Art Process

Spring Dyeing!

| ellenanneeddy

Years ago, I did a very bad thing. I had dyed fabric all day and I went to the pool. You don’t get pretty dye on yourself when you dye. And it all soaks through to the skin. You mix all those colors and you get brown. Mostly down your belly and your tits.

So I was walking around with nothing but a towel over my shoulder when a very kind person looked at me and said in horror, “You don’t have to put up with that.” I looked at her and said, “Actually, I do. I’m dyeing.” I did explain to the poor soul afterwards.

I’m a fabric snob. Sorry about that. I’ve been dyeing my own fabric for my projects since I was ten. It was Rit Dye and we won’t talk about the quality of the fabric, but I understood even then that someone else’s fabric isn’t mine.

Don’t get me wrong. I love prints. I can get drunk on color and add good design to it and I’m a sloppy drunk. You can tell by the cut bits of fabric on the floor.

But I want the colors and intensity of my fabric. And I really hate fabric repeats unless they help your piece along. I’m probably going to dye as long as I quilt.

With the stimulus check (Bless those congress critters!) I’m planning a dye day. I need a new batch for me, but I’ve always got space in that batch for someone who might like to order a box of fabric to choose from, or someone who wants something special dyed just for them. A batch of light source fabric in 3/4 yards? A selection of actually not boring browns. Some deep lake or pond scum fabric. All available.

I’ve also dyed cotton/hemp/bamboo/rayon clothes for people. There are those of us who should never wear white. There is inevitably a day when it is white no more. At which point, I dye it and wear it till the threads fall apart. I can do that for you too.

If you would to either make a general fabric order, or order something special for a project, let me know. I’ll dye for you.

The Space Outside the Quilt: Thinking about Negative Space

| ellenanneeddy
Floral Arrangement 25

Most of the time we take in what’s happening inside a piece of art. That’s where our focus is. But for irregularly shaped pieces especially, the edge creates a space outside that frames the quilt much more than a border does. The outside is the negative space.

Jump at the sun

It’s not like the space did something wrong or has a bad attitude. Negative space is the area around an image. It’s not in the piece or the hanging. But it affects everything about it

All Time is Spiral In a Garden

.Why? I think largely because as we walk in and approach a hanging piece of art, the first thing we see is the shape around it. It’s the most distinct thing. You’ve seen works jammed together where you can’t keep one from the other. Ignoring negative space is like putting a gilded monstrosity picture frame around a simple piece of beauty and joy. It’s not a help.

Do I think about the negative space when I’m quilting? Not so much. I’m so involved in including the parts that are important even if they go over the edge. It’s when I’m cropping a quilt or putting it on the wall to see it properly that the negative space pops into view. And if you put pieces together, say on a wall, it’s a make or break item.

An End to Winter: Back to the Studio

| ellenanneeddy
Daylily Dance

Winter is this huge interference of snow and ice on a perfectly nice season. Mostly it’s a waiting time. I hate waiting. Not a skill I have.

I’ve spent the last two months recovering from two knee surgeries to repair a previous surgery. If it sounds like it sucked rocks, you’re right. Everyone was kind, and I purposely spared everyone details and day-to-days of my recovery. I’m mostly through it. It’s all over but the rehab and the shouting.

It’s like everyone else who goes through this. It’s a sparse time separated from your life. I crocheted edged handkerchiefs as a new thing I wanted to learn. It got as bad as that. But it fills time and doesn’t hurt, so that made it worth the candle

So when Don said I was going to the studio, I was worried. About the big step at the back door. About how long I could sit with my knee dangling. And always, did my creativity dry up during this sparse enforced winter of healing.

Silly me. Got the step in one bounce. Worked for about three hours and started a triptic I’ve been dreaming about for some while.

Here’s my bits about the new tryptic. I want to revisit Daylily Dance with more butterflies and caterpillars. Here’s the backgrounds I chose.

Background choices
Tryptic panels

Here’s some flower bits.

Is my creativity on board? I don’t think I need to worry about that. More quilts in my head than I can count.

I still have some rehab I would like to avoid but can’t. But at bottom line, I’m back where I belong.

I hope all your winters are short and productive. I hope spring finds us all whole in ourselves and with each other in kindness. I hope spring brings us the new flowers of creativity to change the world with the things we make with our hands.

Iridescence: The Color That’s Not A Color

| ellenanneeddy

Color is a fickle subject. It is almost impossible to talk about because it’s completely visual. We can speak of it scientifically but that only gives us numbers. Those numbers mean nothing until we see the colors. The only have meaning in someone’s sight.

But we do know that colors relate to each other. The way we see them is in context with each other. The names we give colors mean very little. How they appear within the context of of the colors around them is what we respond to. Add to that, each of us see color differently. It’s experiential.

I’ve been working on this quilt quite a while. I stippled it this week with iridescent candlelight and sliver. When I got done, It glowed quite green. Both thread look white in the photo. They look white on the spool too. How could that be?

x

Here is the Wikipedia definition of iridescence .

“Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear to gradually change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. ….. It is often created by structural coloration (microstructures that interfere with light). “

Wikipedia defined iridescence as colors that shift and change across the surface of an object. An abalone shell is the perfect example of iridescence, although we also see it in beetles, soap bubbles, butterfly wings and oil slicks. Which may explain why I love all of those things. Its not a color. It’s a shifting of light.

When we start talking about iridescent thread, I found it was more a matter of advertising than of anything else. All kinds of threads were called iridescent. Most of them were pretty metallics in variant colors. Not anything like an abalone shell.

The fiber used is Lurex. It’s a plastic film that has that dance of color across it. Sliver is just the film itself. Candelight is a thicker thread with the Lurex twisted into it. Iridescence is not a color. But it reflects the color around it, shining in it’s own way.

That green glow starts to show it this photo. But like all art, photos never quite show what’s there. You need to see a piece in person, to watch it glow iridescently. The other colors around it bask in it’s light.

On another note, I am going in for surgery this next week. It may be a couple of weeks before I blog again. Please forgive me if it takes a while between posts here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Thick Thread, Thin Thread: Thread Work as Grain

| ellenanneeddy

One of the mostly lovely things about free motion is that there are no limits. Not in size, not in shape, not in color. Anything thought can be done.

One of the things that changes the look of an embroidery most is the size of the thread. Regular embroidery thread is 30-40 weight ( which means if you lay 30 threads side by side, it would make 30 inches.) It can be used either for zigzag stitching or straight.

8 weight thread needs to be stitched from the bobbin. It can only be used for straight stitch. The look is very different. But it’s also abstracted.

The size of the thread creates a grain, like a photograph. A thicker thread looks more abstract, and less detailed, but it has a strong visual impact. Here are some images in thick and thin threads for you to see the difference.

Thread choices make a huge difference in the look of embroidery. Pick your threads for your own delight.

Rethinking Stabilizers: What’s on the Inside?

| ellenanneeddy
Clematis Moon in Process

Free motion embroidery has been the most exciting tool I’ve ever had. But it has it’s secrets. Yes, it’s about thread, and stitch quality and hoops. But the secret heart of free motion embroidery is what’s inside. Stabilizer creates the best foundation.

These moths are embroidered on felt, Stitch and Tear, and Totally Stable. The images are all thread.

I’ve been revisiting the stabilizers I use for Free Motion Applique. The stabilizer sandwich I used to use consisted of Totally Stable, hand dyed fabric, and a tight hoop.

I also used to do most of my embroidery on my piece. Lately I make more and more of my elements separately.

I’ve also started embroidering just on felt, leaving the hand dye fabric out of the sandwich.

Why have I changed?

Because stabilizers change, And because I want different things from my work. I’ve seen my work be more incrusted and wanted it to be a bit lighter, less distorted. Separate embroideries allow me to cure by cutting. I can cut off the bits that are distorted by too much stitching.

I’ve also changed my layering.

I’ve lately come to an appreciation of felt. When felt was made of wool, it was an exquisite fabric. When they made it of rayon and poly, not so much. It pulled apart when you looked at it. Now that it’s made of acryllic, it’s strong, embroiderable and unravellable. It can be stitched to the very edge and cut to the very edge. I now use felt instead of batt.

These flowers were made of sheers stuck on with Steam a Seam 2 and backed with felt and Stitch and Tear. No Totally Stabile, because my fabric makes my pattern for me.

But I also use it in my appliques. If I’m using a sheer for the basis of the applique, I use felt and Stitch and Tear as a stabilizer. If I am just making an applique of stitching, I use a pattern made from Totally Stable, a paper like stabilizer with a freezer paper that can be ironed down, stuck on, and then removed.

Leaving the names alone, what am I looking for in a stabilizer?

I’m looking for several abilities and responses in my stabilizers:
Does it iron on?
Does the glue texture show through?
Does the color show through?
Does it make a good drawing surface for a pattern?
Can I remove it afterwards?
Does it tear away or must I cut it away?
How stiff is it once it’s stitched?
Can I cover the edging cleaning with stitchery?

Those are some of the questions that help me decide whether a stabilizer will work for me.

Will I always use what I use now? I doubt it. Right now it’s giving me more stitchery with less weight. Stabilizers will change and I’ll roll with the changes.

The Miracle of Cheesecloth: Not Just for Turkey Anymore

| ellenanneeddy

I love sheers! I love the ability to have my background peak through the sheers to create the connection between background and an object.

But most sheers don’t paint or dye well. They are poly or nylon. They come in bright colors, but they have other problems. You can paint them in pastels. They don’t dye with fiber reactive dyes at all. And if you get your iron temperature wrong, they melt.

But cheesecloth does all that well! It’s all cotton, and woven loosely. And you can iron it on fry and it behaves like cotton.

You know cheesecloth. You just aren’t used to it in the sewing room. It’s an airy woven cotton people used to use to make cheese (hence the name). Or on turkies to keep the breast moist. You may have used it to make Halloween ghosts or Christmas angels.

But dyed, it can be any color in the universe. I include it in a regular dye batch and it dyes like a champ with fiber reactive dyes. And it washes out easily in your regular washer in a nylon lingerie bag.

It makes amazing leaves! The weave in the cheesecloth looks like the cells of the leaves and the stitching defines the color.

My favorite thing to do with cheesecloth is to make mushrooms. Child of the 60s that I am, they are a flora that fascinates me. And they are an excuse for eye popping color.

I do make them in batches. I’ll line up a set of mushrooms on a piece of felt, using Steam a Seam 2, pull out my brightest polyester embroidery thread and stitch up batches of mushrooms at a time, that I’ll use in many different quilts. The bright colors and zigzag stitch pop the the colors to a peak intensity. Now, who doesn’t want that?

What I did differently, is I made some smaller ones for pins and patches for my friend, Sherrill Newman who owns the South Shore Market in Porter, Indiana.

South Shor Market in Porter IN

I almost never make these available to people except as finished quilts. But she talked me into it. I made a small batch for her store. Some of the left overs I’ve put on sale on Etsy. They have pins backs on them, but if you wished to use them as a patch, it would be a matter of a moment to remove that with a seam ripper.

Hand dyed cheesecloth might just be the sheer you’ve been longing for. Bright, cotton, and beautifully texturized, it makes great flowers, leaves and ‘shrooms.

Rethinking White: Another Approach to Thread Color

| ellenanneeddy

It would be nice if color were formulaic. Unfortunately it’s just not. Color is complicated, and thread color is even more so. How do we pick thread colors to create a flower shade? And what do we do if we want to create white?

White has it’s own complications. It’s a flashlight on a quilt. If you put on real white it’s intense. It blinds you to darker details. So often bright white is just too much.

It’s also boring. It needs shading and definition. Flat white is, well, flat.

I wanted some white clematis for a quilt.

The first question that I ask is what color is my light, How do I know what color my light is? My light is the color of my fabric. In this case my fabric is full of blue light. So my light is blue. I then imagine my flowers dusted with blue light.

I chose to use metallics for this because of their translucency. The sheers will also be translucent which adds to the feeling of them being flower petals. That being said, I decided white, silver, and grey threads white just for contrast. But if I were going to add a color for shading, blue was a good bet. The gold and purple gold were contrasts for the center swirls. And there is always room for lime green. It adds excitement without having a high color impact.

My other secret weapon I used was sheers. There are at least a dozen sheers I cut into petal shapes and fused on to blue felt, with tear away stabilizer behind it. The difference in the sheers make differences in each petal.

Using a different thread on each side of the petal creates shadows. Putting a crease through the petal in green and gold increases the illusion.

Here is the bank of them embroidered on the felt.

Here they are cut way. White is only one of the dozen threads I used, but my flowers are still white .

Here they are cut out on the background. There will be leaves and moths, but its a start.

So when you are thinking about thread colors, think about your light. Go both lighter and darker in your thread color for shadows and highlights. And if all fails, add lime green.

Eyesoars: Color as an Antidepressant

| ellenanneeddy

Why do we do art? Why did cavemen paint bisons in caves? Why do we feel a need to decorate, to beautify, to make things ornate> I can’t really speak for the human race. For myself, I’m restructuring my world. By the time I’ve played with my images, it changes how I view my world. I am changed, whether I can change my world or not.

949 Floral Arrangement 25

This last week was a bit of a roller coaster for me. I was supposed to have surgery last week on my knee that’s gone bad. After a roll call of more tests, I found I will have to wait for January for the prerequisite tests.

I have a no whine on line rule generally. Finding out I get to wait while my knee degenerates has left me belly low. I’ve gone through denial, doubt, fear, anger and have finally landed in that mud puddle of depression.

So this week I went into the studio, got out the most eye popping threads in my drawer. I pulled out the oranges, purples, yellows and greens and made the wildest flower I could. I’m told that Zinnias are called eyesores in Mexico. But what a way to make your eye soar!

Did it help? Yes. Yes it did. There’s something about yellow, orange, purple, red and green as a combination that lifts my heart. And it changes me.

So I’m making a pile of mushrooms. What better excuse for a riot of color? And yes, it makes me feel better. Perhaps I just needed more fiber in my diet.