Feb 1
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I spent a chunk of yesterday getting this picture ready to work on for this month. That is, I drew it and colored it (because I realized there was much confusion once the pieces were apart) and labeled the back, and cut it up. For the next couple weeks, I pull a piece from the stack, and make it on my 4″ square pieces. At the end of the month, it all fits together in a mosaic, and looks fabulous.

That is the plan, at any rate.

I had forgotten that I like using paper sometimes. I pulled out my water soluble oil pastels for coloring, and they were verry creamy and lovely on the page.

Maybe I need to keep a sketchbook after all, except that I still feel it bleeds off creative pressure in ways I don’t want like. Rather than recording and feeding the ideas for where I want to go next, spending too much time with paper keeps me from getting to the fabric, and frequently makes me unhappy with the fabric results because I spent too much time envisioning what it was going to look like, instead of pushing the actual object along to see what it could turn into.

Jan 31
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

jude – this one's for you!

I am very pleased with myself over this one. I dreamed it up Friday night, and it looks exactly the way I thought of it.

It is tricky to see in the picture, but it really is nothing but circles held in a grid of stitching. I used two layers of water soluble stabilizer, one that has sticky material to hold things in place and a plain layer over the top to keep the presser foot of the machine from sticking to it. With extra thread in the top and shiny in the bottom, it looks lovely either way up.

I offer also this vision of it against the window…

Jan 30
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

If I use something that is translucent, it is still possible to see the weavings as they run/flow in and out of the holes in lower layers. This is a better direction, and closer to what I was thinking about with some of the earlier ones. I used 3 layers of silk organza painted with Dynaflow – a very loose fabric paint that leaves the weave open and flexible. I used the twill to sop up the extra paint, and it looked so integrated that I added it as a bottom layer, to give the eye a stopping point.

I could use layers with more visual heft, and only have two. The organza is very wifty.

Crayons
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Happy Friday.

I am hungry for color. This worked pretty well. We will resume our regular blogging tomorrow.

ice dogwood
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

This is what the world was covered with this morning. I love the way the whole tree is reflected in the top of the ice.

Jan 29
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

A stack of fabrics with holes that line up, black strips woven through the holes, accentuated with bleach pen. This is before I rinsed off the bleach pen, and the dried pen marks make a nice lumpy emphasis on the presence of the holes.

I tried to do something yesterday, but between the snow storm and drops in my eyes from an eye exam the entire world was fuzzy and blurry, and I could see nothing. I wound up napping for a huge chunk of it, waiting to get my eyes back!

I definitely made up for it today, because look what else I finished the stitching on:

Reverse Maple Leaves –

reverse maples
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

the relicts from making Ten Maples Leaves, which needs stitching and I'll show it then.

Jan 27
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I managed this one Tuesday, and failed to get it out of the camera. The center is a piece of fabric with circles fused to it, woven into strips of hand dyed blue. I tried to accentuate the circles with bleach pen on the the blue strips, but it didn’t work very well.

Jan 26
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Apparently I want things to go both in and out of the same hole so I can still see the round edges. I had to emphasize the edges with Red Thread (!) to get the pop I wanted from it.

I must think further about this.

Jan 25
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I would like to make a lot of moons. I like all the shapes of the moon. I love that it changes. I shall think about that.

The Artist Support Group had a nice meeting today, and we were wowed by our own productivity over the last year. Happy Anniversary Us, and many happy returns.

Jan 24
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Weaving through a hole, did not do what I expected.