraps - even the batting is scraps pieced together. I don't think these pics don't do it justice, cuz you can't feel how luscious and cuddly all that velvet is, nor really see the quilting angles working against each other. But it's really lovely.

* As is my much Beloved Spouse.

TESTING - please help!

2011-09-15T12:14:00.002-04:00

EDITED TO ADD:

I need people who DON'T have gmail to try and comment please and thank you. :)

An online friend told me she can't make comments on my blog.

Please test it out - you can use this opportunity to ask me any question you may have wanted to and never got around to - and then let me know at my email address if you can't :

kit.lang.ltd@gmail.com

Thanks!

More work on that wall quilt

2011-09-14T07:38:00.003-04:00

Some of you may remember when I worked on this piece originally - back in July - I had gotten both bored and frustrated with how it was going, but after taking an extended break, I pulled it out this past week to have a go at it again.

I moved some things around and played with layout... but it still wasn't working for me.

*harrumph*

Stay tuned...

14/90 meets my finger

2011-09-12T00:17:00.004-04:00

Yes, that really is a 14/90 needle that I managed to sew THROUGH my finger.

The staff at the hospital described it as "cool", "interesting" and "weird"; said things like "I've never seen THAT before" and complimented me on my calmness. (I am, actually, remarkably calm in emergency situations.)

I love that the thread is still hanging out of the end of my finger. (Don't mind the horrible cuticles - I'm in serious need of a manicure, but it's going to have to wait.)

No bones were damaged (well, not seriously there's just a little bone bruising) and the flesh is healing well - the back of my finger is closed already and the puncture in my nail bed is beginning to.

However, this is still a cautionary tale - said finger now looks like this:

and it really was quite painful!

Please be careful AND PAY ATTENTION when pushing fiddly bits under your presser foot, rather than, like me, watching Buffy stake vampires.

That is all.

A Return to Traditional

2011-09-07T23:57:00.004-04:00

I think one of my very first posts on my blog was about my very first quilt, which I called "The Green One" not having been able to come up with a more clever name. That quilt was made out of all the scraps of all the light green fabrics I had saved over the course of 30 years of sewing, all with the idea that I would "make a quilt someday"

Of course, I had no idea how I was actually going to accomplish this, but eventually, the fateful day came when I decided that I had enough scraps to make my very first quilt. (As you can see, even then, I loved to work with a limited palette.)

Hard to believe that that quilt, made in April of 2008, would be what started it all. :)

Anyway - I had some further scraps left over and decided that I wanted to use them up, (including some green velvet that I had not used in the original quilt). (Yes, those really are the same scraps - it's just the lighting is really different!)

And the back is made out of a single piece of that green velvet - so the quilt is soft as buttah.

Although on that first quilt, I tried my first free motion quilting, (with the feed dogs up) and though I've spent the intervening years learning how to do intricate and beautiful FMQ - I just feel like channel quilting is more contemporary.

So, this little cutie, called "Stepping Stones" is 45 inches square, channel quilted and done.

Next week, I'll have some cool stuff to show you!

Fabulous weekend!

2011-09-06T14:55:00.002-04:00

In addition to being a long weekend, labour day weekend most often falls on my birthday. This year, I spent a lot of time in my sewing room, but for the most part, not sewing:

I was re-organizing my sewing room and stash, building furniture from Ikea for my sewing room (those dressers will be red soon, as will the dining table [six feet long!] I bought at a yard sale about a month ago), but I did find time for some sewing - namely those sewing machine covers at the back of my sewing room.

There are four machines I use often - three sewing machines plus my needle felter - I thought I had five machines in total - but shame on me - when I pulled everything out of the closet, I found two more! Oops! (Don't tell BSP!)

Anyway, I made covers for four of them out of this fun Alexander Henry fabric I bought. I only bought slightly more than a yard of it to get the full repeat - so little because I couldn't imagine what I might someday do with it, but I couldn't resist it.

And in between, I found time to work some more on a quilt, time for a romantic dinner, time with family, and golf with friends .

Later this week, I'll have a finish to show you.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Fun news!

2011-09-02T14:26:00.011-04:00

My quilt, "Of The Moment" is being featured over at Generation Q Magazine for their Saturday Feature. Are you familiar with them? Generation Q Magazine is the brain child of Jake Finch, Melissa Thompson Maher, Megan Dougherty and Scott Hansen. They're this great blogzine (also resource/community) for modern and contemporary quilters - if you don't know about them you should totally check them out. :) They have great articles of all kinds and fun giveaways too!

So, for those of you who haven't already seen this, welcome to my blog! I'm delighted to have you here. :)

When I conceived of this quilt, I remember thinking "I want to make a contemporary quilt - you know, something that's of the moment". And as I put these silks together in this particular configuration, I wondered whether this quilt was not only of the moment, but whether its design would stand the test of time.

That was in mid 2010 - about a year ago (my hostas look the same, but bigger) and I still love this quilt just as much as I did then - but a year is too soon to see whether it's time tested or not. :)

The back won't wear as well I don't think - all things "wonky" were all the rage at the time I designed the quilt, so I decided to wonk it a bit - I wouldn't make that decision again.

However, the quilt was very much of that moment in time, so it was well named in any case. :) Hope you like it too! And if you'd like to see my original post about it where I talk more about how it came to be it's here: http://kitlangfiberart.blogspot.com/2010/10/welcome-to-diva-quilts.html

And for those of you haven't, check out Generation Q Magazine!

Happy Friday! Er... Thursday, that is. :)

2011-09-01T00:08:00.003-04:00

Although I got tired of thread painting, I still wasn't ready to spend "real" time in my sewing room, so I've been working on a simple quilt...

Have a great weekend everyone!

Not feeling it...

2011-08-30T00:01:00.005-04:00

You know how sometimes you just. don't. feel. like doing anything? You've got that feeling like you should be doing something, but you just don't wanna?

Previously, when I got in that space, I used to make simple quilts like nine patches or railway ties, a lot of baby quilts got made in that space with incredibly detailed quilting - to get me back in the swing of things.

A few weeks ago, I was noodling around online and I found a site called Made By Joel. Joel (shockingly, given the title of his blog) makes stuff. Yup. For his kids and wife and home, and his blog chronicles that process.

He also offers some basic embroidery patterns for free - and the first one I looked at I thought "that might be great for learning how to thread paint" and I also thought they 'd be great for when I didn't feel like doing anything.

And that happened when I got access to my sewing room again this week. So I pulled out some of his patterns and some of my hand-dyed fabric experiments, watched Buffy on DVD and practiced.

And practiced and practiced! I'm getting better(which is good after all this practice) - but now I'm ready to move on to something else - until I feel like practicing again.

These little guys will return at some point, I'm sure. :)

In case you haven't noticed...

2011-08-24T22:11:00.000-04:00

I'm MIA. :)

I'll be back after this short vacation. :)

Trying something new...

2011-08-18T08:53:00.001-04:00

I haven't had access to my sewing room for the past week, so I thought I would try some hand work, using a piece of my hand-dyed cloth.

Because I didn't have a quilting or embroidery hoop (since I don't actually embroider!), I first sewed the cloth and batting down to a piece of stretched and framed canvas, and then began my hand stitching.

I kinda suck at it - so there's been a lot of re-do-ing. *w*

But if it goes where I want it to, I'm gonna like it.

By the way...

2011-08-14T12:46:00.001-04:00

ETA: The contest is over now and I placed a much more satisfactory second place. Thanks for your votes! :)

I forgot until just now, that I entered an online quilt contest at Quilting Gallery. I entered my piece called "By The Sea" in the 'beach and sea" category.

The last time I entered one of their contests, I placed dead last. Which was fairly embarassing if a good lesson for my ego. lol

Anyway - if you like the piece, and feel moved to vote for it after looking at all the others, please do so:

http://quiltinggallery.com/2011/08/12/vote-now-beach-and-sea-quilts/

You have to scroll all the way to the bottom to vote for "By The Sea".

Hope you're enjoying your weekend!

Phases

2011-08-10T00:12:00.005-04:00

This is one of the (many) projects I've had on the go recently, finished and ready to show you.

This quilt goes back to my "roots" so to speak - long time readers will recognize some recurring themes: circles and monochromatic and/or limited palettes).

The reason why this is a "new to me" technique is because I decided to give the "quilt as you go" method a shot. I first saw it over at Marianne's blog (here's her tutorial) about a year ago, and recently, the prolific Melody Johnson has been working in this method - and it gave me the impetus to give it a go.

Even when I first saw this technique, I wanted to try it in bigger slices (I've never been much of a block girl as you well know); thinking it would work well for queen-sized quilts instead of shoving them through my lil' domestic machine.

So I quilted three strips - two that were 24 by 74 inches long, one that was 74 inches long and 30 or so wide and then connected them with connector strips as above. (In the end for design purposes, I ended up trimming the widths of all pieces - the finished quilt is 72 x 68).

(P.S. - the quilt is actually perfectly straight and flat - the bubbling and unevenness is from the ivy underneath the quilt!)

This entire quilt was an experiment :

I wasn't sure whether the quilt as you go method would work in strips this size (note: I used a whip stitch to hold those long strips together which neither Mari nor Melody did);
I wasn't sure whether this fabric (a really fine linen/silk blend) would work in a quilt (note: I put a much-used queen sized sheet under the fabric on both sides as the batting showed through initially);
I wasn't sure whether the design would work (although it looked cool in my head) and I'll definitely twig it in future; and
I wasn't sure whether I would have enough fabric to complete the quilt *eep* (I got by on the skin of my teeth - the binding is actually a totally different gray silk from my stash which blended well with the creamy gray and gray-ish beige fabric.)

But it turned out well in the end, and I think you can expect to see another iteration of this quilt show up at some point in the future.

Cuz, guess what? I love it!

Sneak peek..

2011-08-08T00:21:00.001-04:00