Another Japanese Piece

Once again, on Pinterest.  That place gets me into the best trouble!  LOL.

I saw some photos of a piece that had been made of tea bags.  I have been collecting tea bags for a while now.  Not like years, but maybe months.  Off and on because Frank randomly tosses the ones I have drying on the countertop in an act of pure subversiveness. 

So I have been thinking of how I can use them.  I am not that great of an artist that I can draw on them and make it beautiful like some I see on Pinterest. 

So I headed my thoughts down another alleyway.

I fused them onto some Economy Cloth (note to self:  get plenty more Economy Cloth).

Darn, it looked Asian!  I have that Japanese challenge thing going on in my Fiber Group.  So I took it there!

I printed out the Japanese characters meaning black tea.  I traced it with a Prisma Pen using my new lightbox.  I lost the last one in the flood.  I  love my lightbox so I replaced it when i had a quilt room to put it in.

And added back some tags and string.  The Japanese philosophy is Simplicity so I kept it simple.  Of course, you can make it larger by clicking on it, as always.

Now I need to figure out how to hang it.  I am thinking about taking a piece of wood, creating a beaded line to the top of the piece and having it hang on the wood.  If you can understand what I am saying..... of course I can no longer find the pinterest picture.

Just imagine it.

Mt Fuji

The challenge in my Fiber Exploration Group is Japanese.  Anything Japanese.

Mt Fuji is one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains.  Fuji is Japan's tallest mountain at 12,389 feet and is an active volcano.

Fuji has been a source of inspiration for poets and artists for centuries because of its symmetrical slopes and for  months of the year, its breathtaking snow capped peak. 

Since Mt Fuji is a well recognized symbol of Japan, and the task was to do something Japanese, it was crying for me to interpret a famous Mt. Fuji painting.

Called Fuji Mountains in Clear Weather, this is a wood block print by Hokusai done  in 1831.  It is part of the 36 Views of Mt. Fuji series.








 This is the streaks of snow still in the crevasses of the lava cone.  













To get this effect I used a bleach pen and drew the lines on the orange fabric. 









The back of the cone shape already has the fusible interfacing adhered to it.  I wasn't sure how that would work.  I let the bleach sit for a while, then took the paper off and rinsed the bleach out in the bathroom sink.

It looks pretty good. 

 I got the green slopes attached to the top of the cone.  Actually it is just sitting here right now. 

During the flood, I lost my teflon pressing sheet and have not replace it yet.  Of course, now I need one and don't have it.

The blue background is part of a long piece I wrapped on a pipe and wrapped with twine.  I let it sit in a shallow pan of blue dye.  Procion.












I finished the piece by free motion quilting on my new machine.  Not without a learning curve.  I found it has a Japanese alphabet so I embroidered some random characters on that white strip.  Not without its own learning curve.  I actually embroidered it with the paper on top, so what you see are the backs of the lettering.  Like I said, learning curve.

It is laid on a black felt back.  That is the natural edge of the original dyed piece. 

It was a bit of artistic license.  I liked it, so it stayed!

Off the Wall Friday

Linking up with the Off the Wall Friday gang at  (Click here to see creativity at its best!)

I have my Fiber Group next week.  I am trying to figure out how to bind it so I am in the "thinking" phase.

The Challenge Theme was "curves".  When I was at QuiltCon in February with Patty the Quilt Lady, we came across a booth that had some fabulous screens for screen printing.  I have not had a chance to us them yet, so I pulled them out.


Of course, I broke some of the rules.

I had a bottle of Inkodye which is sunlight reactive.  It starts out milky creamy white, and turns out to be, in this case, blue.  The amount of sunlight depends on the darkness of the print.  I just left it out hanging because the first afternoon I put it out there was no sun.

Of course I didn't consider the sun when I decided to do this.

I love the colors of dark blue and beige together.  I pulled out some of Frank's old dockers and used them in block colors.  I added some circles of metal that came from a belt full of them I picked up at The Purple Cow one afternoon for 99 Cents.  I also added some sample squares from a pile of stuff Carrie brought to me when they cleaned out their sample books.  These are linen pieces and so lovely.



When my hair dryer died I took it apart.  I knew those pieces would come in handy one day!  


 I used a firm pellon to give it some firmness as an art piece.   But now I need to decide how to bind it.  

I like it.  Do you?

Off the Wall Friday

Linking up with the Off the Wall Friday gang at  (Click here to see creativity at its best!)

I have my Fiber Group next week.  I am trying to figure out how to bind it so I am in the "thinking" phase.

The Challenge Theme was "curves".  When I was at QuiltCon in February with Patty the Quilt Lady, we came across a booth that had some fabulous screens for screen printing.  I have not had a chance to us them yet, so I pulled them out.


Of course, I broke some of the rules.

I had a bottle of Inkodye which is sunlight reactive.  It starts out milky creamy white, and turns out to be, in this case, blue.  The amount of sunlight depends on the darkness of the print.  I just left it out hanging because the first afternoon I put it out there was no sun.

Of course I didn't consider the sun when I decided to do this.

I love the colors of dark blue and beige together.  I pulled out some of Frank's old dockers and used them in block colors.  I added some circles of metal that came from a belt full of them I picked up at The Purple Cow one afternoon for 99 Cents.  I also added some sample squares from a pile of stuff Carrie brought to me when they cleaned out their sample books.  These are linen pieces and so lovely.



When my hair dryer died I took it apart.  I knew those pieces would come in handy one day!  


 I used a firm pellon to give it some firmness as an art piece.   But now I need to decide how to bind it.  

I like it.  Do you?

Chair Project, Hexies and the Dentist

I have been going to this dentist for a few years now.  I left the last one after he sold his practice to a guy who on the very first visit wanted to do a root canal on me.  Then did it on the wrong tooth and had to do another one on the tooth next to it. 

It seems that now one of the teeth this idiot did was not done properly.  He did not go all the way down to t he end of the tooth and close it off like is supposed to be done.  It has started to bother me off and on.

The visit today was my 6 month check up and they discovered this anomaly.  So now I need to go to an endodontist and discuss it with him.

And my dentist is now upselling.  The hygienist was pushing fluoride treatments and sealants.  Neither of which  my insurance covers if one is over 19.  And guess what?  I am.

Anyone have any experience with these "suggested" treatments.  I would appreciate your input.

 Here are my 9 completed hexie flowers.  They started out in the new bathroom by the cedar lamp and the Jim Shore Quilting Basset Ann gave Frank. 

They danced around and did a final Ta--Da in a long line and then got put away. 

And for my Fiber Group project, late as usual, I am making a chair.

I am loving this chair and want to make a ton of them.

And it stuck to my design wall with no pins!  LOL

Patterns Piece Revisited

I was surpriied at the reception the piece recieved from my group.  They had several suggestions, most similar to the ones y'all have had.  Including PattyA's "cut it up"!

View blogOne person said she actually liked the center part, with the tsukinecko inks I disliked so much.  Several suggested that I add more of the floating bits of jetsam, and I think I will move toward Charlene's suggestion of just taking off the rest of the shells and rocks.  It may not have been a representation
of a beach after all!

I am going to put it aside for right now, there are so many things I need to be working on that I actually LIKE!

When Patty A said, cut it up, that made me think that it might be a part of a larger whole!

Right now I am thinking about our next challenge, Monochromatic. 

Got that Tracy?

And Today is a New Day....

On Saturday and again on Sunday that stupid alarm rang at 5:30 AM both days.  It was not a happy moment when "Happy Days Are Here Again!" blares into your early morning weekend sleeping time.  It was NOT Happy Days!

So this morning, he wakes me up at 7:35 AM, in a tizzy because I now have only 25 minutes to get up, feed the dogs, wash my hair, and get to the vet.  It ain't happening!

He says the alarm went off, but he was sleeping in the living room with the dogs.  So, I ask, how did he fly down the hallway so quickly that the sound had not even reached my ears?????? 

I submit that it did NOT go off and he wanted to cover the fact.

In other news, I have cleaned two shelves out in my quilt room and moved a couple of solids to the empty  shelf.  It barely scratched the surface!   I need more shelves.

I worked on my super secret project last night.  So I can't show photos.  But I will get that mailed off this week.  I had to sign a lot of copywriting forms.  This is so exciting!

I need to put a couple of backs together and get them on the frame and quilted.  I can sit at night and do binding.  I like the quietness of hand work, but my thumb joint on my left hand hurts.  I use Topracin to rub on the joint area and it helps a lot.  I ran into the rub at the Houston Quilt show.  It was amazing stuff.  Now I can get it at my local drug store.

And in the "Being Proactive" column, I have completed my Fiber Group project early.  Usually I am working on  it the day before.  Theme this  month was Just Desserts so  I made a birthday cake! I was so early that I had plenty of time to bead it!

I decided that this year I will do all my pieces 12 x 12 and use them as a journal.  I have always wanted to do a Quilt Journal project, and this is the perfect venue.  We do a project a month, work small, and have an accountability built in.  Perfect!

Stash Report 10-20-14

I used about a yard and a half for the Lorax binding and finishing up of some of  the quilts I gave the Physical Therapy people.  And for the Fiber group project on Wednesday.  I have another two weeks before I give the Seuss quilts to the baby mommas.  Maybe I will have the Seuss 2, the second one complete by then.

Here is my Fiber Group piece. The theme this month was "Turn of a Phrase".  I did a nice layered landscape that I called Lay of the  Land.

I built a blog for the group,  we were using a Yahoo group format that was not really working for us.  So we went with a blog.

You can see it here if you would like to see what the others did this month.

fiberexplore.blogspot.com

As for my usage, I am still working it down.......but slowly!

But at least it is going DOWN and not UP!

Oh wait, I forgot I won the Birthday fabric.  I forgot how much, 4 yards maybe?  Still going down though, albeit not by much!

 

Used this week	-1.5		Used this month	-6.33	used this year	-114.75
bought this week	5		bought this month	5	bought this year	185.75
plus or minus	3.5		plus or minus	-1.33	plus or minus	71

Quilting Wiith Something Other Than Fabric - Part 2

I guess you are wondering what in the world I could have for a Part 2 for the color catchers!  But I have another wrinkle for your brain.

I was in CVS with Frank and while he was checking out I saw a display of the small rolls of duct tape.  I grabbed up 3 rolls and shoved them into his pile and he bought them!  Voila!    I think they were like $2.99 each.

And I think they are like 3/4" wide.  And in fun colors. These are the three I settled upon for my block.

I needed a base to put the tape on so I got some waxed paper.  one thing I learned quite quickly was when you take the tape off the roll you are stretching it.  Let is rest and fall back into static position so it is relaxed.  Otherwise your waxed paper sheet will curl!

Here is the tape strips on the waxed paper.  nice!


And here are my blocks cut from the pieces with my rotary cutter.  It glided through the tape nicely. 

I butted the pieces against each other and did a short medium length zig zag stitch.  The needle had to be changed because it was all gunked up with glue when I finished. 

I did have to put pressure on the tape blocks to get them to move under the foot.  But it worked fine.

This needed to be an actual quilt so here are my layers.



Top  - Batting - Backing.  Just like a real quilt.  Hey, it IS a real quilt.......


This is the easiest way to bind a quilt.  Pull off some tape, put it against one side, fold it over and you are done! I think I will bind ALL my quilts like this in the future. 

Here is the top
<<<<<---------- p="">


Here is the back  --------->>>>


And it is actually quilted using free motion quilting.  It was after this that I tossed the gunky needle!

Quilting With Something Other Than Fabric - Part 1

In my Fiber Group our challenge for May was to make a block using something other than fabric.  I think they said "non-traditional" stuff.  Well, they probably didn't say "stuff".   But you know what I mean.  Non-traditional stuff.  For the most part.

I was totally on board with that and even knew what I wanted to do before I left the meeting.  It was something I have wanted to do for a long long time.

 And it came from my (very messy as you can see) laundry room no less!  I generally toss in a sheet made of this special stuff that attracts loose dyes from the washer water as  your clothes swish around.  One day, a while back, I thought that it might be interesting to do something with them.  So I began to save them.

I saw that they often had interesting patterns.  The day I washed the rug in my bathroom anteroom (yes, my bathroom has an anteroom!) I got a really deep color!  It was exciting!

I just keep putting the same sheet back in the washer time after time after time until I get a deep color or an interesting pattern.  Yes, I have to admit, I began buying a lot of black, dark blue and bright color things to see if I could affect the color!

Here one that just came out of the wash and I smoothed it out.


Here is one that I ironed smooth.

They ironed easily and didn't stick to the iron or get overheated.  Nice!

I pieced the squares, sliced and diced the pieced squares and sewed things back together a few times.

Here is the finished piece.  Oops!  I forgot to take pictures of the pieced piece, sorry!  The flowers are made from a sheet I bunched up.

Of course you know what the leaves are, right?



Hair things. 


Here is the back of everything.  It is a piece of hand dyed Kona that I forgot to add the soda ash to and it didn't have much color. 

The whole thing was interesting to do.  It was a nice challenge that got me thinking about how  wanted to work with the color catchers.

And  I had the opportunity to learn about something new.








I

Architeture Piece - A "Smidgen" of an Idea

 Having procrastinated long enough, I put Frank and all the dogs outside and went into my sewing room.   When I came out I had this piece.  The theme for this month is Architecture.


The material is part of a bunch of samples Carrie brought me a number of years ago when her Architecture firm was cleaning out their sample room.  It looks like linen and is called Verso Texture.  They use it for upholstery work.  It  is of Italian manufacture and is from Henry Calvin and I wish I had a lot of this stuff.  It was wonderful to work with.

The hand was smooth and soft, it felt like it would even drape if you had folds.   And it is classic looking in those heathered colors.  The backs of each color is the same neutral. 

I should have taken a photo of the way it looked pre-cutting.  The blue was the large piece and the various colors were simply sewn on like flaps the size of that brown building with the orange windows.

I put it together using Superior Threads polyester thread.  My
Husqvarna Viking 930E sews it like a dream!  No adjusting, no fiddling, no pulling.  I had a partial bobbin already wound with the poly thread.  I started out doing a zigzag on the edges but wanted to
conserve thread so I switched to a straight stitch.  I don't think it mattered to the look, I don't really see either stitch. 

You can see what this is, sort of a cityscape with tall buildings and green spaces.  A place you might want to live.

The embellishments are from this jar into which I put stuff I find randomly on the street, in parking lots, on floors.  I don't know where that key thing came from, but it is cool looking.  When I put it on that building I noticed the juxtaposition of square shapes and the  circular shape so I went looking for more rustic circle shapes.

The black jagged piece that looked like an indication of grass to me, is from my flat iron hair thingy that I loved, paid a small fortune for, used for 7 years and just died one day.  I never paid much attention to that comb like thing until it's replacement thingy didn't have one.  I missed it greatly!  So remember that if you buy a new flat iron thingy, get one that has the comb piece on it.

I like this piece a lot.  It was easy to put together, and I had only a "smidgen" of an idea going into the process.  And it just came together!  Squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, all in one small piece!

I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!

I am linking this up to the Off the Wall Fridays with Nina Marie!  Click here to see really fabulous work

Plumber's Butt

The haiku is free floating silk

banana flower and tyvek

What a morning!  Busy, busy, busy!

Last night was my Fiber Group meeting. Here are some of the pieces from that meeting.  The quilt below is a project that Renee (she received a grant) is doing called Kids Quilt For Kids.  They use Marvel Fabric Markers and draw sea life, she pieces it and quilts it and it is donated to kids in need.  Don't you love it!  My piece was the fork, remember that?

The guys are grouting the tile this morning.  The dogs are at the vet once again.  My eye appointment was easy, getting there was in the morning traffic.  Madeline, my GP's nurse, called me back with an appointment time in 45 minutes so I was pretty rushed!  But I got there in time to fill out paperwork and sign my name a dozen or 50 times.  

Kids Quilt For Kids

Doc said it appeared I lifted the corner of my lasix flap.  And that was the irritation.  But the big problem was that I was reacting to the gentab ointment.  He said my eye was pretty well inflamed! But I knew that!  He advised me to stop doing surgery on myself.

New drops now feel better.  The reason I had the lasix in the first place was because I have a lazy eye and they could no longer correct for it in glasses.  I was falling off stairs I didn't know was there and stepping "down" lines I thought were stairs. My depth perception was gone.  The first lasix was for that eye, the second to hone the correction on that eye.  The third for the

other eye, and the 4th because I developed a bubble under the flap and they had to smooth it out.  Then the driver's license bureau found I had a cataract in one eye when I couldn't see a bank of numbers on their eye chart.  And the next 4 year renewal showed one in the other eye.  I was in my early 50s by that time.  Doctor said he was seeing cataracts earlier due to the air pollution.  

I had 20/20 in one eye and 20/15 in the other.  I loved it.  My eyes had kept me from getting a job with the FBI as an investigator.  I was so happy to be able to see for the first time in my life!

I had to show you this picture.  I think my tile guy, bless his heart, is auditioning for my next male nude!

Some women like  large biceps, or hairy chests and neanderthal unibrows.  I have always been a sucker for a nice tight male buttock.  But doesn't the tile look good?

We can move furniture back tonight.  And they will be here bright and early on Monday to start the hall and the den.  The dogs will have the doggy spa for the first three days.