another pin cushion...

The watercolor play that I showed you last time wound up as part of a pin cushion. A fellow student in Karen Ruane's class suggested I try printing the watercolor on silk cloth....so I ran with that suggestion and wound up with this....

click on the images...

hand dyed silk and damask cloth and watercolrs

I started out by enlarging one of the watercolor images....

watercolor image printed on dupioni silk by ironing freezer paper to the silk and running it through my ink jet printer. I did paint over the print with some intense blocks to brighten up the color a bit.

I used a fine line Sharpie to draw the design onto the silk

I cut out hexagons and circles and stitched them together. I also cut out prairie points that you can see on the finished cushion.

I chose some hand dyed fabric for the background and it all came together quickly.

 Feel free to try this technique if it appeals to you. I think I will be running silk through my printer again for future projects. Thanks to Jann who suggested it.

I finished up another Sally Doll. I tried doing Intarsia  and stranded color work on this one and gave her an embroidered skirt covered with tulle. I think that's it for dolls for awhile.

There's been more dyeing with the black walnuts but it's all being washed out right now so I'll show you that next time. I've also been playing with repeats for fabric design after watching the first 2 sessions of a five week workshop on Creative Bug.....lots of fun.

The radishes and cosmos are already up in the garden and a few more vege plants are in. It's going to be a rainy weekend so all the plants will get some wonderful rain water.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

trying to do it all....

The Sally Doll is finished and I've started on a new one, this time with an abstract intarsia design in pastel colors.

click on the images...

her legs and arms are fabric with cross stitched letters and numbers. her scarf is a bit big for her body.

 ....and she is reversible....her reverse side is showing a sad face. it wasn't intentional.

reverse side with a checkerboard design.

a new Sally Doll in the works...

I have been practicing my Calligraphy...probably not as much as I wanted to but I'm getting there.

warm up exercises

I couldn't resist starting this crocheted headband last night. I do love the look of this stitch. It reminds me of the knitted linen stitch. I'm halfway done with this so just a quickly done distraction from all the knitting projects in the works. Here's a link to the free instructions, if you'd like to try it.

crocheted headband

I've been playing with walnut ink all morning but I'll save that for next time.....and maybe I'll have some planting done by then as well.
Have a great week.

a finished pin cushion...

Back here, towards the bottom of the post, are some images of my play with mother of pearl mosaic tiles. I tried several different things and decided that 6 of the tiles would be the center of a pin cushion. It measures 6" x 6" x 1".

click on the images....

finished pin cushion 6" x 6" x 1"

weaving, grass, french knots, bullion knots, mosaic tiles

some embroidery done on the prairie points

spider web trees and piped edge

the back of the pin cushion

We are making Sally Dolls in knitting class to learn how to do color work. We didn't meet this week because of inclement weather so I moved along with mine because I do want to make more than one. I'm going to do the legs and arms out of fabric. I followed the argyle pattern for one side and just did a checkerboard on the other side....mine will be a two sided doll and a bit smaller than the pattern size.

blocking both sides of the doll. each side measures 5½" x 4"

Creativebug.com (the link is here) is featuring a Calligraphy class and I decided to play along. I learned Calligraphy many years ago but this class is teaching it a bit differently with pen nibs and ink. If you are interested, you can see a preview of the class here. I chose to order the kit they offered rather than trying to find all the inks and papers.

some of the things in the kit

I just received my kit so I hope to start practicing this weekend.

We did have some below freezing temps this week so school in all the surrounding areas was delayed by 2 hours because of freezing rain which made for dangerous road travel. We are not prepared for that kind of weather here and thankfully, it doesn't last very long. Due to warm up by the weekend.

Wishing you a fabulous weekend and creative times.