I made these 3 bears for my children when they were babies and they are well worn. I forgot that I had them until this weekend when I was looking for a dress I made for my daughter to see if her daughter could wear it (Sydney is too tall) and found the bears. I gave Sydney the one from her Mom and will deliver the boys' bears to them so their children can play with them.
I made my 3rd watercolor journal with another piece of fabric that I dye-painted - this time striped using corn dextrin resist with procion MX dyes. This is a 6 X 8" watercolor journal containing Fabriano Artistico 140 lb Soft Press paper - 6 signatures with 2 folios each. The bookcloth was prepared by fusing my fabric to Thai mulberry paper using Wonder Under - see more about the method here.
I used color-coordinated MiTientes paper as end papers.
There is still one more piece of fabric that I made in this first batch, and since I'm now using a big roll of Fabriano Artistico paper, I will make a 4th book to gain more experience handling the big pieces of paper instead of the usual 22 X 30 inch sheets. There are 48 single pages in each book so will have enough watercolor journals on my shelf to last 5-6 months!
I just finished making my second watercolor journal using book cloth that I made from dye painted fabric (procion MX dyes and corn dextrin resist). The first one can be seen here. This 6 X 8"book is made using 140 lb Fabriano soft press watercolor paper and consists of 6 signatures with two folios in each. I'm thrilled to complete another one.
The Book Cover - made with blue and purple dyes.
The End Papers
Australian Reversed Piano Hinge Journal
I made a second watercolor journal this week - using Gwen Diehn's instructions for a sketchbook with removeable pages. EDM Members can access these instructions in a file on the message board. This looked like a fun technique to know - even though I like working in journals that can be numbered and stored on a shelf.
Exterior of 5 X 7.5" Book: Made with Fabriano Artistico (8 folios in 4 signatures) and TexLibris bookcloth.
Open Book - showing the spine: The watercolor paper was used as end papers to insert the page block into the cover, so only one of the folios in each of those two signatures are removeable.
The Concertina and Flat Hinge:
There is supposed to be a peper hinge which goes through the concertina tunnels to hold each folio in place. I just happened to be in the New York Garment District, and saw the perfect size "bones" to use instead. Here is a photo showing the bone passing through 3 concertina tunnels and fixing the folio. Each folio makes 4 pages in the book.
I use watercolor journals for my daily sketchbooks/visual journals and for the last 18 months I used books I made with commercial bookcloth on the covers. This year, while experimenting with corn dextrin resist, I created pieces of fabric that I thought would make fun book covers for my art journals and remembered a blog entry about "paper-backing fabric as book cloth" by Roz Stendahl. I made 4 different pieces of cloth to try and decided to make a completely experimental journal - one that I wouldn't grieve over if it didn't meet my expectations.
I used Fabriano Artitico to make my watercolor journals with 140 lb soft press paper that was grain long - and could use full sheets to make books that were approximately 5.5" X 7.5". I love this size because it fits comfortably into a small leather backpack, is portrait format, and and the pages are just big enough for my drawings. However, last year Fabriano Artistico paper was changed to grain short and I could no longer make that size book from 1 1/2 sheets and with 2 full sheets, there was considerable waste. So this experimental book was redesigned to be 7.5" wide and 7.3" high. I never worked in a square format, so this was a perfect time to try it.
I followed Roz's instructions precisely (I thought), but was unable to glue (PVA) the fabric to the Thai mulberry paper without bubbles. I allowed it to dry and then carefully peeled it off and then tried option #2. In her blog entry Roz describes book cloth made by someone in her classes using Stitch Witchery as the fusible. I used Wonder Under (another polyamide) in machine applique since it was marketed in 1986 - and remembered a scientific study done by Drs. Evenson and Crews, of the International Quilt Study Center, at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, in which they studied "selected quilting products containing adhesives" (Quilters Newsletter, March 2004). Stitch Witchery and Wonder Under were comparable in their lightfastness tests and artifical aging experiments - both were proved acceptable for quilts intended as heirlooms to last less than 100 years. At 100 years of artificial aging, there was slight yellowing. Since I have no guarantee that my family won't put my sketchbooks in terminal storage considerably before 100 years, I considered this an acceptable risk!
Here are photos and a journal page celebrating my new, beloved, watercolor journal. The fabric was made with green and blue procion MX dyes and corn dextrin resist to make the squiggly lines. It was then ironed onto the paper using Wonder Under and handled just like book cloth to make my journal cover. I'm in love!!
Book Front:
Book Back:
Standing Book - the dark green is the metallic end paper
My Happy, Happy Journal Page:
I always sew ornaments and presents for Christmas - but actually made fewer things than last year. How could I be busier in retirement than when working? Not pictured here is Annabelle's cotton velveteen quilt, which is now a family tradition - one for each grandchild on their 2nd Christmas. My blog name, Paper and Threads, reminds me that textiles are an important part of my life and I try to periodically post the other half of ME!
A Mixed-Media Ornament for my Children's Christmas trees: Created with paper, fabric, and fabric paints.
Giraffes for my 4 grandsons: I dye painted unbleached muslin to make the giraffe skin and then made the ornaments.
Peacocks for my two grand daughters (and of course me!): I knew Sydney would love the Swarovski crystals on each tail feather!
Zach's Stocking: Each new grandchild needs a stocking for Grandma to fill for Christmas Eve.
Zach's Gift Bag - for all of the bigger gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. We don't wrap presents at all any more. Over the last 15 years I made gift bags for veryone in the entire family. The antlers, ear, and tail are all 3-D, not patchwork.
I was invited to applique a square for the Empire Quilt Guild 2011 Raffle Quilt. All of the eighteen 11 inch squares are based on New York City subway mosaics and I was thrilled to be assigned the Chambers Street IRT mosaic of Kings College. We are a Columbia University family and Kings College was the original college which became Columbia University after the Revolution.
I was gvien an applique pattern that was drafted from a photo in a NYC subway book, but decided that I wanted to make my own. I photographed many of the mosaics which run along both the uptown and downtown platform walls trying to find one that wasn't too damaged by age.
I drew and painted the mosaic in my daily sketchbook, to try to familiarize myself with the complex design before making a new pattern and selecting fabrics.
I just completed the applique square - which required more time than any single 11 inch square I ever made - mostly because I decided that I wanted to applique every stone of the building on individually!
I took a few photos when we visited Zachary in the hospital and used them as references for these paintings. It will be fun to see when my figure sketching skills have improved to the point where I can sketch him better. So far I sketch my grandchildren from the back because I can't capture their facial features.
Zachary's Baby Quilt: My daughter-in-law brought me nursery crib linens when she finally found some that she liked. We decided that I would use a star pattern, like I did for Zach's big brother Robbie's baby quilt. Robbie's quilt was yellow and blue with an all over star pattern.
I selected fabrics from my collection, including 3 fabrics that were in his parent's wedding quilt and Robbie's baby quilt. I love the continuity and did the same for my daughter's wedding quilt and baby quilts for her 3 children. This was my journal page for the day when I planned the quilt and started the process.
Racing to the Finish: I needed to speed up the quilting when Zachary arrived one week early, and spent two full days finishing the quilting of the border triangles and attaching the binding. It is hard to speed up the hand quilting process, it just requires marathon quilting sessions for me while watching old movies on TV!
The Finished Quilt: I delivered this quilt to my son and his new son Zachary yesterday and it looks wonderful in the baby nursery! I always feel as if I am wrapping up each and every grandchild in my love - in ways that just add to our bonds.
Annabelle and her parents just arrived from Washington, DC to meet her new cousin. She is too young to realize that she is not the family baby any longer!
My son called today to tell me that Annabelle (now almost 1) discivered her Rouse Mouse (singular of Rice Mice) this week and now needs it taken from the shelf and given to her everytime she is lifted out of her crib. He went searching for more information on the origin of these mice and asked why I didn't have any photos of the two newest ones on my blog. Just coincidentally, we're having dinner tonight with the person who gave me the Rice Mice book when my children were young.
Both of these mice have long suede tails and embroidered eyes for safety. Annabelle's pink mouse was made from fabric used for the quilt I made for her for Christmas. Callum's mouse is made from fabric leftover from an earlier quilting project and the turquoise and apple green color matches his room.
My earlier post about Christmas Rice Mice and a picture of the book appears here.
This was the year that all 3 of our children and their families were with us for Christmas. Next year we'll have to share some of them again with their other grandparents. We gave each of our 5 grandchildren a toy they wanted, a book that they didn't have (hard to find!), and something that I made for them. For the second day in a row, I want to add "some threads" to my blog.
Although I make each grandchild a hand-quilted quilt when they are born, I also make them a machine quilted one during the first year. These are indestructable and can be washed and dried endlessly. This is 9 month old Annabelle's new quilt, which matches her very pink room.
I make each of our grandchildren a photo pillow for their room when they are toddlers. Callum just turned 2 and here is his pillow with a photo that I took of him this summer.
Robbie (age 3) is our "train guy" and he loved the train pillow that I made for his big cousin Henry. He just moved from his crib to a bed, so I made him an identical pillow to match his new comforter and sham.
Sydney (age 4) loves princesses, fairies, ballet tutus, pink and purple. Henry is a bit of a sports fanatic at age 5. I made each of them new pillowcases for their beds - which can be interchanged with other special ones, some of which I made previously (i.e. Spiderman!). Here are their folded pillowcases.
I love making gifts for our grandchildren. But as the numbers increase, and I need to recreate many of the same things for each of them as they reach a certain age, my list of projects keeps growing! My daughter-in-law just brought me a photo of a tooth fairy pillow as a suggestion for the next age! Our oldest grandchild is now 5 so it won't be much longer before the tooth fairy enters our life!
I love sewing for Christmas and for many years made several dozen Christmas ornaments for friends and family each year. Even after giving a full set to each of my children when they got married, our tree is still full. Since I regularly ignore the "threads" part of my blog since I started drawing and painting, I thought that I would end the year with several blog entries of my other passion.
This year I made a collection of angels for my granddaughters and friends at work. The angel dresses are created from old patchwork quilt scraps.
I made my grandsons and other friends a reindeer. Each of these reindeers is about 8" tall and quite goofy looking which makes them very endearing.
I finally completed another one of my Holiday goals. I made quilted silk wedding canopies (chuppahs) for each of my children's weddings. This year I took some of the leftover silk that I dyed and made Christmas doves for them and another dove from scraps of my wedding dress for me.
Finally, I made big stockings for my children as youngsters and then one for each of their spouses and children through the last few years. And a decade ago we decided to go "green" and use big (24 X 30 inch) Santa gift bags instead of wrapping presents and now everyone has a gift bag that we fill.
This was our 5th and youngest grandchild Annabelle's first Christmas so I made her a stocking and gift bag. The "santa A" was taken from a Santa alphabet that I saved from the cover of a Marshall Field's Christmas catalogue years ago.
I also made other gifts or stocking stuffers for each of our grandchildren. We were so thrilled when Henry was born 5 years ago, that I started to make gifts for him. Now each of the other grandchildren "needs" the same present as they reach a given age which keeps me really busy in my studio. More "threads" photos tomorrow.
The wife of one of my professors wrote this book for her 3 small children in 1978 when she was terminally ill, to share some of her memories from her childhood in Denmark. Her husband, Sam Refetoff, gave me a copy when my children were very young and I made Rice Mice for them. In the book every mouse is accompanied by a poem and my children wrote poems to capture their individual mouse's personalities.
Some time during the ensuing years I made two Christmas Rice Mice and every year they are part of our table decoration. They are approximately 5 inches high and filled with standard white rice.
I sketched them last year for my journal page on December 24th and then again last evening. This year's painting is more accurate because I took the time to put in the polka dots! Since I didn't post the journal page last year, here are both 2007 and 2008. This year I painted a shiny gold acrylic background around the mice - wish it could be scanned and look that way!
2007:
2008:
Several years ago I made Rice Mice (singular is Rouse Mouse!) for my 3 oldest grandchildren as stocking stuffers, using scraps from quilts that I made for them.
I think it might be time this morning to make one for each of the baby grandchildren for their stockings. Those for the children have embroidered eyes instead of buttons - which is not nearly as cute, but much safer!
I began to attend the annual International Quilt Festival (in Houston) when I lived in Texas and continued this yearly pilgrimage after I moved to New York City. This was my 24th year and it was as informational and inspirational as ever. A wonderful old friend accompanied me making the 4 days even better. I took classes, went to lectures, and wandered the entire convention center surveying new products and exceptional textile art. It was hard to spend a few minutes completing my daily sketch before bed at night, but I tried to make the pages a visual journal of my important daily activities. I used the sketchbook that I bound with Fabriano Artistico soft press 140 lb watercolor paper for the first time.
I inherited my husbands old iPod (and playlist) and took it with me to listen to on the airplane.
Festival opened at 5PM and on Wednesday evening I sketched a face inspired by one of the award-winning art quilts, tried to use a teeny silk screen for watercolor, and sketched the logo for the huge program of events.
On Thursday afternoon I took a class that was part of the Silk Experience series and painted a beautiful series of silk color squares that were in the room and the piece of layered silk that I learned how to felt using a manual felting tool. Hand dyed silk roving is gorgeous and I now need to decide how to use some of it in my projects at home. The painted square at the bottom right is made of layers of silk roving, silk gauze, silk Dupioni, and silk cord - all felted to a piece of silk batting. I may need to add small beads to it and make a decorative pillow.
On Friday I took two classes - Stitch-resist Shibori on silk in the morning and Stamps, Stencils, and Embossing (on velvet) in the evening. The top sketch is a poor-likeness of my teacher drawing the stitching pattern for our first piece of shibori. The bottom sketch is the pattern I made for my silk-screen and stencil work.
On Saturday I attended a morning session where 20 mixed-media artists demonstrated their techniques. Although I always use procion MX dyes for my surface design on fabric, I was interested in trying fabric paints to convert some of my sketches from paper to fabric. These are just paintings of the bottles of the primary colors and a 4th bottle where I painted the remaining colors, from the set of 8 that I purchased. I also love metallics mixed in and bought an additional jar of antique gold. It is good that I will be retiring next year so I will have the time to play creatively on paper and on fabric.
Early Sunday AM I flew to San Antonio. my old home in Texas, to attend a medical meeting and I will post those journal pages tomorrow.
Annabelle Miriam was born today at 3:54 PM to our son Jason and his wife Shannon. Mommy and baby are wonderful and Dad - a Pediatrician - says she's just perfect. I sketched and painted the waiting nursery when I visited several weeks ago - and took her the new babyquilt and matching musical pillow. This week I made her a really soft pink bear and will take it for our visit next weekend.
There is a music box in this shadow applique pillow.
This bear is so soft - I hope she loves it!
We're expecting our 5th grandchild in 3 weeks and I just finished hand quilting the baby quilt! I used to love to hand quilt in the evening and now I spend much of the time playing with my sketchbook. Last year Callum's baby quilt was unfinished when he was born in London 6 weeks early - so I'm pleased that I was able to meet my deadline this year.
Two years ago today I started my blog with an entry about the 3rd silk wedding chuppah that I made for one of our children's weddings. Since then "paper," not "threads," has dominated my blog entries. So for the birthday celebration today I selected my favorite threads project from this December - a pillow I made for my grand daughter Sydney. Sydney's 3rd birthday was December 20th (her baby brother's is Dec 19th!), so I wanted to make one of our birthday presents something special. This is the same pillow that I made for my daughter, Syd's Mom, when she was a similar age. My daughter's reaction, when the present was opened, was more than I could have asked for. Sydney's favorite color is orange and her new bedroom will be pale pink and pale orange.
Here is the only photo that I have of the pillow that I made for our daughter in the late 1970s:
Although I was skeptical about creating a blog and sharing my "naive sketches," every minute of it has been a wonderful adventure.
Tomorrow I will post "faces" that I've sketched the last few days to convince myself that I'm serious about this 2008 Goal.
I love making decorations at Christmas and for more than 30 years have been making Christmas Pillows and Tree Ornaments. This year I used Procion MX dyes and black gutta and "sketched" my Santa on silk for a new pillow. Working with paintbrushes and dye on stretched silk is not very different than working with watercolors.
I have been making 2 dozen tree ornaments - all from the same design - every year since my children were babies. They became presents for family, teachers, ballet teachers, coaches, and friends. When each of my 3 children were married, I gave them a large bag full of all of their ornaments and now also give them to our grandchildren. Many of my Santa ornaments were sketched as part of the EDM challenge "Draw a Collection" (Santas-1, Santas-2, and Santas-3) when I first joined EDM. This year I made pigs from hand-dyed pink cottons and 3 of them already went home with our grandchildren Henry, Sydney, and Callum for their Christmas tree.
I named my blog Paper and Threads because I wanted to continue quilting while enjoying sketching and painting on paper. It seemed like a good time to upload two quilts that I finished this year. The quilt in the above photos is a very simple 9-patch wedding quilt that was hand pieced by family and friends for my oldest son and his wife. I then put the top together and quilted it, adding lots of hand quilting in the plain squares. I love the fabrics that my daughter-in-law picked out and it looks fantastic draped over their sofa which is almost the same warm tan color of the border fabric.
Two years ago, I used the blue fabric from this wedding quilt to piece stars for their first baby's quilt. The wedding quilt was in progress for several years, but the baby quilt took precedence because I wanted it to be finished in time for the baby's arrival.
This is the second quilt that I finished in 2007. It was machine pieced and hand quilted for my grandson who was born 6 weeks prematurely in London in December 2006. The print fabrics are all French Provencal fabrics that I also used to piece a wedding quilt for his parents and two baby quilts for his older brother and sister. I'm catching up, but I still have one more group wedding quilt to hand quilt for my other son and his wife.
None of my current "threads" projects are close to being done. I have 2 wedding quilts and one baby quilt in the process of being quilted or pieced. And I'm hand piecing a Liberty of London quilt during this year of London travel to have a wonderful textile memory to go along with my travel sketchbooks.
I just learned that many visitors to this blog find it because they search on images of chuppahs (as I once did when I started thinking about this project when my first child was married). The images previously posted all show them suspended at the wedding ceremonies of my 3 children. Here are photos of all 3 showing the actual design. They are all 6 feet square and made from hand-dyed crepe de chine that I made using procion MX dyes. They are hand quilted using silk thread. The yellow/pink chuppah was made using a wax resist. The blue chuppah is machine appliqued using many individually dyed fabrics, and the autumn leaves chuppah was drawn with a commercial silk resist from Prochem and painted with dyes using watercolor methods.
EDM Challenge #80: Part 2
Although being with my whole family makes me happiest (see part 1 below), my Bernina 1030 sewing machine is also a source of enormous happiness. I have had a sewing machine for 50 years - sometimes a rented one (poor student days) and sometimes a very inexpensive one. The above Bernina was purchased in 1989 and as I told my husband, it cost almost as much as our first car - a new VW bug purchased in 1967! I don't use the sewing machine for days at a time, but when I need to have it serviced I feel very lost. The months leading up to Christmas are busiest - but I also set aside one week during the cold weather in February and call it "creative week." I try to arrange my schedule so it is the week before President's Day so I have an extra long weekend before I need to go back to work. I love immersing myself in projects all day, every day, for 8-10 days and each year have done something different - including making lots of baby clothes for our first grandchild who was due 4 months later, dying silk for a wedding chuppah and making the 6' by 6' pieced top that was then quilted, cutting out fabric pieces for group wedding quilts, and planning and making baby quilts. Two year's ago I designed a machine quilted whole cloth quilt with cotton velveteen on one side and 100% pima cotton on the other. I made 5 of these already for immediate family members and still have more to be made. These quilts precipitated the last emergency service visit - velvet lint buildup that paralyzed the feed dogs!
This is the first wedding chuppah that I made (Puck Building, Soho July 1999). While wandering through the Jewish Museum design shop in New York City, right after my daughter was engaged, I saw a painted silk chuppah that could be commisioned by a local artist. At that time I was learning how to use procion MX dyes to "paint silk" using 16 mummi white silk crepe de chine and wax resist. I immediately realized that I could make one if my daughter planned a chuppah for their wedding. These colors were mixed from the 3 primary color dyes to match the flower colors that my daughter selected for her wedding. The streamers at all 4 corners are made from tubes of the same color dyed silk. The piece was quilted using silk thread. The design was created from small bits and pieces from multiple illustrations in a Dover publication.
To see the other two chuppahs that I made for my children's weddings click on "Threads" in the sidebar to the right and bypass all paper entries. Thank goodness I don't have a 4th child! Each one of these took me approximately 6 months to make because I had a full time job and could only devote small blocks of time to the project.
My newest daughter-in-law just made me a large framed photo with each couple standing under their chuppah taking their wedding vows and a beautifully written piece entitled "What is a Chuppah" that she used as a reading at their wedding. It makes me ecstatic to have this composite visual memory of 3 of the happiest days of our lives.
This is the wedding chuppah that I made for my oldest son's wedding which took place outdoors in July 2004. The bride asked for turquoise and shades of pink and chose this traditional applique design which was adapted from a commercial pattern by Nancy Pearson. The silk crepe de chine was dyed with procion MX dyes and then the flower heart wreath was created with machine applique. Every petal was a different color and the machine thread had to be changed for each!! The white border on the top was part of the florist's canopy and I was unable to attach the 6 foot silk quilt any other way. The streamers were all tubes of silk fabric that were dyed with the dyes that I mixed for the quilt.
I've been spending most of my leisure time since Christmas sketching and painting and I needed to remind myself why I named this website Paper and Threads. For most of my lifetime my passion was for fabric. As I began to dye my own fabric (background and pink fabric here), I learned about painting fabric with instant set dyes or thickened procion MX dyes. This required me to improve my drawing and sketching ability and I reopened my sketchbook and bought some watercolor paints. This Quilt Journal Page (so named in the quilt community because it is exactly 8.5 X 11 inches) is one of many that I made to play with designs and some of my dyed/painted fabric. She hangs above my sewing machine as my muse....
My Fabric Studio: This is the old maid's room in my 1920s New York City apartment. The previous owner made this 7 ft 3 inch by 9 foot 9 inch room into a small library and the lovely cabinets/bookshelves that line both side walls are just visible. It would be hard to catalog all of the fabric, thread, and supplies that fill this small room - there is one ceiling to floor cabinet that is just filled with procion dyes and all of the supplies necessary to paint/dye silk.
Below: EDM Challenge #9 - Controlled Chaos
This is a quick sketch of my fabric studio. I love this space and can lose myself for hours in the midst of all of this fabric and these supplies.
My rudimentary art supplies: French School student grade pan watercolor paints, several 5 ml Winsor Newton primary color tube watercolor paints, assorted brushes, a plastic palette, Pigma micron pens (03 and 05), a Derwent graphic 2B pencil, and a Bic click eraser. I don't have room to expand so I'll have to continue to work in small format journal sketchbooks!
Santa Christmas Ornament Collection: EDM Challenges #19 (A Collection) and #46 (Holiday Themed)
For approximately 30 years I have selected and made a prototype ornament each Fall and then made 20-24 of the same ornament for gifts for Family and Friends. Each of these is made entirely of fabric, usually scraps from my many quilting projects. I couldn't think of any specific thing that I collect for EDM Callenge #19 until I started to decorate our Christmas tree this year. Although I have a small collection of reindeer, angels, and birds, the Santas are my favorite. Each of my children have a full set of these ornaments for their Christmas trees. It was fun to paint the fabric designs.
The top 2 Santas are flat. The star Santa is heavily stuffed.
This 7th Santa is made on a large red jingle bell and is the family favorite.
I began sewing in 7th grade and began quilting 25 years ago. Traditional quilting was followed by explorations in surface design using cotton or silk fabric and procion MX dyes. As each of my children got married I made them a dyed, quilted, crepe de chine chuppah for their wedding ceremony.
For my son's autumn wedding in October 2005, I used silk resist from Prochem to draw the leaves and then painted them with dyes that were mixed from the primary colors. The only mixed dye that I purchased was brown and it quickly separated into purple and green as it moved through the fabric creating some interesting effects! As I was working on this piece, my interest in sketching and watercolor painting resurged and I joined the Everyday Matters Group to improve my sketching and painting on paper.