In an earlier post, it was clear the black chitz won over over the gold/cream.  Gold/cream looked’OK’, but I didn’t persevere with much of the gold stitchery on that, as this black and gold was already so much more exciting:

I have since done three more pieces like this with sand ripple patterns forming the designs, all very different.  The 4 pieces will form a group, and as usual at this stage, I am tossing up a title for them, and currently considering ‘Golden Sands’, ‘Sandlines’, and of course there are already groups of ‘Tidelines’ and ‘Beachlines’

I just knew this black chintz was a good buy – there’s still about 13.5 m left …..

November 17th

Several weeks have passed, and although it has taken me a while to think what and how much quilting to do, it came to me a few days ago:

I know such intense free machine quilting, stippling, is a bit of a cliche these days – but it really is necessary.  The last time I did this stuff was Hannan’s Reward, 1993,

and one or two others around that time.  ‘Hannan’s Reward’ has more distinct circles, and the thread was metallic, but earthy, grainy textures were required in each case.

So the above black/gold sample is the same quilt as pictured at the top of this post, at the stage of free machine stitch over the freshly painted fabric (oh well of course, it had dried …)  The other three are now all sprayed, free-machine stitched and layered for quilting, and I’ve been chewing through the black thread like mad.  Although it has taken me a long time to get this right,  I  now feel confident it meets the vision I had when I put my proposal in months and months ago.

But, while doing the quilting over the past couple of days on this one, another problem arose to be solved:

I used unbleached muslin/calico for the backs as I normally do.  But with this intense black machine quilting (and no other bobbin colour would have worked well) the resulting finish looks pretty gross. These 4 pieces really will require additional backs to cover that.  However, it’s an ill wind that blows no good, for I now have the opportunity to trapunto (stuff) the unquilted areas, corresponding to the gold shapes on the front representing the tops of the sand ripples.  A little more body in those parts will help prevent them becoming crushed and wrinkled in transit and storage before the exhibition.

I have not yet decided whether to finish each 40cm x 60cm piece with a fine black binding or with turned back facings.

I am now turning my attention back to the pieces I have committed to for the “Golden Textures” exhibition in Maryborough, Victoria, Australia, next february.  My proposal for this included sketches (actually manipulated computer images) of sand ripples, and a collage of some of the works I’d done using leather and stitch/quilting:

I thought I’d apply gold leather to some very dark fabric for drama, and do lots of machine stitch before quilting.  So I began – and below is one of the 4 pieces with leather applied according to one of the sand ripple patterns I’d photographed, including the relevant sketch in the lower right corner:

But at this stage, I took them down for  a few weeks to focus on something more urgent, and when I put them up again last week, I’d lost the head of steam I had- but something told me this was not the best approach after all, and that I should reconsider the leather, also that I should reconsider the background, too.  Previous sample making had caused me to dismiss gold lame (as too brassy) and metallic gold wax, sheer gold organza and gold tulle/mesh all of which were not bold enough on dark fabric.

I then thought of some nice cream canvas I have, and although I’d decided to not even try to get the ‘beach sand colours’,  I now thought perhaps I should try that with gold wax stencilled, then embellished with metallic machine stitch in thread close to the same colour, really, although it doesn’t seem so here.   I realise I’m mentally tossing up between ‘drama’ and organic shapes that really suggest ‘beach’.  And I quite like this effect:

My next move will shock some – because I then cut out every one of the applied leather shapes.  They had been bonded on and for good measure had some securing stitches  from the back of the dark fabric – there was no ‘removing’ them!   This piece of fabric with holes in it then became the stencil for gold wax rubbed onto the cream, and that’s OK – but is missing something I think:

Now I have some gold spray paint and using the same holey cut-outs I will see what gold sprayed on to both cream and black looks like:

On the top row are the overall and a closeup of the gold on cream – love it!  and the lower right the stencil  still over the cream – in process.  The lower left is actually on black – yes, that black chintz again!!! and I love it, too.  Tomorrow, when they have dried I’ll see how my gold thread stash lines up with the colour, and determine which way from here.  Definitely one thing I can do now is cut out the leather bits on the other two dark grey bits of fabric, and then the sun will be over the yard arm somewhere.

I have been a bit occupied the past few weeks with an online introductory course to Photoshop Elements 10.  There’s nothing like some course structure with a few deadlines – it helped me to work through the odd bits and pieces I already knew how to do and place them into an organised framework.  The Pixeladies’ course was terrific, and lots of the exercises we did using their little mannequin dolls, clothes and accessories etc.  But for the final exercise assignment I chose to work with several of my own photos – including a couple of the beach offerings my regular readers know are a focus of my attention:

I’m proud of all my efforts of course  🙂  but this next one, where I learned how to paste in into a selection, features one of the dolls with my choice of clothes and hair  and the background lifted from one of my own early mixed media works. The overalls were filled with pattern from Ivan and Tara’s wedding quilt – both of which can be seen in full in galleries elsewhere on this site.

And, obviously, I have learned a little about watermaking images too.

This tiny section of one of my Quilt National’13 entries brings me to a post I’ve been meaning to put up for a while, on how I choose and use fabric.  (But “Thread” elbowed its way in as I wrote, so I  considered and finally allowed it to stay on this page.)

I have to tell you, the minute I saw this gold-dotted black fabric several years ago in a USA quilt store, it demanded to be bought – leapt off the shelf calling out “Pick me! Pick me!”  As I  have an emotional attachment to dots, glitter and black, it was a shoe in.  Whenever I begin a new work, I get potentially relevant fabrics out, spread them on a table and the floor if necessary – and once I’ve selected what to use,  put most of them away again, and then turn to my scrap bag to augment the range.  I and other quilters really do call this process ‘auditioning’.   If I think there still must be something more, something special I’ve overlooked, I dig really, really deep down to the back of my fabric stash, which is how I came across this one I’d forgotten.  I still can’t quite believe it lurked in the background for a couple of years, but it must have.

Quite often people say to me – “Where do you buy your fabrics?” and the short answer is “Anywhere and Everywhere”.   I always try to have a little cash on me or space on a card to be able to buy something I love when I come across it.  I know when I return it will have gone.  I recently posted  2012/13/14 and elsewhere I can’t find right now !!! on surprising fabrics I’ve discovered in Montevideo’s sunday markets.  When down there I always check through the bolts and rolls on any fabric vendor’s tables – I just never know what will be mixed in with the majority of stuff that doesn’t especially interest me.  True love determines whether or not I buy any fabric  and experience has shown that if I love it I will use it – no fabric being too precious to cut into.  But, it’s possible a particular fabric may lurk in my cupboard for several years until just the right moment.

If you have looked at my work  in the Colour Memory and Ebb&Flow galleries, you’ll know my contemporary freehand patchwork art quilts have always been composed of many fabrics in small amounts.  I always save small pieces from previous projects, and often dive into my scrap bags for tiny amounts of many different scraps to use in a quilt.  I happily team unusual fabrics and imho it works because every fabric I use I initially bought for love. Recent works can contain fabrics spanning over 25 years – let the textile historian experts make what they will with that!

Here are my personal  ‘rules’ that determine how I buy new fabric:

• If it appeals, I buy a 1/8 – 1/4  metre/yard
• if I really like it I buy 1/2  m/yd.
• If it’s something special to me I buy 1 – 3 m/yds.
• If I am quite over-the-top delirious at finding it, I’ll probably make an offer for whatever’s left on the bolt!  And the last time I did this, there was 19m @ US$2.50/m, of the other fabric shown above – a shiny black cotton chintz that is marvellous to work with – which is just as well, since there’s about 14m left …..

I love black, ecru/cream and other neutrals especially greys, and I adored a wonderful putty colour I’ve completely used up and have never seen again – yet.  But the wonderful thing about fabric is there’s always more.  So, running out of one is no disaster to me.   In addition to neutral plains, I use some hand dyed fabrics (not done by me) which have slight textures, and some commercial prints I call hand-dye-look-alikes; and I love certain prints particularly dots, spots, stripes, interesting fine textures and tiny geometrics.   Yes, I you could say I have great enthusiasm for fabrics – but this enthusiasm is very selective – they must be ones I love.  I never buy whole collections of new fabric releases, and I will never be one of those, including some great artists in the medium whose work I admire totally, who have hundreds of colours and/or prints at their fingertips.  Geography now plays some part in this but I have always had these buying ‘rules’, even when I lived somewhere I could easiy nip out and search for something particular.  Here in Uruguay there is nothing like a ‘quilt shop’ selling nice good quality cotton fabrics, nor the large fabric stores that many of my peers have direct or easy online-access to.  I think this has forced me to maintain an open mind on the potential of absolutely anything I come across.  And there is no doubt that the whole fabric situation in my textile art life has influenced how I work.

Naturally, all this is echoed in threads I buy and use.  For all piecing I use only Gutermann’s Skala, available in 10,000m cones of black, white,  cream, light grey  and dark grey  (there are other colours I don’t need)   When I need other more traditional sewing machine threads or for hand sewing, my stash is mostly neutrals, black, white and cream.  I sometimes use appropriate black/white/neutrals, however a lot of my quilting is in metallics of which I have a few in reasonably large quantity on hand.   Below is a small piece typical of the way I love to use metallic – to highlight rather than smother –

(SAQA  2008 auction donation quilt, Ebb & Flow 12,  12″ sq.) 

or invisible, below, here using smoky grey Skala –

(detail from Ebb & Flow 16,  about 3″ sq ) 

As the Skala blends over the myriad of colours it is sewn across, produces only surface texture without extra added colour.  Of course if I have the exact matching standard machine thread in background colour, eg black, cream, white –  I would consider that, too, if appropriate.  And, some recent works I have quilted in neon colours –

from a group of miniatures in the New Work gallery on this website.