DLP Week 23: Travel Inspired...

The week 23 DLP theme is about travel, with a "Take me away" prompt, so I just had to create a page about my upcoming trip to Amorgos Island in Greece!

A Week With Amanda McCavour!

I spent the first week of June in a fabulous week long workshop with the incredibly talented Amanda McCavour.  If you ever get a chance to take a workshop with Amanda I highly recommend it.  In addition to being a talented artist, Amanda is a lovely person and a great teacher!

The workshop was all about using water soluble stabilizer to create thread lace. What fun!

This sample piece was a bit of an experiment gone wrong...I was not intending to make a creepy, very dense spider web. But, when cut up and reworked I created a fun flower that I quite like.










I really like where these random, free form doodled leaves are going, and I have plans to continue with them to create a larger piece with that in the future. My thoughts right now are for some sort of a vessel, but we'll see...

This is another piece that was reworked a couple of times. The first shot shows me stitching in the thread grid to support the pieces I had cut up from the original piece (sorry, I forgot to get a picture of it).

You can see the rinsing process and I wash out the water soluble stabilizer once the thread work was finished.

 

I then added some scrim bits and the text...perhaps to be used as an embellishment on a journal cover.

This leaf was another sample, this time to experiment with just how minimal I could go with the thread and still have the piece work.

I just love the incredible shadow that was cast in the late afternoon sun!

 For this sample I was playing around with laying down interesting bits of yarn before machine doodling connecting circles to create the structure that would hold it together. Again, the second shot shows the wonderful shadow cast later in the day.

This final sample was done using Japanese rice paper. I love the pattern in the paper, and because of the long fibres in this type of paper, it sews well. The exercise was to cut holes into the piece and then sew connecting threads within the spaces. I can see some interesting potential for using this technique in future work!

Catching up on DLP...Weeks 21 and 22...

I've had a wonderful week away at an Amanda McCavour workshop (I'll post about that soon), so I thought I'd just pop in and post another couple of pages in my Documented Life Project calendar journal.

Week 21:

And Week 22:

Excitement Returns...

I've got to confess, it's been a long time since I've been excited about a piece of fibre art. I seem to have been in some sort of a slump and I just couldn't seem to find motivation or excitement to produce.

Yesterday I showed you the beginnings of this challenge piece and I was initially pleased with how the brick wall was progressing. However, on further reflection I wasn't happy with how flat it looked. Out came the Inktense pencils and my water brush, as well as some music to listen too...I literally spent hours doodling and shading and I am so excited about how this is working out that I just had to pop in and show you the wall I've 'built'.

I started out with a lot of thread sketching/doodling, using a variegated gray/brown thread.











Using Derwent Inktense pencils* I began to add some shading to give my bricks more dimension.

*If you don't have these in your art supplies, you really must get some!







All that remains is a crazy amount of hand stitching...I can't wait to show you the finished piece after our group reveal on June 10th!

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Street Art Challenge...

The next challenge for our Group of Eight Fibre Arts group is 'Street Art'. It seems this is an especially challenging challenge for the members of our group! After several false starts, I have finally found something that is going to make me happy, and I've come to the conclusion that if every street artist first had to 'build a wall', there might be a lot less graffiti around. LOL

So far I have killed a few spools of thread in the making of this art quilt, from the brick wall to the lettering, there is a lot of thread sketching/doodling going on! 

The reveal for this challenge is at our June 10th meeting, so I've got to get busy finishing this piece before I head off for a week long workshop with Amanda McCavour next week. Fingers crossed (you cross yours for me please...I have a lot of hand stitching to do) I get finished!

I'll tell you about the Amanda McCavour workshop when I get back, but until then, enjoy visiting her website.

All It Needs Is A Name...

It's been almost another month, but this piece is finally finished. I showed you the work in progress here and I've finally finished the last bit of hand stitching. I'd love your suggestions for a name...I'm completely at a loss for what to call it.

It's made entirely from my hand dyed and indigo dyed fabrics and threads (except for the machine thread). I love the contrast of the tight machine quilting and the seed stitches on the background piece.

If you've got an idea for a name, please leave your suggestion in the comments. Thanks!

Here are a few detail shots:

DLP Week 20: Modelling Paste...

...or not! This week's Documented Life Project prompt was to use modelling paste and the theme was 'rising to the occasion'. 

I certainly feel that Yoshi, my Lions Foundation of Canada future dog guide puppy has risen to the occasion. She is an incredibly beautiful, gentle puppy and on Monday I returned her to Dog Guides so that she can begin her formal training as a service dog. She will be training to work with a person who has a physical or medical disability, possibly someone in a wheelchair, although not necessarily.

The "or not" comment is because I was so involved in moment, creating this page that I completely forgot to use modelling paste, and I love how it turned out, so I'm leaving it as is!

My friend Marilyn accompanied me for the drop off and took lots of pictures of this milestone event in the life of this fabulous dog guide in the making. Thanks Marilyn!

DLP Week 19: Stitching...

I'm catching up with my DLP journal and this week was all about using fun bright bits of papers I had lying around. The Documented Life Project prompt for week 19 was 'stitching' so I machine stitched together several strips of various under papers and Gelli printed papers. These became my lines on which I wrote the weekly quote, this time used exactly as it was. I also had a sheet of silly stamped characters that I thought fit the theme of 'a life full of laughter' so I collaged them in, traced over some of the lines in black to make them pop a bit more (I had initially stamped them in blue acrylic paint). Some scribbly doodles here and there and I called it done...sometimes you just have to play and not take things too seriously!

Monday was the day I dropped Yoshi off to begin her formal training as a dog guide. I was missing her, and thinking about all three of my foster puppies, so I created this collage of them to be used as my iPhone lock screen image. I love their faces, which capture the different personalities so well.

Wafer and I have been missing Yoshi, but we've had a wonderful week of cuddling and playing together, sharing our undivided attention with one another. We're proud of our girl Yoshi, and know she's going to be great at 'puppy university'!

DLP Week 18: The Fabric of Our Lives...

I seem to be falling a bit behind with my documented life project...life (and all new windows installed in our house) have side tracked me this week. The Documented Life Project prompt for week 18 was to use fabric and the quote was a phrase...'the fabric of your life'.

This is one of my favourite photos of my four older brothers and I, taken over fifty years ago (gasp!). I had tucked it into the front cover of my DLP journal a few months ago, knowing that I wanted to use it once the right prompt came up. Keeping to the old family photo idea, I printed out some other favourite shots and used the film strip washi tape to present them. I just love that washi tape!

DLP Week 17: Playing With Inks...

The week 17 Documented Life Project challenge was to use inks. I have a good collection of acrylic inks, spray inks, Tsukineko inks, Posh Rainbow Inks by Ranger, Inktense pencils (love these!!!), India inks...you get the idea...so this week's challenge was just about pulling out the media and playing. 

Yoshi and Wafer were most interested as I added the final doodles while enjoying the beautiful evening out on the deck.


Here are a few close ups, followed by the full page spread.  

Happy Mother's Day!