Stitch Adventures

Thanks for the Mammories

Several months ago I had an argument with my negative/fearful self. I had received a phone call asking me to speak to a woman's group about the Bra Decorating activity I had in my studio in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness.  Argh.  I’d done speaking in public, but everyone, and I mean everyone, must be a little fearful about speaking in front of a large group.  What would I say?  I don’t know enough about breast cancer!  How long could I talk?  Certainly not for very long. 

But challenging myself to go outside of my little realm is GOOD for me.  It builds character.  It takes courage, yes.  But what an opportunity to speak to many women at once about the importance of getting mammograms.  So I called and said yes, I will speak, and show my tribute quilt and decorated bras.

 

Here's one of my favorites, which I call the "Cowgirl Bra".

And guess what happened?  They tittered and giggled, and laughed when I announced the names.  Sure I was nervous, but I had over-prepared (I always do that before speaking), and once the bra samples started making the rounds, it was fun.

 

The favorite, by far, was this decorated purse bra.  So I'll be making more of these for another talk in October.  

Fabric Design with Food

     On Saturday we designed fabric using gouache and whatever food and plant parts we brought.  I brought quite a selection: a lime, coffee beans, geranium leaves, a fern, kalanchoe flower, and when I ran out of ideas with those, I raided my lunch for some soy bean pods and a navel orange peel.

       Needless to say, we all had a lot of fun!  This was a great way to use up our mixed paints from last week.  But I don’t think I’ll be keeping these in my portfolio of potential designs.  Although the instructor says we should hang onto everything, as it just might inspire us in the future.

       Here are some pictures of what I came up with. 

Here's a print with coffee beans and a cut lime.

Made with geranium leaves and orange peel.

Used a long leaf, and a lime for the centers.

The end of an orange and fern.

Eda-mame pods - it looks like weird sea creatures to me.

This would make a great project to do on a warm day - outside with kids and acrylic paints.

Happy Belated Fathers Day

It just occurred to me, I didn't post the pictures of the present I made for my husband for Fathers Day, several weeks ago.  I gave it to him on time, and he proudly sent me pictures, once he put it in place in his shop.

This present wasn't actually inspiration.  My husband owns a machine shop, and his building is filled with big metal cutting, grinding, forming machines.  Big, like the size of trucks, cars, and refrigerators.

Several months ago he asked me to make a cover for a machine that is the size of a refrigerator, when it's on the stand.  Not all the machines need covers, (thank goodness).  Just this one, because it's a precision measuring machine, and flying metal chips and oil could cause it to lose accuracy.

I kept telling myself how easy it would be to take the measurements and maybe borrow some old sailcloth (he used to have a sail loft, to make hang gliders, hang glider bags, and tie downs.  Yea, really).

But I never got around to it until a few days before Fathers Day.  I got the measurements, found a huge plastic continuous zipper in a box in his shop, and brought everything home.  He still has his industrial sewing machine in his shop, but that wouldn't have been much of a secret if I worked on the cover there.

Making the cover was easy enough - it's just a big box without a bottom.  I applied the zipper all around the front so that he can zip the cover open and use the machine without removing the cover.

And, since I love using my new embroidery machine, I decided to put his business name on the front, so it would at least be special.

I used some canvas pieces in his favorite color - blue, and did the design in silver metallic, to go with all the metal chips that he makes.  Here's the finished cover.

So much better than a new tie!

Fabric Design with real paint

In my second fabric design class we spent some time making a fabric design and then painting with our gouache (pronounced go-wash).  These paints are opaque watercolors, and very expensive if you want to buy many. 

 

First, we were to draw a “natural” design (i.e. a flower or something alive) to fit on a 6” square of paper.  That was easy enough.  I looked at my water bottle, and there were little curvy waves, which reminded me of water lilies.  So I drew water lilies with water rings.  When the teacher came by, she said it was pretty, but I needed to change the direction of the water lilies.  The logic dawned on me – prints are supposed to be multi-directional, and have movement.  So I redid the drawing.

Next, we were to copy our design three more times, exactly, onto 6” squares, to make a   12” square.  Now suddenly, there were gaps in the design near the edges, and my water lilies created unforeseen diagonal lines.  They aren’t supposed to line up at all.  So I rearranged the flowers and redid the drawing, again. 

  

 

Next, we were to play with our paints, creating a sample palette of colors we wanted to use.  That was fun – squirting out paint colors into little cups and mixing to get a color I liked.  I mixed up some of my favorite colors - green and cornflower blue, violets and light blue.  We were limited by being able to choose 3 colors for our design – the fourth color was our paper.  Of course there’s logic in this too.  Fabric manufacturers probably love a limited number of colors in a print – it’s cheaper to make. 

 

Our homework is to paint our “full drop” design with our chosen colors, and bring natural items like food and leaves for nature printing next Saturday.  So that's my completed design above.