On Crayons, Snow and Stitching

You may recall awhile back I wrote about wanting that big box of crayons – so many wonderful colors!  I finally bought myself an even bigger box awhile back and I hide them.  My grandson loves to color too and he has the box I wanted as a child but my big box, that’s for me and me alone – for now.  I just love looking at them.

On snow – we’ve had a lot of it this winter and I love it.  What does it say about me that I just realize how important color is and yet I love the whiteness that winter brings?  Perhaps it’s the bright that I love, not necessarily the color.  Then again, I add color to the snow scenes I paint so I must see it.

And stitching – I’m still doing it.  I signed up for another Craftsy class, this time on art quilting.  The first assignment was to use circles, squares and triangles for your design – abstract or floral.  I did a small flower – don’t like it a bit – it’s dull.

She didn’t assign but did have a pattern for Winken and Blinken, I thought about Winken Blinken and Nod and started it… a few variations to make it mine.  This one isn’t done.  It’s going to stay hanging where I can see it for awhile, until I see what needs to happen next.

And then there are all those pieces discharged fabric, two of them got some embroidery added and became mug rugs.

That may be the dull flower’s destiny too.

On working with our hands

I’ve written about stitching lately and about my search for my creative self… the one who makes art just to satisfy me.  I’ve done a lot of journaling, a lot of sketching, a lot of reading and a lot of stitching. 

This silly doll is my new muse, a Spirit Doll stitched in response to a Karen Musgraves Creativity Lesson.

The front is a very old piece of a well worn quilt top.  I doubt it would hold up for any use other than this.  The back is a piece of fabric I had been journaling on – another experiment unrelated but it works because I was journaling about stitching and life.  The legs are a combination of handmade and purchased beads.  I think she still needs wings but I’m not sure what kind so she will hang like this for now… just above the table I use for drawing, some stitching and where I’m still working my way through the “Nine Modern Day Muses” book.

Another blog I visit is “Spirit Cloth”.  I love her stitching and she helped me discover that I actually do like the quietness of hand stitching.  From her I also learned how to blind baste and I love it but that’s another subject.  Now I’m thinking about hand work and that applies to all art… painting, sculpting, stitching… it’s all handwork.

Jude’s Spirit Cloth blog also introduced me to Renate Hiller who did a short video about the importance of handwork… On Handwork is worth watching.  She made me think about growing up with both grandmothers, my mother and my aunt insisting I learn to stitch – fabric and yarn.  They all stitched.and now I feel fortunate to have grown up with them even though at the time I really would rather have been climbing trees, playing ball or doing some water sport.

Another reminder for me… Renate looks very much like my paternal grandmother.

Playtime

This is a proof, I’ve ordered a piece of fabric using my own image.  I started with this photo and obviously played a lot with the color. Can’t wait to get the fabric and I have no idea how I’ll use it yet.

I’ve taken lots of photos and have so many ideas running around in my head that I can’t seem to zero in on anything.  I should be painting, instead I’m playing with fabric.  Yesterday I spent the day playing with discharging color from fabric using Soft Scrub.  You read right, Soft Scrub, the stuff you clean your sink with.  It’s something I learned about from Jude Hill on her Spirit Cloth Blog.  I had fun cutting stencils from freezer paper, the using some scraps of brown linen did the following.

No stencil on this one, just the edge of a credit card and a pencil end.

Like the blue piece, I’m not really sure where I’m going with these but I’m leaning toward small quilts or prayer flags.

Tomorrow I’m going to start a painting.