Another Friday Finish and More on the Go

Look Molly! 

I took a series of photos late last summer in Silverspring.  There was one photo in particular that had that "aaaaaaaaaah!" reaction.  It was the tall grasses and the way the evening summer sun was making everything that it touched glow.  Molly suggested I threadpaint it.  I've had it on my to-do list for some time.  Finally, I collected the threads and was ready...

Hmm, now I can't seem to find the photo.  Nonetheless... here's my latest accomplishment.

Silverspring Sunlit, 2013

I am so excited.  I can't stop taking photos of this one!  I love how thick and airy it is.  I wasn't sure about putting the fence wire in, but it ended up being one of my favorite parts.  It's not a three-line barbed wire fence as I thought is was.  It's a grid.  So I stitched it that way, wrapping the the thread around at each intersection just like the fence wires were.  It was really cool to stitch.  I feel the grasses are perfect!  They are so light and loose.

detail of Silverspring Sunlit, 2013

On the homefront, two pieces sold at Gardenscape today and two more sold privately.  I'm so excited - my first threadpainting is soon to go to the US!  I have a handful overseas, but none south of the border.  It's a very special one that I wasn't sure I would sell, until one of my bestest-blog-friends-that-I-never-met asked for it.  How can I say no to her?  : )

Now I'm planning a few more including the little old shack in Bergheim.

That computer screen appears quite harsh.  I'm going to enjoy threadpainting that one.  It has similar grasses in it that reach high up above the horizon.

my photo 2011

Mmmmm, and then there's this one!  I took this south east of the city two years ago.  I have no idea which road this was taken on.  It was one of those days that I wandered and wandered.

my photo played up in high contrast, 2011

Oh and then there's this one from the little slough at the turnaround just down the highway.  Isn't this one SWEET!?  Oh I could eat up those colors.

my photo, 2012

I had a lot of fun picking through old photos and playing around with them - changing depth and vividness, and also playing with different cropping of each picture.  It's amazing the different things I find when I do this.  There's always so much more to a photograph that meets the eye.

Have a good weekend everyone, and thanks for your support & encouragement.

Choosing Doozies (Things I Love Thursdays)

This works for Things I Love Thursdays.  I'm sorting through loads of photos to pick out my favorites.  These are what I'm thinking of using as inspiration for what I would like to stitch out next.  The first photo has been on my mind for some time now.  There is SO MUCH to stitch in here.  A lot would be by hand.  This obviously isn't the original photo.  I like to play with the contrast.  Things happen.  Whites and yellows make them self know.  And little bits of blue and purple popped up everywhere that I may not have noticed.  I wouldn't stitch it to look so harsh, but it when I set things like this, it becomes clearer what I need to do to bring it to life.

strange settings give me more to look at and think about before stitching

There's something about the light in this next one that I find so alluring.  I took it up on high overlooking the riverbank.  The sun was so low in the west, that if you look you can see the top of the post is in the shadow.  Even some of the branches are lit up from underneath.  I think it tells ain intriguing story.  Plus, I love to stitch fences and wire.  The Wolf Willow leaves would all be done by hand.  I have JUST the ribbon for it.

I had already made a mini piece inspired by the next photo.  It's so lush.  I plan to make a larger version of it.

the redwinged blackbird will likely be stitched into the right side to balance with the trees in the left.

This next one... those trees at the turnaround on Grasswood Road.  I have stitched them in autumn as winter approaches.  I have stitched them in the spring after a spring storm.  Now I have this one in winter.  I like the cattails all puffed out in it.  I need to try this one.  I like the mood of it.

I really want to do a lot of winter scenes, but then I wonder if that would be a big turn off for a show in May.  ?  This one - I just have to work out this one!  It had a mood to it too that I would like to stitch.  It was a bitter minus 30 celcius, but the scene is so warm and soft.

Then there are all the photos I took at Beaver Creek in the fall.  This one is a DOOZIE - there is so much in it.  Maybe it's too much?  Maybe I'll use parts of it.

It's pretty lush isn't it?  The next one is a close up I adore.  I just wonder if I do a shot like this without sky, it may appear more abstract.  What do you think?  I could do a whole series of grasses like this.  Dreaming...  ; )))

Is it just me?  Does that last photo just make you sigh?  It's so quiet and peaceful.  I can just imagine every piece in the foreground handstitched...  love love love.

Happy Thursday!  Here I go...

Itchin' to be Stitchin'

Is it just me, or do you feel like I haven't been doing any sewing?  I have a bit more paperwork and class preparations to get together before I can really begin.  In the mean time, I can feel sewing withdrawal beginning to kick in.  Do you ever get that??  I spent some time gathering my top inspirational photos that are 'calling' me.  Here is the lineup...

early summer at Grasswood, SK after a tornado warning had passed

I've only prepped the background so far...

Then there are a couple of these from this past weekend...  they melt my heart.  This one in particular is pretty full of fall colors, and lots of detail.  There will be a lot of stitching in this one, and it will not be a small piece.

I love the softness of this next one.  It's such a pretty fall palette.

And finally, this horizontal one from Silverspring just has such a nice free feel to it.  I have to do this one too, though I my omit the city in the background.  I'm not sure yet...

So that is my work-in-progress: figuring out where to start.  : )  Well, ya gotta start somewhere!  Have a great day.

Inspirations & Preparations

Half-way through putting the supplies together for the Creative Stitched Postcards Workshop I'm running tomorrow at Heritage, I got side tracked.  Hmmm.  It seems to happen a lot in my studio.  I think I'll blame it on the fact that I really should be cleaning it and sorting it all out.  Instead, I started looking through photos.  I need to think about a new collection for the next show & sale at Gardenscape.  I came across this one... I took it two years ago during the summer when everything was flooding.

I like the horizontal layers and vertical lines.  I picked out this one in particular, cropped it and set the contrast differently to bring out lines and colors.  I had never noticed the blues before!

I really like the potential with this one.  It would make a great chunky fibre panel to hang alone on the wall.  I'm going to do it in thread first.  So I sketched out the lines that will guide my stitches.

Next I put in the colors with pencil crayons.  I've been hanging on to this box of pencil crayons since I first moved to Calgary in 1996!  I bought them for a project I was doing at the time but I never ended up coloring it all in.  I knew they would get used sooner or later!

That was easy.  I'm glad I didn't bother hauling out wet paints for this.  Done.  I am looking forward to stitching this one!  And this one...

Summer 2010

...and this one...

Summer 2010

I love all the color and detail and water too.  It must be this 'winter drought' we are experiencing.  Still no snow and extremely mild...

Okay!  back to packing for tomorrow's workshop!  See you Sunday. : )

Harvest Time Colors!

This weekend as the sun was about to set, I headed out of town with my daughter to see what stitching inspirations I could capture.  The bad news is that my camera was unintentionally set on macro while taking landscape photos.  The good news is that I still managed some terrific captures that I can most definitely use.  Want to see?  Please look at them as composition inspirations, and not with a technical eye.

cat tails at dusk

That skyless, heavily detailed scene remind me a lot of Margot Lindsay's pieces.  There are so many things to stitch in that!  Long, fat, whispy, and french knots of course.  Can't you see it?  And ahhhhh, the field of barley.  I'm sure next time I drive out it will be cut.

Barley, so delicate & soft looking!  I love the weeds in the foreground too.

Needless to say, there are a lot of songs about barley that involve lying down and sleeping in it.  I love the layers of texture and colors that we found that night.  Check out this next one.  It's cropped from a larger photo.  I can't get over the distinct colors!  This picture is cropped only, and though there's not much detail on macro setting, isn't this interesting?

Here is a more "landscape view" from the dirt road as the sun was sinking in the west.  See the road's shadow along the fence line?  These low long evening shadows really make me glad I came back to the prairie.  That slow and gentle sundown kiss-goodnight lasts so long here when nothing is in its way (oo wasn't that poetic!?).  sigh.  I was never satisfied near the mountains.

I am really in love with things here.

Then I got the wake-up call form the little girl in the back seat, "mama!  I have to pee!".  So we put our cameras away and headed to the nearest gas station.  When we were done, we had to take out our cameras again.  Check it out!  I think these next 2 photos are so beautiful.  It was then I noticed the accidental macro setting, and undid it.

tipi top

There are 3 tipis at the Grasswood Esso and you can go inside them all.  They are so magical.

looking up from inside.  sunset glow coming in

Sweet!  I hope you see something that inspires you deeply today.

~Monika

Inspiration Captured!

I can't help it!  I said I wouldn't blog, but I can't help it!  I take a day off and I still manage to get things done.  July 1st was Canada Day.  After breakfast, my husband announced that we were heading out of town so that I could snap photos.  !!  Maybe he felt guilty for not stopping the vehicle last summer while I captured some amazing landscape inspirations through a dirty car window?  I was quite excited to capture some prairie fibre inspiration, so off we went.  We drove 5 minutes east of the city and then I announced, "turn down that gravel road!".  It was actually quite thrilling for me to hear my children in the back of the van squeal about the view and the fields and the sky and the colors!  I guess I've influenced them.  My 5 yr old was yelling at the 7 yr old to not miss capturing scenes on his DSI camera.  I took so many photos on the roadside - it was fabulous!!

from the vehicle window - sweet yellow clover forever

That may not look like a lot.  My husband didn't see much.  But I jumped out of the vehicle and squealed at all the color!  Saskatchewan ditches are truly fabulous.  They are like hidden treasures.  You just have to look.  There's SO much beauty here.  People overlook it all the time.  I had my eyes peeled for fibre art inspiration.  ...and I got it!

like Boundless but with Blanket Flowers & Clover

Purple Alfalfa, Sweet Yellow Clover & Fence Posts

Beautiful Blanket Flowers in the foreground!!

That last one has so much depth.  I played around with it and cropped it into this next one, which I really like as well.  It's all purple & green.  I like the feel of it, and there's lots of texture and color for a fibre piece.

Lovely purples & indigos with green, yellow, rust

Here's the same one again, just cropped differently.  Wouldn't this make a gorgeous panel-style wall hanging!?  Ooh you can count on this one to happen!

I am stitching this one for sure!

It's so pretty!  I can't get over how surreal it looks.  My husband was laughing at me, in disbelief at how I can see things that he did not notice.  Honestly, I don't know how people drive by the ditches here without noticing! : )  I have a few more I'll post later.  For now, ENJOY the pretties!!  I apologize for how small these are!  Originally they are gigantic files.  I have so much inspiration for this winter's solo show, I just can't wait!

~Monika
very very happy.

Works in Progress Wednesday

Good news!  ALL of my framed thread paintings have now sold.  Right now I'm lying low and taking a few days of rest.  Still, in my head, I'm planning.  The month of April will be specifically to complete commissions.  There is Mandy's tree that needs to be finished (right Mandy?).  Gosh she's been waiting so long! This quilt really stumped me several times along the process.

just a corner of it here...

And Jesica's quilt made from her late grandmother's stash will be done too.  I've been slowly putting blocks together and spent hours pressing them.  I sent her photos and we've been discussing the arrangements before they all get stitched together.  That shouldn't take long once the layout is confirmed.  That stage - from blocks to completed top - is always very fast.

Finally, I'll be reworking this piece into a larger quilted wall hanging for a new B.C. resident who left the prairies.  She found me on Etsy and commissioned it from me for her own house-warming gift.  Sweet!  "Telephone Poles Along Highway 7" came from this photo.  I added a larger third pole on the right of my piece (see yesterday's post).

I just love working from my photos!  I'll make new works for the next showing of my work which will be on Sunday, May 29th with a group exhibit.  I have in mind:  trains, fence posts, more ditches full of wildflowers, and the old grain elevators too.  sigh.  I can't wait to start those!  I've already decided they will be more of the same style:  fabric collaged, thread painted & hand embroidered scenes under glass in frames.  Those were so well received, and so incredibly enjoyable to create. Here are some more photos I'm considering stitching out.

aren't they the cutest!!?

I can imagine layers and layers from this one.

this too!

I set them all in high contrast before I stitch them.  It brings out the depth and the understated details that can really make a picture POP.

p.s.  I'll let you in on a little surprise.  !!!  Actually, it's a BIG surprise.  I will be the featured artist in the spring 2012 issue of A Needle Pulling Thread magazine with my latest works.  I am going to work extra hard to make the most lovely creations I can for that issue.  The work in that magazine is truly stunning and incredibly tasteful.  Because they are all sold so fast, I will have to photograph my work through all the stages in high resolution.

Oh!  And the owl quilt which has been claimed for Baby Bell #4.  Yes... that will get done too!

For more works in progress from other sewists, check out Lee's blog at FRESHLY PIECED.
: )
~Monika

Feild Trip for Inspiration

After spending hours pressing and cutting fabric for the the last two days, I headed out to the Mendel Art Gallery and Civic Conservatory with my 4 yr and 7 yr old, my journal, and my camera!  I though it would be a great opportunity to capture some fibre art inspiration.  The weather really warmed up to above zero and there was not a cloud in the sky!

We walked along the Meewasin pathways that line the South Saskatchewan river.  It was so warm, we wanted to take off our jackets.  : )

There were animal tracks everywhere!  The river was running very fast from the melt down.

We spent an hour in the conservatory.  I photographed every single orchid... three times.  : )  There was SO much color!!  They are all in my flickr prairie photo set if you want to see.  This one little cyclamen was my favorite.

She's so pretty, so white, and all curled up still.  My daughter Arwen took photos too.

While the kids played, I sat on a bench and pulled out my journal.  It's been a long time.  Look what I found!  Somebody's been using my book!  : )

And this looks like a sketch of our bear paw quilt that's hanging up in my bedroom!  Wow.

 

Sweet.  Isn't that sweet!?

~Monika

ps.  here is the direct link the the ORCHIDS.