My Denim Series Continues...

I've deviated slightly in my denim series, bringing in some other commercial fabrics for this latest piece.  I especially like the combination of the mono printing done using my Gelli Plate and bubble wrap, combined with the hand embroidery on the shirt tail.  I pulled the colours from the beautiful piece of commercial fabric with it's loose and easy floral pattern.  I did some random French knots on the lighter green band on the left to add some more texture to the piece.  For lack of a more creative name, this piece has been called "Blue and Green".

The Shirt Off His Back...

For this piece, I've gone back to that denim shirt I told you about in a post a couple of weeks ago.  Since that last post, I've added a lot of free-motion quilting, hand stitching and some flat, wooden 'button like' discs.  I am amazed at how tough it was to do all the seed stitching into the rust dyed fabric.  Even the areas that are lightly rusted are tough, but stitching through the darker areas has left me with several punctures in my hand from the back of the needle.  I guess I should have pulled out a thimble, but I'm just not used to using one so I find them a bit annoying to work with.  Having said that, puncturing your hands is a tad annoying too...

Mother Nature's Not Happy!

Last week I was cycling in shorts, and yesterday I drove through blizzard conditions to visit my Mom for Mother's Day.  Ironically, I took her to Rockway Gardens in Kitchener to see all the beautiful tulips.

It's a good thing I've got a tough little Momma!  We enjoyed our stroll through the gardens in spite of the awful, cold weather.




While there, someone asked if we knew the name of this beautiful flower.  Mom only knew the name in German, but as it turns out the direct translation, "King's Crown" turns out to be pretty accurate! "Fritillaria imperialis (Crown imperial or Kaiser's crown) is a species of flowering plant..."  Beautiful and smart...that's my Mom!

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday and Orange You Glad It's Friday.

They Just Move Somewhere Else...

I recently saw this quote and I couldn't help thinking how true it is.  Oh, to go back to the simplicity of childhood when a hug and some reassuring words from Mom would get those monsters under control so that we could have a good night's sleep!

I guess as we get older, it takes a lot more 'self talk' to control the monsters, but they can still be tamed!

This spread isn't a favourite in terms of it's over all look...I'm not very happy with the composition or colours, but there's a lot of good 'talk' going on in that blue journalling, so I guess it has served a purpose!

And now I'm off to visit my Mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day (and to get one of those great hugs...'cause they never get old!)

Wishing all you Mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day!

Block Party and a Ball Toss...

After creating the Pick-Up Sticks art quilts, I decided to continue the mini series by using only some of the pieced stripes along with some other bright fabrics.  The first piece is called "Block Party".

 The idea of the block party got me thinking of games and from that "Ball Toss" was born. I am especially loving the process of the free motion machine quilting on these smaller pieces.  It is such a relaxing feeling to be able to doodle with a needle and thread.

I have more ideas popping into my head than I can keep up...I'm considering a couple of other series that I can't wait to get started on!

Pick-Up Sticks...

A while back I posted about some piecing play I was doing by cutting, sewing, cutting again, etc.  The little art quilts that resulted are now finished.  I think all of the free motion lines of stitching really help those colourful stripes to pop.  They are called Pick-Up Sticks I, and Pick-Up Sticks II, respectively.

Henry's Haircut

I had an opportunity last Spring to see some alpaca's being shorn and was given some of the alpaca hair to experiment with in my fibre art.  Using my embellisher, I needle felted the fibre's to create a base using the darker grey hair.  I then incorporated some of my hand dyed cheesecloth over top of the alpaca felt.  I added some circles in a lighter colour of alpaca hair, and intentionally left some of the long dark strands hanging so that I could later add beads to them.

I did a lot of machine stitch/thread sketching over the cheesecloth to bring out more of the copper and turquoise colour before moving to the hand beading.  As for the title Henry's Haircut...you guessed it, the dark gray alpaca's name is Henry.

"Pop"

This week's photo challenge was "Pop" over on the Texture Tuesday site, so I decided to focus on that all important pop of colour that we see this time of year with the arrival of the first Robins of the Spring.  This photo was taken a few weeks ago, before our final snow storm, but it just seemed to provide that hope and promise of things to come. That bright orange breast and belly are a sure sign that winter is finally over!

I did a bit of an adjustment layer before adding Kim's new texture, kk_may, I also had to add a layer of some subtle grey behind the text so it didn't get lost in the cedar.




You can see a screen shot of the processing at the bottom of the post.



When thinking about pops of colour, flowers always 'pop' to mind too, so I've added these other two images, both treated with a layer of kk_may at soft light, with a mask on which the texture was removed from the focal blossom.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday and Orange You Glad It's Friday.

Passage...

This paper and fabric art quilt, titled Passage,  is another in the new 12" X 12" series.  This was actually a UFO that was started a few years ago in a workshop with Sandra Meech, in which we painted papers and then used them in collaged art quilts.  I posted about a previous piece I finished back in November in which I mounted the quilted part onto a painted canvas, but this time I wanted to continue the collage of stitched fabric and paper to extend the more dimensional piece in the centre.  

The text in this piece is all about the various kinds of passage, from a doorway that one can pass through, to death...the final passage in this life.

Xs and Os

On Sunday I posted about a new series I've started, using a consistent 12" x 12" format.     I've finished the first one and my mats arrived in the mail yesterday so it is all matted and ready.  Fortunately this image is true to the actual colour (unlike the previous post).  I've called it Xs and Os because of the circles that I had printed on the denim using my Gelli plate, and the Xs that I stitched into the rust dyed fabric.  I echoed the Os using little round discs (actually the ends of those pre-wound cardboard bobbins...'cause I can't seem to throw anything out. LOL)

I've posted it here without the mat so that you can see a larger image, allowing you to see more detail.