One poppy to remember, another poppy to forget

Just added another poppy to the Cement Sack quilt.  This one is ON TOP of the tulle.

Transferred two black and white xeroxes onto coffee-stained muslin.  The trombone did not come out so well, but a trident on the same page did.  Both are in the upper left.

Here is that figure that has shown up in the Witness quilt and the wet-paper-basement-calamity collage.  She is the one who dreams, who has seen, and who seeks to go beyond all that lodges in the past.  She is part of all of us.  This recent posture is one of burdened grief, but she has other moods as well.

Perhaps “moods” is the wrong word — “patterns of consciousness” more like.

And speaking of drugs (the opiate reference in the title), here is the holder of my current drug of choice — a coffee mug!  Suitably chipped, stained, and very much in use.

A busy day of gardening and travel ahead.  A good thing.  A change of perspective and some fresh air will definitely do me good.

Read Full Post »

Blankets in the sun

Jack did NOT know I was pointing a camera at him. This is from two days ago, when we had some warm temperatures and I put blankets out to air.

This is the commission that I just finished. I would not use variegated thread again in a project like this — I didn’t like it changing up on me when I didn’t expect it to.  Also, even though this is a blanket, meant to be sat under on a couch, I would NOT have rinsed the photos once they were transferred to fabric — the red shirts bled!  So, unlike most of the blankets I make, this one will have to be dry cleaned.  Lastly, I should have added another band of color on the right side.

For the inkjet phototransfers, I used pre-treated and pre-backed sheets of cotton available commercially — I like ‘Printed Treasures’.  They are pricey, but because it is so labor intensive to produce one’s own sheets, I consider them worth the cost.

I have gone the Bubble Jet Set route (which makes fabric more receptive to color), but by the time you’ve washed, dried and pressed the fabric, measured and cut it to just under 8.5 x 11″, then backed it with freezer paper, you’ve invested a LOT of time in something that has a very good chance of jamming in the printer.  Once I learned that you could skip the chemical bath and simply back the fabric with freezer paper and print on it, I tried that, too.  But again, the washing/pressing/cutting/backing and jamming are big headaches in my book.

So, while I wish the pretreated sheets were cheaper, I consider them worth it.

Read Full Post »

Self Portrait

This quilt is not quite done.

I like it because it created itself while I was cleaning out fabrics I don’t want –

(WHAT?!! you ask?!! Fabrics you don’t want?!!).

There was some serendipity involved.  Some sense of ‘clearing out’.

I turned myself green with Photoshop Elements 3.0.  Then, used an iron-on transfer (this was before I started splurging on pre-treated fabrics for my inkjet).  I burned away some of the image with my iron — intentionally or not, I no longer remember.  It lay around the basement for years.

The photo of my dad is a scanned sepia-toned photo that was printed on organza.  It is probably dated around 1949?  Not sure, he is quite a young man in it.  I found it on the floor near the paper cutter while cleaning up.

The whole thing doesn’t QUITE look the way I want and maybe jars of Matt Liquid Gel Medium are lining up and calling my name, but it is getting there.

Why do I like it when a thing comes together quickly?

I also like the transparency of some of the layers…

Read Full Post »