Paper and Threads

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! 

Posted by Shirley at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

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.

Posted by Shirley at 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

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.

Posted by Shirley at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

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.

Posted by Shirley at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

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. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

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.  

Posted by Shirley at 9:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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!   

Posted by Shirley at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

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. 

Posted by Shirley at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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. 

Posted by Shirley at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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....

Posted by Shirley at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

 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!

Posted by Shirley at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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.

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The top 2 Santas are flat.  The star Santa is heavily stuffed.

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This 7th Santa is made on a large red jingle bell and is the family favorite.

Posted by Shirley at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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.

Posted by Shirley at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)