The Printed Fabric Bee Giveaway: Molas!

It's time, once again, for The Printed Fabric Bee Giveaway. For those of you unfamiliar with The Printed Fabric Bee, we are a group of 12 surface design enthusiasts. Each month, one member is designated the Queen. The Queen gets to select a theme and colors for her fabric collection and the rest of the members get to work. The result is an original and eclectic collection of fabrics. And since we like to spread the fun around, each month we put together a collection of 6" square versions of the fabric that you can win!


This month I was the Queen! My theme was Molas. I just love molas... a reverse applique technique developed by the Kuna Indians. I'm attracted to the symmetry, the contrast and bright colors and also the playfulness and mastery of the technique. I'm so excited to have the Bee members interpret this theme.


Now...for the giveaway...Here is what you have to do...leave a comment on this blog post or go over to The Printed Fabric Bee blog and leave one there. I'll be choosing a winner on Wednesday, April 15th (just to cheer someone up on Tax Day!). You'll have up to midnight Eastern USA time on April 14th to leave your comment.


In the meantime, stop off at each of the Bee member's blogs to find out how they created their mola fabric designs. Good luck!!!

Carol R. Eaton
Jackie Lams
Lynda Heines
Gerrie Congdon
Susan Purney Mark
Deborah Boschert
Jane Davila
Lisa Chin
Lynn Krawczyk
Leslie Jenison
Judy Gula

Stitch-In!

Shibori with indigo by Alice H.

Today, members of the Fall 2014 Fabric Painting, Printing and Stitching to Tell a Story with Cloth class got together for our first "Stitch-In"! It was a great opportunity to share what we are working on and to stitch and drink tea. Here are some of the pieces that we got to ooo and ahhh at...

Alice H.

Indigo seemed to be the theme of the day! Alice brought in her beautiful shibori piece. Barbara brought along a series of indigo pillows with lovely stitched textures. She has some tutorials about how to make two of these pillows on her blog.

Barbara M.-C.: Indigo pillow

Indigo pillow by Barbara M.-C.

Love this textural detail!

Another pillow by Barbara.

The textures in this fish are just wonderful!

Barbara played with hand and machine stitching and stitched over paper as well.

Even Susan P. brought in indigo pieces to share. She just completed a workshop and had beautiful samples.

One of Susan's indigo samples.

Susan also brought in three completed pieces from her Ancients series.

Susan has named this piece, "CHI".

The tiny stitched details really enhanced the printing on Susan's pieces.

Lots of layers on this piece by Susan. She printed on both cotton and sheer silk fabrics and collaged them together with stitching. (Sorry the color in this photo is not quite right)

I love the hand stitched details in this piece by Susan.

I brought along my Equinox Cloth and Early Spring pieces to stitch on. We are planning to have Stitch-Ins on a regular basis...can't wait for next month!

The next session of Fabric Painting, Printing and Stitching to Tell a Story with Cloth starts on April 22! You too can make amazing stories like the ones above!

Equinox Cloth and Mark Making

I've been stitching away on the Equinox Cloth. It's been calming and meditative. I'm using a variation of the running stitch where there are small stitches on the front of the cloth and larger ones on the back. I'm trying to make parallel rows of these small stitches to see the effect that they make.

I like the gentle puckering of the cloth. I've noticed that the lines of puckering run perpendicular to the lines of stitching. I'm also enjoying the "feel" of the layers of stitched cloth...very solid in my hands.

The back side with the larger stitches is also beautiful in its own way. I used a hand-dyed backing cloth that complements the colors of the tea dyed fabrics on the front side.

Today, I pulled out Helen Parrott's book, Mark Making: Fresh Inspiration for Quilt and Fiber Artists.

I love how Helen Parrott works with simple stitches, such as the running stitch, to build a vocabulary of marks. She is strongly influenced by the marks she sees out in nature and in finding ways to interpret that in stitch. Below are some images from her book.

Some of the students in my Healing Cloth workshop suggested that I consider teaching a class just on embroidery. Many, many years ago, I did teach a series on basic hand stitches and how to manipulate them for different effects. I'm noticing that there is a growing interest in hand stitching again so it might be time to consider offering such a class...perhaps on mark-making and stitch structure. Hmm...ideas are starting to whirl around in my head...

Healing Cloth Workshop

Virginia O.

This weekend I taught my Patching, Stitching, Weaving: Creating Healing Cloth workshop at The Art League School.

It was a really rich, full weekend. Six diligent and fabulous women participated. Two ventured to Alexandria, VA from upstate New York and one from Pennsylvania! All came with open minds and hearts and a willingness to share!

A great deal of progress was made on the Healing Cloths over the two days...we all agreed that we wish there could have been a third day.

Some of the cloths focused on life transitions...

Gail H.

Linda M.

One on a hope for inner peace...

Virginia O.

Another about relationship...

Cheryl C.

Cheryl C.

One about sisterhood and a hope for health...

Ruth T.

And one celebrating surviving cancer...

Judy G.

Judy G.

Thank you Gail, Linda, Virginia, Cheryl, Ruth and Judy for a powerful weekend workshop!

Searching for Roy G Biv #4: Yellow Final Update

Detail of painted dreidel.

It's the third Thursday of the month...time, once again,  to search for Mr. Roy G Biv (the colors of the rainbow)! The color this month is YELLOW.

I decided to focus on YELLOW items in my home. I had some beautiful late afternoon light to play with.

Ornate glass candlestick that belonged to my grandmother.

Flower made by my niece, Poppy.

Detail from stained glass box.

Yellow bead and ladybug box made by my friend, Beth.

Enameled piece by me!

Ceramic container that belonged to my grandmother.

If you'd like to join Jennifer Coyne Qudeen and me this month, post up to five YELLOW photos on your blog and leave a comment here or on Jennifer's blog. We'll link to your post for a colorful blog hop! I'll be updating this post through Saturday midnight Eastern USA time. Hope you join in the fun!

Fiona at Paper Ponderings speaks passionately about her life as an artist and shares YELLOW by a fellow artist.

Mary Ann at Blue Sky Dreaming has mysterious YELLOWS.

Sharmon Davidson has some YELLOW Swallowtails and a woven collage that really sings!

Linda Stokes has a great YELLOW still life of the tools in her studio. Check it out!

Elfi has some gorgeous "jump right out at you " YELLOWS! Love the YELLOW buildings and the shot with the rose.

Eric at Cerulean features a series of his YELLOW collages from a recent exhibit. See how different they look on different color backgrounds.

Here are some additional players...

Jennifer found YELLOW in lots of interesting places. I want those boots!

Maya at Take Diversion has natural and man-made YELLOWS. Love the selection of natural dye materials.

Elizabeth at PGFiber2Art has some cheery YELLOWS. I especially love the Peeps car!

Fran at At the End of the Day found YELLOW all around her (and it made her smile:)).

Margaret at Charlton Stitcher has some very special YELLOWS featuring a solar eclipse! Read about her experience.

Lisa at arzigogolare has jubilant YELLOWS!

A late entry but please be sure to stop by...

Susan at Tracemarks for some stunning YELLOW selections!







Here are the dates for Searching for ROY G BIV Round #4 -2015 (the colors of the rainbow and beyond!):
April 16: Green
May 21: Blue
June 18: Indigo
July 16: Violet
August 20: Brown
September 17: Metallic Gold
October 15: Gray
November 19: Pink
December17: Blogger's Choice

Roy Reminder: Yellow This Thursday

Just a little reminder that this Thursday, March 19th is the next installment of the search for Roy G Biv (the colors of the rainbow). This month's color is YELLOW.

Hope you will join in the fun and post up to 5 YELLOW photos on your blog and leave a comment here or on Jennifer Coyne Qudeen's blog. We'll link to your post for our monthly colorful blog hop!

We always love having new participants...so don't be shy!

Seasonal Cloth

It feels great to do some hand stitching. I mostly seem to do it at night in the hours before going to bed.

I'm finding it really relaxing.

Last night, I stitched a bunch on the new Equinox Cloth. I was surprised at how quickly the stitching went. I'm doing Invisible Basting which is really a variation of Running Stitch.

Tiny stitches on the front ...

Larger stitches on the back...

I'm really liking the sturdy feel of the stitched cloth and the subtle texture created by the cloth being slightly gathered by the stitching.

I've also spent some nights working on Early Spring. I'm stitching the border with tiny Back Stitches. This stitch takes time but I'm liking the results. I'm loosely following the printed background design and changing the direction of my stitches with a change in direction in the printed lines. I've been thinking that the stitching reminds me of making rows (furrows) in the dirt to plant seeds...which seems to fit right in with the theme of the piece.