Studio Tours + Creative Companions = Inspiration & Fun! (part 1)

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What a great combination for a Saturday. Taking a trip to the red rocks of Sedona with three friends to enjoy the beauty of the area, the studio tours and each others company. Seriously good.



Mary Poindexter & Dee Durkee



Our first stop was at the home studio of Dee Durkee who creates fiber art vessels, wall-art, jewelry and journals. Three of our group knew Dee so we were looking forward to seeing her place and her work.



Sheila in Dee's studio

 



  

Our next stop was the Studio of Shirley Eichten Albrecht and her husband. Shirley creates beautiful, colorful reed, raku and gourd baskets. I loved her studio because it was so bright and they were very welcoming. Sorry, no photos of this stop.

Third on our list was the studio of a weaver named Pamela Gunning. Pamela weaves scarves, and shawls. I was fascinated by her equipment.

Then of course we had a make a lunch stop and the Wildflower Bread Company turned out to be a wonderful choice. And after lunch we couldn’t help but do a little shopping in the shops in the same location. And I loved this piece of artwork in the courtyard. Pretty Pony. At the time I did not think to get the name of the artist.



This is the end of part one.I will have the second part posted by Thursday with lots more photos.

Can you tell we had a great time?!!

As always, I appreciate you taking the time to visit. Feel free to leave comments.

Mixed Media Success

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Painted Paper Towel

Painted Paper Towel

I love teaching and had a blast facilitating learning for the students in my technique class on Saturday! We were exploring Mixed Media Techniques for Fabric and we had a blast. I had four and a half students. I say half because one student had to leave early. 



I have taken and taught classes where the students are required to keep to essentially the same pace in order to complete a specific product by the end. This was not that kind of class. My interest was in sharing techniques that the students could explore and make their own so they could use them in their own work. I believe we accomplished just that.



We were able to explore several techniques and it was really fun to observe each of them taking those techniques in their own personal direction. Same materials + varying thoughts and approaches = very interesting and inspiring results. See for yourself.

 

Painted Paper Towel





Painted Paper Bag



I planted seeds and let them go. And go they did.

Pumice Gel on Fabric

Pumice Gel & Glass Bead Gel on Paper - the photo
does not do it justice. Glass Bead Gel is gorgeous
as it catches the light.

Clear Tar Gel, Lumiere, inks on fabric

On this fabric, Molding Paste,
Pumice Gel, Clear Tar Gel,
Metal sheet stamped & colored
with alcohol inks

The most fascinating, frightening, and fun part of this as the teacher was pushing aside the desire to move people along and allowing them the time to explore and discover.

Metals, Mica, Candy Wrappers created by Joan



Metal sheet, paper, mica piece,
mica washers, created by Quinn









Read about Quinn's class experience on her blog post of 9-26-10.

Painted Misty Fuse, metal pieces,
feathers, leaf on fabric

Painted Misty Fuse, feathers gold leaf,
on paper

There were many more samples they created for themselves and a binder to hold everything in for future inspiration. I cannot wait to do this again.

Work in Progress (WIP) Wednesday

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Progress. Is sometimes slow. But steady. 

That’s what living is, yes? My life is a work in progress. And I usually have works in progress, usually more than one. Here are a few shots of the WIP from two weeks ago. I have actually had some time and felt good enough to do some stitching on this yellow piece. I like to experiment so you’ll see more of this. It will not remain yellow.

The plan is to paint after quilting.  I layered two layers of cotton batting with the inted of getting more visible/obvious texture. I think that is working. I basically made up the design - I find that I like making it up as I go - no rules, just right. Hah!

I have only tried this once before, right after I got a copy of The Painted Quilt by Linda and Laura Kemshall. Great book!

I am also very inspired by Lynda Monk and the work she shares on her blog Purple Missus! Just scroll down through her older posts and enjoy. Her work is intriguing and inspiring to me. I don’t know what color I’m going to paint it yet, but I trust that it will come to me. So, I am on another quilting adventure – doing things I’ve never done before to see what happens.

 

Other work in progress is me. Ha. This is never ending right. I am always grateful to wake up every morning. The last six weeks or so have been very stressful physically. My diabetes numbers started to get way out of control, we’re talking upwards of 350.

This was triggered by the need to stop one diabetes med that was causing me to gain weight. Found a new endocrinologist who gave me a different med, which unfortunately just didn’t lower the blood sugar numbers like they needed to be. So, we switched to insulin. What an adventure that has been. It has taken weeks to get even close to the right dosage. It is starting to work and we still have a ways to go. But I do feel much better.

I have actually never had really high numbers until this year, especially numbers in the 370-420 range. It is a very scary and frustrating thing and it zaps energy and makes it very hard to focus. I’ll keep you posted. I’ve also been making myself attempt drawing a lot more so here is a sketch of my testing supplies. They're a little light but you get the idea. Next time I'll sketch on new paper, not recycled paper.

Work in Progress (WIP) Wednesday

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So I have 20 minutes before Thursday is over. No problem. I have the beginnings of two WIPs this week. First up is a piece of scrap fabric that I layered with two layers of batting to increase the texture. All of those rectangles you can see will be filled with quilting or other items/techniques. I am making it up as I go along. One thing I am sure of is that it will be painted once I'm finished with the quilting lines. This work was inspired by 'The Painted Quilt - Paint and Print Techniques for Color on Quilts' by Linda & Laura Kemshall.

I think the shadows give you a good sense of what it looks like so far.

Second Up are some photos of items I am collecting to use on a quilt, or a series of quilts, about type 2 diabetes. After 12 years of managing this disease, I find myself struggling with numbers out of control. I decided that since these are symptoms I have not experience before and they are having such a hugh and mostly negative impact on every single area of my life, I am going to use this series to work thru and express some of those emotions, challenges and frustrations that other people with the disease could also relate to.

My nightime, long acting insulin pen.

The doc and I monitor the blood sugar results 8 times a day and then decide what dose to raise it to since we have yet to reach the right level of blood sugar numbers.

Of course these pens are easy, easy, easy to use and the needles are fine and go in with no pain at all.

So the 'Diabetes' quilt that I create with these are other accessories and important parts of diabetes management should be quite interesting.  We shall see.

What are you working on?

Finally, the Metals part of the Mixed Media on Fabric

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Geez, life does have a way of getting away from me. I had the most fun with these. Who says you have to stick with the 'usual stuff'. I say think outside of the box, or boxes and just go for it. I make jewelry too so I thought it would be fun to add jewelry findings along with other metals. Remember you can click on any of the photos for a larger/closer view. And I'll warn you now, this is a rather long post, but with lots of pics. Have fun and I appreciate any comments.

Jewelry Mesh, Copper Jump Rings, Embossing Metal

I like this wire-lace stuff. You can find it in some bead stores. It comes in various colors and is actually a tube of woven fine wire so you can pull it into different shapes. And as you can see, you can stitch thru this on the machine as well.  

I was feeling very adventurous and decided to see if I could zig-zag stitch these copper jump rings onto my little quiltlet. I used whatever thread was in my machine so you could actually see it. But you could make it blend more with different thread choices.

Embossing Metal that I stitched to my quilt sample. It was so easy.

 This sample has wood paper (see closeup below), metal sheets that have been cut and stamped and attached in various ways to this little quilt sample, and some chain.

And finally, the last group is jewelry findings.

This little collection of jewelry findings, chain and metal shapes are meant to inspire. Any one of these things could be added to a quilt to enhance the design of the piece. Closeups below.

Click on photo for cloer look.

Whew, hopefully you made it all the way through. I would love to hear what you think so drop a comment if you have a moment. Thanks!