Accidental Landscapes

Had a go at Karen Eckmeier’s "Accidental Landscapes". Very easy to do, and effective on a small scale. The hardest part was cutting the strips of fabric free hand with the rotary cutter, something I had never done before. I also found “hills” more useful in putting the landscape together, than “valleys”.

Using the same fabrics, but changing the order, I made 2 landscapes. I chose purple for the mountains, and Angelina fibres for the snow. The nikau and flax are free motion embroidered with the sewing machine.

Next time I will do this on wash away stabiliser and handsew them to the landscape. Fluffy novelty yarn completed the flax.

By changing the mix of the strips of fabric, a different feel is created in the landscapes, even though the same fabrics are used.

A quick and easy technique that is simple to create, but not mind challenging enough for me to repeat unless I need a small gift quickly for a visitor.

Cold

As it is very chilly, my theme this week is “cold” Not sure how to go about portraying this, so jotted down some ideas. Cold as ice, chilled to the bone, frozen, ice, blue with cold, cold nose, cold hands, chilly, brrrr..!, frigid, raw, bitter cold, cold cutting wind, icicles, frost, hail, glacier, mountain, ski-ing, snowmen.

On a pale gray fabric, small marbles were rubber banded to create a dyeing opportunity. With blue textile ink, I wrote “Shiver” with very diluted ink, then I went over it again, with less diluted ink, the ink spread across the damp fabric, and reminded me of ice on water. I have not tried zigzag free motion stitching, so want to try it on this project.

I limited the colour palette to blue, I was surprise how many tones and hues of blue I had in my threads. It was fun free motion zigzagging ,but I definitely need more practise. I flipped the fabric over and reverse bobbin embroidery with some variegated blue crochet cotton in the bobbin.

With silver metallic thread, and reduced the zigzag to 2, highlighted the word “Shiver”.
I like the layers of thread and how the eye travel across, moving from the bright blue to the white, and back to the bright blue again.

Blizzard

Winter has hit us with snow in the South Island, and frosts and cold fingers in Rotorua. White on white, snowflake and icicles. Using a striped white on white fabric, I cut different lengths and staggered the joins. I wanted to duplicate the fractured frozen ice on a pond, but in reality, it just looks like steps to me.
I cut a small snowflake from folded paper and cut it out. I then cut out the spotted white taffeta into the snowflake shape.
Some white wool unravelled and some taffeta threads pulled from the scraps were used as icicles, the light reflecting off different angles and textures.

A fine white tulle was machine quilted over the snowflake and icicles. Silver metallic thread and a darning plate in the machine, I tried some machine embroidery around the snowflake.
3 strand embroidery thread created icicles in feather stitch, but they look more like branches covered in ice. Daisy chain stitch and straight stitch made more snowflakes. I also outlined details of the snowflake and used glass seed beads and sequins to make the snowflake magical. More beads highlighted the snowflake.

Next time I would facture the white striped fabric more randomly, like ice on a pond. I would also put more threads and other embellishments under the tulle.

Poppies

“Are they what I think they are?”
For several months now, I have been considering using the outside green wrapper, which I think is polypropylene, on the packs of “naturals range” of Libra pads. It reminds me of the tyvek building wrap which is strong and doesn’t rip.
After laying the wrappers from one packet out onto the painting sheet, I painted them with yellow and red textile ink, and mixed up the leftovers for orange. The stuff soaked up the colour fantastically, even though it began as a pale green base.
While I had the ink out, I painted some cupcake liners red and yellow, then decided they needed a “center, so a dab of black or purple paint plopped into the centre of each pleated circle.
When the wrappers were dry I cut them into 1.5 cm strips and wove them to create a background. They cut well and there is no fraying. The leftovers I melts together to create a nest mixture. Texture and all that.
The cupcake liners also hold the colour and creases well, and remind me of poppies, so they started my piece. Silver paint stik was used to stencil poppy leaves around the outside. I also cut some poppy leaves from an unpainted green wrapper. Using the melted “nest” and the green leaves, completed the composition.
Quilted in red thread around the sliver leaves, and stitched the green cut out leaves with green variegated thread.
The poppies needed more, so I popped some yellow seed beads in the centre.
Surprisingly, the products worked well, and I will use both of them again.

Happy Villages Karen Eckmeier

Decided to try out Karen Eckmeier’s fabric collage technique, so cut 5 cm strips from 7 colours, in reds, browns and purples. I cut these into 5 cm squares and then, into a series of “steps”. 2 , 3, 4, and 5 step shapes.
Changed the technique from Karen, I laid out fusible Vilene with the “glue” face side up. I then arranged the “steps” onto this, starting with a dark value colour, and then contrasting it with a light value. Shapes were turned and placed quite randomly, nice not to think too much, just enjoying the process.
Once happy, I just ironed the pieces straight onto the Vilene. No glue to worry about.
Cut out some “onion” shapes for roofs, and some triangle shapes for roofs.
I thought some arches and awnings would look quite good too. Also cut some arch shapes and square shapes for windows. Tried placing the shapes onto dark / light combinations, and moved the windows around until I was happy with the placement.
A wipe of a glue stik onto the backs of the small pieces held them in place, while I pinned fine black tulle over the top. Sewed around all the shapes, and then cut the tulle away from the sky fabric.
It is a happy village, reminds me of the northern African communities.

Angelina Dragonflies

Had a go with Angelina fibres today. Love the names Raspberry Fizz, and white. Lightly pressed the fibres between baking paper and voila! They stick together. Tried adding bands of peacock to the raspberry fizz, Love it and love the translucence of the fibres when they catch the light – perfect for rivers, lakes and sunsets. You only need a light hand on the iron (synthetic setting).

“Bird of paradise” fabric has the colours I need, so stabilised it with double sided Vilene. Made a dragon fly stencil with freezer paper and ironed it onto my fabric. Cut the dragonfly out with an X-to knife.

I wanted to try 2 different wing colours under the Angelina fibres, so sewed red and green fabrics together for a background fabric. To help the Angelina fibres stay where I wanted them in the fabric sandwich, I lightly glued them with a gluestick.

After ironing the fabric sandwich together, I outlined the dragonflies with a brown/orange variegated thread. Dragonflies hold my spirit and my dreams. They combine fragility and strength together. I guess they are my favourite animal.

Autumn Sun

So I have been away for 4 weeks, and haven't done much work on my challenges, I have been inspired though, by nature.The colours of Autumn have been swirled around me by the wind, so I want to try and converge autumn colours together in the form of a sun.

Using Green and brown fabrics, I split them into 2 blocks of green and brown, then cut them into strips, 2.5cm, 3cm, 3.5cm, 4 cm, 5cm. I moved second strip over and down, trying to remember the procedure described to me by an artist friend a few nights ago. This, she assured me would fragment the fabric and change the whole look of the background. The strips didn’t look right for me, so I cut them again horizontally and moved them over. Much happier look, not quite what I expected, but this is what it is all about, what if…

Decided to make it into a circle, but forgot to allow seam allowance in the background fabric, so had to cut it all down a size, and then free motion quilted, using copper variegated thread in a circular motion.

I zig-zagged the large “sun rays” and the centre of the circle reminds me of Kokopelli (from New Mexico). To emphasise this, I couched “bubble” cotton into the circle and spiral shapes to give definition. Palestrina stitch with a 3 strand embroidery thread. This takes a bit to get used to. I tried spacing close and far apart for different effects.
The Sun need more “oommf” so beaded every second stitch and then randomly used bugled beads to expand the sun rays.
A small gold sun completed the quilt.