Something About Nothing

 The Utah Surface Design Group asked me to teach them how to carve stamps and print on fabric. We decided to make it a two day class to give them plenty of time for carving and printing. The students were wonderful, and they created some great stamps and fabrics. I'm looking forward to seeing what they create with these skills in the future. We had plenty of space for all nine students. My sample pieces for the class. Printed samples on paper and fabric, as well as magazines with my articles on stamp carving. A small sampling of my stamps

Moving forward with the Season projects. I carved her face in to linoleum but didn't like the way it was printing, so I carved her face in to EcoKarve. EcoKarve is my favorite carving material. It's 100% recycled rubber and besides being easy to carve in to, it also prints nicely.  Sample print - Not worried about getting it perfect. Putting the finishing touches on the Snow Queen. It's not finished until it's labeled! Discovered that Micron makes one of their pens with a plastic nib! This is the fabric pen of my dreams now. I like Micron's but I have a tendency to push too hard and break the nibs. The plastic nibs on these glide along the fabric and don't break! Thank you Micron!!! I've spent most of this week working on a secret project. It's been in the works for a year, and I look forward to revealing it all in the next month or so. I have a big list of stuff I need to finish: Fabric to be dyed for the Season Queens, blocks to be stitched for the gra...

FYI: In an attempt to catch up the blog with the last year AND stay up to date, I'll be attempting two short posts a week. One that will show what I am currently working on, and one that will be back dated. Hope it doesn't confuse anyone too much  (myself included!) During the Pandemic I couldn't concentrate on the projects I should have been working on. I still felt the need to do something productive, even if it had nothing to do with what I "should" be doing. I used my birdie stamps as inspiration for a garden embroidery on Essex Linen .  First stamped birdie embroidered, and flower garden begun. I had no idea where I was headed. I stitched whatever felt right. All the pretty colors. Wonderfil Perle Cotto n, 8 wt. Although things were locked down a bit, I still chauffeured my daughter to her doctor appointments and waited in the car. I needed something to keep my hands busy. About a month after I started, I decided it was done. For some reason I really love the...

I keep saying to myself that I am going to be better at keeping up with the blog. Sigh.  This has been a very long month. Living in a pandemic is weird.  I am fortunate. I know this. I have so much, however I am still in mourning for what was. This is my busy season and I had a lot of plans. Plans which had to be postponed or cancelled all together. These plans have been mourned.  And despite these losses, I am so fortunate. My husband still has his job, and although he goes in to work everyday he does not come in to contact with the public. I know others do not have these privileges. I have a home, food, bed, and a pesky cat. I recognize these privileges, and am working each day to be busy and happy. Some days I am successful, and some days, well, not so much. But that is okay. The 100 Day Project was starting at the beginning of the Stay at Home orders,  and I felt extremely stressed trying to come up with a project. I had several ideas, but couldn...

On August 2, 2019, I started my second 100 day project. This one was 100 days of pattern. My initial idea was to use both old and new stamps to create these patterns, but life happens.  Day 1 - 36 - all hand carved stamps About day 45 I had to leave town and decided using iOrnament to create designs would be easier than dragging all my carving and printing materials with me. Can you tell where I stopped using hand carved stamps? There are a few days of stamps mixed in with the digital drawings. Most of the time I took the stamped images and used an app called Prisma to change up the colors. It would be difficult to print the stamps in these colorways without the app. Day 37 - 72 - A mix of hand carved stamps and digital drawings. Using iOrnament for so many days in a row really taught me more about the program. I amazed myself at what I could create. I really love this program. Day 73 - 102 - mostly digital drawings, but a few stamps too. I had a hard t...

Another traditional pattern I love is clam shells.  I decided to give carving them a try.  I drew some designs and then tried carving them.  After carving a few I put them together. I love the pattern!  The problem with carving clam shells is that you end up with a lot of quarter circle left over pieces. I decided they needed to be carved. They are okay printed as circles, but I soon found they are even more interesting printed in ropes. These would be fun to print on fabric!