Please Pardon the dust around here while I tidy things up and get my posts moved to this location. Click here to see my Vox Blog. You will find mini tutorials and class related posts on the Classroom Blog- see button on sidebar.
Inspiration Along the Road
February 8th, 2010A few days ago, I picked up my grandson from his school that is just over 6 miles from home. As most roads in our area of PA, there are lots of twists and turns, and many farms with old, worn out barns and other buildings in disrepair that grab my attention. This post shows a few of the photos I took along that road.
Ghent Road Barn on Curve 1
This was the view just a few miles from home. The road curves almost all around this old barn. I took a series of photos of this barn as I drove around it. (I did stop to take each photo.) Actually most of the photos were taken the day after I picked up Andrue when I went back to the school to see if my cell phone got dropped in the parking lot. (It was found today inside the school, so I made good use of my drive time.)
Ghent Road Barn on Curve 2
A little farther along the road, with a few plastic wrapped hay bales in the foreground.
Ghent Road Barn on Curve 3
This was as I got around, near the end of the barn, where the road gets closer to it.
Ghent Road Barn on Curve 4
Ghent Road Barn on Curve 5
These are more photos as I drove along the road in front of the barn and past it.
Gent Road Falling Shed 1
Along the road a bit farther are a couple of smaller buildings that are in really bad shape. Both the one above and below look like one good snow storm might take them down.
Ghent Road Falling Shed 2 with Grain Bin 1
Ghent Road Machinery Shed 1
This machinery building is in better repair than the previous buildings, and looks as if it is still being used to house some machinery. I like the basic “bones” of this building. It definitely has lots of character.
Ghent Hill Corner Barn 1
The photo of this barn was taken on the way home from the school, the last set of barns on Ghent road. The one right next to the road is another one ready to fall at any time.
It seems a bit sad to see so many of these these old buildings empty and ready to fall down. I often wonder what some of the barns and buildings were like when in use, full of animals, hay and more. Even old buildings that I grew up hanging out in, on my parent’s farm are sad from old age and not being used any more.
This was just a few buildings on a small stretch of road. There are many many more stretches of PA roads with old barns and houses I want to take photos of and eventually use in a series of art quilts. I can envision some of these printed onto fabric and surrounded with old fashioned flowers growing around them instead of the dead weeds and grasses.
Playing With Mud and Rocks Again
January 29th, 2010Actually I am playing with paint on fabric to resemble mud, rocks, moss, ferns and flowers for a new art quilt I am working on. I have had the idea for this piece in the back of my head for a long time…. You know the kind…. an idea that keeps peeking out to say it wants to be done, but every time you try to put idea to fabric, things don’t work right, and the idea gets crammed back into the recesses of the mind until it decides to pop out again…. Finally this idea has actually gotten on the design wall, and is progressing.
"Mountain Laurel and Ferns"
“Mountain Laurel and Ferns” was one of the few pieces I created in 2009. The new piece in the works is inspired by the same area along the road I live on that inspired this one. I am fascinated by how tenacious the plants and trees that grow there are. It is a pretty hostile environment, with lots of rocks, a steep slope, shade and lots of dust coating things during the hot summer. The Mountain Laurel plants seem to be just hanging on by a thread, but they are actually deeply rooted old, abused specimens.
Mountain Laurel Flowers along Water Road
In the photo above, the stems that show are pretty skinny, making it look like these plants were not very old. Upon digging around the bases a bit, I discovered that the stems were growing out from low, wide stumps. These are much older plants than it looks from a quick glance. The road they are growing along used to be one lane through the woods, up the side of the mountain. A number of years ago, it was widened so two vehicles can now pass safely. Most of the trees and vegetation close to the road was cut down on the high side of the road, while gravel was built up on the low side. These Mountain Laurel plants were victims of the massive cutting, but they grew back from the bases. They also continue to take more abuse when the road crews come along with their brush trimmers each summer. That would explain why the plants are so low, appearing to crawl along the ground.
The new piece on the wall will feature more of the rocks and dirt than the greens of “Mountain Laurel and Ferns”. I had to break out the paints to modify a couple pieces of fabric to add to what I had in my stash. I am also using some photos printed onto cotton, and there may also be a craggy, mossy tree trunk.
Fern Batik Fabric
The fabric above is the one I wanted to modify. This is not a fabric I like much, too much rusty orange. I decided to turn it into something to resemble the rocks and dirt around the Mountain Laurel plants.
Painted Fern Fabric Green
Fern Fabric after Painting Gray and Green
Above are the two pieces of the fabric that I ended up with. I toned down the contrast of the ferns and the rusty orange. I will be posting the process used to get to this point on my Classroom Blog.
These new fabrics will be used here and there in my newest creation. I am not sure how much will be used, but it now has more of a muddy, mossy look than it had.
If all goes well, there will be new posts soon showing progress of my new work. I will be away over the weekend, so I hope the ideas that have been flowing don’t stop.
First New Art Quilt of 2010
January 23rd, 2010I finally got the creative juices flowing a bit yesterday, and finished the first FFFC (Fast Friday Fabric Challenge) quilt I have attempted in a very long time. New challenges are posted on the 4th Friday of each month, with the idea of finishing a small art quilt by the following Saturday. I originally thought that this piece would be done before the next challenge was posted, but while double checking the rules for Challenge 40, I found that the next challenge had already been posted- yesterday was the 4th Friday of January- where has the month gone?
Cocoa Mix Box
For Challenge #40, we were to pay attention to product packaging and how the colors used affect your perception and buying decisions of the products, and then use the colors from a selected package in a quilt. The piece was to be a still life, and be mostly plants or flowers. I drink hot chocolate every morning, and used one of the boxes for my color palette. I immediately thought of my favorite cobalt blue glass bottles, and wanted to include a couple in my composition.
Photos of Blue Bottles Printed on Cotton Fabric
I am not great re-creating glass in fabric, so I decided to take photos of the glass and a spool of thread, and printed them onto fusible backed cotton fabric.
Group of Cobalt Blue Glass Bottles and Eye Wash Cup
Here is one of the photos I used to arrange on the page to print onto the fabric. I placed them on, and backed them white card stock to take the photo. I love the gold design on the perfume bottle- my favorite.
Ist Layout Idea
This was the first version of the layout. I hadn’t remembered that plants or flowers were to be a big part of the composition. The original thought was to use the thread spools and some chunks of chocolate around the bottles… Not too hard to change direction a bit…. the short bottle could be a vase, and I had thought of adding a white flower on the table anyway.
Second Layout Without Thread
OK, to keep with mostly plant theme, chocolate and thread spools are out, bottles and eye wash cup still in. I found some great silk leaves in the perfect shade of coppery brown found on the cocoa box to back the white silk flowers. I added a stem into the open top bottle, ready for flowers. The chocolate colored fabric I had picked out was used for the stems and small leaves needed.
More Progress
Here is what it looks like after flowers have been added, and stitching has been done. Most of the flower petals were stitched only down there centers, leaving them 3-dimensional.
Blue Bottles and Flowers
Here is the “finished” piece…. The more I look at it, I think I need to figure out a way to make the white lace show up better. The bottles look a bit dull to me, and I may add a bit of gloss medium over them….. The flower centers could use some beads. I guess I will have to hang it on the design wall for a while to see what happens.
Update- 1-27-10- Well, after looking at it for a few days, I decided to add some beads in the flowers. Below is the most recent photo.
Newest Version of Blue Bottles with Beads Added
Detail shot of Blue Bottles and Flowers
This last photo shows more detail. I even added a little gold butterfly resting at the base of the lower right flower.
Heart Pins as Valentine Gifts
January 21st, 2010With Valentine’s day arriving soon, I have been beading more of my heart pins. Yesterday, I delivered a batch along with other shapes to the local PA North Country Artisan Center and Store in Towanda. November and December were good sales months, and I really needed to restock.
Group of pins beaded Tuesday
This was the batch I beaded on Tuesday. I am liking the new heart shape a lot. This new shape will be perfect for Valentine’s Day sales, but is great for wearing any time of year.
Wonky Heart Pin in Black & White, Red and Pink
This photo shows my “Wonky Heart” much larger than it’s just over 2″ height and just under 2″ width. I was playing with the shape to give it some character, but am not sure if I sill do many more of these or not. This one gave me the most grief during the beading process. I usually don’t have very large sections of single fabrics, and ended up removing the first attempt at adding beads to the large upper left mostly white section. I like try number 2 much better… This along with the following pins are available for purchase in my Artfire Gift Items Studio- Andrus Gardens.
Heart Pin in Pink and Lime with Butterfly
Heart Shaped Art Quilt Pin available in Artfire Studio, shown with Hershey Kisses for size reference. Chocolate is also needed on Valentine’s day, too isn’t it?
Hot Pink and Black Heart Pin as a Pendant
The last pin of this group is shown hanging from a black satin cord. Most of my pins can be worn as pendants by simply pinning them to a chain, cord or simple necklace. This way they can be worn in more than one way. This mainly Hot Pink and Black Heart is also available on Artfire.
Any of my pins would make unique gifts for Valentine’s Day or any other occasion. If you would like to check out a wider selection of hand crafted unique gift items, there are lots of goodies to look at on Artfire. Click this link for the Valentine’s Day Gift Guide, or this one for the Unique Gift Guides.
New Heart Shaped Pins
January 18th, 2010More time in the studio has resulted in my newest shape of pins. With Valentine’s Day coming up soon, I thought it would be the perfect time for hearts. I have thought of doing more shapes, and hearts have been on the list, but just never got done.
Heart Pin Bases
I pulled out one of my boxes of small “chunks and hunks” (leftover quilt sandwich pieces) in pinks, blacks, a touch of red, and a bit of lime green. I used silver metallic thread for the stitching, and finished the edges with black or white yarn with silver running through it.
Group of 4 Hearts ready for beads.
This is a closer look at a few of the hearts. I just randomly satin stitched chunks to each other. Couching the yarn to finish the edges is a bit tricky, going around the curves and inner corner. I think this is why I hadn’t done hearts sooner… the first one didn’t work out so well.
Heart shaped Art Quilt Pin with Hummingbird
This is a closeup of the first finished heart pin. I added a silver tone hummingbird to the lower point. Cat’s Eye beads in white, pearl beads, glass beads in pink and black along with Swarovski crystals for extra sparkle.
Heart Pin as a Pendant
This photo shows the pin used as a pendant, hanging from a black satin cord. The pin back is attached so that the heart can be pinned to a necklace for use as a pendant.
Today is a very dreary, foggy, drizzly day… the perfect weather for curling up on the couch with my Ott light, a bunch of hearts and pretty beads to dress up the rest of my hearts.
Babies Left the Nest Today
January 15th, 2010Finally I have spent some quality time in the studio!! A couple of nights ago, I pulled out a batch of postcards I began working on before Christmas to get them finished and on their way to their new owners.
Sunprinted Fabric After Cutting
I thought I had taken photos of the postcards in all stages, but can’t find them…. Probably forgot again…. I keep thinking I will photograph a group at all stages, well, next batch…. Above is the remaining fabric from the fat quarter sunprint I cut 6 postcards from for a Postmark’d Art Exchange.
I began by fusing chunks of the sunprints onto 4″x6″ pieces of Peltex interfacing. I then used colored pencils to draw back in the veins in the prints, then free motion stitched the edges and veins of the Maple and Oak leaf prints.
One Postcard in Progress
The next thing I did was to add more interest by adding “ghost” Oak leaves by laying silk leaves over the stitched postcards, brushing white pearl paint over the edges. The above photo shows two ghostly images on a card. I then had to wait for the paint to dry….
Set of 6 Postcards with Oaks Painted
After the paint dried, I stitched around the edges of the Oak leaves and the veins with an iridescent white thread. One card has one of the silk leaves that was painted over, stitched onto it. Another card has two prints made from pressing the silk leaves paint side down onto it, transferring the paint. The photos show more shine than shows in real life. There is some shimmer, but the flash reflected off the pearl paint.
Group of 4 Postcards
Above is a closer look at the stitching, pearl paint prints, and applique.
Printed Fabric for Postcard Backs
Once the stitching was done on the fronts of the cards, I printed the backs on cotton fabric. By setting up a legal size, there is room for 4 backs on one page. I have blanked out the addresses in this photo. The backs were cut, then fused onto the postcards. Black yarn with silver metallic through it was then couched on the edges to finish them, using the white iridescent thread.
Backs of the Finished Postcards Ready to Mail
This photo above, shows 4 of the cards with the backs fused on and the edges finished with the yarn. I forgot to take another photo with the stamps on…. First class stamps were used for mailing.
Set of 6 Postcards Ready to Mail Front View
The final photo shows all 6 postcards finished- the front view. The stamps were added and I sent them on their way to their new owners today.
Now that this batch of postcards is done, I can begin playing with another batch of postcards or possibly pull out the stone wall pieces that I started while at my grandmother’s house. Maybe I can finish one or more of them before next weekend when we will help her celebrate her 96th birthday… I can’t imagine living that long…. I am now half her age….
Welcome to the New Location of My Blog!
January 10th, 2010This has been a long time in coming…. I have wanted to add my blog to my website, and use Wordpress to do it so anyone wanting to comment on a post didn’t have to join Vox to comment. I know a lot of people don’t want to sign up for anything more than necessary these days.
Ken in his chair with leg warmers
The first Photo upload worked!!
There are bound to be a glitch or two while I get things running better here… I will be trying to move my posts from Vox to here, but that may be easier said than done…. Hopefully the next post will be soon, and will be after all is moved and set up as much as is possible.
Happy New Year!
January 1st, 2010Another year gone and a new one has begun…. Looking back, 2009 was not a year that I would want to re-live…. Quilt wise, I didn’t accomplish much at all. I couldn’t seem to crawl out a super creative funk…. I did have a few short lived bursts of creativity, but only a fraction of past years.
My main goal for 2010 is to spend more time creating my art and quilting. I have realized that I need that creative time for my mental as well as physical health. I plan to get back to keeping up with the Fast Friday Fabric Challenges again, and participate more in other groups on and offline. I will try to not over-think what I am working on, and embrace the diversity of my creations instead of worrying about focusing on a certain direction. I enjoy working with my sunprints, flower photos, rocks and stone walls, and more. I have tried to put it all together into a more cohesive body of work. Maybe if I just let whatever wants to come out at the time happen, I may find that there is a thread that connects things.
Aunt Fern in Garden
While spending the time I did with my grandmother, I scanned some old photos she had. This photo jumped out at me…. I have been taking more and more photos of old houses, barns and other abandoned and deteriorating structures. I tend to wonder what some of these would have looked like when they were occupied and taken care of. I added beautiful flower gardens around the photo of the run down house on the road I live on for “Water Road House”, and also used that house as inspiration for “My Dream House”. This photo of my great aunt shows what I have been imagining… The somewhat wild, full garden of blooms around the house and garage. I also have memories of a great grandmother working in her gardens when I was young. These memories, photos, and my love of gardening seem to be merging into some of my latest works
Water Road House- SOLD
My Dream House
I have no idea what this new year will bring…. Last year I wanted to find more focus in my work, but trying to make myself work in a certain direction didn’t seem to work well. This year if I plan to “just do something”, I may find myself creating more, and may even surprise myself at what turns up.
Additional goals are business related, and involve moving my blog to my website, blogging more regularly, promoting
my work differently (better), and more. Scheduling time each day for creating, business things, and whatever may help me to reach my goals. The new year brings new challenges and new hope….
The Wreaths are Done!
December 12th, 2009The wreath workshop has officially been closed for the season…. It will now turn back into a woodworking shop again.
I finished my orders of wreaths and grave blankets and all were gone by this past Monday.
Fraser Fir with Cone Spikes
Here is one of the branches of Fraser Fir that are literally a pain to work with…. the cones shatter, leaving behind the spiky centers… If I needed to use these branches for wreaths, I had to cut off the spikes… really adds to the time needed to construct things.
Concolor Fir
In direct contrast to the spiky, sharp Frazer cone centers, is the softness of Concolor Fir. The Concolor is used mostly in the grave blankets. The needles are a bit long and sparse to make nice full wreaths, but the flexibility of the branches make them perfect
Grave blanket Beginning
The grave blankets are constructed on a base of wire with appx. 1″x3″ openings. the stems of the branches are woven into the wire base until it is covered and the greens hang out the desired size around the edges. The Fraser Fir is the bluer looking variety, along with some Scotch Pine- longer needles.
Large Grave Blanket Finished
This is the finished product- This is the largest blanket I make- appx. 3′x6′ in size, with extra decorations in addition to the bow, cones and berries I usually use.
Grave Blanket Pile
Here is a standard size blanket on the top of a pile of a batch ready to go out. 3′x4′ or so is the normal size of most of our blankets.
Decorated Medium Wreath
Here is one of the decorated wreaths for the second large order, ready for pick-up. As you can see, my sneakers catch a lot of pitch from working with the greens. My clothes also get covered in the sticky stuff, too. I usually use one outfit or “uniform” for the entire season, so I only ruin one pair of jeans and one or 2 sweatshirts. Sometimes if enough waterless Goop hand cleaner applied to the clothes will remove much of the pitch. At least one shirt gets thrown away each year after wreath making is done.
Decorated Special Order Wreath
This is one of a few special ordered wreathe that get done each year, This wreath is a bit larger than most, and I added extra ribbon to brighten them up a bit more.
Snow Dec. 9 2009 Front Garden
There was quite a bit of cold and windy weather while I was making the wreaths, but the biggest snowfall happened after they were done… Our first 6″ snowfall for the year…. Most of it melted the day after it fell, but what didn’t melt is now rock hard from very cold temps.
Short Tract Shed 1
Now that wreath production is over, I can show a few more photos I took while staying with my grandmother. This is an old shed along the road a few miles before getting to my parent’s house.
Short Tract House 1
One day while going out on a shopping trip, I ended up having to take a detour, and found this run down old house in Short Tract, a tiny community not far from where I grew up… This house definitely has seen better days.
Marriott Granary Roof
I don’t always have to look too far to find old, worn buildings to take photos of that may end up in one of my quilts…. This is the granary and garage in the side yard of the home I grew up in… They are showing their age a lot now.
Marriott Sugar House 2
I remember spending time in this sugar house many, many years ago with my grandfather while sap was being boiled down into Maple syrup. It looks like one side is sinking into the hillside.
Marriott Sugar House 1
Another view of the sugar house… we used to play around here after maple syrup was no longer made…. A long time ago…. With the leaves off the trees and vines, the weathered wood and mossy stone foundation show up nicely. In summer, many of the old buildings I love are nearly hidden from view by trees, vines, and weeds.
If all goes well, I should be showing off a couple new art quilts soon. I began a number of them while staying at Gram’s. I just need to get back to the studio and finish things up.
