Finishing Up and Starting Again!!!!!

Since my last post I ahve been working on another cuff, this time for SALE!!!! Later today I will be re-launching my new Etsy shop , Elizabeth Creates Art and this cuff will be the first item posted. I call this piece Ocean Spirits and I plan on making this the first of a series of Ocean Cuffs.

This cuff is a bit more slender than my usual size. It is 1 and 3/8 inches wide. I have tucked in all sorts of treasures including this little perfect piece of green sea glass. there are also vintage hand cut crystal beads, African Recycled glass beads, lots of Fresh water pearls and a wonderful bit of textured purple Quahog shell.

I am getting much quicker with my bead stitching and hope to ahve many other color ways available soon!!

So this is one of my latest finished projects.

Now for a new project, at the very beginnings.

This will be the back ground for a collae that is still floating around in my head. I ahve begun to make sketches and I am almost ready to begin cutting and stitching. I used a large piece of damask linen from an old table cloth that I rescued , painted it with Seta Color fabric paints and tossed on a large handful of Kosher salt. Here you can see the salt working it's amgic and drying on my deck.

I have also put the finishing touches on my Poppies Quilt. As I mentioned in a previous post, this quilt began it's life in a fabulous class taught by Laura Washilowski. I did some Free motion quilting and added some more hand stitching and backed the piece witha beautiful piece of batik fabric. I edged it with a rolled binding and hand stitched the edge with hand dyed perle cotton.

Here is a detail shot so you can see some of the background quilting. I added several rows of stitching around each blossom to give them a ruffling effect. You all know how I love adding layers of texture!!!
As a parting note I want to share an image of my wonderful hydrangea's. I have been cutting large bouquets of blossoms and sharing them with friends and bringing them inside. Every time I cut a blossom, the plants put out new, fresh blooms. In case anyone is interested, these hydrangeas are called Endless Summer. If you have a semi shady spot out of strong western sun, PLANT SOME!!!

Now I have some new projects of finish up and have no doubt, new ones to begin!!!

Happy Creating everyone!!!!

Getting Better Photos

I am so excited to be able to get better close up pictures of my work!! For my Birthday, Tom and the kids gave me a photo taking box with special lights for diffuse lighting and less glare!! The picture you see here is Turquoise Oceans cuff that I made for my daughter's Counselor in Middle School. Outstanding teachers and mentors really do need to be recognized and appreciated, don't you think??

Every time I create one of these cuffs I learn something more about the process. I think that this might be my best work yet.

These Shaggy Loops earrings are for Becca's wonderful Language Arts Teacher, Ms. Scott.

This Shaggy Loops Bracelet is for Becca's phenomenal French I teacher, Ms. Johnson. This gal is one of the best teachers at the high School where Becca will be going next year. Becca traveled tot eh HS every morning to take French and had a wonderful and inspiring educational experience. The kids are very upset to have to say good bye to her today. Becca actually told me that she wanted to take French all summer just to be with Ms. Johnson! All of her students feel this way. Now that is a wonderful teacher!!

An Addendum , A Card and Some Hombre Dyeing!!

One of my blog followers pointed out that I had forgotten yet again to post pictures of the hand dyed threads that I purchased from Laura Wasilowski!! So Sorry about that!! It seems that I can't get entirely thru a task these days without forgetting something!!!! SIGH!!
I bought two different sizes of the Perle cottons in the eggplant colorway- I simply cannot resist anything purple and green!! the other two hanks are both #8 perle cottons. Laura's threads are so beautiful because of their intense vibrancy and the wonderful color shifts that she is able to achieve without a hint of muddiness!! The multi-colored hank at the end is the group of threads that we were given as part of the class. They are long gone- stitched on my poppy quilt. There, I feel better, No more dangling pictures, so sorry to leave you hanging!!!
Laura sells 52 different color ways of threads in both cotton and silk and you can purchase them here!!
After my birthday, I had several thank you's to write so I stitched up a few more of my collage floral photo notes. I am really having fun with this little project as I am using up old duplicate prints of floral shots form a time before the era of the digital camera. this card went to a very dear friend who actually gave me the seeds to this flower that you see here. This is an old fashioned columbine, a true pass-along plant, that would bloom it's fool head off in the heat in my Oklahoma garden. I am pleased to have found a way to combine collage, stitch and old left over photos to create unique cards for any number of occasions.

I also fooled around with my Procion MX dyes to see if I could achieve some color gradations of my own. I had such fun working with the fabric in the class and I wanted to see if I could do some of my own without turning everything to a muddy brown. I seem to have figured it out!!!

In these two pictures you can see that I got yellow -orange -pink-red colorway and then various blues ( I used PMX Ice Blue and Royal Blue) turquoise- green -yellow!!! I got nice mid range colors and very little white!!!! Here is how I did it- this was pure experimentation on my part!!!
1. I soaked the fabric strips (approx 15 inches wide) in soda ash solution.
2. wrung out fabric.
3.Hand pleated the fabric at both long ends and lay down the resulting fabric pleated strip along a long piece of saran wrap.
4. Using a foam brush I painted on the dye starting with lightest color first- Yellow- for about 5 inches.
5. Then went in with next color, either Cherry Blush or Turquoise and overlapped the yellow by about 2 inches. So the yellow and pink gave me the orange and the yellow and turquoise gave me green.
6. Next color was straight cherry Blush or Turquoise and then I overlapped those colors with Turkey Red and Royal , respectively.
7. When the fabric was saturated but not swimming in dye, I grabbed each end of the scrunch pleated fabric and twisted the pleated fabric nice and tight, rolled it up in the saran wrap and left the dye saran wrap sausage out in the heat and humidity to batch.
I think the saran wrap tube separator really helped with preventing any mixing of dye colors and gave me the results that I was after.

Every once in awhile blind experimentation based on a bit of fore thought works out!!
WHOOO HOOOO!!!!

Quilt Progress

I have made a few additions and done some hand stitching and this is where I am with my fused quilt.
I am very happy with how the quilt looks now. It was at this stage when last I blogged. I really felt that the center was too open.

Here are a few of the hand stitching details. I really do love the hand stitching and bead work, surprise, surprise!!
I forgot to show you the marvelous ahnd dyed perle cotton and silk threads that I bought from Laura Wasilowski. They are simply glorious ! It was very hard to resist purchasing the whole basket full!!!!

On another dyeing note, I stopped by an Estate sale yesterday and picked up too decorative iron trivets. Now I do not use trivets for fancy dinners and all of my plants are living outside for the summer, I look for these little gems to use in rust dyeing!!! I came home , mixed up some vinegar and water, found my lunch trays and plastic sheeting, cut some fabric and put the whole deal out in the sun. Two hours later look at what I had!!! Circles, circles, Circles!!!! Such potential in these little pieces of rusted loveliness. I am quite pleased with the rust on the blue fabric!!
Happy Creating everyone!!