Update: these pieces are sold, but I have others here that are similar. Please contact me using the contact form below if you are interested.

These are among the batch that is foiled and ready to go off to shops (on consignment). They also come in golden, wintry light blue and autumnal russet backgrounds. If you are interested in one of the above, or any other colour variation, please fill out the contact form below (careful not to confuse it with the comment form!).

5.5″ x 9″
Hand-dyed cotton background with commercial fabric for the trees.
Details are hand-inked and the leaves are gold, silver and copper foils.
Price: $38 CDN

a quickr pickr post

I am, in the spirit of spring, clearing out some stock from my studio. You can see the first lot posted here.

All of the stock is of good quality. There is nothing wrong with it other than I simply need the space (both physical and creative) more than the stock at present.

It’s funny how sometimes you take the same photographs of the same places and, without even realising it, track the seasons of time through those pictures.

One of the views that always strikes me as particularly dramatic is that of Whaleback Rock here in Torbay. I walk over the crest of the hill on our street and the ocean is before me. Another five minutes by foot and I am engulfed in the visually stunning combination of blue ocean, craggy cliffs and sweeping hillsides.

The photos don’t really do it justice, of course, which is one of the reasons I’m translating my visual chronology into art pieces. Still working on layouts, but the series is in progress.

The hardest part of this process is deciding whether to simply do a four-season series, whether to vary the structure and composition of the pieces from each other or whether to simply use this vista as a jumping point and do spontaneously whatever comes to mind.

The artist in me says, “be free! create!”. The businessperson in me is tempering that with, “yes, but make a saleable series and for heavens’ sake stretch it out a good bit and make some money.” I have decided that will listen to both. The first thing that came to mind was the four seasons aspect, so I’ll start with that. Complete the seasons and work in a smaller, less expensive series that mirrors the larger gallery pieces. The next step would be to play with the structure and composition, trying different media (i.e. watercolour or pen and ink drawings), perhaps working the horizontal view into four vertical tiles hung side-by-side…. You get the picture.

Here are a select few of the many photos that I’ve taken from roughly this same point of view, to give you an idea of the landscape of my world and the focus of this series :
April 26, 2006

Feb 12, 2006

Oct 21, 2005

Oct 21, 2005

Oct 21,2005

And for a bit of a twist:

Oct 3, 2005 (taken from the other side of the bight)

Starting the Gallows Cove portion of the East Coast Trail.

a quickr pickr post

I’m still not sure exactly what happened to me this winter. A part of me would like to slough what I perceive as my lack of professional progress off on some variation on seasonal affective disorder. Another part of  me would be happy to chaulk it up to creative and emotional collapse that follows a year that was hard personally, emotionally, professionally, physically and financially. I’m sure sleep-deprivation was in there somewhere, too. When all is said and done, though, I’m not sure that any of these reasons paints the whole picture, nor does it really matter any more other than as something from which to learn for next time. Suffice it to say that I slacked off more than I intended and let myself wallow in failure for a goodly time, despite having plans and goals set for myself and having determined the means of achieving them.

I have recently been doing a great deal of soul searching and thinking, as well as picking myself up and dusting off my bruised ego and flabby creativity.  For those who find themselves either simply falling out of doing the work they have committed themselves to, I provide the following links from Christine Kane’s wonderful blog (which has helped me no-end):

Sabotage and Persistence

How to Get Anything Done

So I am now working again, this time at reasonable hours. I am renewing my commitment, ignoring self-doubt and following through. I have been going through my studio and sorting out projects, finishing off orders for shops for the summer, finishing off workshop plans, writing up stuff that needs writing and doing inventory. One step at a time and off we go…

Someone wrote to me some time ago asking if I had any information about Quilt Canada. I spent some time researching the questions asked and writing up the results, only to find that I had, inadvertently, deleted the email sent to me.

If you are still out there, whoever you are, and still need that information, please drop me a line. I’ve been searching through all my messages, junk folders and weird squirrelly places on my hardrives and can’t seem to find your email.

Apologies.

If you are in the St. John’s (Newfoundland) area, a crafty sort and like a good deal, be sure to drop by Devon House (Duckworth Street) tomorrow morning. The Annual Seconds Sale is on and there’s plenty to see!

There’s about one hundred pounds of this stuff, dyed in marvellous colours. I’ve had to sit firmly on my hands all evening.

There’s about fifty pounds of this stuff, dyed in marvellous colours.

Lots of tapestry wool, needlepoint frames and kits of all sorts.

Plenty of pottery, some reproductions of historic pieces!

An old sewing machine, in very nice condition….

And all sorts of other neat items:

All fabric is $1/m and yarns are $1/skein. Pottery is variable, but still very cheap. Books are $1 each. Magazines are $0.25

There was a lot of everything. The Sale starts at 9am tomorrow morning and runs until noon. Admission is free. We take debit/Visa/MC. Everything must go!

a quickr pickr post

Anyone in the St. John’s (Newfoundland, Canada) area, take note! The annual Craft Council Seconds Sale is taking place on Saturday. (The photos in this post were taken at the sale few years ago.)

The official ad reads:

April 14, 2007 Sat. 9:00 – 12:00

• FIELDS OF FABRIC ENDS!
• YAFFLES OF YARN!
• HARD-TO-FIND CRAFT SUPPLIES
• A TREASURE TROVE OF CRAFT BOOKS & MAGAZINES
• DISCONTINUED LINES – GET ‘EM WHILE THEY LAST!
• PRODUCTION SECONDS – SLIGHT IMPERFECTIONS ONLY….

AND MUCH MORE!!

All proceeds go towards the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Awards Program.

The Craft Council is also collecting goods for the Seconds Sale (if you have anything, email me pronto to arrange pick-up!).
Please send along:

FABRIC ENDS, YARNS
CRAFT BOOKS & MAGAZINES
CRAFT SUPPLIES
DISCONTINUED LINES
PRODUCTION SECONDS

This is a good opportunity to clear out your studio and contribute the to Craft Council Awards Program. Drop off or mail donations to Devon House. Contact Kelly at 753-2749 or info@craftcouncil.nf.ca if you have any questions. Pick up can be arranged within the city and surrounding area.

Some time ago I promised to try out the effect of pyrotechnics on textiles. My intention was to grab a few samples of my work and set them ablaze. Since then, I’ve wussed out repeatedly on burning up things I’ve made. I couldn’t even come up with a “hit list” of designated ignition targets. It has become apparent to me, however, that I really ought to just bite the bullet and do this as the information/satisfaction/notoriety would be worth it in the end.

The purpose of setting my quilts/textile art ablaze is to do the following:

• check to see how close my work is to passing Health Canada’s standards
• come to some sort of understands of exactly how flammable my house is, given the number of quilts, wall hangings and piles of fabric therein
• have a blast torching the heck out of things
• make the neighbours seriously question their choice of neighbourhood
• scare the dogs
• thrill the kid
• get rid of some old duds of projects that I won’t allow to be sold, yet cannot throw out. At least this way they could serve a purpose.

So I’m accumulating a nice collection of stuff. As soon as I get a clear day with minimal wind, I’ll have a go at it. Thus far it is my intention to burn the following (plus some basic pieces of cotton fabric and cotton batting, some with stabiliser, some without, some with fusible, some without, etc.):

Here’s your chance. If there’s anything burn-wise and quilt/artquilt-related about which you are curious, let me know and, if possible, I’ll char something for you personally. I’ll post the results, too. I can’t say that I’ll mail you the item afterwards, you understand. I’m not sure what Canada Post would say. But I will happily do such things as test the relative ignition properties of cotton versus wool batting or how quickly flame spreads on cotton versus poly-cotton thread, if you like.

It’ll probably be a week or so before I get to this. I’m thinking that this is another one of those things (like dealing with 220 electrical outlets or changing light bulbs on a ladder balanced halfway up the stairs) that I probably should do when another adult is around to put out flames and provide emergency hospital transport. So it’ll be the weekend, at least.

Taking requests……

As per Micki’s request in the comments of my last post, here’s a photo of the ugly birch fabric:

It’s a Northcott Lyndhurst fabric designed by Janet Orfini as a part of the Farmer’s Market series. I found it in the country-kitsch (and I mean that non-derogatorily) section of a local fabric store.

The realm of prints in these sorts of series (i.e. Thimbleberries and other country-style collections) usually don’t appeal to me personally as a theme or colour scheme for a quilt. I’m also not much into farm prints, chickens, cows or scarecrows. The individual textures of all of these things, however, fascinate me mightily.

I can see how other people might like these collections for their intended purposes, though, and have found that the often dull or muted tones of certain fabrics can be extremely useful in landscape quilting. So it’s a section that I frequent, when I’m not painting my own fabric, but not, I suspect, for its most popular use.

Actually, one of the ugliest fabrics I’d ever seen (and we’re talking truly hideous) turned out to have just the right textures (looked like moldy wood) to serve as the background fabric for the tree in this picture:

You see those spots? Yeah, they look fine for the tree, but as a whole sheet of brown, grey and taupe covered in what I swear resembled mildew, it was entirely unappealing.

This is why I don’t throw out ugly fabrics that happen to be in the colour schemes in which I often work. Thus far, just about every ugly fabric has served a very unique and essential purpose in some piece or other. I’m usually quite dubious at the outset, but it always seems to work out.

The piece below contains three or four almost-ugly fabrics. The trees, in the background, behind the house? Unattractive grey-green that I used as the basis for enhancing with fabric pastels. Some of the rock and grass fabrics were also entirely unappealing, although not truly into the realm of hideous. Sometimes an ugly fabric can be transformed when cut up into smaller pieces. Sometime it takes chopping out or covering over certain blotches or areas. Quite regularly, I over-paint, add details or over-dye fabrics that have the right texture, but need a colour change. Occasionally, as in the trees below, the colour is right, but the texture needs to be created.

So treasure your uglies, especially if they are in anyway reminiscent of your usual colour schemes or creative habits!

Incidentally, if you haven’t already checked out Micki’s blog, it’s well worth a regular read. Recently she posted about burning the bejeezus out of painted Tyvek, a trick I’ve wanted to try for a while but am holding off on until I can do it outside (bad fumes). Summer’s coming, though!

Over the last few days, I’ve been preparing summer stock for two of the shops I supply. Most places around here like to be in full swing by mid-May, so I generally aim to have things in their hands by mid-April.

This week has been a week of birches. I use hand-dyed cotton fabric (low water immersion dyes using Procion MX, in case you’re interested) for the backgrounds and fussy-cut the pieces for specific spots in the fabric. Wastage is minimal, however, as the smaller works (4.5″ squares, for instance) can make excellent use of sections of fabric that would look just plain wrong for larger backgrounds. Below are thumbnails of two of the pieces used:

The trees are a commercial (ugly as sin) fabric that, when cut into strips, looks not bad at all. I cut the strips freehand with a rotary cutter (yes, it’s tricky to get things even) and tend to cut from several different pieces of the same fabric so that the trees don’t all end up having the same curvature or the same repeats in the fabric print.

As you can see below, the background with the strips laid in place:

These will be cut into three panels each when finished, hence the somewhat odd arrangements of tree trunks.

When working in a series like this, I also streamline the process by cutting out fifty or a hundred trees at once and then arranging them afterwards to suit the individual composition. I’ve discovered that I don’t really like being a one-woman assembly line, churning out the same piece time after time. I prefer to work on a reasonable number of pieces that are of a similar theme in one go. This allows me more variety, less stultification and, most importantly, gives each piece the attention and space it needs to be original as it grows and evolves.

After laying the trees in place, I then hand-shade the trees to add curvature to the trunks. As you can see below, the effect is not only one of added depth, but also adds drama to the composition and enhances the effect of the trees moving towards the viewer, off the background. The work is built up another layer from the furthest visual point.

I’ve spent several days penning in the details on these tree pieces and can say with certainty that if the devil isn’t in the details, he sure as hell rejoices in their existence.  Small, refined motions of shading for days on end are not good for the body.

A shot of two smaller pieces showing the shading(these were two of my favourites from the week)

The effect is even visible from a distance in the larger pieces:

It’s interesting to see the contrast between shaded and unshaded trees in the same piece. The first shot below is half-shaded. The second shot is with shading complete.

Today’s task is to pen in all the branches, layer the piece with stabiliser and push the whole batch towards completion. To that end I have to:

• add branches
• stabilise panels
• cut panels into tryptiches
• prepare backings and attach hanging devices
• layer panels with backing and centre stiffener (plastic canvas is a wonderful stiffener for such things; inert, waterproof, doesn’t stain and won’t kill a sewing machine if you accidentally or purposefully sew through it. Cheap, too.)
• stitch edges
• attach cording
• apply glue
• apply foil for leaves (Foiling is always the last step for these pieces.)

The result will be a variation on this (apologies for the rotten picture):

With details looking like this (again, bad picture. Colours wrong. Sorry. Will photograph the current series properly when completed!):

And some of the smaller pieces from a past rendition of this idea:

So I’m off to work. Proper pictures will follow…..

a quickr pickr post

Some days there is really nothing worth blogging about.

Lately, a lot of my days have been like that. Things are happening, work is getting done, but none of it has been of particular noteworthiness.

Now, suddenly, I find that have plenty on which to write; work in progress that is finally at the point of sharing, plans made regarding product lines (and how those plans were made), the effects of sleep deprivation on creativity and all sorts of wonderful things. Stay tuned! I should get a real honest-to-goodness post out today!

Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing markedly less of the studio hands-on portion of my job and a great deal more of the paperwork, proposals and organisation aspect. This is normally not the part of my job that I prefer, but recently I’ve been taking a rather strange pleasure in it. Most artists and craftspeople are creative first and business-wise second and I’m really no different than the rest in this regard. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred I’d rather dye fabric than do taxes; working through the creative process on a new piece or series usually seems far more appealing than does revising my contact lists, promotional literature and business plan. Lately, though, I find myself drawn more to the database and spreadsheets than the design wall, so I’m going with it.

February is never a good time of year for me personally and I suspect that winter is hard on many artistic types, especially those who get their inspiration from landscape, light and the outdoors. Simply getting the energy to do anything can be a bit of a trick, which is why I’ve been allowing myself to switch gears and do paperwork for a change.

The book-keeping and proposals are necessary parts of the whole picture, of course, but they always seem to be needed right when I’d rather be designing or working on new pieces. Having a bit of breathing room now, before the rush to fill orders for shops in the spring, allows me the opportunity to do the following:

• finish off any outstanding book-keeping from last year (done)
• do taxes (done)
• write up proposals for shows (ongoing)
• plan submissions to shows (get prospecti and entry forms) for the upcoming year and budget time for them (done)
• review bio and other promotional material (done)
• update C.V. (done)
• review website content and design (ongoing)
• update contact lists (ongoing)
• finish up any outstanding correspondence (mostly done)
• plan workshops (ongoing)

Last year was a busy year and I think I’m only just now feeling able to pick up fabric again with any sense of purpose. There are deadlines approaching and I have pieces that have been started for them, pieces that I can now bring myself to approach with enthusiasm. Or, for some of which I’m not entirely enamoured, with something more than grudging tolerance.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the aspects of one’s job that are less than inspiring can actually serve a necessary function. They allow us to step back from the creative, hands-on portion when weary while still moving forward with our plans and career. Switching gears and allowing the artistic impulse to lie dormant or fallow for a while can often stimulate a burning desire to get back to the drawing board.

Found this neat little site that plots a graph to depict the interconnected nature of your website or blog. Watching it unfold is particularly nifty. There’s also a Flickr tag for posting and viewing the results.

The graph for this blog is the image below. Makes you realise how quickly use of your site can spread and how easily information can be transmitted (which in turn should remind you to take care with your site!)

Here’s what the dots mean (taken directly from the maker’s site) :

What do the colors mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

Thanks to Egater for the link! Her website web can be seen here.

Just got word that my workshop (details below) for Quilt Canada 2008 has been approved! Yay! Another proposal pans out!
If you’re interested in taking it, it’ll be on June 4, 2008 at Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, Newfoundland.

For more information, you can check with the folks at the Canadian Quilters’ Association (although they haven’t got the workshop info for 2008 up yet).

I’ll be teaching this class locally at least twice over the summer and fall as well, so if you’d like to be on the list for an earlier class, drop me a line.

I’m contemplating an on-line version at a later date.

——————————

A Feel for the Land: Creating Texture in the Canadian Landscape
Workshop proposal - Quilt Canada 2008

by Vicky Taylor-Hood

Class description:

Students will work on a myriad of techniques that can be used to given dimension and texture to textile landscape art. Special attention will be paid to achieving effects that illustrate the Newfoundland environment. These will include (but are not limited to):

• creating icebergs through layered, fused materials as well as through the use of stitched layers of sheer fabrics
• depicting realistic rocks by using fused snippets, painted and hand-detailed fabric and painted spun polyester (a.k.a. used dryer sheets)
• illustrating spume and surf through the use of machine lace and Angelina fibers
• using painted cheesecloth, tulle, organza, metallic foil and thread to accentuate light and shadows within a landscape
• creating foliage through painted dryer sheets
• aspects of house construction

All of these techniques will be demonstrated and students will have the opportunity to create samples. Some students will simply wish to take their ideas, samples and the materials provided home with them to work on their own. Those who feel sufficiently confident to leap from observing a demonstration to creating a finished product on the spot will have the materials available and the opportunity to do so. There is no set finished project for this workshop. It is rather an acquisition of tools with which to embellish the students’ own landscape designs. Students will take home with them the samples they have made and any unused materials that were in their kits.

Level of expertise: This session is geared towards intermediate to advanced quilters. Beginner quilters are welcome, but may find they need to supplement what they learn with more general quilting skills.
Length of class: six hours

Class size: minimum of 8, maximum of 15

Fees: registration for this class will be handled by Quilt Canada. There will be an additional $20 materials fee.

Found in the mailbox today……

Sometimes I get the (obviously erroneous) feeling that all the work putting together proposals and filling out forms is much hassle for little reward. Things like this reaffirm that taking that little bit of extra time pays off.

What a way to kick oneself out of the doldrums of winter, eh? Just what I needed to push through to another couple of deadlines!

My resolution from last year, which was to continue to put out proposals and submit larger quantities of work to a variety of venues, is paying off already.