And next up, we've got  a couple of birds. I usually sketch directly on the fabric, after first giving it a go on my sketch patch; but this time I decided to try a different method.

I save all the backing paper from my fusible papers, using them to protect my iron  when I'm fusing. But I decided I might try using them as transfer papers as their semi-slick sides sort of lend themselves to such a process. (Or so my thinking went).



So I sketched them on the papers using a graphite woodless pencil, and then flipped them over, and used my eraser as a rubbing implement, which I rubbed all over the back of the paper. And as you can see, it worked very well!

Hope you had a great weekend!

You may remember that back in November, I decided to begin a year-long stitching project, called "Ephemera", that would do nothing more than hold whatever stitches I felt like making that week, along with a sentence or phrase overheard in that week.


I can`t believe that it's already been a full quarter, but so it has!

I was a lazy girl the past couple of days and did absolutely nothing! lol

So I thought I'd catch you up on the lunchtime projects - above is the week before last's offering (Week 8) which has a spelling mistake so I'll either have to take out the stitching, or leave it as is - it's supposed to ephemera after all, and exhibit the flotsam and jetsam of life, so I'm kind of leaning towards leaving the spelling mistake.



And here is Week 9 - unfinished, which is good for a WIP Wednesday, except *ahem*, I'm meant to be working on Week 10 this week. So I guess I'd better hop to it!  (That, among other things, lol, because I've been chatting and having fun with my work chum instead of working too!)

I'll see on Friday with the links - I'm really looking forward to sharing them with you this week - some really interesting stuff! Are you enjoying my Friday links posts?

See you then!

I used rayon fabric as my carrier (I find that rayon takes up dye BEAUTIFULLY (even in some cases better than cotton and silk), I added my vegetation, and I also added scraps of coloured fabric.  Just for the hell of it, 'cuz I wanted to see if the coloured commercial fabrics would pick up any of the vegetation, and if so, how.


^ This one is particularly cool, isn't it? I think it looks like old, diseased skin - perfect if it I ever make a zombie, or someone really, really ill. :D


But back to our story, so the really interesting thing that happened with the coloured commercial fabrics, is that they didn't pick up any vegetation (although there were some "spine" resists) but they *did* end up transfering colour to the rayon - which is why I have those beautiful brilliant pinks and purples and teal as well as the lovely browns and beiges.


Some of the fabrics actually rotted as can be seen above - and my yucky skin one is so fragile from said rotting I don't think I'll actually be able to use it.

And another reason I won't be able to use it?  The SMELL. ERHMAGAWD THE SMELL.  lol

When I opened up the bags, the bags themselves had torn and eroded, so dirt had gotten in, as well as insects and worms (ugh)  - and the fabric was so slimy and putrid looking, I didn't even know if it could be rescued.  After a lot (like, a LOT) of rinsing, I realized they could be washed and used - so I washed them.  Four times. Because the smell of rotting vegetation wouldn't come out.

And then I soaked them in a bucket of detergent and Febreeze for another week because the smell still wouldn't come out.


And it still hasn't.  So the fabric isn't actually usable - I figure eventually, I'll use these photos and make the fabric on Spoonflower or some other site like it, and I'll be able to use it that way.

But I don't think I'll be doing much more eco dyeing in the future.

Back to the procions and disperse dyeing for me!

And back to the shirt piece on Wednesday!

See you then!

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!

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

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,

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!    :)

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?

But in the meantime, I thought I'd share with you a slice of my life today - and who knows? Maybe someday this will be a part or all of a quilt.

Cheers,

I have a new friend in my sewing room...

In 1993, I was in my early 30's. I was doing my Masters, walking around with a portable chemo pack, working, and trying to do all of those things while caring for two young children as a single mom.  Although even before that time, I had a vague notion that "some day" I woud make a quilt - in 1993, quilts were not even on my radar.

Not so, Eleanor Burns!

In 1993, she and her Laura Ashley dress were very busy promoting her Quilt In A Day program! (Lookit that cute little Sunbonnet Sue one in the background) And how much do I love the french braid on the woman in the foreground - brings back memories!

I've spoken before about my friend who works with a company that provides costumes for shows and who then gives me the scraps; but with the latest load she's given me, she also included some old quilting magazines she had.  I'll be featuring some of the items in these magazines over the next little while - this week, it's a Summer 1993 edition of Canada's Quilts, a magazine I don't think even exists any more!

In that edition, their focus was on male quilters.  So, may I introduce to you:


Barry Moss. At the point this article was done, Barry Moss had been quilting about 5 years.  Today, he teaches fiber art techniques in Canada, Wales and England, and will be teaching a minatures class in just a couple of weeks in Arnprior, Ontario.

Next, we had:


Graham Crowe.  Unfortunately, Mr. Crowe doesn't have a web  presence, but I was able to find a mention of a "one of a kind hand-made quilt" he made from (coincidentally - see above!) the scraps of the costumes from the 2010 theatre season of The Grand Theatre in London - which sold at a benefit auction for the theatre for $5,175. Sadly, there were no pictures of the quilt available.

And lastly, may I introduce Art O'Keefe:



I wasn't able to find a breath of anything about this husband and wife team, originally from Fraser Valley, BC (and founding members of the Fraser Valley Guild); who, at the time of the article were living in Oliver, BC. Vera made the tops, and Art hand quilted them.

Given their ages at the time of the article, they may have passed on by now; but when they got their start in 1968, I was just a wee lass, falling asleep on my uncle's lap during that historic moon walk!  Someone  gave them a 7lb roll of cotton scraps from a shirt factory in Hawaii, and Vera thought she'd make a log cabin quilt out of the pieces.  After that, there was no stopping this dynamic duo.

So, were you quilting in 1993?