Yesterday, I had the pleasure of doing a live Facebook show with Beth Rylander in her delightful shop, Feed Mill Fabrics and Quilting in Oneida, IL. I talked about free motion stitchery, and brouht in a small trunk show of work.
I’d visited Beth’s lovely shop, looking for a new Bernina. I believe I’ve found my machine, a lovely 770 that is coming in as an experienced machine someone has pre loved for me.
Today was so much fun! She does this every Saturday. She reaches out to her group by doing a live show weekly, so people can know what is new, fun, exciting and there for them.
Beth’s shop is stuffed stem to stern, and top to bottom with beautiful fabrics. And she not only sells Berninas, she has two lady mechanics. I’m impressed.
But her store bears something much more precious even that fabric. She has made a store in a feed mill in Oneida, that is a community for a huge circle of other women, like you and like I who love fabric, sewing, and each other’s company. What a quilting store does best is it makes community. Which is why all quilt stores are precious, and need our support. Because they support us all.
It’s the words no one wants to hear. Yes, if it’s stopped changing stitches, the board is probably going out soon. Gasp. No. It’s my machine!
Lots of desperation here. I do have backups, but they are not meant as major machines and they won’t back me up long.
My dear friend Elaine always knew when I called her at 7am, that I’d trashed my machine again. I’d call to ask if I could borrow hers. She’d thank me for having waited until 7, That bad.
I may be retired, but I’ve sewn and quilted all my life and probably will until they dig the final hole. I need a new machine.
But the other difference when you’re retired is that the easy money is much harder to find. So I’ve put all my quilts on a 40 % sale. I have a number of great new works at every price range. And I’m willing to let them go to make sure I can get a new machine. The sale will be on until September 21.
If you’ve been wanting a quilt of mine, this is the best time! The prices won’t go lower, because they really can’t. And I have some fabulous new work.
842 Hosta Moon
866 Arabesque Rose
IF you are new to my work, please take some time to see what I’ve made. I feel each quilt is a separate world of it’s own, there to warm you from your wall, visually.
Prices on the web page and on Etsy will show the full price and give you the discount in your cart.
I know paint sticks are old news. But I really didn’t get it the first time around. Did I buy them? YES! did I know how to use them? Not so much. Was I disappointed? I was devastated.
The premise is that you take oil paint sticks and rub them on fabric with a design rubbing plate. Simple. Not so much. Everything slid all over the place and I made a special mess. Like many things, it went under the heading of “Well, I tried.”
It was several years later when I walked into a booth full of oil paint sticks and I told the lady I had failed. She said the words I longed to hear. “You’re doing it wrong.”
There is nothing as lovely, if not also annoying as knowing there’s a better way to do something that will make it work for you.
I love oil paint sticks, particularly the metallic ones. Glowing lovely color on hand dyed fabric with texture, what’s not to like. These Shiva Oil Paint Sticks are from Amazon.
The rubbing plates come from a lot of sources. My favorites are from the Cedar Creek. They have numerous kinds and sizes. Again you can find them at Amazon.
Here’s the secret hand shake. You have to keep the plates from moving around on you. There are two tools to do that.
The Grip-n-Grip Mat: Use this 14 x 11 inch rubber mat to hold the rubbing plate on so it wont wander under your fabric while you are rubbing.
Use 505 Spray on the rubbing plate itself so the fabric doesn’t move on you.
Basic Tips:
Peel the oil paint stick to get to fresh wet paint with a potato peeler. The surface of the stick will dry after your’re done and protect the paint stick.
Secure the rubbing plate on the grip mat and spray the rubbing plate with the 505 spray. Place the fabric on top. The fabric can be removed but it won’t slide around.
Gently rub the oil stick over the surface of the fabric. Feel free to mix colors.
Let the fabric air dry for at least 24 hours. When it’s dry to the touch, you can iron it with a paper towel as a pressing cloth to set the color.
You can clean up with Goop, the cream you find in the car care section for cleaning oil off hands.
Artifact: Wind over Water
These are done on hand dyed fabrics. They create something like a batik look, but with ultimate control. The metallic colors absolutely gleam.
I’ve discovered I can stitch into the oil paint stick rubbing with metallic thread for extra shine.
920 Artifacts: Dragonfly 4
Don’t be afraid to try something that didn’t work once for you! It may be there’s a secret handshake you just need to know.
Everything worth doing is worth doing badly. I wish I drew well. I don’t. But what I don’t lack in skill, I own in stubbornness. I am willing to keep doing something badly a very long time if I wish to do something well.
I’ve been revisiting my drawing skills as I’ve been starting new work. I’ve needed a fish in the next piece and spent some time this week. It sent me back to my books and my drawing board to struggle with the dirty d word again.
My drawing surface is an iron on pull off pellon product called Totally Stable. It shows up at sewing stores everywhere. The iron on part is like a freezer paper with a softer drawable, tear-away hand.
light pencil sketch
I wish it were possible to just draw free motion. I can sketch but it helps if there’s a drawing to start from. The hardest thing for me is that I can’t draw smooth lines. I rough things out, and then scratch all over them and then I trace and retrace over and over again. Is that wrong?
rougj outline sketch
It may be but it doesn’t matter much. It’s just the best I can do. I’m deeply dyslexic. It’s not a problem, it’s just a condition. Really, it’s it’s own gift. A different way of looking at things.
When I moved my studio over, I found some french curves I’d bought a while back. I didn’t quite get the use of them. I kept trying to. I just couldn’t quite get it. I didn’t see how the shapes fit around the drawings. Dyslexic.
I have a light table. It helps to have illumination. Even from beneath.
fitting the template to the curve
So I got out my rulers and took my drawings and smoothed them. I turned the plastic templates over and over around the lines and found they did fit in if I was working just in small areas at a time. Using the curves, I outlined the drawing cleaning it, smoothing it out. At first I thought I was cheating. And then I realized I wouldn’t have blinked if I was using a ruler for straight lines instead of soft curves,
It fell apart when I went to do his scales. I didn’t have a template that fit that. So I have shaky scales.
Then I realized he was heading the wrong way. More dyslexia. But this is the good part. The directions just are different for me. I mix them up but I can get there in a heartbeat.
I pulled out my light table, flopped over my drawing and traced it the other direction.
I don’t do this for myself, but for the blog, I zoned the drawing in color, so you can see where I’m going. The fish up above is the same kind of bass, but in another quilt. Just so you can get the idea.
Of course the question is whether smoothed out drawings are better? Is there something stronger in a rough edge. Or have I just made my drawing more defined? I need to sew it out to know.
For you, I hope you grab any tool you need without embarrassment or shame and use it to do what you dream. It’s not cheating. It’s working with what we’ve got.
You’ll need to forgive the way I look. There’s nothing glamorous about dye day. Or really dye week. Prepping fabric, dyeing fabric, washing up, washing out and ironing are all really blue collar fun. You sweat and get messy. Never mind that I’ve missed my last three hair cuts.
My friend Lauren Strach used to come to visit, partially for dye day, but mostly for the day I ironed. Because that was the day the fabric came out of the mangle.
Hand dyed fabric is pretty. But like all of us, it likes to dress up. It’s nice hanging out to dry. But you really get to see it when it comes through the mangle, pressed, starched and pretty. It rolls out like a beautiful woman floating down a staircase.
Three pieces
Of course the real moment is when you get to see it with hand-dyed thread
Lauren is a fabulous fiber artist, who explores a number of styles, in amazing ways. You’ll find her work on Instagram.
I’ve been privileged to watch her work grow. And she would come and drool with me over the freshly ironed new hand dye. She lives in Oregon now, and I in Galesburg, IL and all of that would take a lot of arranging to do again. But I treasure the memory of watching her face as the fabric would roll out, pressed and precious. And the things she would do with it.
You’ll want to see more of Lauren’s work. It’s a journey in color, texture and joy.
You might ask why I was mangling in the garage instead of the new glorious studio! We had misbehaving mangles. Don found me a lovely mangle that lasted just long enough to blow black smoke and powder on the floor immediately after it was plugged in. We took it out and found that new amazing IronRight. It stopped opening and closing about five minutes in.
I had a long cry, and we waited a day to plug in my old mangle from Porter and she worked like a charm. You bet I sang to her!
This is Don companionably sitting on his mower in the garage while I ironed my fabric. He had to sit somewhere. Did I mention I really like being married?
I do dye fabric for others as well as myself. This was a good dye run, and People regularly ask me to dye what they want for a particular project. But I do have some fabric from the last dye run I would be willing to sell if there’s an interest. Contact me and I’ll set up a video phone conference if you wish to pick some out for yourself.
