textile art

Painted Lace: The Real Thing

| ellenanneeddy

This week I painted a batch of lace and organza. I love using these soft laces because they offer texture and shifting color as another overlay on the surface.

These are not especially elegant laces. The organza is plain poly organza. I often find them in rummage sales. I hit the jackpot at some point when I bought a pile of remanents from a wedding seamstress.

Painting lace is easy. I use acrylic paints from Walmart or Joann’s and mix them with fabric media (available at Amazon) to make the hand of the fabric better. Mix in a little extra water until the paint is the consistency of cream, and paint the lace with sponge brushes. It’s a lovely, messy wildly colored afternoon. You let it dry completely and iron it on a synthetic heat setting.

I’ve heard a lot of people argue for the real thing. Silk organza. Real lace. I love those things too, but it’s not about fiber content. It’s about color, transparency, translucency, and texture. And it’s about whether they work well under the needle and as applique. It helps to know the content so you don’t burn it under the iron.

There’s a short story by Henry James called The Real Thing. It’s about an artist who has a noble couple offer themselves as models. They argue that they are the real thing and that they will add accuracy to his work as his models. But the truth is, he finds the woman who is his ordinary model from a humble and somewhat criminal life could be anything: a gypsy, a fairy, a queen, a courtesan, or a saint. And since she can be anything, she makes his artwork ultimately real.

Painted lace is a test tube baby, made of nylon and polyester. But it creates a wonderful surface overlay. And I really don’t care how real it is.

So, if you know of anyone who is rehoming white poly lace and organza, let me know. I finally used up my stash.

Health Update: Serious Wait and See

| ellenanneeddy

I saw my new cardiologist yesterday. Nothing has really changed. I still have a moderate leaky valve. I still have an aneurysm. I still have a blocked artery.

But none of them are actively causing me pain or difficulty. None of them are acute or active. They’re just there. And they’re not quite bad enough for surgery.

So for the moment, I’m off the hook. They’ll monitor. I shouldn’t lift anything heavy or strain, or lean over very much. That’s a very moderate group of limits, considering. I’m afraid I can’t help anyone move at this time.

Is it coming someday? Inevitably, I suppose. But not today. Today we make quilts!

And a Dutch baby for breakfast.

Thank you for your care, your prayers, your concern and your love. You’ve always held me up. I hope I can always do that for you in return.

When does It Change? When Does the Art Start?

| ellenanneeddy

I spent yesterday in a whirlwind of classroom at the Peoria Art Guild. The Guild supports a number of artists in so many ways. But one of the things they do each year is give a handful of teens an art immersion experience, with all kinds of working art and artists.

It was a privilege. It made me wonder. These kids are 14-17, maybe. But they’re already there. They know they’re doing art and they are unabashed about it. And what they could learn in technique is more than made up for by their passion, their courage, and their already formed vision. They spent 5 hours building images in sheers and hand dye. That may have been new to them. But the creative spark is something they are already solidly committed to. It was a delight to see them work. I’ll be back in two weeks and we’ll do the stitching part of it.

When does that switch happen? I run into a lot of people who tell me they aren’t artists. Usually, that’s because they’re more verbal than visual. If you talk with them they can explain their images and the concepts in a way that brims with art.

Perhaps the problem is how do we define art?. If it has to be set in a mold, like figure drawing, or landscapes, that’s a pretty big limit on a much wider world.

But if art is, vision out of chaos., order out of disaster, and the creation of beauty and sense in the retelling of ourselves., that may be where my definition hovers. Art is life. The way we live creates our own beauty, our own songs, soothes our worst fears, and helps us to see ourselves in a different mirror that focuses on our strengths and beauty, instead of our failures and misgivings.

Art simply flows out of that. The things we produce our wonderful. But they are largely the byproduct of the process of restructuring who we are through our imagery. These kids already have it. I believe we all do, from birth.

The Peoria Art Guild is a haven for artists and people who love and live art. You’ll find it at

203 Harrison St,

Peoria, IL, 61602,

Monday – Friday: 9 am – 4:30 pm

Saturday: 9 am- 2 pm

Sunday CLOSED

Old Toys in New ways: Paint Stick Lace

| ellenanneeddy

oil paint stick lace

It’s always nice to find a new use for an old tool. I’ve loved oil paint sticks for years. I use them for fabric rubbings and find them an exciting way to design.

I’d pulled some out for a friend who had come to the studio for a visit. They were still on my table, and as I went to put them away, I thought about lace and organza.

painted organza

I’ve painted lace before. Almost all the lace I’ve worked with has been polyester or nylon, so you had to paint it with acrylic paint, the kind that comes in little bottles at Joann’s and Walmart. You mix the paint with water and with fiber medium. Then you can paint it with sponge brushes. The effect is a soft spread of colors with a kind of plastic-like hand, that you can iron, and iron on things.

It’s pretty. But it’s always pastel. You know how I feel about pastels. Yes, there’s a reason for them. I still have to be talked into it.

So I thought about a white piece of lace I bought a while back at a garage sale, and painted bits of it with oil paint stick.

Tips for Working with Oil Paint Stick

  • Use a sheet of freezer paper to protect your table,.
  • Peel off the skin on the paint stick with a potato peeler.
  • Peeling along the long side of the paint stick gives a wider brush stroke.

They can be rubbed against a surface and blended with each other.

The differences are stunning. Both are cool, but in very different ways.

Oil Paint Stick

  • Has incredible bright color
  • Won’t spill
  • Uses up quite a bit of paint for one piece
  • Takes time to dry
  • Doesn’t need brushes
  • Cleans up with Goop or Go Jo
  • Only paints on one sided
  • Sets with a hot iron

Acrylic Painted Lace

  • Paints up with sponge brushes
  • Drip dries within a couple hours.
  • Sets with a hot iron.
  • Pastel to moderate color

Will I use them both. Of course! I love using sheers, and colored sheers give me a way to shift the color of my quilt surface. Having a bright option instead of just a pastel one is a big present under the tree.

Hand dye with oil paint stick lace overlay


I’m working on an ibis that needs a small pond from above and some clouds. New shaded grey/blue/beige laces might be what that needs. I love new toys!

Burn Testing: What is that fabric Made Of

| ellenanneeddy

I hope you will forgive a tech blog today. I’ve been unable to reach the studio for several days this week and I don’t have the normal weeks’ process to show you.

While I was working on all those silk leaves I added a candle to my studio.

Don was appalled. And he’s right. Fabric and fire don’t mix.

But fire does bring everything to its elements.

Silk leaves aren’t silk. They’re usually polyester of some sort. I can’t bring myself to care about that. They’re too pretty.

I was cutting the leaves apart to make smaller leaves. Of course, on the better quality leaves they heat the edges so they melt a little and don’t fray. I set up a candle to melt the edges of the parts I cut.

Boy, does polyester burn. Really fast, too. I set my candle in a container, put the candle into a tray of water, and ran the leaf edges through the flames. If they started to burn, I could drop the leaves into the water as a safety thing. You can hold the leaves with tweezers, but you still can’t control them once they start to burn. Being poly, they drip dry with their edges fused. If they blacken a bit, it makes them even more like fall leaves.

The same setup for this makes it safe to burn test fabric as well.

Burn testing has been around forever. It’s hard to tell fibers just by feel. Even if you’re very experienced. If you burn a small sample you can tell at once a lot about the fiber the fabric is made from.

Cotton burns to a soft fine white ash. Rayon burns black but also has a soft ash. Wool stinks like burnt hair. Polyester usually melts to a hard black edge. Nylon melts to a hard white edge. Silk burns to a hard crunchy edge.

It’s not foolproof, but it does tell you the most important thing about fiber. Is it plant, animal, or vegetable? Why does that matter?

It answers questions: will it dye? Will it fade? Will it shrink? Will it melt? You don’t need precision for that. You need to know if it’s synthetic or natural.

Synthetics, nylon, or poly will melt. They won’t shrink, bleed or fade. But they can’t be dyed except with dyes, especially for them.

Cotton, linen, bamboo, and rayon are all plant fibers. They dye beautifully with fiber-reactive dyes. But they may shrink, bleed, and fade.

Wool and silk are animal fibers. They can be dyed with certain dyes. They also shrink, bleed, and fade.

As they say, knowledge is power. Most of the time there’s a content listed on the bolt. Except when there isn’t, or it comes to you as a scrap. If you know what your fabric will do, you know how best to use it.

The same method I used for burning leaves, works with a burn test. A candle in a tray of water makes it safe. If it gets out of control you just drop it into the water.

Stay safe wherever you are! The snow has to melt sometime.

Branching Out: A Tale of Two Branches

| ellenanneeddy

I’ve been waiting for a while to finish this quilt. Right now it’s all pinned together. All the components are finished, but not stitched down.

Branches are always hard for me. I’m more comfortable with leaves, but the leaves need to sit on something. And this heron needed a nice dead branch to stand on as she surveys her pond.

I think it’s harder because it’s more abstract. I’m not quite sure how to do the portrait of a tree. So I start with a shape, and I’m trying to make an interesting bark.

I’ve tried some slash applique for branches. I tried that first. I used two layers of hand dye with felt and Stitch and Tear as a stabilizer. I was trying to get the grain of the wood to wrap around the branch.

I stitched it down, straight stitch, trimmed out the shape, stitched in grain lines, and slashed the top layer. Then I hand ironed them with a point turner so they would stand upright, and stitched along the seam.

Once I sliced through the top layer, I roughed up the fabric with the edge of my mustache trimmer. The mustache trimmer was not on, but the blade on it made a nice surface to make the edges fray a bit.

I don’t consider it a success. I don’t like the shape and I don’t like the direction of the bark.

So I did it again. This time I used three layers of cotton, and stitched vertical lines much closer together. I didn’t really savage the upper layers. Instead, I sliced through them like chenille. I tried several methods but it really was easier just with scissors. I roughed it up with the trimmer as well.

This isn’t appliqued down yet, but I’m so much happier with it. The other branch will work in a forest floor piece, but not here.

a Thousand Cranes: Some Thoughts about busyness, Waiting and changing Our Stories

| ellenanneeddy

There is a legend that if you fold a thousand cranes, it will change you. Your pain will be relieved. Your luck will change. This repetitive action will change your life.

I had a visitor to the studio remark that there were a lot of processes in each quilt I made. There are. Dyed fabric, oil paint stick rubbing, painted sheers, dyed cheesecloth, free motion applique, direct sheer applique, and then we quilt.

That does represent a lot of busyness on my part. I like the complexity. I want a piece to be exciting when you see it from a distance and exciting if you are inches away from it.

With that said, there is a lot of donkey work. Yesterday, I cut rocks. I use the leftover pieces of fabric that are rock colored and cut them into rocks of several different sizes, waiting for the right quilt. Repetitive. So much of art is. A lot of art is creating a surface, a color, a shape, a texture that makes the piece something splendiferous. That takes a lot of repetition.

I have a price list where I document quilts by size, when they were finished and given a number. The latest quilt is numbered 1125-23, which means it’s the 1,125th quilt made since 1987. I’m going to claim them as my 1,000 cranes. What I’ve learned from 1,125 quilts is that the action of creating something over and over in different ways does change us. Art changes us because it helps us tell our stories in a different light and see ourselves in a different way. But we come to that by a series of actions that seem to be the same thing over and over. If we want the benefit of change and regeneration, it takes a sustained effort. In the Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis said we were not capable of any sustained action, only of the undulation towards a goal.  According to Screwtape, Undulation is the repeated return to a level from which we repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. God relies more on troughs because it makes us rely on God.

Art is a holy process. It’s a place of honesty, effort, and repetitive actions in hopes of reaching the peaks despite the troughs. What I have learned from 50 years of quilting is that the troughs simply have to be waded through like mud, with the actions over and over again that create our art and ourselves.

Tuesday, I’m going into the hospital to have a stent put in to fix my blockage. I have good hopes, but I can’t say I’m not nervous. But the waiting and the work on my quilts has soothed that some. It’s an office procedure. I expect to be home the same night.

So I do what I do when I’m nervous. Or happy. Or sad. Or confused. I make more quilts.

Leaf Mantises Too: More exploration

| ellenanneeddy

After several weeks of playing with leaf mantises, I have discovered several things. First off: a warning! They are addictive. At least they’re not fattening.

Secondly, I need more leaves. Lots and lots and lots of leaves. All the shops are seasonally xmasy, so that means rummage sales, and Yours to Create. Too many is not enough.

They work better if you stitch the leaves and connecting parts separately. I like the running garnet stitch better than a fully connected zigzag.

The head as a leaf doesn’t always work. I don’t know that I’d do that every time. But an embroidered one works just fine.

Straight stitch works best on leaves. Contrasting thread is your friend here.

I hope you get the time to pick something you want to play with and work it out. The exploration and the journey are all the fun.

Free motion Applique: following the Curve

| ellenanneeddy

This is under the heading of sneaky secret tricks. I rarely use an applique foot for applique. Instead, I use my darning foot and cover the raw edge in a free-motion stitch.

Why? Mostly because I rarely use a straight edge in my work, except for borders. I’m a curvy girl and I think in terms of curves.

I wanted a curvy vine for my butterflies to fly over and for the flowers to nestle into. layered on another piece of green hand dye, stitched out my vine in a straight stitch, and cut away all the excess. It’s best to get rid of all the extra fabric you can. I use pelican scissors to trim as close as I can get to the seam. Pelican scissors have an odd bend that lets you cut right on the edge.

Then I picked a light, dark and medium set of threads for the edge. Vines have two sides, and one can be done light and the other dark. If it’s a complicated vine, it may take a wider range. You want colors that could be the same if they were in a darker or lighter environment.

Stitching the top and bottom line of the vine in different colors gives it a visual distinction that makes it look dimensional. And because it’s free motion, the line is fluid and follows the curve more graciously.

Here’s my piece, almost ready to back and bind. Free motion applique is just what a curvy girl ordered.