Hurrah!! I've completed the commission. It was truly a pleasure to challenge myself to creating the now 7th growth chart.
I had a dickens of a time trying to get decent photos of the entire piece....backgrounds such as this energetic one seem not to cooperate with the camera. The detail views provide a more realistic look.
After creating numerous growth charts , the process is becoming more and more enjoyable. Narrow vertical designs have their own unique challenges.
Construction progress continues......
It's always so gratifying to be commissioned to create a piece...this is the 2nd one I received from this couple. The request: a Growth Chart for their new baby boy.
I received some guidelines such as color, theme etc. and was sort of surprised they strayed away from traditional pastels. Instead they asked for a nature theme; trees, mountains, animals. Colors: browns, greens, tan etc.
The first step was to select a background.....I always feel my fabric stash is more than adequate but surprise....I only had two pieces long enough that worked.
A friend enthusiastically purchased a geli plate. It was just the excuse we needed to do some playful printing. Because she's a newbie to this method I introduced her to simple, but effective 'mark making'.
My goal was to get more constant & dependable results, especially the desire to fully transfer all the paint from the plate.
The first photo is Dianne's fun prints. Love her 12" x 12" plate....it yields more useable sized prints than my 8"x 10".
The rest of the photos are my experiments....you can see most of the prints are muddy and with very little texture. THE REASON: I over-printed some of these 3-4 times in an effort to improve (ha, then destroy) the original print. No worries....today I discovered a valuable trick that I can improve upon as it pertains to printing on fabric.
It’s not a surprise when I lose perspective over a project that required both a long design and construction process. Relief at completion can be accompanied by uncertainty and delight! This piece comprised both an immense amount of work and practiced skills. Smaller complex pieces can often be extra challenging. I’m very pleased that my geli printed stones inspired a walk through a woodland filled with tiny wild flowers. I hope you enjoy it as well.
PATHWAY THROUGH NATURE - 21.5” x 16.5”
$325 - Free US shipping
Cotton batiks, Geli printed stones, raw edge appliqué, machine & hand embroidery, and machine quilted. Double fold binding, ready to hang with fabric sleeve attached.
A community member asked for volunteers to participate in the Beads of Courage program in honor of a family member who is undergoing cancer treatment.
The mission of Beads of Courage, Inc. is to provide Arts-in-Medicine Programs for children coping with serious illness, their families and the clinicians who care for them. The bags are given to patients to store the beads that they receive throughout their treatment. Each bead signifies a moment of strength and courage.
Consider learning more here: https://beadsofcourage.org/bead-bags/
She created charming kits containing the focus fabric for the outside of the bags, linings, labels to be stitched on the bag and ribbon. Along with written instructions which assured all the bags would be uniform in size. I spent 5 heartwarming hours creating 6 bags and look forward to contributing more stitching time in the future.
Yes, I am STILL working on this small tree art quilt which seems to have a mind of its own.
I've now spent way too much time hand stitching some of the background fabric's swirly design lines with 1 strand of DMC embroidery thread. That fabric was noisier than I expected, yet I still wanted additional texture.
The developer has done a pretty good job of trying to tame the dust/dirt by having large water tanks follow the big earth movers. Given that it hasn't rained here in about a month and we won't see rain for probably another 3 months....that effort is appreciated.
Look at these big bad boys at rest on this Sunday morning, but I expect they will be out in force like giant ants come Monday morning. I will be happy when the outdoor pool, many patios, pickle ball, tennis and bocce ball courts will be my view sometime early next year. They do a fantastic job of landscaping here as evidenced by the first club house situated in phase 1 of our development.
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| At rest till 0600 Monday morning! |
