The furrow

Wow, two posts in two days? What’s wrong with me??

I am currently working on my 2012 submission for the IQA show in Houston. This piece is a total departure for me. I am working with ethnic costumes and foreign military outfits as my inspiration. I typically use modernity and architecture as inspiration. My goal is to post progress pics. We’ll see…

 I started working on the cuffs. They are going to be hand-furrowed. Furrowing, is taking a large piece of fabric and hand “gathering” it into a small space then stitching down all of the valleys created. It’s a bit like ruching or shirring, but not as uniform.

This is a piece of cotton that I found in the back of Joann’s like 5 years ago on the clearance shelf. It has a swirly chain stitch design over the technical face. I dyed it in Basic Red from Pro Chem. It took the dye very well.

 

I then stretch a foundation fabric (silk organza) on stretcher bars, then on a scroll frame. You don’t have to stretch it on a frame, but it does make life that much easier. Here is the frame I use for all of the hand work. I got it at the Quilt Show last year and am convinced that it has saved me so much time when it comes to doing this kind of work. I got it from K’s Creations. I can use purchased stretcher bars from Texas Art Supply and create any size I need for my work. They simply clamp on to the scroll frame and I am good to go.

 

I drew the pattern piece on organza after I stretched it, that way when I pull it taut, the lines won’t get distorted.

Now, I hand gather the fabric to the outer edge of the pattern piece lines and pin the centers in place. This is where the tedium fun begins. I scrunch and pleat the fabric as I go so that it looks like a Shar Pei’s rear end.

Here is the finished product. The dark spots are hand sewn sequins. The piece of red fabric I started out with was approximately 20 x 42. The finished cuff is about  8 x 10.

 And some details…

 

I’ll let you know about the next step in the creative process and soon as I come up with it!

Hugs,

G

Lets play ketchup!

OK, I’m back to life, back to reality, back to life, back to… SOUL II SOUL!

 Lots of things have happened since we last chatted. I ate turkey and dressing, dyed some fabric and started next year’s wearable art Quilt Show entry. Believe me, it’s been a non-stop cavalcade of excitement and I know how jealous you all are of this reeling rollercoaster I call ‘my life’.

Let’s start with the joy and excitement of dyeing fabric. I usually do low-immersion dyeing because I don’t see the point of doing solid shade dyeing of a large piece of fabric since Kona makes every known color of quilting cotton known to man. There are like 50 books out there that walk you through L.E. dyeing, but really, I have found that they are just a waste of money. I follow the free instruction on the Pro Chemical website. I use their dyes exclusively. They are very nice people with fast shipping, beautiful colors and clear instructions.

When I begin to dye, I take a small amount of urea water and make a paste with some dye powder, then add the remaining urea water to form the requisite amount of liquid. Since this is all done by hand, it can get a bit tedious. The day before I set up my dyeing station, I was rummaging through the cabinets and discovered a knock off Bullet blender that I purchased some time ago. I decided to use it to blend my dye paste. The whole system was less than 20 dollars, so if I broke it in the process, no harm, no foul. Where has this thing been all my life? It cut my dye prep time in half and gave me a much more consistent dye job. Some of the dyes ended up foaming up in the blender, so when they poured out, they rested on top of the fabric rather than going through like a liquid, but some creative pleating and twisting solved that. Here is a pic of one of the finished products. One day I will learn how to take a decent picture.

My Quilt Show entry will be made of the unbleached muslin and corduroy I dyed. I seem to have an affinity for corduroy. It started when I made my 2008 Bernina Fashion entry “Rumors”. The super nice people at Cherrywood fabric gave me some corduroy to work with and I’ve been hooked ever since. I found a good deal at Hancock Fabrics online and bought a couple of bolts of it to dye. It takes color beautifully! I will do a proper sketch of my entry and post it soon. I always do quick sketches for people to see, so this time I am going to take my time with it. I have never made a garment like this before. It is based on ethnic costumes and military jackets from around the world. Yeah, I’m confused too.

 I think that catches me up to date. Maybe…

 Oh, I also wanted to show y’all my new friend, and frequent Sad Patterns commenter, Janet’s FIRST PLACE AWARD WINNING quilt from this year’s Quilt Show. I liked it even before I knew it was hers! The workmanship is amazing!

Toots,

G

Next Year

Hello everyone!

Today I received the overbooked classes from the 2011 Quilt Festival and neither of my classes were on the list, so that means that I will NOT be teaching at the 2012 Houston Quilt Festival.

Thank you all who took my classes in the previous years and I will try to figure out something new to teach in 2013!

In the coming year, I will be working on lots of new projects and if you’re lucky, I’ll get off my lazy butt and post progress pictures on this blog!

Hugs, G

Quilting time!

I survived the Houston International Quilt Festival with all of the grace and aplomb of an Olympic gymnast vaulting a perfect ten.

Oh, who am I kidding? My feet are killing me, I spent WAY too much money and my voice is still gravely from teaching, but I LOVE IT! That’s sort of the benchmark of the Quilt Show. If I don’t feel like this afterwards, I didn’t have a good time!

My classes went well I think. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and I got back a lot of positive feedback. Here are a couple of pics of the Mad Hatter class:

The lovely women of the drafting class did me a favor and took home some of my class samples; however, there was still some candy left, so let’s work on upping your chocolate consumption next year ladies.

A few of you know that I had an entry in this year’s wearable art division. I didn’t win a prize, but it was nice to be on display. My entry was called Rojaku. It’s gray wool suiting with lime green silk lining. The halter top, worn underneath, is covered in hand sewn paiettes.

Front detail:

Side detail shot:

The back:

The back detail:

Tomorrow, I will post some pics of the quilts I saw.

Toodles, G

I’m back!

The Quilt Festival is over and I am back on track. I will post a giant post about all I saw and experienced while I was there by tomorrow. For those of you who ordered books, those will be going out in the mail by Wednesday or Thursday.

Hugs, G