Perhaps the last day to burn this year

I began my day yesterday using my miter saw to cut up an old ladder. This is the hardest thing I've ever cut on the miter saw.

I'd already burned a bunch of the ladder before I thought to take a photo. I couldn't get the metal out of the pieces, so decided to burn them with it.

I have no idea what happened to a bunch of my photos, but I also burned a lot of old baby jar lids, some metal tins, and a couple of cans at the same time. Since I had to watch the fire, I also cleaned my garden tools in a bucket of oily sand, then put linseed oil on the handles and put them away for the winter.

The fire was still blazing away in the chiminea, so I got a sheet of rosin paper (a roofing material found at the hardware store) and gessoed it. I added a few pages from a wonderful child's arithmetic book

and kept adding pages until I was happy with the results.

By now, some of the metal was cool enough to put away.

Before I did, I had to show my favorite piece in the bunch. Of course, since it was a ladder, there were two of these pieces. I'm not sure how I'll use them, but I will find a way.

Although it was nearly 3 pm, I still had not showered. I didn't want to bathe, then smell like burning wood. So after my shower, I went to my neighbor Sally's and helped her get her things together for the cleanup today. By this time I was tired and it was getting quite dark.

After I ate, I sewed the backing onto the piece I made at Dana's. Although I had brought muslin home to use for backing, I decided to use some red material that matched the front. It is now all ready to iron and sew together after I get home from our cleanup today.

It was time to glaze my arithmetic pages with orange and blue. I love glazes because you can see the images and words through them.

I have to admit, my camera gets flaky when I take a couple of photos in a row. The colors are not exactly true here, but I wanted to show why I chose the glaze colors. Each of the headers were either orange or blue.

My next project was to paint gesso on the left over piece of rosin paper. After dealing with yet another lame foam brush, I got out the big guns (or 2" brush) to spread the paint.

I first used dark green, and since some of the gesso was still wet, I got a lovely combination of greens mixed with white. Then I added a cinnamon brown. I'm thinking of calling it "Christmas tree."

Playing at Dana's

Yesterday I played at Dana's. It was probably a lot more fun for me than for her, because she kept trying to start making jewelry, and ended up talking on the phone most of the day to her two sons, or answering my questions.

Why do I start my blog photos with the worst one I can find? I know that some people show my blog on their Google reader thingy (such a technical word) that shows the first photo, so I keep thinking I should start with a photo of something completed, but I always seem to start at the beginning. Today was no exception.

This is a piece of canvas that had been used to wipe paint and color mists a few days ago. It is relatively square.

As I started painting, the cheap-o brush from Michaels broke. Too funny.

By the time Dana took this photo, I was in the throes of paint.

How many colors I could get on these two pieces would be anyone's guess. At this point, I was working from that inner child they talk about. It was pure abandon, and I don't often get to "that place."

This is one of many photos of Dana I took yesterday, but I only kept one for the blog.

My original quiltlet I started the day before had now changed radically. The original material was practically obliterated,

but the strings of black thread were still sticking out.

At this point, Dana had to run to the bank, so I took time to try to lay out some projects. I'm not really good at this, often changing my mind as soon as I've decided on a design.

Using all the scraps also became an obsession. I turned the piece on the right of the photo into a heart.

I was working on the heart when the thread came out of the needle. It was now time to go upstairs and check on lunch. I must admit, I'm not fond of sewing the fabric on a sheet of printer paper, but Dana said it would make my stitches go smoother. So, deferring to her, I did. I had a terrible time trying to remove the paper, though. I think this must be why people use stabilizer.

Dana laughed when she saw I took photos of our pizza. She left it in the oven 10 minutes longer than it should have stayed. Needless to say, it was rather well done!

Like many things I make, I'm not sure how I'll use this piece, but I really love it. Not sure you can read the writing, but it reads "The heart holds windows to the soul." Like I said, I was trying to loosen up with my art, which included the windows. Of course, I had to keep remembering where Dana's back stitch was, since mine is a button you push and hers (a Bernina) has a lever you push up and down.

I fell in love with this piece of canvas that was finally dry. Dana wanted to do some free form stitching on it, which delighted me. She cut batting and muslin which have to be larger than the top piece (I learned) because the batting will bunch up a bit as it is sewn. Not sure how you finish it, since she'll have to show me that another day.

This top piece is finally finished. I'm thrilled. It reads "He tugged the strings of her heart." The large piece of muslin behind the cloth will go in back of the batting and I will finish it at home. She showed me how to finish it, even though I didn't include the batting in the original sewing of the piece.

Before I left, I took a photo of one of Dana's trees. She kept saying it looked so much better from the highway that runs behind her property, but I think the other side has finally come into its own beauty.

When I got home, my day was not finished. I had bamboo to cut and tie in bundles for disposal on Saturday at our neighborhood cleanup. I was exhausted, wet, cold, and tired, but when a friend came by and asked me to make a sleeve for a Halloween costume, I agreed. The material was still wet, as was the glue in this photo. He wanted a brown tint, so I grabbed the walnut ink and dampened a piece of material, then sewed it. He even wanted it to look old and battle worn, so I didn't have to be too careful.

And finally, he asked me to make theta and epsilon symbols on his sunglasses. He asked if I knew what they looked like. As many times as I had to write those symbols in trig or calculus classes, I didn't even have to practice making them!!

By this time it was nearly 10 pm, so I felt like I had made enough art for the day. It was fun, but I forgot to download the photos from my camera. That's why this post is so late today.

Bits and bobs, little progress, but lots of fun!

Yesterday I promised an update on the gessoed plastic bags I ironed together the day before. Not sure it shows in the photo, but this project has turned into a MESS. However, as promised when I started this blog, I show my failures along with my successes.

The gesso didn't stick to the bags. The small colored areas in the center are bits of bag colors showing through. The gesso flaked away like crazy.

In fact, you can see the flakes of dried gesso that fell onto my craft sheet when I was trying to clean up. I just kept making more and more messes until I decided to try a different tactic.

Why I thought using these color mists would make everything OK was beyond me. I guess I was just using them because I didn't care about them.

Here I've added yellow and green to the mix and they are starting to puddle into an ugly mix!

Next I added blue and a bit more green to the mix. They were so wet, I couldn't add another thing! I laid them aside to dry, which ended up taking all day.

After working in the yard for awhile, it was time to move on to new things. I wanted to get free and loose with my sewing lines, so started this piece, which may or may not make it into a completed quiltlet. It was turning into one of those days. The only productive thing I had done so far was work in my yard!!

By now it was early evening and the color mists were finally dry, but they had faded to a dull pastel. Looking back, I keep wondering why I even messed with this piece.

To add more mess to the mix, I decided to use some Shiva PaintStik to the bags. Since these are oil paints, I thought they might work. I ended up using a lot of PaintStik and not getting a whole lot of bang for the buck. The instructions are to paint in one direction, but that turned out to be impossible because of the bumps and lumps left from ironing the bags.

It was time to switch gears. I sewed around a winter scene,

then used a paintbrush and "Warm Milk" acrylic paint to add splatters of paint to the piece.

Next came the beginnings of another quiltlet using an original image from a child's book from the 1920s. The little girls have the biggest Christmas stockings I have ever seen!

One final piece h

Publish Post

as an original book image from yet another book from the late 1920s. This piece will go onto another, larger piece of fabric.

Although I had fun in the studio yesterday, most of my work (and sense of accomplishment) was in the yard. Maybe I'll have a chance to finish something today!!

A frustrating day, but fun

Yesterday started with me waiting like what seemed forever on Dana. In order to keep from going crazy while waiting, I decided to try an Alisa Burke technique. She is the artist who makes handbags from plastic grocery bags. True to form, I didn't make mine according to Alisa's directions.

I began by cutting the bottoms with my paper cutter.

I also cut the tops the same way. Alisa used scissors.


Instead of turning them inside out before I cut them, like she did, I turned mine once they were cut. Then I aligned them, one bag facing one direction, another the opposite. I stacked six bags together because they were very thin. These were bags I brought back from California last year, thinking I would try this technique because I loved the colors in the bags.

Not sure you can see this, but my iron is set on 3, which is a medium low heat.

Although I used my craft sheet, I also laid an old (but clean) tea towel down on top of the craft sheet to protect the table. After all, I don't have an ironing board, so I had to use something with a bit of cushion. I laid a sheet of heavy card stock on top of the tea towel, but under the stack of bags, then another sheet of card stock on top. I pressed slowly in circles until the entire sheet of card stock had been covered. Then I moved the card stock and checked my progress. You can tell as soon as the section has fused because it will feel thicker and like plastic fabric that is pliable.

When completely ironed, my bags were distorted, but completely fused. I have no idea how to keep the edges from fraying or the bags from distorting, unless you use less bags. You will probably also get a few bubbles. Also, I nicked the bags a couple of times and caused holes in one layer of the bags. Hopefully, these imperfections will be hidden in the next step.

Although I forgot to take a photo, the next step was to use silkscreen ink. Since I had no silkscreen ink, I at least listened when Alisa said acrylics have a tendency to flake. Somehow I have a gut feel and believe this is true, so I decided to use gesso to cover the bags. I'm hoping the gesso will work. So right before Dana came by for me, I painted one side of the bags with a coat of gesso. I guess we'll see how my little experiment works today when I finish the bags.

Dana and I stopped at Carriage Crossing in the Amish town of Yoder to pick up some more of those huge homemade cinnamon rolls.

This sign was on one of the walls of the restaurant as we walked in. They were also along the highway.

This sign was on the other side of the door, but I've never seen a highway sign like it.

Although I tried to take photos of this wall the last time we were there, my camera batteries died. This time I not only recharged them, I took a second set for good measure. I have no idea why I did that, because this was the only photo I took of the wall of quilts and paintings.

I also only took one photo of the outside of the cafe in the tiny town,

and one photo of small grain elevators. In fact, I believe they call these storage bins, not elevators.

Dana had the four cinnamon rolls and was on the way to her car. You can see how many people were there, and it wasn't even the lunch hour!! This was a popular place, and someday we'll grab Kathy and take her to Yoder to eat lunch.

Kathy's tree is beautiful behind her as she says good bye to us. We didn't make any art, although I had intended to show her and Dana a new technique I learned. Guess that will happen another day, maybe even today!!