After the Harvest

"After the Harvest," 17.25" x 30.5"

It's Friday....and time for participating in Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" blog hop.  I must admit, I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I have been working hard on straightening up my sewing room, trying to beat the cold weather outside, mourning the loss of many of my favorite large goldfish to a raccoon, and re-working "View from the Abyss" for another show.

So, I was a bit annoyed when I went to my photo files and couldn't find what I intended to write about tonight....but then I realized that I never showed you the result of the work I started in Montana for "The View from Here," a SAQA regional show.  So, here it is.  I'm not entirely happy with it...but I think that that is quite often the result when you imagine something and think you know how you're going to do it and then you realize that that won't work.  You see, I intended to show a cornfield which had been harvested right in the early part of December or so...Here in this part of the Midwest  snow comes and blows across, catching in the stubble.  I thought I would represent that by taking strips of sheers which were shredded on the edges...but when I tried that, it just didn't look right.

So, when that didn't work, I couched strips of confetti yarn down, then hand stitched over the top with hand painted variegated perle cotton I purchased at the Shibori Dragon.  The confetti gave the feeling that it was loose pieces of corn leaves fluttering in the wind, which is pretty much the feeling I wanted to express.  The ground is some of that rust dyed fabric I wrote about here and the sky is hand painted.

The trees didn't turn out quite the way I imagined.  I hand stitched in blacks, grays, and lavender over the top of netting, then cut the netting away to give the trees the branch effect.  I stitched this for hours in the car while driving around Montana and then back to Olympia.  Needless to say, all I could see were cottonwoods with leaves on, so I fear that they look more like cottonwood rather than oaks and maples which line the fence rows of Ohio and Michigan...and more Michigan than Ohio!

I'm tempted to rip the quilting out of the sky and do it over again....I think that the pattern obliterates the shading in the sky, which as you can see from the first picture look very much like the Midwestern sky.
I wanted to indicate wind, but these are just far too tight.  I was also struggling yet again with my hands. The barn sort of bugged me too...I wanted to thread paint it, but in this too I don't have the control I once did.

So, I hope you enjoy it, and take the opportunity to go to some of the other blogs.  I have to get back to finishing up the re-vamp of "View from the Abyss" and look forward to taking in the last of my big ceramic pots from outside and washing windows.

Banishing the Design Doldrums

I'm having a struggle.  I agreed to enter the SAQA Regional exhibition, "The View from Here."  The problem is, I was so busy before I left, I only had ideas in my head.. I dutifully printed some photos of shots I had taken to give me inspiration and guides for making the pieces, and thought since I am going to be spending 12 hours in a car, 8 hours on an airplane, and while visiting Montana, there is no television so in the evenings I thought I could stitch.

However, I forgot the photos and don't like the sketches I have done for the concepts.  So...what to do.  Well, since I'm in Montana farm country, the land of rusty bits, I decided I would rust dye some fabric for the ground for one of the ideas I had.

So, here's what those wierd little packages yeilded.  Some possibilities....I think I'm going to add some tea to a couple of pieces to see if that makes a better ground for what I'm thinking of.  I also painted some sky fabric.

And...I made a little piece for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge.  I'm late on that too...no surprise, but I expect to finish this for tomorrow.  I was going to do a school of fish based on a sketch I did for Elizabeth Barton's Quilt University class, "Inspired to Design." But, since Ann Ruthsdottir already showed her piece based on the school of fish, I decided to do something else.

 So...here's my "Leap of Leaping Leopards." I Mistyfused the pieces down, and tomorrow I will quilt it. The background it is sitting on a just a piece of rust dyed fabric....mom had a red table cloth on and getting a background was hard...so just look at the stuff on the blue.

 I wasn't sure if I wanted to put a pale moon in the upper corner or not. My mom is not a person inclined to use yellow, so the only thing I could find to audition the color was a piece of yellow paper.  I'm thinking the edges should be not as sharp, and the color paler.

What do you think?

I think sometimes diving in helps break the design block... at least I'm hoping it does as I really have to get these fingers flying.

I'm participating with Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday art quilting blog.  You can find it here.  You can find links to other art quilting blogs on her site.

Why the Goose went up the Hill: Rust dying

So, perhaps some of you have been wondering why I struggled up the hill to get old rusty bits. Lately, the quilting world has been doing a lot with rust dyeing.

Basically, you take rusty pieces of iron and wrap it in fabric which has been dampened then either sprayed or dumped into common vinegar. The fabric wrapped item is then placed inside a bag or wrapped in plastic wrap and left to oxidize for at least 24 hours.

Like any other chemical reaction, heat accelerates the process. After leaving it for a bit, the package is opened and the fabric unwrapped. The iron oxides have dyed the fabric with a transfer print of whatever it was that you wrapped. You can also use steel wool.

You must neutralize the acid in the vinegar. You can do this by using a baking soda solution, soda ash, or in my case, I used ammonia (ammonia is a harsher solution).

Then, the fabric is rinsed and it is best if you use a solution of Synthrapol (a surfactant) .

Let the fabric dry, iron it and voila...neat surface patterns. I just used common muslin here, but you can use prepared for dyeing fabric or over dye commercial printed fabric.

You can also use a tea solution or teabags which has a reaction with the iron oxide and makes it sort of a grayish with lavender overtones.

Here are some pieces I did when I was in Connecticut. The circles are from the base of an early 20th century cast-iron stove grate. The star like pattern is from an old cultivator disk.

I need to do some more work with the pieces from Montana. I used sections of an electric train set and some horseshoes along with a mixture of chain and other items. I brought the train tracks home so I could do it again.

Several of us in the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network were doing this at the same time. Lori Gravley did it as a presentation for a sub-group who get together to learn new techniques once a month. She did a fantastic PowerPoint presentation. She blogs as Laughing Girl and you can find her rust-dyeing blogs here, here, here and here

Here's one good website on rust-dyeing by Kimberly Baxter Packwood



One thing you have to remember about rust-dyeing is that over time, it will cause the fabric to decompose. If you have ever seen 19th. century cotton fabrics which have elements of the print eaten out of them....almost like a bug has been after just one part of the print, then chances are that particular portion of the print was done with an iron oxide based dye.....

As long as you are aware of the impermanence of the piece, it's fine to work with. In fact, I have two ideas I want to do using rust dyed fabric just for this very reason. Hopefully, in the near future I'll be able to show some completed pieces using this fabric....

Oh yes, and if you decide to do this, please wear rubber or latex gloves. If you do too much of it, you can get iron poisoning as your skin absorbs some of the iron. In addition, your hands get stained with this...trust me...I looked pretty awful for a while and I just handled it a little bit without gloves.