Weathered Cloth.


The small piece is a piece of white searsucker fabric that I found out in the garden, it had been out there for two years.

Admittedly I'm finding the weathered clothes pins I used for creating the fabrics bound resist to be a lot more interesting than the cloth itself. Said cloth is currently going through the washer and we'll see how weathered it is in an hour or less. I'm thinking of puttng it through an indigo vat as well.

New Wool and Silk Batts

I posted some new batts to my etsy.com store tonight, here's a group photo that turned out quite nice. I didn't get far I have morels on the brain again!!! I have a lot of blues, reds, and yellows with green, not sure why they didn't get photographed tonight - but there is always tomorrow!

I hand dyed the fibers myself, the batts are a blend of merino, lincoln locks, some romney, silk bombyx, and angelina fibers. These will be wonderful for spinning or needle felting.

I have an progress felted piece called Moss on my art blog, I needlefelted it with the Janome Expression and am now hand stitching the surface.

Comparison

Upside down but it definately has appeal in this orientation as well! The piece tells a different story when oriented in what I consider the upside down position.

Right side up, bottom needs more quilting, looks like an abstract of a barn with the sun setting behind it, which is what I had intended. Now I'm not so sure ;-) Moral of the story be careful when hanging your artwork so as to not give yourself more to think about.

Passion

Well I think I might be getting my groove back, after being royally screwed over this spring! I've been spending a lot of time out in the woods, mostly identifying native prairie plants, getting new ideas for cloth, artwork, etc. When I'm not in the woods I'm in my garden pulling weeds or trying to get the plants into the ground. You can see what I've been up to at my nature blog Thistle Quill.

Tomorrow, if the wind isn't blowing I'll be cleaning fleeces of burrs and other vegetable matter and preparing them for washing. I may even start some fabric to rusting and composting. It's that time of year again to start thinking about dye pots, solar dyeing, and the like. Summer does has it's usefulness after all, I think it goes without saying I'm a winter person.

Tis the Season

Picked 20 morels this morning, good haul after last nights gully washer - one tornado that went north of town a piece yet. Most places got two or more inches of rain last night, we got 1.6 inches in less than an hour. Heard tales while morel picking of some places getting five inches, tis a lot of rain. Too many people walking around in the woods, the place is getting to be really trampled.

Horizon Scarves

Compost and rust dyed (natural dye processes) silk crepe de chine.

Well I was going to sell these scarves and decided it needed to be turned into artwork instead.

The bottom scarf reminds me of a photo my mother took of the lake a long time ago, the water was so still you couldn't tell the lake from the sky.

FFAC Collage Mania

The Fiber Art for a Cause Collage Mania Sale begins today! Virginia Spiegel is raising money for the American Cancer Society, and there are many many artists participating in this wonderful cause!

And remember I will be donating one third of the sale of any artwork sold on my Etsy.com store now through the end of May!

What do I blog about?

Angel, standing still long enough for a picture! I think she was wanting to know what I was doing to Thomas, which was taking his picture.

Well me I blog about everything of course and here is one prime example, the loves of my pet life! Here's a shot of Thomas I woke him up last night when I turned on the bedroom light he has that sweet dopey "what did you want" look on his face.

Fiber Art for a Cause

The auction for Fiber Art for a Cause is coming up! You can see the six collages I made here:
http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/CollageMania0816.html

And if you were interested in owning a piece of my artwork I am donating 1/3 of the Sale to Virginia's FAFC, that's 1/3 of the sale, as she's trying to reach a goal of 30K for this year! Available artwork can be viewed over at my etsy.com store or click this link here:
http://www.kbaxterpackwood.etsy.com I will be adding more collage pieces throughout the week so check back regularly.

Writing this reminds me that I really need to get my art website back up again!

Brainstorming!!!

Well yesterday wasn't exactly the best day for me intellectually and artistically speaking! I'm blaming it on the weather that's my story and I"m sticking with it! It does help from time to time to brainstorm with others and get some feedback on a piece which many people gave me both online by posting a comment or by emailing me directly.

Feel free to post a comment still I have yet to make a decision but now have some serious thinkig to do about these pieces. The caramel colored piece I'm thinking of adding fabric paint to, I know it looks orange on a lot of monitors but it reality it's caramel colored. So it should be interesting what comes out of the studio today.

WHole Cloth QUilt or Not to Whole Cloth QUilt

When do you know? I have loads of fabric I can't bring myself to cut up, yet there is something "lacking" about these pieces that I have doubts if stitching alone will bring out any extra qualities (clear as mud?) Normally I know, and I've had these fabrics for a couple of years now and really want to do something with them, but what do I do? Cutting them up just doesn't seem to be the anwser so then what???

They are not entirely precious, though most I'd never be able to recreate so what's the hang up you might ask? I don't know! Are they NOT good enough on their own, and if so why not? And if NOT then what would make them better? Simple seems to be the anwser here - and simple can be quite hard!!!