Finished it Friday! x 4

I just finished up this (sweet) little set of four autumn sky/tree pictures in time for tomorrow's group show & sale at Agar's Corner.  They worked out just how I hoped they would!  When I was first gifted all those silk ribbons, the idea popped into my head to stitch leaves turning colors.  Here they are!

Autumn Birches #1

Autumn Birches #2

Autumn Birches #3

Autumn Birches #4

They look so pretty in the box-style chunky white frames I got.  I'm tempted to keep them for myself!  I made them to have some lower priced items at the show.  The silks are all hand dyed - including the sari silk I used for the trunks.  When they are displayed together, they remind me of looking out a window in the fall.  AAaaaaaaaah.  : )  I just can't stop taking photos of them!  : )  I'm enjoying the silk so darn much.

 p.s.  All are stitch-signed by hand too...

 Happy autumn!  If you are nearby, please stop by the show and say hello.  ; )

Happy Dyes

This week I headed out with my two youngest children to my friend Patti's farm.  She and I spent 4 hours dying silk ribbons.  She totally rocked it at getting wonderful natural looking landscape colors from solid pastel ribbons.  LOOK!

beautiful!!

Here is EVERYTHING we dyed.  We hung the heat-set ribbons on her wooden metre stick.   : )

...and Patti at Her Sweet Prairie : )

What a great collection!  Those frosty silver blues are fabulous too.  There's bronze.  There's apricot.  There's celery.  yum yum yum.  I still can't believe it was four hours.  My kids fed the horses, adventured, and caught grasshoppers by the handful.

(***Oh crap - I just remembered there is a bucket full still in my living room!!)

I have to tell you about this thrift store silk.  I found a pink 100% silk skirt for $7.  It was mid-calf length, and pleated!  You know what that means?  I took it home and cut off the waist.  The rest of the skirt suddenly unfolded like an accordion.  There must have been 4 metres of silk that was nearly one a metre wide.  What a score!  I cut some strips off and we tried dying that - like the sari silk ribbon.

I didn't love this at first, but once we got home, I thought I'd try a bit more.  This could be really useful with hooking.  I took out the jars of dyes and did a bit more.

Then I made some a little darker still... more antique colors.

That was fun.  It really takes no time at all to dye ribbons.  There's hardly any mess.  The problem was that we just couldn't stop.  ; )  I hope you enjoyed it Patti!  It was really nice to have some company doing this.  I am so happy.  More natural colored ribbons means more natural looking work I think.

Have a great weekend!  And again, thank you Patti!  I hope you stitch a little something with the lovelies we made.

* * * So for all you asking, we used Jaquard Dye-Na-Flo, water, and some Jaquard Lumiere acrylics (with water) for the sparkle.  We mixed both products in little glass bowls and then stored them in sealer jars.  They are non toxic and clean up easy.  Some of my products were purchased through local art stores that unfortunately aren't around anymore.  You can get them at Art Placement in Saskatoon, Colours accross Canada (except for Saskatoon), and you can also get them from Meinke Toy (a great resource for all fibre art - see the link on my sidebar to the right).  They happen to sell sari-silk already hand dyed and ready to go.  It is one of my favorite products from them. ; )  You can get any color of silk ribbon from Ribbonsmyth (see the link on the sidebar).   

I dyed it! I did!

Thanks to some bartering, some VERY kind people, and a spur of the moment trip to the thrift store, my sewing room is stocked full of silk.  FULL.  No kidding.  It's like there was a sudden windfall: silk ribbon, silk yarn, silk embroidery floss, silk fabric.  (Kari, are you reading this?  You must help me come sort it all!)  I guess the universe is telling me to work with silk?  Okay then!  lol  I get it!  I get it!  My first mission was to get the right color for the red dock everyone is enjoying these days.  It's everywhere.  But out of all my new stash, there is no color like it!  So away I went.

dying silk ribbon is sooo easy

The day was sunny.  There was no wind, so I worked out on the deck.  I over-dyed some coloured ribbons with various Jaquard dyes (which I did not document but should have), and some good things happened.

see the sparkles?

I have no idea why these are loading sideways, but I guess it really doesn't matter, right?  

Heather Lair introduced me to the Lumiere paints.  AMAZING - can you see the sparkles?  (yes - I know Dock isn't sparkly.  : )  Oh well.)  Thank you Heather.  Great advice.  Last I talked to her, she was in too much pain to stitch, bust said she was painting.  I wonder what the last things she painted were?

Hanging around after being heat-set.  Love the old yard stick (nowadays we have metre sticks).

Oh my oh my.  Those are great for curly dock!  I did some undyed silk too that was from Golden Willow Natural Fibres.  They are beautiful and I'm sure I'll use them in the fall.

I added a few drops of something different between each dip of the silk yarns

Of course, once you start, you just want to dye everything...

more dyes.  i am having fun.

I got some good ones there!  That strand on the far left was a bunch of separate dyes I did from the Golden Willow Natural Fibres silk.    LOVE!  Oh - so - very - useful!  : )  If you are wondering, Golden Willow Natural Fibres is a yarn store in Regina, SK.  Kari introduced me to that place.  THANK YOU Kari!  : )  Later this week, I'm heading to a friend's house to do some more.  Yippee!  ; )

Linking up to TN&TN for WIP Wednesday.  Have a good one!

Sunday Snapshots

Oooh I feel so lucky!  There's a ditch behind my husband's store...  we went there one evening and when I jumped out of the truck, there it was!  Chamomile, sweet clover, thistles and dock.  I didn't have my camera so I grabbed his cell phone and snapped this in the late evening sun.  Oh it was glowing, it was so pretty!  (You should have heard me squealing.)

ditch bouquet  xo

That reddish stuff is prolific everywhere right now.  It really stands out.  My daughter and I brought some home (likely a noxious weed so no one was arresting us).  Once it was in my hands it just looked brown.  I'm surprised how red it looks form a distance.  I'm definitely putting this into some upcoming art work.  I just need to find the right fibres.

curly dock on my deck

It was interesting to see it up closer.  It has little ruffled leaves each with a teeny tiny seedpod nestled inside.  These plants grow VERY tall.  This is just the tip top of one.  We took some thistles too (again... no arrests were made).

what an interesting specimen!  (color is too pink, taken in indoor light at night)

The tips even have some blue on them.  That was a couple of days ago.  This morning, I took some raw silk knitting yarn and a little spoonful of purple Dye-na-flo dye & water... and tada!  I have my own custom matched silk embroidery threads.  SWEET!  And SO easy.  I don't love dying fabric, (or... I am not good at it) but dying threads and ribbons is super simple.  It takes minutes to do, and minutes to clean up.  Bonus.

hand picked thistle.  hand dyed silk.  Perfect match!

Have a great Sunday.  : )  I think I'll spend my day outside working (and playing) in the yard.

A Friday Finish

June Grasses.  

WHEW!  I stitched and I stitched and I stitched... and now I can say I am done.

This is about 8x10 and took hours and hours and hours.  Oh my goodness.  I like it.  I did it completely 'unplugged' using some fibres from Meinke Toy, 12 wt thread from Wonderfil, and silks from Margot Lindsay.  The background is some green silk (silk or linen?) I got from my friend Pixie.

On the table is a print out of the original photo I took.

 

The grass tops on the bank above the south SK River were purply-blue and the were lit up in sunshine.  It was sooo pretty.  I took a close up only last week but ever since, this image has been singing for me to stitch it.

June Grasses, 2013 (with my working mat sitting on top temporarily)

It was an interesting experience for me to 'loosen up' and do a more impressionistic piece of art from that moment instead of attempting a true & perfect copy.  I added sparkle and pinks too to convey the 'this is so DARN pretty!!!' feeling I had when I was sitting in those grasses that night, watching the sun to it's slow dance to the horizon.  (yeah - I'm feeling poetic about it.)

Detail of June Grasses, 2013

People will likely imagine lavender when they look at this.  That's okay.  I really don't mind.  It can be what ever you want it to be.  I think you can click on the above image to view it larger.  Getting the color right on my camera was really tough.  It's really cool and blue in the last pic.  My camera doesn't like purple apparently - especially on a dark cloudy day.  I think the actual piece is much warmer, deeper, and brighter like the photo I worked from.

Now what?  How to display it...  I could stretch it and hang as is.  I have lots of stretcher bars.  Or I might frame it.  With these big chunky silks, I would not use glass over it like I do with the finely embroidery French Knots in thread.  A natural linen mat would be gorgeous I think...  hmmm.

I'll get back to you and show you what I chose.  : )

Next up - a commission with a building!  I can do it (I keep telling myself).  I can do it.

Answering the Call

The photo I took of the prairie grasses in bloom... they kept singing, "Stich me!  Oh Please, stitch me!"

 

So I answered the call.  : )  I worked all afternoon and into the evening on this one, completely unplugged.  I think I am about 40% done, and 99% fulfilled!

unplugged.  work in progress.

It's been raining for 2 days, and it will rain for two more.  I'm going to finish up a bit more stitching with the silks from Margot and then deepen the purples with 12 wt thread another day.  This afternoon I need have a nap, and then drive down to Regina and back !  Tonight at 7 pm is the reception for the biennial touring juried show of the Saskatchewan Craft Council - Dimensions - which is also celebrating it's 30th year.  What to wear? What  to wear?  (Besides rubber boots, rain gear and an umbrella.) The show & reception is at the MacKenzie Art Gallery.  I am so excited to see the entire exhibit!  I still can't believe I get to be part of it.  WOO!

Have a great night!