More Eureka!

Today I completed yet another pair of Eureka! pants from Fit for Art. After having been fitted by Rae at the Atlanta Expo last March, I have a perfectly-fitted-for-now pattern for fitted pants. What fun to know that almost any pair I make will fit.

This pair is as close to jeans as I get these days. I recently purchased this beautiful navy blue cotton denim from The Sewing Workshop for exactly this project. Often I make purchases without any particular plan. This time was different. I knew that a hole in my wardrobe could be filled by dark navy denim pants.

Because I could count on the fit, I decided to try something a little different. I used Sandra Betzina's excellent instructions from her Power Sewing book to make a fly front. Strictly speaking I think it's a mock fly front but, seriously, who wants all that bulk that you get with a real fly front.

Sandra's technique does not require a matching zipper. It will never show.

Adding a fly front meant that I needed a waistband, something I often avoid by creating a facing or even binding the waist edge. I made this waistband as narrow as I could and still accommodate an appropriate button. I think it finished at under an inch wide.

Even after I trimmed, graded and pounded it, the area for the buttonhole was too bulky for my wonderful Bernina automatic buttonhole maker. Luckily I made several samples and discovered this before even trying on the actual waistband. It was a no-go. My Bernina also has a separate foot for manual buttonholes that I almost never use. It worked out perfectly for this. It's so nice to options!

Because I am (really, really) trying to lose weight, I changed the construction order. In particular I attached the waistband to the front waist sections and the back waist before stitching the sideseams. That is, I cut and attached a waistband section to each front waist (on either side of the zipper) and a separate waistband to the back waist.

I am ever-hopeful that I'll need to take the side seams up some day soon and this will make that easier.

Also just finished this small gift for fiber art friends who are getting married. Each person in our group is making them a 5x7 piece of art. I do love fiber art. It never has to fit.

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Gift 1

It is gift-making season for me. Is it for you?

It must be December. My Christmas cactus is blooming.

Each year Fiber Art Fusion, my small fiber art group, has a 5x7 challenge combined with a dinner party. Each artist is challenged to make one 5" x 7" piece of fiber art, wrap it in brown paper and bring to dinner. Each artist leaves with a piece of art from another member. I have a wonderful collection from 5x7's from previous years.

Such a small piece of art used to make me anxious, the first couple of years I participated. Now I look forward to it. It is not intended to be a master piece. Just a small gift for a fiber art friend. This year I'm incorporating my new-found love of eco-printing.

This is a red maple leaf printed on a piece of cotton sateen. I dipped the lower portion in a black walnut juice and added some darker brown with a Sharpee.

I added a slightly smaller piece of white cotton flannel to the back to give it body. The hand stitching started with parallel lines roughly 1/4" apart. Then I used size 5 Pearl cotton thread to embroider the stem and onto the base of the leaf. Next I added some burgundy French knots. Everything is better with French knots.

The backing is a piece of wool dyed with black walnuts. It is barely visible in the pictures. The cotton leaf print is attached to the brown wool at the top. Lastly I added some timtex to the back of the brown wool, securing a knotted bias tube to it for hanging.

It's satisfying to make something small.

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Wicking

For a long time now, I have admired sun prints, especially the botanical ones. But I always thought it required special paint, or special fabric, or special something. I have recently learned that it does not require anything special at all. How fun is that!?

Episode 1711 - Print and Paint - of Quilting Arts included a segment on this. Artist Lisa Chin demonstrated that these prints can even be accomplished by the impatient artist using an iron (no sun at all)! I did not have much luck with an iron but everything else I tried worked great.

First I soaked a piece of thrifted white cotton shirt in plain water and wrung it out. Then I placed it on the bottom of a plastic bin. I diluted some fabric paint with water and painted the color on with a wide brush. Lisa Chin says you can do this with ordinary acrylic craft paint too. Next I placed a *fresh* weed on top of it and placed it in the direct sunlight for a couple of hours, just until it was completely dry. I have lots of these fresh weeds on hand, should you need any for your project. LMK.

For comparison purposes, I wet another scrap from that thrifted shirt, painted it with diluted paint, added a couple of dried leaves I had on hand, and left it to dry under an ordinary desk lamp. That one turned out even better.

So yesterday I tried it again, this time with very ordinary objects:

And since I've long admired fern prints, I had to do one of those too. I had some buttons on hand from deconstructing the shirt so I threw them on too. I have a small collection of found objects so I added a couple of those too.

Today is a new day and I believe I'll make a few more fern prints. These are not really sun prints anymore. In fact I'll bet this just requires time so that the placed objects can wick away the paint. There's probably some chemistry lesson here.

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Improv Stripes

For a while now, I've been an admirer of modern quilts and especially those that are improvisational. I have been following Debbie of A Quilter's Table via her blog, as well as Flickr and Instagram. When she issued a challenge a few weeks ago, I decided to give it a try. The challenge is called Improv Stripes and you can see the description here.

My first attempt involved two coordinating fabrics. I made one block with some pretty skinny stripes first:

Back of block with skinny stripes

Front of block with skinny blocks

After this block I tried more chunky blocks and found those to be more fun for me. It is lots easier to make the blocks flat if the stripes don't overlap one another. And I like the look of the more chunky blocks.

I arranged the blocks free-form, layering the raw edges until it pleased me. Then I added a cotton flannel batting and a striped linen piece for the back. The striped linen piece came from a thrifted shirt. My quilting is simply more-or-less straight lines that are 1/8 to 1/2 inches apart.

The quilting stitch runs across the linen stripe, creating a wavy look.

I was enjoying the freedom of overlapping the oddly shaped blocks and so left the edge of the quilt raw too. I simply top-stitched it densely along the edge. The resulting 23x25 inch quilt had great body, just right for a bag of some sort.

I'm pretty pleased with the duffle and think I'll use it quite a lot. It has a good feel to it. Also I have fond memories of previous sewing projects in all those stripes.

It is not finely finished and I am happy with that. The entire project was a good exercise in letting go of my need to strive for perfection.

I used the block with skinny stripes to make another small bag but it is not nearly so satisfying as the larger one.

If you are interested in seeing more responses to this quilt-along, check them out here on instagram. There are so many pretty and inspiring quilters out there! And thanks to Debbie for her inspiration and leadership in this fun activity.

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Dual Solution

Reading Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has led me to think of the duality of other aspects of life. Dr. Edwards discusses the roles and interference between the left and right sides of the brain, particularly as it applies to drawing. But there is duality elsewhere too.

This quilt has a very traditional side. This side is mostly symmetrical in terms of the layout of the overall pattern and even the layout of each block. I've used equal amounts of light and dark, square and circle. And it is a 36 inch square.

And it has a boro side. This side is clearly asymmetrical, almost chaotic, I think. The colors are unbalanced. The shapes are squares, rectangles and circles.

When I consider this side, I feel organized but a little sad.

And when I consider this side, I feel creative and a little bit wild.

This will hang in my sewing studio but I'll probably flip it from front to back some. It will hang above my thread cones, protecting them from dust and sun damage.

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Where I Am

I'm still here, still sewing but I'm not making a particular thing at the moment. It's freeing and also a little startling. I've just returned from a week with Jody Alexander at Arrowmont. Jody pushed us to focus on making art rather than making things. Uncomfortable but a good stretch.

We did make some *things* - in fact we made this boro sampler book the very first day. A warm up to the days to come.

The boro sampler book contains (mostly) examples of repair stitches found in old boro cloth from Jody's collection and also from her study of boro. At the end of the day she taught us a simple binding technique to gather up our practice samples.

We also spent a day playing with printing techniques, such as carving our own stamps.

Jody regaled us with stories of her art. I have to say that she is a masterful story-teller.

And then we spent the remainder of the week focusing on a piece of our own. A. Piece.

Mine is a sort-of sampler, though I tried to make it art. Oh, well. It contains bits and pieces I like a lot but I'm not over-the-moon with the totality of it.

You can see a shoulder piece from a discarded top I once made. And I drew the grasshopper one night after re-reading Mary Oliver's piece "A Summer Day." I then used one of Jody's printing techniques to transfer it to cloth.

I am particularly fond of the spider-like stitch Jody taught. And I learned to repeat and abstract.

It was a lovely week and I came home spoiled. How wonderful to make art all day, interspersed with great home-cooked meals and inspiring lectures at night. Jody was a terrific teacher and I am filled to the brim.

I am now using Jude Hill's approach to quilting to make this art into some.thing. I just cannot help myself. This may be my all-time favorite post of Jude's. You can see my attempt to quilt in the Jude manner in the grasshopper picture above.

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Just Stitching

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Station 4. Jesus Meets His Mother

This piece is a quilt composed of cotton fabric, appliqued and machine quilted. Embroidery with perl cotton thread was used to create the facial features, as well as to emphasize key components. The two figures overlap and yet are intended to be viewed as distinct characters. 

Developing this piece caused me to wonder what this period must have meant for Mary. Was this to be her last meeting with her beloved child? Perhaps she was remembering her little boy - a toddler, later a teen-ager, and even a young adult prior to beginning his mission. Was she thinking about the horrible death he would experience?Or was she thinking about him as Son of Man? Son of God?

As I considered this important encounter, and my desire to illustrate it, I struggled. I nearly completed it three times before I felt it captured my vision of the moment. In the piece, they share physical features as well as emotion. There is a single tear. Who is crying? Is it Mary? Jesus? Both of them? My own son is struggling at this time and I find myself feeling the pain with him and for him.  In the end, I realized that the process and my struggle were prayers for Mary, for Jesus, for me and for my son.

John 19:

25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his motherthere, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman,[b] here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

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