So now what should I do! LOTS!

 It feels so strange that I don't have a project hanging over my head!  My friends know I do not like target dates at all.  So, I've been doing some spring cleaning - finished master bedroom, master bath and my sewing room!  Feels so good to walk in the sewing room and start looking at a new or old project to work on!  Actually, I did some sewing for Bob (shortened a pair of pants) and now playing with one of my art pieces from Hilary's online class.  I've been MIA from the lessons between life, Bob & his health issues and with making Nick's T-shirt quilt for several months.  With Bob now on a treatment plan and the T-shirt quilt finished, it's time to work on what I want when I want and the same with spring cleaning.  Still need to spring clean computer room, LR and kitchen.  Downstairs family room will be on hold until Christmas!  Works for me!

Back in January, I finished knitting the Ixia lace top.  I was happy with it but the neckline drops too close to your shoulder.  My sister made this same top and it was also an issue for her, so she gave the top to her daughter and it fits really good.  Today, I took some fine elastic and wove it through the neckline to make it a tad tighter.  I'm really happy with it now!  Hard to see in this picture and I didn't take a picture with it on, but I'll be wearing it soon and will take a pic.  You can see how the neckline looked when I finished back in January here.

I'm also back to knitting the  Lattice Lace poncho I started in March.  It's coming along but I haven't worked on it much!  It's more for fall so I should have finished sometime this summer!

It's really hard to even look at this and figure out how it will be a poncho!  My sister is also making this same pattern and we both are just "following instructions" and keeping our fingers crossed!  

And this is my latest machine stitching project....I made this collage and attached to batting a few months ago.  The leaf design was a stencil and the border is part of the reverse from the stencil.  I added the photo of the little bird from a magazine. 

I started stitching the center leaf today but I'm having some issues with the stitching not looking right.  Need to change needle, tension or thread(s).  This is what was left after I ripped out the stitching!  This print is on layout paper so you know what happens when you stitch on paper, right!  Actually, it will be a good lesson for my FMQ to follow the holes exactly once I get the tension/thread stitching as it should be!  Fingers crossed!

Tonight Nick has their 2nd championship Lacrosse game!  I am heading down to Oxford for the game.  Also, check out this link...yes, I'm proud of Nick and his team for making it to the finals!  Nick is #19 and his picture is on the front of the article.  I've saved the pdf to put in his memories book for his 21st BD!

Oxford Newspaper Lacrosse article

Bob is doing great with radiation...he had his 7th treatment today and doing well.  So happy he's being so positive and no side effects.  They really don't think he'll have anything!

More Deconstructed Screen Printing

I did get better results with this last printing....of course, I added more dye powder to each mix...lesson learned!  These are all printed on fabric (Poplin).

Yes, I do love those plastic ovals!  I didn't get many prints from this screen but I'm happy with the print I did get.

Combo of ovals and cup holder!  HA

A little bubble wrap does a great job!


Might be able to use some of this fabric for the tree in my woodpecker project!

Larger bubble wrap and I think some feathers.

Large bubble wrap didn't print that well with this one...but again, I'm happy with results.

Woodpecker beading project, continues

I posted last week a woodpecker quilt my friend, Mary, finished.  You can read about the history behind the  woodpecker project here.   

This is the picture of the woodpecker, I'm working from. 











I've been beading in between working on my daughter's table topper (post here).  I dye painted the bird using thickened dyes.  After beading, I'll cut out and stitch down on a quilted background.

I started to outline the bird and filling in when I have time in between the topper.

I actually filled in the beak but I wasn't happy with it so what to do..............

Yep...it's called unbeading....my first issue was when I dye painted the bead, I didn't put a point at the end...so when I was beading, I just followed the paint.  I was using size 11 delicas and I switched to seed bead #15's.

I'm still not totally happy with his beak so it might get 'unbeaded' again!  I'll wait until I'm ready to cut the beading out and applique down.   It will be easier then to get the point for the beak. 

In between, the topper project and woodpecker project,  I've just watched our lesson from last Monday this past weekend.  We're in the process of 'drawing and composition'.  Drawing isn't my strong suit by any means, but I have to say Hilary is making is actually fun to do!









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I have some more drawings I'm working on then I'll be coloring/shading each piece.  That should be fun!


This past week was our library book sale so I was busy helping set up from Tuesday thru Thursday then working the book sale on Saturday afternoon.  Lots of work but we had a good turn out and made some money, which is good for the needs of our small library.   Now to get back to my art work!

Screen printing with masks

We continue to play with screen printing in our MIPonline class...this time using a mask similar to what we used when we printed with the gelli plate.  This was a mask I cut out to print with.  Nothing like making it complicated!  I should have picked one object but I wasn't thinking.  HA

It was fun to print different layers but using both the positive and negative of the mask was a little challenging!

Some prints turned out better than others and some just not so great!  HA

Printed on cotton sateen

It's also interesting to see the difference when you print on different fabrics.  I've mostly used cotton sateen for dyeing and screen printing.  But....my stash is nil so I found some small pieces of sateen and just grabbed some unbleached muslin.

This was the unbleached muslin

Again, unbleached muslin









You can really see the difference in printing...look at these two side by side using the same stencil/dyes and just different fabrics!  Sateen on the left and unbleached muslin on the right.

This turned out quite pastel, which is nice...again on cotton sateen.

This was a mask I used when I did some mono printing so I thought I'd screen print a few pieces with it too...I'm showing it printed on a piece of fabric or was it paper, not the actual mask!

Screen printed on paper!  Thought I'd give it a go!

This was really pastel but very pretty I thought...so why not mess it up!  HA

I grabbed a stamp and stamped on top of the leaf mask.  Actually, it's not bad and I can use this piece somewhere I'm sure!

 We have two weeks to play with our screen printing as well as using our pencils, etc. to enhance our printed pieces.   I'm thinking of making another mask...just not sure what it is I want to print this time.  I also ordered some new dyes as I'm not happy with some of the colors I've been choosing!  So it should be an interesting two weeks!  Hilary is off to vend at The Festival of Quilts in the UK!  I'm so jealous as a few or our MIP ladies are off to the show!!!  I would love to meet Hilary in person but until she comes to the states, guess I'll have to settle for 'talking' with her via her FB live videos on our MIP page!

Another Collage

My last post  showed some of the mono prints with acrylic paints I did.  Well, I took one of the prints and, based on our lesson a week ago, used Neocolor 1 crayons to color our print.  What fun!!!!   This was the picture I used for inspiration to mono print this series.

Here is my original mono print with acrylics.  I was quite happy with how this turned out.

Then over dyed  (which made it quite dark) and then I colored with Neocolor 1 crayons to enhance some of the colors.  This was our lesson last week, which really freed me up to experiment with crayons..

Here are all three together...original, over dyed and colored with crayons!

Next up was putting a collage together using more papers that I mono printed.  This is a collage/quilt I made....now to quilt it!!!

I also printed some more mono prints so I would have more choices for the borders for my next piece.  These turned out pretty good...on this one  I used Gelato's crayons to color over the print.

This was printed on deli paper....then colored with Intense Blocks, then a wash of water.   Yep..still having fun!!

Mono printing with paints!

Last week we were still playing with mono printing...this this time we are using paints.  Because I'm conscious of spending $$'s - of forget that...I'm just cheap and have all these acrylic 99 cent paints to use up...so that's what my mono printing was done with!  I'm quite happy with the results...but first, this is how we decided on what to print on our medium.

Hilary had us pick out some pictures that we either liked the color or shapes in the photos.  I happened to have in my "Hilary" folder, some old pictures from an old calendar.  These are the two I used as my inspiration for printing.  I loved the colors....

This was the first mono print I did.  We used a palette knife to apply our paints  You can see how thick the paint is...I actually got two prints from this attempt - pics which follow.  I tried not to apply it as thick when doing the rest of the mono prints.

Here are the before and after prints, after meaning I applied dye to color in the white areas..  These will most likely be used as background pieces or some will be perfect for stitching.

These two are on fabric.  All the rest are on paper.

And have to add a great grand baby picture...this is Boscoe with Rilynn!!  How sweet is this!

Gelli Prints using masks

We're still printing using the Gelli plate in Hilary's online class...although, by the time this post comes out we'll be on to the next technique! 

This time I just wanted to have some black/gray/white pieces.  In fact, I'm not going to over dye these so they stay black/white.  I ended up mixing some green paints with the gray/black paint. 

I really like the black/white pieces.

The green paint also adds some interest.

This was a piece I used to 'wipe' off my stamps and masks.  I'm almost finished with my collage piece.  Not sure I'll frame it/bind it or maybe just use it to cover a book with!  Who knows!! 

Our next module is working with mono printing but using thickened dyes instead of paint!