Something About Nothing

The antibiotics are working and I was able to rally myself to the studio and make 10 ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) to take with me to Houston tomorrow.   So excited to be able to trade these babies.

Here's the Gelli Plate Tutorial you asked for! My Gelli plate has been well used and well loved. 1. Place Gelli Plate on a flat, covered working surface, and place small dots of paint onto the plate.  My demo photos are with me using acrylics and paper but it works exactly the same with fabric paint and fabric.  I like using Jacquard Textile paint when I make fabric prints. 2. Use a brayer to spread the paint evenly across the plate. 3.  I used the leaves as a resist for the first print. 4. Place the paper/fabric on top of the printing plate and smooth it out nicely to get an even print. 5.  Carefully lift up the paper/fabric. Found a photo from when I printed the fabric - see same process. This is a first print. 5.  I know that MONOprinting means ONE print but seriously, when you remove the leaves from the plate there are these beautifully textured leaves left on the plate just dying to be printed.  I couldn't ignore t...

I made this quilt from a Riley Blake jelly roll I purchased from a friend.  She thought the jelly roll was "ugly" but I knew it could be beautiful.   I was a little obsessed with Jelly Roll quilts at the time and wanted to try to do something a little different by adding a second jelly roll of solids.  My friend was surprised and said, "You made that with the ugly jelly roll you bought from me?!?" Yes, indeedy.  It was an Unexpected Treasure and so that is exactly what I named it. I then sent photos of the quilt to Quilt Scene and was pleased as punch when they accepted the pattern for my Unexpected Treasure to be published in the 2012 edition. Wahoo! Stay tune and next week during Quilt Festival in Houston I will have a giveaway of a copy of Quilt Scene on my blog. In the meantime, I am entering "Unexpected Treasure" in the Blogger's Quilt Festival over on Amy's Creative Side blog.  This is a fun event I have entered in th...

Pokey Bolton over at International Quilt Festival has a fund raiser going on to benefit the Friends for Life Animal Shelter in Houston .  I pledged to make a few postcards for the fund raiser and these will be sold at Quilt Festival for $20 each. I started making 4"x6" animal themed postcards but something seemed to go wrong at every turn (I cut off too much, I got extra paint somewhere . . the usual) and so I turned to these fall themed cards which I really like.  Six cards in all in this Falling series: I made monoprints with my Gelli Arts plate and leaves collected on one of my walks .  I really enjoy making monoprints with the leaves.  The question of the day is: Would you be interested in a tutorial on my blog showing how I made the fabric for these postcards?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Now to find a place to stash these where I will remember to take them with me. . . And stop on over to Off the Wall Fri...

I saw a beautiful creature while I was out walking today:

Here are the finished pieces from my class with Melanie Testa. This piece was stamped and then I applied a freezer paper resist but I didn't put enough dye into the thickener and so the color came out much too light.  I'll have to give it another go. Melly made this piece: Painting with thickened dyes - one on organza and one on cotton. Resists: Various Monoprinting: I had too much paint for the first print but we "fixed" it by adding dye after it was printed and I really like the way it came out. I think it's my favorite piece of the day! Writing this post has made me want to work with thickened dyes again soon! It's time to get a few things off the list so I can play!

I think I've mentioned Melly on this blog a time or two. ;)  She is a very creative artist that I have admired for many years.  I have  stalked   followed her online ever since seeing her in an episode of Quilting Arts TV.  I participated in her online challenges and she has always been very encouraging to me online.  I was thrilled when I had the opportunity of taking a private class with her this week at her home in New York.   We played with thickened dyes and created sample after sample of pieces for me to bring home. I was so busy learning and creating that the camera didn't come out often enough! I really enjoyed our time together. We had so much to talk about that I was almost an hour late for my sister's rehearsal dinner!  Fortunately for me, my sister was very forgiving.  She was thrilled that I had the opportunity to have time learning and playing. She's a good sister. I'll post photos of the samples we made ...

Shortly before my trip to New York for my sister's wedding, Melanie Testa started asking others to make Breast Pockets for her.   You can read about it here.   Coincidentally my daughter's volleyball team has an annual Breast Cancer awareness game in October.  I gathered paper, glue, markers, pencils and scissors and asked the volleyball team to use their creativity to create pockets for Melly.   And create they did! I brought the pockets with me to New York and delivered them to Melly on Wednesday. She was extremely touched. You can read all about her response to receiving them here. I'm so glad we were all able to help Melly in this small way.