Something About Nothing

Still working through my tulip obsession,  this time with a set of baby tulips from a piece of "garbage" Eco Karve. They make a cute addition to my planner.

A number of years back I had the opportunity to take a class from Melanie Testa. I had read all of her books, watched her on Quilting Arts TV, and followed her work online.  One of my friends accuses me of being a Fan Girl.  I can't deny it, it's true.  I am a huge fan of Melly's work!  I have learned so much about surface design from her over the years. I feel fortunate that our art has brought us together as friends as well. In 2013 I had the opportunity to take Carol Soderlund's Dyeing to Discharge class, and I soon became a big fan of Carol's too.  Carol's class was so well organized, and full of great information for dyeing and discharging.  By the time the week was finished I was exhausted, but filled with new knowledge and fresh ideas for my surface design work. I was thrilled when I heard Melly and Carol would be working together to publish a book on printing fabric.  They are the perfect artists to create this book. I have anxiously awaited it&

I rarely make or receive real phone calls anymore, but the other day I found myself on the phone with a pencil in hand.  Of course, that meant I started to doodle.  My usual doodles are cartoon faces, or stars, but for some reason I was feeling very tulip-y. I decided to play with the design a bit more and create a stamp. I'm going to play with this image more! I think I might be getting a bit of spring fever.

Last week I blogged about this journal.   It was a test in embossing. Once I knew the embossing powder would work on a similar surface to a Moleskine journal, my daughter and I worked together on an image.  She wanted something abstract but tidy.  Finally an image was born, and carved.  The image was trimmed several times until it had just the right balance of negative and positive space.  Each edition was stamped on to deli paper the size of the journal to see if it would work.  I would have been happy with the first edition, but as I carved away more and more I loved the stamp more and more.  My daughter's vision was awesome. Finally the image was embossed on to the journal.   Whew!  I was pretty nervous I would mess it up. Each time I sprinkled the embossing powder, some of it would stick where it didn't belong and no amount of tapping or hitting the journal would shake it off.  Ultimately I used a paint brush to carefully brush off the extra powder.

I am leaving for Craft Napa today to take classes from some great teachers!  One of the classes is Thunderstruck Star Improv taught by Victoria Findlay Wolfe .  I have always wanted to learn to make a Star Quilt and so I knew I had to take this class!  I decided I wanted to create the class project from my own dyed and printed fabrics.  I have brought a selection of indigo dyed fabrics, as well as some snow dyed fabrics I created the other night - or should I say morning?  It was about 3 a.m. when I started the process. The snow was completely melted when I woke up later that day. I liked the indigo blue. . . . . .but not so much the hot pink and fire red. So I over dyed it with fire red using a low water immersion. I didn't get photos of the green ones but they didn't come out exactly as expected either.  It's all good.  I'm getting on a plan in about 7 hours and going to have a great time no matter what.

Here we are with my first of, hopefully, many Stamping Saturdays!   Earlier this week I carved a rooster for the upcoming Lunar New Year.   Someone suggested he needed a hen, so I carved a hen for Stamping Saturday. However, everyone knows that when you have a rooster and a hen, you get chicks. They are rambunctious little ones!  And tiny too.  The three of them are only 1.25"w x.75" h.   I think I need to start working bigger. 

December is complete and I have carved more than 31 stamps. There were several days that only one stamp would not do.  I gathered all the stamps together to photograph them but they wouldn't all fit in one photo, so here they are in two. Carve December Days 1 to 11 Carve December 12 to 31 It was a very productive December!  I love carving everyday, but as I have other work that must be done, I can't continue the project for the entire year on a daily basis, but I do think I can carve every week!  So I am committing myself to a weekly stamp post called: Stamping Saturday.  See you then!

Two years ago I created a few roosters.  The first was for my friend Frances ' birthday.   I mono-printed the images on to fabric for a birthday quilt she was creating for herself.   Another friend saw the rooster and asked for one to be printed on paper so she could hang it on her wall.  As with most printing I do on a gel plate, I couldn't create just one, so I made five.  I sent her this photo and asked her to chose one.  She chose all five. When I realized the Lunar new year at the end of January was going to be the rooster, I pulled out the old design and drew it small enough for a 2" square stamp. Once I carved the stamp I had to make minor corrections with the feathers and a pedicure. Look closely from right to left and you can see slight differences in his feet. The next day my daughter wanted to know what she could put on the front of a journal besides vinyl.   "Paint." I said,"But I'm not sure how well the pai

I love figuring out creating repeating patterns which I plan to use in some of my fabric design.  Day 30 of Carve December brought me around to this design. Despite it being a fairly simple design it took longer to carve than I anticipated.  It is a 3 1/2" square stamp and there is a lot of white space.  I started drawing the pattern on to the Eco Karve about 11:30 p.m.   Of course I wasn't carving the entire time, I did get up to get a drink of water (or two or three), use the toilet, and feed the cats, but other than that, I was carving.  I decided I should take some shots and add the time to each photo to document how long it took to carve this stamp. Perhaps you can see some eyeballs I drew on one of the shapes.  It looked like a cat peeking over the top!  But when I carved them in I didn't like it so they came out.  I thought the eyes took away from the pattern. And finally just after 2 a.m. I had the design complete and starting stamping!

I'm a bit behind on blogging about the stamps I carved in December.  Day 29 was inspired by a Spider Chrysanthum photo I found online .  I took a little poetic license with the drawing. I felt I needed to leave a bit of open space. I really like repeating the stamp in rows.   It is one of my favorite flower stamps I've created.