From Sketch to Stitch

My Aurifil thread color palette for my latest series "Field Notes"

Field Notes was born out of several loves, passions of mine:

The love of the prairie.
The love of crops as they rise out of the ground each year.
The love of the symmetry and simplicity of how the fields themselves are arranged in the countryside.

Field Notes in progress on my table.

Some color studies.

Watercolor crayons, water soluble oil pastels, and water soluble graphite on sketchbook paper.

Mark Making with Nature eBook Set MEGA SALE!!!

Black Friday thru Cyber Monday MEGA Sale

Mark Making with Nature  

Titles Include:

• Mark Making with Nature
• Rust and Clay Dyeing
• Compost Dyeing and Other Fermentation Dyeing Techniques
• Getting Started with Natural Dyeing 

That 's 172 pages of how-to dye, paint, and print with natural dyes for $3.95!  Own them today!

Queen Anne's Crows

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

No. 5

Painted timtex, natural dyed silk organza, machine stitching, digitally printed fabrics, found eggs, copper nails and wire, barbed wire, reclaimed clock bodies.

Deconstructed Screen Printing with Madder Lac Extract

Madder lac screen printed onto compost dyed cotton fabric.

Madder lac screen printed onto indigo mono printed cotton fabrics that was dyed with tannin, learn more in my eBook Mark Making with Nature!

On My Sewing Table

Thinking, contemplating my next move, lots of ideas rambling through my head seemingly too many some times, but then it occurred to me that I can marry several "themes" I've previously worked on for a greater continuity.

More to come later.

WIP All Beaded Up

Now with more beads, and definition.

Gelatine Plate Printing with Natural Dyes

This is from several years ago, I have a geliplate my best friend Brenda got me for xmas last year that I really, really need to use! I'm thinking some earth pigments and my Black Birds in Tree stencil onto fabric for starters.  The plate in the above photo I made myself, here I'm using lace and trims as resists for the print which I made onto fabric.

Cotton fabric, that I do believe I compost dyed, osage orange on the gelatin plate with some lace trims gave a nice resist pattern.  After curing and washing the osage orange color is about 30% of it's orignal brightness on cotton fabric.  Now to find this piece of fabric in my stash and audition some threads for stitching.

Compost Dyeing and Other Fermentation Dyeing Techniques eBook

If you purchased a copy of my eBook "Compost Dyeing and Other Fermentation Dyeing Techniques" last year through Kindle and it is corrupted please let me know and I will send you a replacement copy!

This eBook is Currently ON SALE

for $3.99

Prairie Storm

Compost (eco print), Rust, and Natural Dyed Silk Fabric.

WIP - Nocturne Series

I like this one way better than the first one to the point that I'm ready to start layering more color, texture, etc., on the first one I started. 

Birds in Tree stencil, watercolor, tsukineko ink, pitt pen, copic marker.

Went to Hobby Lobby and picked up some lino boards to carve, I have several sheets of this in my wet studio that I cannot find for the life of me! 

I have one of these floating around my studio as well, this one is slightly larger text size than the one I have and the price was low enough that I purchased a second font plate...

An Old English font.

Somewhere in my wet studio I have gobs of print blocks I've carved, it's time to go on a treasure hunt!

More Queen Anne's Lace

I have a few more to make but had to stop for the day, I printed more fabric (birds) and it won't be ready to use until tomorrow afternoon sometime; I'm working on my new Natural Dyeing App while I wait on the fabric.

WIP - Crow Tree

Now in the auditioning stage.  Digitally printed silk organza fabric layered on top of painted timtex.

 

The digital print laying on top of some rosin paper, that I have covering my sewing table.

Digital silk print layered on top of a cotton digital print.  I'm experimenting with the ethereal values of the prints at this point to see which direction I want this piece to go.

Digitally Printed Fabric

Tomorrow it's all about the crows and the redwing blackbirds! 
Silk Organza and Cotton fabrics.

Queen Anne's Crows

Queen Anne's Crow's available in my store.

Digitally printed cotton fabric, painted timtex, machine stitched.
Size 7 7/8" x 9 7/8"
Matted and framed to 11x14x2 inches

Auditioning Digitally Printed Fabrics

It's here, it's here!

It's in sorry need of some changes but I have to say that WOW there's nothing like seeing your book in print!  I so love seeing the ISBN on the back cover, it's so real all of a sudden!

Hand Prints

Experimenting with hand prints.  Cutch dyed natural muslin cotton fabric. Machine Stitched.

WIP - Queen Anne's Birds

Some detail shots of the stitching thus far.

Queen Anne's Birds!

Now with some stitching, I used a varigated thread in blues.

I have yet to decide if I want to include the indigo silk organza net layer.

My Creative Process: Decisions, Decisions

A few blocks of digitally printed silk organza layered over the digital image.

Medium value of indigo dyed silk organza net.

A very light value of indigo dyed silk organza net. 

I haven't made a final decision yet on the ove rall directioni of the piece.  I have, however, toyed with the idea of playing off the Queen Anne's Lace that's part of the digital collage.