I'm Putting On My Own Spin...

...or should I say spiral to Carol Ann Waugh's idea for a 'stupendous stitch' piece.  As I mentioned in a previous post (see here) I signed up for the Stupendous Stitching online class and created my stitch bible.  The next step was to start playing...

I started to couch various cords and ribbons onto a wonderfully bright piece of batik. I love spirals, so I just had to add some of them to this piece.  Not following the instructions of having lines going from one edge to the other, but that's just the way I am.  When I play with line spirals just seem to appear...

Here's another picture after I've added a variety of the fancy stitches that my machine is capable of.  Notice that even more spirals seem to have appeared.  :o)

And this is where I start to really have fun...

I'm taking this in a much different direction than what Carol Ann Waugh does since although it's a fun idea, I have to make it truly my own piece.  It may take me a while to finish, but I'm really excited about the direction I'm going with this.  Stay tuned to see the finished piece...I will post it when done, but that won't be for a while...

Have an ARTfully great day and thanks for visiting!

More Faux Tie-dye and Journals

Sadly some sort of a computer glitch has caused all of the images in this post to disappear, and I am unable to correct the problem.  Sorry!
The other day I shared a fun little tutorial about faux tie-dying and I showed you some of the journals I made using my little 'masterpieces'.  Well, yesterday I got the Sharpies out again and I did some more tie-dye circles.  This time I tried using various two and three colour spirals and some other shape and design ideas.  As I suggested in the other post, I recommend that you just experiment and have fun.  I was quite surprised by some of the results.

 I again used some of the circles I made, along with my hand-dyed fabrics to make some more journals.  On this one I used a piece of green ribbon to create a line and then decided to add some thread sketching to turn the circle into a flower.

This journal has wide strips of hand-dyed cheese cloth woven loosely over a plain blue background.  I love how the cheese cloth allows you to see through to the other colour.  Three random tie-dye circles were stitched over top to add a bit more interest.

On this journal I used a piece of accent fabric that I created while doing some surface design (click here to see that post).  I used a couple of pieces of coordinating ribbon and then had fun with some free motion quilting using variegated thread.  I used narrow horizontal zigzag quilting along the right side of the journal cover and then switched to a much longer vertical zigzag to cover the rest of the journal cover, front and back.  I had planned to add a tie-dye circle somewhere on this journal, but once I had this much done I decided to leave it as it was.

Summer Garden

     

I called this piece 'Summer Garden' because of the rows of different textures and colours.  It reminded me of when I was a child and my Mom had a big vegetable garden filled with various rows of colourful vegetables.  

     I loved adding the many different textures using a variety of fabrics, ribbons, yarns, beads and embroidery.  I especially had fun doing the row of colonial knots!  

     The background quilt on which I mounted it is hand dyed fabric that I made this summer while some of my friends were up at the cottage with us.  I've quilted it with random diagonal lines using a turquoise metallic thread to give it a bit of sparkle.