A Jarful of Fabric Candy

I recently discovered that my favourite key holder was well past its best, and decided to make myself a new one. And while I had my fabrics, iron and sewing machine out I figured I might as well make a whole batch for coming needs. I put them in a glass jar, to cheer myself up in the darkness of late October in Finland. It's like a jarful of fabric candy.

Here are some of them in close-up. I like to use my own hand-dyed and surface designed fabrics in combination with linen.

Now I just need to get enough key rings to finish them.

Thanks for dropping by, and see you again soon!
- Annika

On the First Day of Christmas...

Happy holidays everyone! I’m sorry that I’ve been a stranger to this blog all autumn. I’ve been working hard, and I guess sometimes you just have to give yourself a break and accept that you don’t always have time and energy for everything. I’ve neglected a lot of the things I normally love to do, but now I feel it’s time to reclaim those things. I guess it’s all about planning: I need to consciously make time for art again, as well as blogging. I’m starting with a short update on what I’ve been up to so far during my Christmas break.

I’ve been working on two new Pretty Purses:

Purse 1, quilted (in progress)

Purse 2, quilted (in progress)

and with added hand embroidery (in progress)

I’m also working on a mini quilt with the same poppy motif I used last summer.

Surface designed fabric ready to be quilted

Quilted, and with some hand embroidery (in progress)

And, joy of joys, I did some work in my sketchbook, inspired by patterns I found on a gift wrap and a flower pot:

And of course I have a Christmas knitting project…

for when I want to relax in the sofa with Fia the Terri(fi)er. (Mum’s busy hands can be seen knitting in the background.)

I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season! Thanks for dropping by! - Annika

Artist's Block

I'm on vacation. I have big plans. I'm burning with eagerness to try everything I ever wanted to try. I should have all the time in the world. So what's happening? - Nothing! I've been suffering from the most awful artist's block. Since my last blog entry a week ago I've managed to finish a sock, cut out the muslin pieces for a wrap-around top (no sewing, though), dye two gradations (one which is still batching), try out a fun technique with paintstiks (which I will come back to when I've found a paintstik which isn't past its 'best before' date), and created a sad little square of surface designed fabric. Yes, I know I sound a bit despondent. I feel a bit despondent. I guess I was more in need of a vacation than I realised, and my body just put the foot down and refused to turn on the creative juices. So I just have to take baby steps. It's frustrating, but not the end of the world.

This is the first gradation I've dyed so far. A warmer colour scheme than the last one, with golden yellow, bright scarlet and medium blue (Jacquard Procion MX dye). Click the tags Gradations, Dyecation, Procion MX and Frieda Anderson for more information about gradations. A lighter gradation (gradation 2, i.e.) is ready to be rinsed out, so I'll show you that one in my next blog post. What I like about working with these gradations is that it makes me mix colours that I know I would never have mixed if I had just been doing it on my own. And to my surprise I've realised that those colours that I thought I considered "ugly" are really very useful and not ugly at all. Bright or muddy, light or dark, they all have and deserve a place in the fabric stash!

First gradation, medium value (they look a bit lighter in this photo)

I mentioned a 'sad little square of surface designed fabric'. Well, to be fair, it's really not that sad, but I was a bit disappointed with it, as it didn't turn out the way I expected. I'll walk you through the process. And if you want more details and inspiration check out Melanie Testa's great article Cut from your imagination. Resist-printing fabric with paper 'snowflakes' in issue 21 of Quilting Arts Magazine.

First I printed a hand dyed piece of fabric with bubble wrap and discharge paste:

Then I applied a Magic paper (freezer paper) 'snowflake' resist:

Here's the result after applying fabric paint (dark green, metallic green and gold):

You can see the problem, right? What I should have realised when I was applying the paint is that I was working with the background. I think I would have got away with it if I'd stopped after the metallic green paint, but I felt like adding a bit of glitz, and that was too much. The gold paint jumps forward and since it's similar in value to the the resisted leaves, it obscures the resisted pattern.

I spent some time mulling over the problem and going through different ways to solve it and save the fabric, and this is what I ended up doing: I grabbed a green Multimark pen and drew in the contours of the resisted motifs.

I'm not wild about it, but it's better, it works, and it taught me a valuable lesson about contrast. Something I'm wild about, however, is the snowflake:

If I don't use it as resist in another piece, I'll glue this one into my sketchbook. I love the metallic sheen on the paper.

Thanks for following my adventures in surface design. There's more to come soon. Flour-resist. That's all I'm saying. ;-)

Have a great week! - Annika