Something About Nothing

Recently Quilting Arts Magazine put out a reader challenge to make a 14" square art quilt to donate to The House Quilt Project.   The quilts are donated to Furnishing Hope , an organization that furnishes homes for previously homeless people. I have made a couple of quilts for them in the past and was happy to contribute another.

A small repeating 1" square made on Christmas Eve.

A few days ago I tried to create a positive and negative stamp.  I failed. I eyeballed the images and my eyeballing isn't very exact.  Try number two was much more successful because I traced the negative stamp and transferred the image on to the Eco Karve .  They are still a little off but I really like the look. Each hearts is approximately 1 3/4" square. They are quite small.  I would like to make some larger images like this but I am now out of sheets of Eco Karve.  I guess it's time to make another order to Dharma Trading .

I really want to make Christmas cards.   Great time to think about them, huh?   Since it's Christmas day and all. Let's just say I'm a year early. I've come up with an idea for cards that involve Gelli® prints and . . .surprise, surprise. . . hand carved STAMPS.  The first part is a heart inside a star. I was pretty upset with myself when I slipped with the gouge and broke into the line of the star the first time.  But what are you going to do at that point?  Start over?  I think not.  Then I did it AGAIN!   Good grief.   I kept carving.   UGH I did it a THIRD time!!!  Good thing I was done carving by then.   I stamped the star and found I LOVE the breaks in the lines!  So lets just forget all I just told you about it being a mistake and pretend I planned on cutting into the lines in the first place. It will be our little secret. While playing with the stamp I found they made a cute little ...

I am finding that I really making something look like it is in front of a background. Day 24 of Carve December Once Carve December is complete, I will share what I have learned through this experience as well as all the materials I have used.  I look forward to sharing it all with you!

Here is the negative carving of the Flower Heart from yesterday. I like it. And rather than do an exact transfer,  I eyeballed the two flower hearts. This is what happens when you eyeball. Oops.   Oh well.   This just means I will need to make each of them a mate!

Don't you just love when you are enjoying your work so much that you lose track of time?   This has been the case lately while carving stamps.   And when I finally tell myself to head to bed, I find myself dreaming about stamps designs.   This design came to me the other night.  When I imagined the design I imagined it with the background being the positive space.   After some thought I decided I needed to try it both ways. I could have cleaned the background up a bit more but I liked the lines. Day 21 of Carve December.

I'm still on a heart kick.  I've also started playing around with positive and negative spaces. I'm loving concentrating on the same thing everyday. I honestly have other work I need to do but there are some stresses in my life right now (besides the usual holiday stuff) and I just want to play.  So play I do. It is very therapeutic and I feel like I am learning a lot too. Day 20 of Carve December.

Trying to decide what to put inside a heart isn't much of a challenge, as there are so many possibilities.  However, I don't feel confident enough to carve everything I draw yet.  But I won't get better unless I try - so here goes: Today's heart is a woven pattern. Day 19 of #carvedecember

I love hearts. I draw them when I sign my name and when I doodle. I have a friend that also loves hearts and she finds them everywhere.  She takes photos of the hearts she finds and posts them online.  I decided to make her a heart stamp.     I loved making this heart stamp, and I need to make more. I think I've found a new obsession. Day 18 of #carvedecember