New (Ad)Ventures

Good Morning All,

Boy I thought I was busy before..... but now, I'm in the midst of non-stop action! I am launching two new ventures.

The first is a line of rubber stamps designed expressly for printing on fabric - I will have 37 different designs to debut at Int. Quilt Market and Festival in late October.

Here are six of the designs (click on the image to see larger). Each of these blocks of stamps is 4". My stamps will vary in size from 2" x 3" all the way up to 6" x 8". They will retail at between $4 for the smaller stamps up to $22.00 for the large sets that create pictorials. For this first round, I've designed flowers, birds, fish, leaves, hearts, butterflies, dragonflies and lots of textures.

The stamps are clear and cling to acrylic blocks for printing. They come set between two layers of plastic for easy storage. To use, you just peel the stamp off the plastic place it on the acrylic block and print. Clean up with soap and water, dry, peel from the acrylic block and store between the plastic again.

I've designed them with heavy lines and little surface texture - which is just what you need when printing on fabric. But they can be used to stamp just about anything from paper, clay, your walls, book art, you name it! A few of the designs have narrower lines and more open areas. I've designed these to use alone, or to print then quilt and color in with fabric ink.

Though I'm struggling with feeling overwhelmed with this life I'm making, I feel so damned lucky to be living the creative life of my dreams. I can't wait to share these stamps with you!

Till next time,
Heather

Finishing up more quilts for my upcoming show

Good Evening All,

I can't believe it... I've finished 7 quilts in the last two weeks. I had 8 "blanks" sculpted and ready for painting and quilting and I managed to get 7 of the eight finished. I've got my first solo show coming up and I have to be ready to hang on Tuesday - that's just two days from now. I will need up to 30 pieces to fill both of the large rooms at The Lobby which is the restaurant where the show will hang from Aug 16 - Oct 18. It's not that I've waited till the last minute to get these done - this was just the first available minute!

In the first photo are four sculpted pieces with the first coat of paint which I always paint with just one color.

In the second photo are two of the pieces with all of the painting complete.

In the last photo you can see me painting the second coat on one of the pieces. I started with black then added bright colors. I topped those with silver and pewter then with shades of the original bright colors and finally finished with fine white lines. When I finish with this piece I'll load up a photo for you to see.

Hope you all had a great weekend!
Till next time,
Heather

Good Morning All,
Lest you think I've been slacking off..........here are some of my new hand dyed fabrics. My assistant, Judy and I have been dyeing like crazy as we get ourselves prepared to hit the national show/teaching circuit. Because I don't want to be "just another hand dyer", I've been coming up with ways to make our hand dyes unique. I'm using several Shibori techniques along with color mixing my way. We get all of this glorious color using just 4 dyes; black, yellow, red and blue! I'm having lots of fun and learning new stuff along the way - just what life is all about.

I will be opening my own dye studio sometime in October. The space is a subleased area of a new teaching gallery that will be attached to the Golden Quilt Co. in Golden CO. I'm so excited to have dedicated space to dye and paint fabric in. My assistant's happy that we won't have to continue doing it in her kitchen too.

Once we get the space up and running, all of our painted and dyed fabric will have a home base from which to sell it locally. We will house all of the product there between shows and Tamara the lovely owner/operator of the teaching studio will be there to sell it to any takers.

I just love it when things work out. I cast my net in to so many waters. Sometimes it comes out tangled and empty, other times it's loaded with a full bounty. Ain't life good!

Till next time,
Heather

New Work

Good Morning All,
A Friend of mine and faithful blog follower, Christ Irell, just sent me an email and link to her blog, http://happyartgurl.blogspot.com, so I spent some time reading about her current artistic forays and got to see a video of The Artist Creed. It was time well spent, you should check her out.
I've been busy trying to get ready for my first solo art show - and it's a big un'. I need up to 40 pieces to fill the space and have been rapidly trying to get some new work done. The show will be called "Sculptural Quilts & other colorful stories". It will hand at The Lobby which is a downtown restaurant on the corner of 21st and Arapahoe streets. It goes up on the 16th of Aug and hangs for two months. The opening reception is Tuesday, Sept 6th, from 4-7.
Anyway, the top photo above shows one of the new pieces prior to quilting. The painted, sculpted piece is sitting on top of two layers of silk, two layers of batting and a backing fabric. The second photo shows it with the quilting done and with a frayed binding added. I don't usually make the quilting in these pieces so "frilly", but I really enjoyed doing this one and I like the way it looks. If you click on the photos you can see them larger. I combined several different stitch outs to get this fancy design.
I'll show you some more pieces soon,
Till next time,
Heather

More from my Quilt & Color seriess

Good Morning All,

Boy it feels good to work in my studio! I'm having so much fun getting ready for this solo show I'm hanging at the first of August.

These six pieces are each just 8" x 10" and once they are colored in I plan to mount them on stretcher boards and hang them together as a small installation. I really enjoy micro-stitching. If you click on any of the images, you can see them larger. Notice how none of the stitching is very intricate, just basic filler designs and simple outlines, but when you join them all together they become much more interesting. I'll show them to you again once I get the coloring done and get them mounted and I'll teach you the mounting process - which I'm copying from another fiber artist friend, Carol Ann Waugh.

I'm sending out my new newsletter tonight. It's filled with tons of classes to get you excited about your own fiber arts journey. Hope to see some of you there!

Till Next Time,
Heather

Another, Another Finished Quilt!

Good Morning All,

Here is another quilt that I've just finished. It is a doodle quilt that has some coloring in it too.

It was made in the same manner as the last quilt, only with this one I didn't use an additional fabric between the blocks and the quilted rectangles and I colored in the flowers so that they could better act as focal points.

For the coloring, I used four colors of Tsukineko inks then after they were dry I added a sheer layer of Shiva paint in pink iridescent.

I'm very pleased with the final result. If you click on any of the photos you'll be able to see it larger.

Till next,
Heather

Good Afternoon All,

As promised, here is another finished piece. If you click on any of the images you will be able to see them larger. I'm having so much fun exploring free style machine quilting as design motifs/focal points rather than as the artistry added to finish something else.

If you've heard of Zen Tangles, these might remind you of them though I really don't use many of the movements shown in Zen Tangles. Rather, I use combinations of the stitch outs that I've been using in my free style machine quilting for years including many of the designs that I've shared with you here on my blog.

No, not all of them are original to me, in fact lots of them I've picked up from other quilts, textures, doodles and drawings that I've seen along the way. What is unique is how I'm trying to use them.

The quilt is about 16" wide by 46" long. Each of the white blocks was quilted individually with two layers of batting and a backing. I stitched them on plain, white canvas that I had ripped so that the edges are rough. I then layered up the background fabric with two more layers of batting and a backing. I cut 3 squares of red shot cotton backed with Misty fuse. These squares were about 1 1/2" larger all the way around than the quilted white squares. I positioned the red squares on the black silk background fabric and ironed them in place. Then I quilted the inner part of the red squares, where the white quilted squares would eventually be, with a large stipple and the outer 1 1/2" of the red squares with a linear design. Next I quilted the hell out of the black silk fabric which would eventually become the borders and sashing between the quilted white squares. The black silk is quilted with more than a dozen different stitch outs.

Once the black/red block background was quilted then I positioned the white quilted squares in the centers of each of the red blocks and stitched them in place. As you look at each of the blocks above, notice how I mix curve based designs with straight line based designs, sort of alternating them whenever possible. This juxtaposition of straight versus curvy adds contrast within the single color thread design.

This is just about the most fun I've ever had with a sewing machine!

More soon,
Heather