Finally-Some Heat!

We finally, finally got some hot weather yesterday and it was a beautiful 24 degrees C. My father in law  is visiting and we are all very excited about the nice weather forcasted for this weekend.  


No, this is not my FIL, but Ripley, the mistriss of the house.



On the thread scene, I am giving this piece to my own father's friend because she just retired. When she last visited the Yukon, one of her favorite stories was seeing a large area covered in fireweed as far as the eye could see. Although I had initially made this piece for my journal, I am sending it to her as a reminder of that magnificant scene.  

 

Now I need to make another one for my journal.  :-)

Thank you!

I have made a new blog friend with Monika Kinner-Whalen at My Sweet Prairie. We both do thread embroidery and decided to swap some items. I sent her a number of sky hand dyed fabrics and she in return sent me these:

50 spools of fabulous thread. Look at these gorgeous colours that Monika picked for me! You may notice some of them in my thread piece below in my Snag truck.Thanks again Monika. You all need to see her blog. WOW!

Just to complain, today it all the way up to 10 degrees C and rained all day. We turned our space heater on. :-(  The warmest weather we have had yet is 21 degrees and then it was so windy, I still wore a sweater..
Now that summer is over, hopefully we will have a nice fall! The old dog is ready for whatever will come that tries to mess with his walkies.

What I did instead..

I was going to work on my thread painted truck, but instead my hubby and I went ATV'ing here:

My hubby Mike (below) and some of the mountain ranges that surround this area:

 

This is behind Annie Lake in the Yukon. 45 minutes from our house and around 1-1.5 hours on the ATV. Isn't this magnificent?

We went with our awesome friends and even though there was a breakdown, it was a great day out--and the weather was -finally- good.

And my BFF even brings her little dog Ruby in the tub! She is an awesome rider.  :-)

New Thread Painting Design

My first love is dyeing fabric and my second is thread painted pictures. I usually make 6x4 sizes and they can take as long as a traditional wall hanging. 


I am teaching this technique this fall and wanted a northern scene to do to add to my portfolio, even though this is not what they will be doing. None of my pictures thrilled me, so I scoured the internet for an appropriate photo. I found this:

The photographer, Sue Thomas, told me that this picture was taken at Snag, Yukon in 1998. It was a special place for her father because he had worked in Snag during the 50's. Several years ago after he passed, the family went beck to scatter his ashes. Fall in the Yukon is beautiful and I loved this photo for that reason. After hearing the special story around this photo, I feel emotionally connected now and I will always associate Snag with Sue's family. 

  

Sue sent me additional photos that I may use in some fashion in the future. I am honoured that she is allowing me to use her photo for my piece. 

The first thing I need to do is manipulate the image so that it prints out clean and sharp. I make a copy of the image as a RAW file choice (even if the original is a jpg). I then increase the saturation of the photo because fabric will absorb more ink than paper. I may also adjust the brightness if the picture needs it. 

I always print out a test piece of fabric with my manipulated settings to see if I need to adjust anything. But to be real, I just use the photo to lay down the outline of the elements in the picture so I can sew over them. 

Here is the photo printed on fabric. It's hard to tell, but the white edge is the white fabric I printed the photo on. The extra edge allows me to manipulate the photo under the sewing machine easier. I will fuse a stabilizer to the piece. Sometimes a use a hoop, but prefer to use CANVAS fabric with no stabilizer or COTTON with a stabilizer. 

Ready to go!

First Post

I am starting this blog mostly to chronicle my art progress and processes. Please feel free to come along for the ride!

Summer is here!

Well it has been awhile and in order to play catch up, I am going to post some of the fun things I did in July. I am STILL on holidays for another week and am taking advantage of every minute to get quilts done, fabric dyed and yards and yards of fabric painted. Winter comes quickly here.

Today I dyed about 30 yards of fabric that will be fill ins for fabric that is gone from my stash.

  

I load this cooler with the fabric.

I nestle them in an Ikea bag so they don’t leak all over, then put a heating blanket on and close the lid.

 

Look how messy my steps got!!

And here is the fabric before ironing.

 

It always looks so overwhelming, but becomes neat little bundles. I always seem to use yellow and blues, but when I look at my work, I don’t see how that can be..

And here are some of the soy wax pieces. Love doing this!

 

                                        

Flowers in the Yard (and This and That)

I had some really nice flowers come up this year.  Since I don’t know much about flowers, I am just going to post some nice shots..

My garden is doing terrific this year. We have been eating lettuce, radishes, carrots, broccolli, cherry tomatoes and cauliflower—so everything I planted is coming up. Yah!

And I was getting my Nova Scotia trip pictures together and so am sharing a picture of me! Hi!!  This was at Peggy’s Cove. Hubby and I said we could easily live in NS and will go back again..

I am a messy painter, so I decided to make myself a Bog Jacket. The link provided has a nice picture, so if you can sew, you will get it from this:

So here is mine.

It is still wet, but you can sort of see the trees that I started.

Here it is dry. Now I have to hem it and fix the collar. I admit I have never made anything to wear and it fits funny, but its for dyeing. No-one else will ever see it. (Now watch me forget and wear it out grocery shopping or something).

 

It WAS hot.

 

We have had an incredibly warm summer here in the Yukon and for much of it I was on holidays. Lucky, lucky me…

It is finally warm enough to swim in the river. Hubby and I take the ATV along  a trial about 15 minutes from our house to get there. It is fun to get all 3 of us on the ATV (I carry the dog) and whip along the trails. My hat usually falls off and hubby has to turn around and get it. Every time he says the same thing “If it falls off again, you’ll have to lump it”, but then he always stops. :-)

Here is the Yukon River near my place. Yah OK, this is not my picture, but I swear it looks a lot like this. Even though I took my camera yesterday and got some GREAT pictures of swimming and my dog in her life preserver, somehow my memory stick didn't work and I had to reform it. Luckily I only had a few pictures on it, so I only lost my swim pictures.

As to crafting, last week I also did some Sox Wax batiks.  When the pieces dry, I leave them to settle for a week, then I iron out the wax with lots of newspapers. .

It was actually too hot and the wax didn't melt very well, so I had to take the pieces in and put them in the basement to ‘cool’.

   

Then I painted on some Setapaints.

The last step is to hit the Laundromat for a final set and to get the rest of the wax off. Very easy and I love doing this! I’m going this evening, so will post the fabric when its done.

My Favourite Pattern- The Table Topper!

I meant to post the link for the table topper, so here it is.

 

 

It is a little hard to find just by looking up table runners, so here’s the  link..

http://media.primediamags.com/mags/mccallsquilting/pattern.html

My only difference is that I chopped the corners to make it a hexagon.

Did I mention I have made FOUR toppers—I love this pattern.  :-)