A Little Progress

Aside from spring planting and fall harvest, nothing gets me off track more than packing for a quilt show.  I have not accomplished much on the samples for the demos I will be doing this weekend, but I have enough done to show the samples.

Image and design copyright RPS

This is part of a collage that I am doing on a vintage tea towel.  Take a look at the feather stitch I used to stitch a length of silk sari ribbon around a square cut from a vintage hankie.

Image and design copyright RPS

This is a bigger view of the above detail.  The piece above the hankie is a mini collage that I started as another project that stalled, so it is going into this tea towel creation.  I am feeding my fascination with layers upon layers with this piece.

Not my stitching here!  This was the stitching on the tea towel when I rescued it in an auction box lot.

Finally, a little stitching I managed to finish on one of the collages that I will be talking about in Lebanon, Ohio this weekend.

Stitching Around

Maybe I am too ambitious, as I habitually envision myself completing more than I actually do.  Obviously, I am not as far long on my collages as I wanted to be.  But, I have been stitching:

The stitching in the center of the doily is just a lazy daisy in a Valdani 8 weight.  I think it is looking reminiscent of a sunflower seed head. 

I have also played with filling in the designs in the ivory dyed doily:

Here is a detail of the stitching:

I like the leaves, but I am not completely sold on using the buttonhole stitch to fill in the flower petals.  It is looking better the more I go along.  How much father will I have crept along by Thursday?

Collage with Vintage Textiles

I'll be giving a short demo each day of the upcoming Lebanon, Ohio quilt show on creating a unique fabric collage with vintage fabric and fancy pieces.

This is a finished collage, a very simple composition made from a fancy hankie, a hand dyed damask napkin, vintage ties and some pieces of my "scrap-lace" fabric technique.

Image and design copyright RPS

Over the next couple of weeks,  I will be working on a few more collages to showcase the items I sell at the quilt shows.  I'll post the progress here as they come together leading up to the show on the first weekend of March.  Here's the start I have on the two I will concentrating on:

Image and design copyright RPS

Image and design copyright RPS

Check back Thursday to see my next steps on these.

Quilt Show Announcement

I will be a vendor at the Lebanon (Ohio) Quilt and Fabric Arts Show, March 2-3, 10-5 each day.  Admission is $7, the event benefits the Warren County Historical Society.  It will be held at the Warren County Fairgrounds, 665 North Broadway, Lebanon, OH.  I will have my usual assortment of hand dyed fabrics, embellishing fibers, dyed vintage doilies, damask linens, fancy work and lots and lots of fancy hankies.  I will be giving a demonstration each day on how to use vintage pieces in fabric collage:

Image and design copyright RPS

Slow Progress

I have been making slow progress in keeping up my New Year's resolution to make more stuff.  One of my goals for some time has been to make various sizes of my fabric boxes.  A couple of years ago I made many 2 inch cube boxes and a few large ones in the range of 4X6X4" and 3X5X3."  Finally over the past week, I cut sides for 3 inch cubes and 2X3X2 boxes.  I have a lot of fun embellishing the box sides in a variety of surface design techniques.  When I start a run of new box sizes, I first make a bunch in a blend of neutrals - black, white, grays and tans.  Here are the sides for the new sizes, embellished and sorted, ready to start zigzagging together.

I've discussed in an early post about how my fascination with boxes came in part from John Steinbeck's dedication to his East of Eden.  Another source of inspiration for my boxes comes from abandoned buildings.  Yes, run down, crumbling old buildings.

My boxes are made up of fabric scraps from other projects, capturing the patched together look of some dilapidated houses.  As I stitch the sides of my smaller boxes together, the action of pinching the sides together causes the box to undergo some shifting and warping.  This is a good thing, it gives the box more character and adds to the visual interest of the piece.  Even the house that I live in, built in 1994, has parts that have swayed and shifted.  This is what I want to capture in my little boxes - the natural, slow process of physical aging of an inanimate structure.  Of course, all of us get bumps, sags and wrinkles as we age, so the inevitable wear that these boxes show over time simply reflects us as well.

Image and designs copyright RPS

My little fabric boxes are mostly decorative, but they could of course be used to hold, as Steinbeck put it, "whatever you have."