an A in chemistry, an F in design, and E for effort

so I didn't get to this blog at my usual time in the week on Sunday as I was off visiting with my grandchildren and my great grandchildren --

and I didn't get here on Monday because I was doing laundry and making a trip to Costco --

and I didn't get here on Tuesday because after I ran some errands I went to my studio instead

so here we are on Wednesday, and I have to play catch up with what I've been doing otherwise!

Chemistry Class

both the container (a red coffee can) and the smell of metal shavings had me thinking about dad's garage work when I started on this project

and this lesson could be sub-titled "getting by with a little help from my friends" as the container of metal shavings came from my friend Barbara Yates Beasley and the fabric came from Alison Hyde!

here is a bit of that fabric from the last post's journeying box and it has been dampened and sprinkled with metal shavings then spritzed with white vinegar

all of which produced the predictable rusty brown marks on the fabric after a few days (patience is required here!)

but here is where the chemistry lesson happens

when Barbara brought the metal shavings we were talking about what I wanted to do with the fabric that comes out of this project

and she told me that dipping the rusted fabric in tea would result in this great grey

look at that!  a successful chemistry experiment!!

and the windmill blades from this (very!) rough sketch are what I plan to use that fabric for

the design work is still in process

last blog post I was talking about changing the fire piece to make it more powerful

I spent quite a bit of time last week adding the reds and yellows and oranges behind the trees

but I just didn't like it -- it doesn't look right

so last night we returned to this

I'll be pulling this photo into PhotoShop and playing with adding some layers of "flame" until I like what it looks like before I go back to stitching on it

the work on this project went much better

all of the hay bales are stitched now and this piece is ready to be cut and bound

which means I needed to figure out the issues with this little study before I could move on to the big piece of the city

the photo on the left was the first attempt, but that big rusty colored block on the left side and the white piece on the right just weren't doing it

the changes of fabric on the right side photo are much better

so I've started putting fabric on the big piece that will be the city

the sky is done here

and the quilting of the background for the truck has begun

hard to tell in this photo, but the mountain is quilted and the narrow band of green "trees" between the mountain and the fields is done too

progress!

after hours and hours of beading, this piece is finished

I'll be listing it in my Etsy store soon

which means I'm already fiddling with the design of another piece -- but I can't start it yet -- waiting for an order of beads to arrive --- hopefully by the end of the week

still lots to do this week -- we're hoping to get the deck painted this week, but we need to be sure we'll have a couple of days without moisture to do that properly

meantime, it's starting to feel like fall and we're starting to think about those other around the house projects that need to get done before the cool weather sets in

time to get to it!