An Experiment

I tried something new this week. I had wanted to experiment with transparency for sometime and thought I'd be using silk organza. But I found this heavy polyester coated vinyl screening and wanted to try it. I traced the image I wanted to stitch, an MRI of a woman, onto a film like Aquafilm, placed tissue paper under the film so I could see my stitching lines, and stitched, using my Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen. It was slow going with the thread often getting wrapped around the bobbin case, but that was easily remedied.

I am stitching here with 3 threads, using the dual cone holders on the machine and one to the side. I'm really enjoying mixing the threads and creating new, more complex colors by combining threads through one needle.

After soaking the piece in water to dissolve the film, and hours of picking out the left over tissue paper, my experiment is finished. I'm looking forward to expanding--trying different materials and subjects.

This is a detail shot and below is the full piece. Unfortunately, I had intended to enter this piece into the

NorCal SAQA show at the Blue Line Gallery this summer, but I didn't realize the size restrictions (it's a little too long). Hopefully, it will make it to another venue, along with some other experiments.

Two Pieces

Intimate Spaces

Last year I was invited to enter the Dinner at Eight group show, which traveled to two or three venues in the U.S. This was my entry. It's stitched with pearl cotton thread. I had showed it in an earlier post, too.

This year's theme was Exquisite Moment. I struggled with what that meant and how to portray that within the format of 24" x 60". I finally came to a decision of using nature--for nature is exquisite.  I chose a magnificent, ancient juniper that grows right next to Hwy 50 in Meyers, CA, a very small town near South Lake Tahoe. People drive by this magnificent tree and take little notice of it's grandeur and beauty.

As you can see, I'm partial to yellow/ green--and my very favorite color combination at this moment is yellow/green and blue/violet. It's painted with textile paint and will be quilted with monofilament thread.

Here's my submission, Ancient Juniper (this photo was taken prior to my quilting, sorry):

You can see this piece at the Long Beach Quilt Show this summer or Houston's show in the fall.

New Show

This is part of the press release for a show I've been asked to participate in, Milestones: Textiles of Transition. It sounds really interesting, doesn't it? 

I love the work of Susan Else and Diedre Scherer and have started researching the other artists' work now. 

I look forward to seeing all the different art forms come together in such a diverse group of artists and feel very lucky to be apart of the show. The reception is June 2. Hope I see you there.