More Doodles

Not long ago I decided to join a group of people who each week do some sort of art in response to a weekly "prompt". You can read about how it works here and then scroll down near the bottom of the page to see previous prompts and the responses to them.



For me, this is a fabulous way to get the creative juices flowing. Since I rarely use patterns and try very hard not to copy other'sworks, I am always looking for inspiration and am enjoying the
challenge of these prompts.

Although I have a lot of catching up to do, I have completed
several doodles, my plan is to stitch them all so here are the three I recently completed. Prompt #16 was Sun, prompt #15 was Square both of these are pretty self explanatory.
Prompt #14 was Queen and I immediately thought Queen Bee.

Stitching out your doodles is a terrific way to work on your free motion skills.

Inchies

I am exploring all sorts of new things this year and these Inchies have to be one of the most fun projects so far. I became interested a while back when I had read an article by Normajean Brevik in Quilting Arts magazine and then came the new, hot off the press, book by Nadine Ruggles titled Inchie Quilts.................so okay, I just had to give em a go.
I started with a few scraps, layered with batting and backing and by gathering up a bunch of supplies for I already had on hand to use as embellishment. Now even though it seems that this would be just an oh so simple a project to tackle, I have to say that it can actually be kind of intimidating to try to make something interesting out of one inch of real estate. But once you get going they are really quite addictive and the ideas are now flowing. I rubber stamped, painted, foiled, used bits of old jewelry and even some postage stamps.
What will I do with these? Well possibly a large quilt sometime in the future using many, many inchies or perhaps some fellow guild members would be interested in an inchie exchange.......who knows, but I must make more of them......lots and lots more.
Click on the images if you'd like a close up look at these, now you may say to yourself, hey what gives, these are not all one inch in size................well yes some are one inch and some are what Normajean Brevik calls Plus size inchies while others are Super sized ;-) and yes there are some selvage inchies in there as well.

Doodles

A little while ago, a fellow blogger brought to my attention, The Creative Prompt Project, which you can read about here. Each week a new word or "prompt" is given that participants are encouraged to interpret in some manner. I decided to join the doodling crowd. I am a bit late getting started I am afraid, so I have just done the last 2 and hope to add a few more from previous weeks. Okay, well maybe at least keep current.

Prompt # 17 was Here to There, my interpretation is an arrow with the word here on the left and ending with the word there on the right

Prompt # 18 is Moon, in this one can you see the word moon? Do you also see all the M's O's & N's ?

Of course I could not just stop with a doodle now could I? Nope, I just had to take it a step further.
I thought that these doodles would be a great way to practice my free motion stitching, so after I doodled, I traced the doodle on fabric and stitched.
The arrow was stitched on muslin over a layer of Timtex and although I get great control this way, not to mention freedom of movement, it really is not ideal for large projects so I decided it was time to learn to use a hoop.
The moon was stitched on a layer of hooped muslin and medium weight stabilizer......I have never used a hoop before and this will take some getting used to for sure.

Photocopy Transfer

I have a very long list of techniques I'd like to try. Recently, I tried some different ways of transferring photocopied images to fabric. My understanding is that this will work only with actual photocopies and not images directly from your printer.

This first method requires some patience and is a bit messy but very effective for larger images. Begin with a photocopy (if it has text it will need to be reversed) lay it face down on your fabric and then using a paint brush, generously coat the back of your copy with Golden Medium. This is where the patience part comes in, you need to let this dry thoroughly, at least 24 hours. Here comes the messy part, you will now need to immerse this into water and as the paper saturates you will be able to begin to remove the paper by rubbing gently......... very gently! When it looks as though all of the paper has been removed, you should be left with a good clean image. Once dry, however, you may notice that there is still a bit of paper left and if this is the case you will need to repeat the wetting and rubbing process.............did I mention you'll need some patience?

The above method was used for the postcard. The birds, feather and quilt block were all transferred using this method. Later I added some colourful fabric wings while colour was added to the feather and quilt block using Sharpie markers. I changed my mind from what I had originally intended and cut the images out to place on that wonderful green background
Take a look at this portion of a quilt label I made. Do you see that area (the word stitched), that is not as crisp and clear as the rest? This really needed another dunk in the water but I believe I was out of patience by that time. ( I had already gone through the process twice)
This particular label has lots of text, is 9"x 6" and I am very pleased at the result achieved with this method.

The simplest and easiest method is also great for small images, but involves a solvent of some sort. The best result for me, was achieved using acetone ( nail polish remover) Place your image face down onto your fabric and swipe the back of it with an acetone dampened (not wet) cotton ball, then, using the back of spoon or some other tool, burnish the image until it transfers. I used a small piece of masking tape to hold the image in place so that I could lift the edge and see if the image had transferred to my liking.
I had absolutely no luck at all with the CitraSolv I purchased.........have no idea why it didn't work. Obviously with any solvent based method you will want to work in a well ventilated area.
Once you have the image you want, you can go a step further and add colour. Here I used coloured pencils for the quilt block and crayons for the flip flops, buttons and butterflies. Extra details were added using Sharpie markers. The final step was to paint a thin layer of textile medium on top of the colours, once dry, it was heat set using a hot dry iron.

Junk Yard Art

I don't usually post anything that doesn't involve quilting or fiber art in one form or another, but I felt the need to share these fabulous metal sculptures.



I don't even have details for you except that as I understand it, these are created by students at our local College and are displayed at a
Metal Recycling Facility.........well, okay......... Junk Yard.

They are each on their own individually
illuminated pedestal.




I began noticing these wonderful works a couple of years ago (the works change yearly) but finally had the presence of mind to actually snap a few photos of the current display.
In addition to the insects and others you see here, there is a Wholly Mammoth, Octopus, a Rhino and several human forms.








Aren't they totally amazing?