Esther's Place

Yesterday I stopped in at a wonderful fiber shop in Big Rock, IL called Esther's Place.  It is a feast for the eyes and a tactilely soothing experience.  The Lehrer family owns a farm, sheep, and this lovely B&B/ fiber arts studio.  I can't wait to return to take some classes.  Natasha Lehrer was a demonstrator last week at the Kishwaukee Valley Art League in DeKalb and truly opened up my eyes to the art of wool felting.  Her work is beyond that of what I usually associate with felting - very artistic and creative.  Check out the blogs for Natasha and her mom, Donna, as well as their Facebook page

I specifically stopped in to purchase some Lincoln sheep curls to include in my artwork.  After admiring the rack of a multitude of hand dyed curls, I decided on just purchasing the contents of the scrap basket and was pleased with the variety of colors.  The curls in the 3 baggies in the photo are Wensley dale lamb locks.

Check out a great review of Natasha and Donna Lehrer's venture on the Try Handmade blog.

Fabric Paper projects

As part of some swaps for the yahoo group, Mixed Media Art friends, I've made book marks and strings of  "good luck birds".  These were based on Kelli Perkins' book Stitch Alchemy. 

Here's the patchwork bookmark without the frou-frous of yarn embellishment, and a couple of birds before stringing them onto transparent ribbon.

Time to update

It is way past time to update this blog. I'm thinking about a new theme and some links to coaching and goal setting.

I can't believe I mailed off my fabric paper bookmarks for the mmartfriends yahoo group swap without taking a picture of them! I have one left without the yarn tassels. I'll snap it tomorrow and post - I'm just so sleepy tonight - it's been a long week at school :)

WIPs

Pictures of some bits that I've been working on lately or that have bubbled to the surface in the studio. The first one is a piece I worked on awhile back: Crumpled brown bag paper, painted with metallic acrylics and embellisheed with varigated rayon thread sewn with a variety of programmed stitches from my Pfaff 1475. This is the front and back view of the same piece.

The next three are fabric paper samples I made quite some time back. The pink one has a muslin base with scrapbooking paper, printed tissue paper, sewing pattern tissue, and washes of fluid acrylics. The blue one has a base of coarse, large weave cloth similar to burlap. It's layered with wrapping paper and sparkle tulle with washes of fluid acrylics. The final green - blue piece is again the coarsely woven fabric, wrapping and decorative napkins, white tulle, and washes of fluid acrylics. I like making them in rather large sheets - about 20" x 30" or 24" x 36"

Fabric Book page or cover

Fabric Book Pages or Cover Background
© 2009, Denise Funfsinn

I’m in the process of creating a fabric book to give to a relative later this year. Since I’ve accumulated a decent stash of thread, fabric, and fiber clippings from other projects, I decided to add them as an embellished quilted fabric background for some pages. You can use this technique to make a fabric background for a wall hanging, soft box, journal cover, ornaments, postcards, ATCs, etc. Let your imagination soar with a color theme and a variety of specialty threads, fibers, and fabrics.

Fabric base
Fusible fleece
Sulky ® Solvy –water soluble stabilizer
Clippings of threads, fibers, & fabrics
Pressing cloth
Quilt Basting Spray (June Tailor®) running water

Iron, Sewing machine, thread, pins

The base of this quilted sandwich is a sample of discontinued home decorator fabric from a local sewing center, about 18” x 10”. I cut a piece of fusible fleece and pressed it to the backside of the home dec fabric. (You could substitute a heavyweight interfacing like Peltex or thin batting and spritz it lightly with Quilt Basting Spray)

On the front of the fleece-backed fabric you now scatter a layer of thread, fiber, and fabric clippings. (you could spray it with the quilt basting spray if you are worried about it shifting or blowing away – I didn’t bother, I just lightly sprayed after I placed the clippings on).

Cut a piece of Sulky Solvy (water soluble stabilizer), lay on top of the embellished fabric and pat it down lightly with your palms so it sticks to the fibers. I then pinned the whole piece with about 8 straight pins so it didn’t shift.

Now it is time to sew a grid all over the sandwich (fleece side on the bottom, Solvy side on top). My sewing machine had a lightweight white embroidery thread in the bobbin, and a dark gold rayon thread on top (Sulky). New needle, stitch length 3.5, and straight stitch setting, sew a grid all over the sandwich attaching the bits and pieces securely. My grid was basically diamonds and then some free form spirals and curves to fill in.

If you have any loose pieces of solvy sticking out along the sides, tear those off and place back in your sealed bag for another use.

Next take the whole piece and soak it in the sink under running water, lightly rubbing with your fingers. The Solvy will dissolve readily. Lightly squeeze out the piece and roll it in a towel to absorb excess water. Iron between a couple of press cloths to dry it and prevent your iron from picking up any sticky residue that could possibly remain.

You now have an embellished, quilted fabric background to use a base. I plan to add fabric photo transfers and beading to my piece for a fabric book cover.

Sweet giveaway on The Polka Dot Barn

Jan has a lovely spring banner giveaway on her sweet blog. Pop over there and check it out!

Art Journaling

This is the first page from an art journal I began this past winter. I have to give a nod to Kelly Kilmer for getting me motivated to start (once again!). She has a daily art journal/collage/painting/prompt offered on her website A Prompt a Day.

I was more interested in getting some color and collage into a book and let the journaling come later. So I fashioned my own signatures and sewed them into a cover of a discarded hardback book. This first page is layered with lots o f drybrush acrylic paint, collage from my stash, including the removable holy card which is from my grandfather's funeral nearly 40 years ago. I like leaving plenty of space to actually write in journals, (rather than filling them up with collage). This page also includes rub on letters, colored pencil, paper scraps, German scrap wings, silver metallic and black pens.

Besides this page, I spent some time today scanning pages that I've painted so that I have "before" and "after" pics of my pages. Here's another spread before journaling. Layers of dry brushed acrylics, collaged tags, papers, and stickers. I think these fit in nicely with the concept of layering, especially the paint, that we are exploring in Techniques Sunday with the mmartfriends yahoo group.

finishing up projects

I'm in the mood to finish up some projects that have languished for awhile.

I made a little quiltie out of fabric paper, felt, machine stitching, and embossing powder. Not sure where it is going after this!













Later I added some pockets to the inside of another quilted piece and made a bookcover for a 6" x 8" journal.








I'm in the midst of repainting over some "failed" canvases. It's nice to work with a base of texture and color.

Mixed media quiltie

 

This little quiltie includes a fabric transfer of a vintage image, machine embroidery on a Lutradur scrap; fibers and ribbons, and commercial fabric. 6.5" x 9"

encaustic 5

This one was an exploration embedding black, soft, lacey paper in beeswax for the first layer, followed by floral ribbon. The ribbon reacted to the heat by shriveling into a bird-like form. I then added assorted beads to the melted wax, incised circles and arcs, and added alchol inks and copper oil sticks for color. The substrate is a 5" cradled board.