Freedom Quilt 7 ~ Finishing up the Ironing

The ironing is finally finished! I'm glad to, cause after 40 yards I was getting tired of that!

I have 80 fat quarters, a zillion 3.5 inch strips and then all these lovely chunks!

 

I can't wait to see what comes of all this!

Thing is... I just realized I have ten more yards of cotton... and there are still come colors that didn't quite come through in this...

I'm considering a whole new round of dying! LOL!

(I may need more than 40 days!)

Happy Creating!

-Carmen Rose

Freedom Quilt 5 ~ Ironing

I've started ironing, cutting and folding the fabric for the Freedom Quilt.

I love the textures and tonality of these! There are some bold ones and some milder ones, all of them have a beauty of their own. Ironing feels like a process of discovery. I love it!

And somehow I manage to turn colors again... that is why we call it hand dying!

Today I ironed about 16 of the 40 yards.  I have been cutting fat quarters and 2.5 inch strips and these are the leftover chunks of the yellows.  Such a range of colors, I love them all!

Happy Creating!

-Carmen Rose

Freedom Quilt 4 ~ Laundry Day

YAY!  It's time to wash the fabric!  Now to see how it all turned out.

First the yellows:

 Then the blues:

 Then the fuchsias:

Wow, this is starting to feel like laundry day!  Now it's time to iron.  Oooo.... boy!  

Why did I do 40 yards again?  This could take a while... BUT THE COLORS!

MERCY ME I DO LOVE THESE COLORS!!

Happy Creating,

-Carmen Rose

Jacob's Ladder Study

Here are more in my "Jacob's Ladder" series. This is a shot of one of them in the featured artist display currently up May/June at the Oasis Gallery in Harrisonburg.

This is the pair of them, though one of them has some frame damage so I need to figure out how to handle that.

I do love these frames though, they are perfect for small art quilts!

Here they are up close and personal (pre-quilting)

I love the hand dyed fabrics, these pieces just had such cool pattern!

Jacob's Ladder Study 1 & 2

Hand dyed cotton, batik

Fused and Machine Quilted

6.5 x 6.5 framed to 17 x 17

$198 each, framed

Happy Creating,

Carmen Rose

A Quilt for a Cause

These photos just came from my in-laws. I designed this quilt ages ago, I cut and designed it, my MIL did the sewing, it was hand quilted by the Mennonite women of my MIL's congregation and it will be sold at auction in Sept 2010 to support the work of Mennonite Central Committee. I can't wait to see it in person, but for the moment these photos will have to do. It's king size, four colors. White, light pink, dark pink and black, all commercial cottons, pinwheel pattern.  It's draped over their double bed.

And while I'm at it I'll show the other photos my MIL included. This is a small quilt. I think my husband's grandmother embroidered the blocks (not sure on that) I found some colors in my MIL's fabric stash to make the sashing. My MIL sewed it all together and look how it turned out. There is a photo of her working at the hand quilting, I don't know if this is in progress or if she has finished it.  If it isn't finished, it will be finished soon because she'll be ready to get out in the garden.

 It's fun to see how things turn out when you are part of the team that creates something.  I'm planning on being there in September to see the auction, I've never had a quilt in the auction before and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

On the home front, I continue to improve physically.  I feel stronger each day, I'm off the narcotics and moving around - maybe a tad slowly - but I'm moving.  The parade of food from family and church friends has our fridge full to the gills, I put a bunch of stuff in the freezer this morning because were were running out of room.  It was warm here today and I spent much of the afternoon on the couch with a novel.  Tomorrow?  I want to finish that novel!  Sounds like a GREAT plan!

Happy Creating (or happy novel reading)
-Carmen Rose

Somewhere over the rainbow...

We’ve been back a little less than a week and I still have not had time to get back into the textile studio. While traveling I did a good bit of hand work quilting with embroidery floss through all seven pieces from the series. I’m also adding a line of hand dyed silk through the series and I’ve got three of the seven of those sewn on. Beyond this point I don’t know what is next. It is an improvisational series, that is certain.

This is "Green" before quilting:

With some machine quilting and some hand work plus the row of silk:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is "Blue" but I'm thinking of it more in terms of "Cyan." This is before quilting: This is what it looks like with machine and hand quilting plus the row of silk.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This one is Indigo before:
After adding some pieces to make this piece the right size, plus some machine and hand quilting. (The top photo's colors are showing more true than the lower one.) This one also has the row of silk along the horizonal line.

I hope to get back to these soon but I don't get the hand work done very quickly when I'm at home. Being stuck in an auto for hours is the perfect time to do quilting, that or mid winter in front of the fire. But this time of year it just doesn't seem like the work I gravitate toward. It will come.

In the zone

It started with this new chunk of fabric

And then I added a few others, mostly hand dyed with a few commercial ones thrown in.
And I was just minding my own business making something for my kitchen to replace the winter scene that just has to go.

And something really unexpected

started to happen

and I found the flow

and I got lost in the work

and remembered...

why I do what I do.

Yeah.

The Dye Babies

I recently picked up some seaweed stuff to make marbled fabrics. It’s an interesting process and when I had the gallery I sold many silk scarves by a local woman who hand marbles fabrics. I’ve never actually seen it done in person and would really love a class. I know I don’t have the right dyes for it, mine were a bit on the thin side and just spread out too much to leave behind much vibrant color for the fabric to soak up. I’m pretty sure I’m doing some of the other stuff wrong as well but I enjoyed the process and have some interesting fabrics as a result. So no complaints here. Though I have a big marbling tray in my kitchen with three gallons of seaweed slime laced with dyes. And I have no idea what to do with it! Does this stuff kill grass? Should I just throw it outside? (And hope the dogs don’t get into it.) I don’t think hubby would approve of dumping it down the drain. Hmmm… decisions, decisions.
So here are some results. They aren’t marbled so much as just an exploration of what the dye did when it hit the surface of the seaweed, I found that far more interesting than the ones who are swirled in the traditional marbling way. It’s the Jackson Pollock in me I guess. Honestly though, there are a lot of experiments left in this process. I think I’ll keep exploring. Which ones do you like best? I can't decide.

Quilts in the Sun

The sun came out finally, and I was able to catch a few snaps of these quilts. This red and white quilt is one I worked on all during the musical “Shenandoah Moon.” The red is a reproduction of a vintage red from the 1930’s and the play was set in 1933 so I felt like it was a good fit. There are also ecru parts in the design that are a little harder to see in this photo. I consider it a modified Irish Chain pattern.

I hand quilted it during practices and hemmed it during dress rehearsals between my scenes. I did about half of it by hand and other parts are machine quilted, which may seem a little strange but it actually works quite nicely in person. I will keep it as a reminder of the amazing people I enjoyed getting to know. I would come in to the green room, sit down and quilt, and my new friends would come and keep me company. It was good. The show is over and I miss them.

Baby quilt for Harlen (and Misde, my constant companion)

I used the quilt during the show. I entered folding it a number of times, as if it just came off the laundry line. It turned out to be too much to wrap the baby in, so I never was actually able to use it for its intended purpose but that’s ok. The second to last show it was draped over the porch railing in one scene. By the final show it remained on that porch railing through a number of scenes. I made a rag doll for another scene in the show out of the same fabrics. I think I’ll see that back one of these days, at least I hope so. They said they’d mail it. Thankfully the character that I played is long gone but the quilt remains, along with the memories.

These two small pieces are the first ones to come out of my first experimentation with procion dyes. They are a combination of cotton, silk and linen plus some dyed white on whites and I’m delighted with what the added texture does to the composition though it’s difficult to tell any of that from the photos.

The silks... oh they are soooo pretty! They are not finished, I need to bind them and that should do it unless I decide to add something more but I don't think it's needed at this point. I would like to name them but their mood perplexes me, not sure what all is there emotionally in these two. I was surprised at how somber they looked finished.

Dying for Color

In between all the adventures of the last week or so I dyed some fabric. It was stolen time in between everything else, just me in my studio playing with the things I love best... colors and more colors. I ended up with 22 silks:
24 white on whites, these were an afterthought and just tucked in to containers that already had fabric in dye so they only got the leftover dyes and attention. Some of them actually got some color and others are much softer but they make nice contrast with the vivid ones.

I also came out with 32 cottons; none of them are perfectly solid which makes me happy because I really wanted the hand dyed look. They are completely delicious!

I have 14 multi colored chunks of fabric in a bunch of different color ways. Some of these are really marvelous and I can't wait to sink into them.

I have 20 chunks of a heavy woven linen that took the dye in marvelous swirls and blends. These are so pretty and I even like the frayed thing that started to happen around the edges.

As all of these went through the dryer I also ended up with the most beautiful dryer lint, bet you think I'm joking. I've saved it, it will turn up in something but I don't know what yet.

I need to spend a little time mixing up the colors that are missing in these color ways. It was a good experiment with the 26 ready made procion dyes I was working with, now I need to see what can be done about mixing up the other colors that I would like to finish out the blends.

Plus, I have the seaweed and flowable paints and I'd like to try marbeling some fabric. Sometime soon, but not likely today. I'm still trying to recoup from last week. Seems like I feel every one of my forty years right now. So I am trying to take it easy. But color... nothing restores my soul like color.