Birds and threads

So I've been working away at some projects and playing with some others. First, here is my finished Beardsley. The Aussome 6 Fiber group I belong to is having a 'Inspired by the Masters' challenge...well, not really a challenge...other then you are challenging yourself. It's not a project we each have to do. It's if you want to do it. Every two months or so one of the members picks a Master Artist which is to inspire us to create an art quilt based on their work. The first artist they picked was Klimt. This time it was Audbrey Beardsley. Beardsley created most of his work in black and white and some were a tad risque. I did find one of Beardsley's works that he did for the cover of Oscar Wilde's play Salome. This was a play based on the Princess Salome and other biblical characters. Kinda not an acceptable play at one time but guess everyone accepted it later. Anyway, I fused, machine stitched and FMQ’d the design and then I was going to cut out shapes but decided I’d cut the shapes out of some other quilted fabric I was practicing on. So I cut out the hearts and then I beaded around the edges (the black and white hearts are quilted white fabric which I painted with black). I then sewed the hearts onto the background. I'm playing (so to speak!) with a lot of beading the edges of my pieces vs beading the piece itself. This is a good precursor for another exhibit I need to create an art piece for the Art of Nature.

My label on back
Detail of beaded heart -I painted the black area with fabric paints

This past week I played with Potato dextrin and bleach resist which was fun. I took a piece of dark blue/back mottled commercial fabric and covered with the potato dextrin. The paste was really thicker then I needed or should have made. But oh well..I laid it in the sun which dried it quickly! Then I took a mixture of bleach/water and sprayed it on top of the dextrin paste. Rinsed it in vinegar water and wow! I’m really happy with this piece. If I can find more of the fabric I’ll make some more. It’s a cross between a tree trunk (which is what I was trying for) and looking like a wooded forest! I did another piece which was green but dummy me put the entire piece in a baggie with black dye and the entire piece turned a nice shade of brown.but it matches my wooded piece. I should have made a thickened black dye and applied on top of the print paste which I'll do next time.

This is the fabric before the dextrin and discharge with bleach.

Same fabric after dextrin and bleach applied

My ritual every day is to have Grace (my blue front amazon) with me as I get dressed in the morning. Yes, this is a necessity because she'll scream (& I do mean scream!) if I'm out of the room or out of her sight. I feel bad when I get upset at her for screaming because at times it's hard to take her into every room I'm in. Hence, I do allow her to 'come and play' each morning. At least she's quiet...but she does get into trouble. Check out the video of the other day.