velvet

Iowa from 1000 Feet



8 x 11 inches - ish



Now for some more hand stitching.  Natural dyed and compost dyed fabrics cotton and silk.  Natural dyed silk eyelash yarn.  I found it hiding in a pile of UFO's (unfinished objects)  I started it several years ago, added the dark velvet circles for the bins and silo's this evening.


Altered Prom Dress

The 1950's formal I altered for Clare for her prom.  I added ribbons under the dress so that it could be hitched up giving it more form, then added an underskirt with tulle so that it would be poofy.  To break up the color I added a velvet belt with on of my vintage brooches, the colors in the brooch compliment the dress beautifully: smokey quartz, quartz, blue topaz, and silver.

Studio

My retro vintage oranged crushed velvet wing back chair.


I finally got the chair into the studio, I'm not sure but I think I may have used a few muscles I haven't used in years! The view from the doorway - my studio isn't really that large something like 10 x 13 feet, less actually because the doorway is on the corner which has been lopped off, old victorians are a lot of fun. My head hurts today I wacked it and pretty good last night on the drafting table, bent over to pick something up which was all the encouragement I needed to move the table out of the room permanently.

Hand work


My shoulder has been bothering me, too much lawn care, so instead of wrestling large pieces in the sewing machine I've been doing a bit of hand work.

I started this piece tonight by needle felting various fibers using the Janome Expression, and now I've plans to do a bunch of stitching to the surface. This pic is the inspiration a red velvet spider mite on some moss. I took this photo last Sunday when we were out looking for morels in the woods.

New Barn Series






















New series of barns in the making. Silk velvet that has been dyed with natural dyes (vegetable or botanical dyed), compost dyed and or indigo dyed. The colors really are this vibrant in person! Cotton is not this vibrant but with a lot of work you can get it to this level of saturation ;-)
Now to figure how I'm going to stitch these babies and not lose the naunce of what I'm trying to achieve - which is to NOT have them look like a quilt! I'm not sure what the size is at the moment, I'll have to measure the pieces tomorrow, I"m thinking they are around 22"w x 28"h