From a Book piece is finished

Follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City

I have finished my From a Book themed piece.  In the end I decided to fashion it into a 3 dimensional book including both a front and back cover using stitches, glue and staples over a thick stretched canvas.  The piece itself is the front cover.  I added a bit of a frame top and bottom then wrapped it all over a piece of cardboard and glued it down, then I glued the cardboard down to the stretched canvas.  There is only glue on the overlapping fabric not the piece itself.

As I mentioned before I machine stitched the words along the spine of the book using my letter capability on my machine.

For the pages, I machine stitched lines on a long piece of fabric then wrapped it round the 3 edges of the stretched canvas and glued and stapled it on.  I plan to fashion a special label and place it on the back cover.  Hoping to incorporate a rainbow.

If I had thought ahead, I would have made the front cover to open and placed a photo from The Wizard of Oz inside but that idea came too late.   The construction part was challenging and it is not at all perfect but I am kind of proud that I was able to construct a 3 dimensional piece.  Other than my goddess dolls, I believe this is the first 3D piece I have made.

I am linking this post to the Needle and Thread Network's WIP Wednesdays.   To visit, just click on the link on your right (the red one!)

New Fibre Art Challenge - Stittsville Library Exhibition

View from Robert's Mountain, Cape Breton

 I'm back from my hiking trip in Cape Breton and I finally have something to blog about and time to do it.   First of all, I was proud of myself on this hiking trip to be able to finish one 24 km day hike through a wet, rock-hopping, stream-crossing trail with no ill effects.  I have noticed in the past couple of years that my endurance is decreasing - having some foot pain etc - so this was quite an accomplishment for me.   Another day (our first day of hiking) we hiked up the steep Robert's Mountain and were rewarded by a beautiful view.  After 3 days of sun it rained for the next 3 but we still managed to enjoy the experience.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City

This piece is part of a challenge to create fibre art with the theme of From a Book.  I spent last week finishing it up and still need to mount it on a stretched canvas.  I hope you can see that it is from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - the yellow brick road leading up to the emerald city.  There are a couple of firsts for me in the construction of this piece.   For the first time, I have used my sewing machine to do some of the piecing of the background, still using raw edge applique and mostly zigzag stitching.   Then I switched to hand stitching for other edges.  Can you see below which pieces are attached by machine?

Here is a close up of the tulip garden using french knots and the tree section using heavy silk thread.  I added the scary tree section and a section of 'rocks' to signify that the journey was
not all a bed of flowers.


















I was able to use a lot of symbolism as the path winds from lush green fields, past flowers, rocks, dark forests, plains, and on to the sparkle of the emerald city.  Below is a close up of the embroidered sunflowers which I added to represent Kansas, Dorothy's home.

And here is another first for me - using bead work exclusively to create the city.  I have used beads for emphasis in many pieces but using such dense bead work was very difficult since I realize that I don't really know how to bead onto fabric.   Adding random beads is one thing but beading a solid object is something else.  Keeping them straight and even, making sure they lie flat - yikes!  It was mostly done by trial and error (and is a little wonky for sure). Note to me - I must take a class in beading onto fabric.

Finally,  I used the letter capability on my machine to write the name of the book.  I actually saved letters in the machine's memory and let the machine do the rest.  I had to save in two different memories because I didn't have the capacity to sequence all the letters at once and didn't know how to add a second sequence to the same memory (or maybe it's not possible?)   And though I set the first part to tie off it did not and started to repeat the pattern (so I had a little picking out to do).

My plan is to mount this on a thick stretched canvas.   The emerald coloured piece with the title will become the spine of the book.   The other three edges will need to look like the pages of a book.  I am still thinking about how to do the page edges so that they look like pages but are still somewhat interesting to look at.  So far I just have white fabric with lines along it.   May need to sew along some of the lines with sparkle thread perhaps.

This will be part of a group exhibition of work from my fibre arts group - Out of the Box.   Each piece will represent a theme 'From a Book'.   The exhibition will hang in the Stittsville, Ontario library from November 1, 2012 to November 30, 2012.

One more exciting thing!   A few years ago I read Deanne Fitzpatrick's rug hooking book, East Coast Rug-hooking Designs and I was 'hooked'.  She tells stories with her beautiful rugs combining various fibres, mixing traditional methods with new patterns and ideas as well as recording the history of Newfoundland in her rugs (she also has three other books and some wonderful YouTube videos).  It is the storytelling aspect of her work that really appeals to me since I also work with stories in my quilts.   A couple of years later in Newfoundland I saw more rug hooking, including some lovely pieces done by my friend Joyce.   So I bought a hook and some yarn and started hooking.   I nailed it to a wood frame but found it awkward to do.  The piece was never finished.   On this last trip to Cape Breton I visited Les Trois Pignons, a museum near Cheticamp,  which is the centre for a long tradition of hooked rugs.  There, I saw some Cheticamp style rug hooking frames which were exactly what I was looking for.   Last week, I contacted the maker and the result  is that I am in the process of ordering both a floor model and a portable tabletop model - both very reasonably priced.  I am so excited!!  I will post photos when I receive them.  

Another Piece Completed: Wimmin of the Island

 

My wedding gift is finished and ready to go.    A friend and former colleague of mine is marrying her long time female partner and she loved my original mermaid piece so I had the idea of creating a piece with two mermaids (she grew up on an island) and made an attempt to use their faces on the two.   I'm not sure how well I succeeded but I am hoping they will like the bodies I gave them and ignore the rest.    I constructed this piece much like my original (On the Rocks: Sometimes you just need to get away), using hand painted sky and water and using similar fabrics to the first.  In the background is their island home and I attached shells in the foreground which look like they are being tossed up onto the 'island' by the waves.  I stuffed the waves to give the piece some depth.  I am taking a chance to post this today (before the wedding) but  I am guessing that they are not looking at my blog right now since the wedding is a mere two days away.  I am off to Cape Breton on Monday for a week of hiking and wanted to post before I leave.
Here are some detail shots (before I added the shells).

Clean Up Time

It must be the change of the seasons because I am getting the tidying bug (and it doesn't come often).  But every once in a while we bloggers need to take a look at our blogs and decide what we like and what needs updating.  I think I'll keep my header for now.  As you may have noticed, I have recently updated my Flickr slideshow to include a set just for my Pathways exhibition.   I am systematically looking at each Page to see what needs to be tidied.    I have added more miniatures to my Fused Fabric Miniatures page, and today I reorganized my Bookmark page, removed some old photos and added new bookmarks. My miniatures are numbered so I 'named' each bookmark with a letter of the alphabet in an attempt to become more organized and avoid confusion.  I think my next step will be to add more pieces to my gallery page.  My Exhibitions page also needs updating with a couple of group shows coming up.

 Here at home, I have started labelling my storage containers with the names of each piece that it contains.  It makes life so much easier as my work has just returned home from my exhibition and some pieces need to be stored.   I have hung several of the newer pieces, some of which have never graced my walls before.  It sure adds colour and warmth to a room. And I always like to live with a piece for awhile before and after it is finished.  Like photographing our work, I think just looking at a piece, helps us with design and colour choices later on.  We can see what really worked well and why.  It also gives us a chance to see our mistakes and bad choices....time to put on my rose coloured glasses:-)   I have decided to leave one wall in my hallway free with the idea of printing and framing some of my many photographs.  Another project.

Oops!  Still a few things to tidy up and pack away.

The Embroidered Peacock has been Completed

I just put the last stitch on this bird's beak.  This piece is 10 x 20".   As part of a challenge I needed to use at least half a skein of turquoise silk thread and half of white plus a bag of beads.   I ended up using almost a whole skein of the turquoise, 3/4 of the white plus a skein of green and a bit of brown, purple and royal blue.  I am pleased with the bird's body, head and the many colourful 'eyes'.    The hardest part was using up all the beads.   Otherwise I think I would have just used the centre square for a 10 x 10 piece.   But that's what makes it a challenge!   There are beads on the eyes, throughout the body and just about everywhere else.   I thought the oval blue beads were perfect for the head dress.    I have shown it to a few friends and got a positive response.   I loved doing the embroidery on it.    Now I just need to mount it onto a stretched canvas. 

Next project - working on a piece with two mermaids - keeping it under wraps for now.   Also, just getting started on my themed piece - from a book - the Emerald City/Yellow Brick Road.  I'm thinking about dusting off that new sewing machine and trying out some machine stitching on this one.

On another note, I had my ash tree treated yesterday since our area has been infested by the emerald leaf borer.  It was expensive but this tree has lived many years and gives us shade, oxygen and a place for the birds and squirrels.   Here it is undergoing the treatment.

What a Beauty even in winter

It has also been a resting place for raccoons.....

Fused Miniatures

I have added five more miniatures to my miniature gallery today.  I completed them in June as a break from all the flurry of getting ready for my exhibition.  Check them out on my  'Matted Fabric Miniatures' page.   I described the process in blog post on June 17, 2012.

My peacock is one beak away from being finished.   Will post the results soon.   What a lot of beads!!

In the meantime here are some photos of a lovely rose breasted grosbeak that sits for hours on my feeder (taken through my kitchen window).