Sketchbook Project Part One

 Back in August last year I shared about starting The Sketchbook Project. 
Here are some of the pages (I'll share more over the next couple days) that I completed.  Of course I sent it in on the last day possible, and of course the power was out when I was going to scan the pages. So I had to go outside and photograph this on my table on the deck, so sorry for the background. 

 A lot of the pages are not very "sketchy" at all, but instead multi-media/collage/fiber/journal-ish/etc. 
Are you surprised?
Nope, me either.
This page has plastic sushi grass, words from magazines and origami paper.

I continued the lines on the scrap of fabric and liked how it filled the page.  Do you happen to recognize this fabric? 

 A study in white textures, coffee sleeve, white wool felt, white cotton and iridescent fibers.

 A leftover piece from Shiva Paintiks fabric surrounded by fortune cookie fortunes.

 I sewed the zipper onto the fabric first before the fabric was glued onto the page.

 See there is always something hidden if you take the time to look.

 Sometimes you just have to draw what is in front of you even if it is just a burned out light bulb.

 Yes, this collage was done right before the Giants won the World Series.  Ribbon scraps, fabric, raffle coupon, parking stub from Giants parking lot,  tissue paper.

 Recognize your spinning wheel Bron?  This sketch was done during a CQFA "between-meetings-meeting" at Bron's beautiful house.  She had this great spinning wheel on her hearth that I sketched and later did the watercolors.

Candy wrappers, tissue paper, words, numbers and pictures from the phone book.

Words from a magazine and fibery tissue paper.

All Together Now

 Here are all 52 of the weekly six-word memoirs from 2010.  Somewhat in order, in rows starting up in the upper left corner.  A bit hard to arrange clearly in rows due to the irregular (ie crazy) shapes and sizes.

 I like seeing these grouped together like this all in one place.  Makes it easier to spot all those commonalities through the year and how each one is so very different from the others.

 It is interesting to see the similarity in colors depending upon the season, I also like seeing the different shapes they each ended up.

The quiltlets are now residing in a box that I've collaged and I think that's where they will stay, until I can think of a way to make them into a book.  If I do, I'll be sure and share it here.
So, what's the project for this year? Well, I haven't picked one and here it is April already, so I guess I'm taking a year off at least until something strikes me as *must-do*.
I posted all the pictures of this project on Flickr so they can all be looked at together.  Check it out if you're interested, it might be easier than looking at each post here on my blog. 

Here's a video I made on Animoto using all those pictures:

Kept Under Wraps

 Ta-dah! Here it is....the 52nd and final weekly six-word memoir (from last year).   And of course the last one has to be rather complicated and will take a lot of pictures to show it to you in its entirety.

 The entire thing is comprised of various mesh type materials I've gotten over the last year or so from Fabmo.  Each layer has one of the six words written on white ribbon which is sewn on to the grid of the mesh.  So here is the first layer that has the word: Kept.

 Turn the first layer back and you get to the second layer which says: Under

 
 Here is how it looks so you can see the third layer where the word is:Wraps

 All opened up to the fourth layer where the word is: Night

 The last layer which says: Day

 Extreme closeups of the words on each layer.

The words say: "Kept Under Wraps. Night And Day."  There you go, now you've seen all 52 of these weekly quiltlets.  Tomorrow I'll show you what they all look like up on the wall.

Fields Of Gold

 Here's the 51st in a year-long, weekly six-word memoir quiltlet series from (last year).  This one is yet another crazy/organic shape, made with yellow cottons that were on my worktable from making an additional border for the yellow/purple quilt top from last year.
Gold lame' and gold stretch netting are also used here.

 Yet another one with the words of the week covered up somehow.  Am I bashful with some of these, wanting to hide them away? (probably, this week's is pretty gooshy and emotional).   Or am I just still struggling with making the writing look good with the rest of the quiltlet and still be legible?

Words say: "Fields Of Gold. In My Heart."
Gee, only one more left to show you....

Loveliness Hidden

 For the 50th in the year long weekly six-word memoir series (from last year that is, ahem) I started out with a fairly boring background with colorful silk waste on top.

 Addition of a chenille-ish yarn on top in a vaguely spirally shape.

 The fibers were stretched and combined until they covered the top.  Hard to do if your hands are at all rough, as silk waste is really really fine and floaty.  I had to keep stopping and putting hand lotion on!
Next, I sandwiched and contained everything by placing on top this white cotton netting (a Fabmo piece I was thinking of dyeing at some point).  Stitched in channels and then around the edge of the piece.

 Here is the whole piece completed.  I pulled out the threads on the edges to make a fringe.  This is one of those that will never be completely flat because of the stretchiness of the white netting.  That's ok, it reminds me of one of those woven cotton blankets, all fluffy and cozy.

 The words for the week are in the corner under a flap of the white netting.  I didn't want to take away too much from the overall look of the piece, so this was an attempt at camoflauge.

 Words say:
"Loveliness Hidden, Contained, Kept For Myself". 
They were written on a scrap of hand-dye in blue pen which didn't show up too well, so I wrote over in black.  I like that double lettered, hazy look.

A horizon shot so you can see the dimensionality of the fibers pushing against the stitching and white netting.

Hey! Only two more of these to show you!

Making Do With Dots

 Happy April!  Way back in March, well two days ago I showed the process of making this dotted fabric.  I thought you might like to see what I made with it eventually.  This time around it turned out to be a few ATC's for possible inclusion in CQFA's show at the San Francisco Public Library - Primal Green.
First I sandwiched the fabric with batting and backing and planned out how  I would stitch this up.  I decided I didn't want the stitches crossing over the dots, so I settled on a grid with a bright green thread.

 After all the stitching was done, time to slice these up into the official ATC size (2.5"x3.5").  It was hard to choose how to select the direction and color combinations I wanted for each individual ATC.  But  I dove in and started cutting.

 I zig-zag stitched twice around the edge of the first one with the same bright green I'd used for the quilting, but I didn't really like how the color looked with the fabric design.  I switched over to a more khaki green and liked that better.  I also decided I didn't like those big white dots anymore when seen at this smaller ATC size, so I rubber stamped in a small leaf shape into each dot.  Stamping on a quilted surface doesn't make a very clear image unfortunately so you can't really tell that it is a leaf.  But I know it is, and these ATC's were supposed to be environmentally  related somehow.

 Here's how all four turned out, you can see I went with a terracotta ink for most of the stamping.  I thought that somewhat muted color went really well with the rest of the colors already involved.  And yes one of these ATC's is decidedly smaller than the others, must have been because I was paying more attention to fussy cutting to make the fabric look good than getting the exactly correct measurement, oops.

And now some gratuitous gigantic closeups of the individuals.

 One of these did end up in the show, which I hope you can go see if you're near San Francisco.   There is a really nice display of many ATC's from CQFA in addition to a rather fabulous quilt exhibit.

Made any ATC's lately?

Squares & Circles

 I was given this wood block (wall treatment I think) sample by Bron, from one of the recent FabMo distributions.  I thought it would make an interesting surface to do some ShivaPaintStik experiments with.  Consider this a bit of a tutorial on playing with PaintStiks.

 When working with the paintstiks, I always try to remember to cover up most of the surface I'm working on as they tend to smear and get pretty messy.  As an aside: I have been re-using the same white pieces of butcher paper for a while now for this purpose as well as fabric painting and some of them are getting pretty interesting looking all on their own...
So, I started out with ironed flat pieces of plain white pima cotton.  I've found that you really want the fabric flat if you want the image you're trying to capture by rubbing to come out clearly.  If you don't care, then go for the wrinkly look and see how it looks!

 I didn't tape down the fabric to the surface just held the edges taut with two fingers as I ran the first color of paintstik over the surface.  If you want to tape the fabric down use that blue painter's tape or cheapie masking tape, both work pretty well for that. 
When you first use a paintstik you have to rub off the dried skin that forms on the exposed area, I just use a paper towel for this, twist gently and it peels off very easily.  And keep those paper towels around, because you'll need them to wipe your fingertips off on as you keep working.

I found that it was a bit hard to keep the fabric in the exact same place, but I liked how the slight shifts looked with the additional color.  If I was aiming for perfectly lined up shapes I would definitely bothered to do some taping down.

 Moving the fabric around to get the surface covered with marks and trying out various color combinations.  The overlapping colors make great combinations and when the paintstik color hasn't dried you can smear it together with your fingertips to soften the edges of the marks and blend to make new combined colors.

 I like the overlapping areas and the not exactly lining up of the squares.  As you work with a paintstik and start using it up, you'll have to peel off bits of the paper sleeves (just like with crayons!).  Don't do the whole thing or too much because it will just dry out and be unusable.

 Flipping over the wood block, hey surprise, surprise, there are circles instead of squares. A two for the price of one tool, gotta love it!

 I like how the circles side looks a lot, especially how some of the circles get filled in slightly with color as the fabric gaps down a bit over the larger holes in the surface allowing the paintstik to make a mark.

 Changing direction with color to escape the grid.

 Two experiments on one piece of fabric. Rows of color and filling in most of the surface with color.  That green line down the middle was made with some fingertip smearing of a bit that broke off the green paintstik.  Didn't want to throw it out, so I used it up by adding an additional mark of color to the surface.

 Instead of a regular grid pattern, I shifted the fabric slightly over the wood block as I went over each column of shapes.  I like the more random look and the combination of circles and squares in one piece.  I could see a dress made out of this fabric with the circles on the bodice and the squares in the skirt....  With this piece of fabric I guess I could make that dress, for a Barbie doll maybe.

All the fabrics up on the wall together.  Very interesting and fun experiments all in all.  I think next time I'll try using some already colored fabric to not end up with so much contrast with the white background.
After several months of curing, the smell has finally gone away enough so that the fabrics are usable for me.  I don't know if I'm extra sensitive to the smell of the paintstiks, but I have a hard time using fabrics I've done right away, especially if they are in a piece that I'm ironing a lot.  Seems to release a lot of the carrier oil smell. 
What do you think? Have you tried these Paintstiks yet?