Spring Dyeing!

| ellenanneeddy

Years ago, I did a very bad thing. I had dyed fabric all day and I went to the pool. You don’t get pretty dye on yourself when you dye. And it all soaks through to the skin. You mix all those colors and you get brown. Mostly down your belly and your tits.

So I was walking around with nothing but a towel over my shoulder when a very kind person looked at me and said in horror, “You don’t have to put up with that.” I looked at her and said, “Actually, I do. I’m dyeing.” I did explain to the poor soul afterwards.

I’m a fabric snob. Sorry about that. I’ve been dyeing my own fabric for my projects since I was ten. It was Rit Dye and we won’t talk about the quality of the fabric, but I understood even then that someone else’s fabric isn’t mine.

Don’t get me wrong. I love prints. I can get drunk on color and add good design to it and I’m a sloppy drunk. You can tell by the cut bits of fabric on the floor.

But I want the colors and intensity of my fabric. And I really hate fabric repeats unless they help your piece along. I’m probably going to dye as long as I quilt.

With the stimulus check (Bless those congress critters!) I’m planning a dye day. I need a new batch for me, but I’ve always got space in that batch for someone who might like to order a box of fabric to choose from, or someone who wants something special dyed just for them. A batch of light source fabric in 3/4 yards? A selection of actually not boring browns. Some deep lake or pond scum fabric. All available.

I’ve also dyed cotton/hemp/bamboo/rayon clothes for people. There are those of us who should never wear white. There is inevitably a day when it is white no more. At which point, I dye it and wear it till the threads fall apart. I can do that for you too.

If you would to either make a general fabric order, or order something special for a project, let me know. I’ll dye for you.

The Space Outside the Quilt: Thinking about Negative Space

| ellenanneeddy
Floral Arrangement 25

Most of the time we take in what’s happening inside a piece of art. That’s where our focus is. But for irregularly shaped pieces especially, the edge creates a space outside that frames the quilt much more than a border does. The outside is the negative space.

Jump at the sun

It’s not like the space did something wrong or has a bad attitude. Negative space is the area around an image. It’s not in the piece or the hanging. But it affects everything about it

All Time is Spiral In a Garden

.Why? I think largely because as we walk in and approach a hanging piece of art, the first thing we see is the shape around it. It’s the most distinct thing. You’ve seen works jammed together where you can’t keep one from the other. Ignoring negative space is like putting a gilded monstrosity picture frame around a simple piece of beauty and joy. It’s not a help.

Do I think about the negative space when I’m quilting? Not so much. I’m so involved in including the parts that are important even if they go over the edge. It’s when I’m cropping a quilt or putting it on the wall to see it properly that the negative space pops into view. And if you put pieces together, say on a wall, it’s a make or break item.

An End to Winter: Back to the Studio

| ellenanneeddy
Daylily Dance

Winter is this huge interference of snow and ice on a perfectly nice season. Mostly it’s a waiting time. I hate waiting. Not a skill I have.

I’ve spent the last two months recovering from two knee surgeries to repair a previous surgery. If it sounds like it sucked rocks, you’re right. Everyone was kind, and I purposely spared everyone details and day-to-days of my recovery. I’m mostly through it. It’s all over but the rehab and the shouting.

It’s like everyone else who goes through this. It’s a sparse time separated from your life. I crocheted edged handkerchiefs as a new thing I wanted to learn. It got as bad as that. But it fills time and doesn’t hurt, so that made it worth the candle

So when Don said I was going to the studio, I was worried. About the big step at the back door. About how long I could sit with my knee dangling. And always, did my creativity dry up during this sparse enforced winter of healing.

Silly me. Got the step in one bounce. Worked for about three hours and started a triptic I’ve been dreaming about for some while.

Here’s my bits about the new tryptic. I want to revisit Daylily Dance with more butterflies and caterpillars. Here’s the backgrounds I chose.

Background choices
Tryptic panels

Here’s some flower bits.

Is my creativity on board? I don’t think I need to worry about that. More quilts in my head than I can count.

I still have some rehab I would like to avoid but can’t. But at bottom line, I’m back where I belong.

I hope all your winters are short and productive. I hope spring finds us all whole in ourselves and with each other in kindness. I hope spring brings us the new flowers of creativity to change the world with the things we make with our hands.

Thick Thread, Thin Thread: Thread Work as Grain

| ellenanneeddy

One of the mostly lovely things about free motion is that there are no limits. Not in size, not in shape, not in color. Anything thought can be done.

One of the things that changes the look of an embroidery most is the size of the thread. Regular embroidery thread is 30-40 weight ( which means if you lay 30 threads side by side, it would make 30 inches.) It can be used either for zigzag stitching or straight.

8 weight thread needs to be stitched from the bobbin. It can only be used for straight stitch. The look is very different. But it’s also abstracted.

The size of the thread creates a grain, like a photograph. A thicker thread looks more abstract, and less detailed, but it has a strong visual impact. Here are some images in thick and thin threads for you to see the difference.

Thread choices make a huge difference in the look of embroidery. Pick your threads for your own delight.

Winterfair Gifts: Possibility out of Darkness

| ellenanneeddy

We didn’t really do Christmas this year. We didn’t have money for presents. A tree seemed like far too much work, given that walking from the chair to the kitchen is a five minute trial. Dear friends will need to understand some packages will arrive possibly later than Epiphany. They know about that.

Don is fixing my old computer to be my new computer with some new parts and that frees up a new computer for him. It sounds much worse than it is. Both of us lack nothing for stuff. Merry Christmas!

Sarah and Donna Hinman sent me calamity ware mugs and a teapot that have me over the moon. They have dinosaurs, monsters, Sasquash, and zombie poodles! Merry Christmas indeed!

936 Swoop Dive

All of the really big gifts in our lives, a love, a job, a passion, a pet, a child, a studio, are invitations to be something different ourselves. A love teaches you how to be a lover. A pet or a child teaches you how to love someone or something past it’s problems and messes. A studio, well a studio teaches you how to dance with your creation.

For those of you who don’t know, Don gave me his house as my studio last year. I have never had a gift like a studio. The space to do what we do without interruption or criticism is a place to practice art. And with art, we never really do anything but practice, one phase into another. Art is a byproduct. What we create in a studio is skill and vision. Thank you, Don! Merry Christmas!

Real gifts change us. And I have been give some of the best. Here is a bit of what I did this year, in my studio.

  • Very Brave Little Bugs
  • Roses and Lettuce
  • Fly Delight
  • Lady Mantis 3
  • Leafy Ladybug
  • In the Reeds 2
  • 934 Lily Rising
  • 931 Stag Party https://www.ellenanneeddy.art/portfolio/931-20-stag-party-2/
  • Jump at the Sun
  • Sunflower Ladybug
  • 910 Hummingbird
  • On Ancient Wings
  • Lady bug Dance
  • Moth Mandella
  • 911 Damask Rose

I hope Christmas brought you gifts that change you, help you grow, help you see your world differently. And make us all so much richer in ability, in who we are and what we have to give.

The Miracle of Cheesecloth: Not Just for Turkey Anymore

| ellenanneeddy

I love sheers! I love the ability to have my background peak through the sheers to create the connection between background and an object.

But most sheers don’t paint or dye well. They are poly or nylon. They come in bright colors, but they have other problems. You can paint them in pastels. They don’t dye with fiber reactive dyes at all. And if you get your iron temperature wrong, they melt.

But cheesecloth does all that well! It’s all cotton, and woven loosely. And you can iron it on fry and it behaves like cotton.

You know cheesecloth. You just aren’t used to it in the sewing room. It’s an airy woven cotton people used to use to make cheese (hence the name). Or on turkies to keep the breast moist. You may have used it to make Halloween ghosts or Christmas angels.

But dyed, it can be any color in the universe. I include it in a regular dye batch and it dyes like a champ with fiber reactive dyes. And it washes out easily in your regular washer in a nylon lingerie bag.

It makes amazing leaves! The weave in the cheesecloth looks like the cells of the leaves and the stitching defines the color.

My favorite thing to do with cheesecloth is to make mushrooms. Child of the 60s that I am, they are a flora that fascinates me. And they are an excuse for eye popping color

I do make them in batches. I’ll line up a set of mushrooms on a piece of felt, using Steam a Seam 2, pull out my brightest polyester embroidery thread and stitch up batches of mushrooms at a time, that I’ll use in many different quilts. The bright colors and zigzag stitch pop the the colors to a peak intensity. Now, who doesn’t want that?

What I did differently, is I made some smaller ones for pins and patches for my friend, Sherrill Newman who owns the South Shore Market in Porter, Indiana.

I almost never make these available to people except as finished quilts. But she talked me into it. I made a small batch for her store. Some of the left overs I’ve put on sale on Etsy. They have pins backs on them, but if you wished to use them as a patch, it would be a matter of a moment to remove that with a seam ripper.

Hand dyed cheesecloth might just be the sheer you’ve been longing for. Bright, cotton, and beautifully texturized, it makes great flowers, leaves and ‘shrooms.

Body Blocked: And Now for Something Completely Different

| ellenanneeddy
With Friends in the studio

I finished four quilts this week. Partially for the joy of it, Partially to fill the time.

  • Swirling Leaves
  • Butterfly Pond
  • Ginko Butterfly
  • Heron Pond
  • Heron Pond Detail

My body is betraying me. I have an infection in my replaced knee and we’re going to have to clean it out, let it heal and replace the knee. It’s a three month process.

Can I quilt? I don’t know. The question is, can I walk into the car and the studio. We’ll find out. We don’t know.

I hate the words, ‘We don’t know.’

What I know is that time forced away from your creative flow doesn’t stop it. It finds a way. Through quilts, through words, through my hands, through my dreams, through my prayers.

We came back from the surgeon who told us that instead of doing surgery now, we need to wait until January 19th. More we don’t know. And waiting for the covid vaccine.

If you’re a praying person pray. If not spare me a good thought. I guess the first trial is the wait. Thanks!

More Serieous Work: Herons and Walking on Water

| ellenanneeddy
943-20 Heron Pond

I remember the first time I saw a heron land on a pond. I watched it fold itself out of flight and land floating, tidied. You couldn’t imagine from it’s folded form, the shadow of it coming into land. Fierce and lovely, Of course I fell in love.

Eerie Street, Chicago

But that was not my first love. When scientists started to declare that birds were dinosaurs, I roared up in agreement. The only thing as fierce as a heron is a dinosaur! And the resemblance is striking. I’m a believer.

Lady Blue

Part of why I celebrate dinosaurs, and herons, and their survivors is that I see myself as a survivor. We all are. Living means that, so far, you’ve survived life. And time gives us a space to unpack that and understand a little the gifts we’ve been given.

Fall Stream

They aren’t always pretty. Survival can be a messy business. But it reminds me that I have strength and swiftness, if not in my body in my mind. I can be lovely even in my fierceness, if I choose to use it well.

Daylily Pond

And if I am a dinosaur of sorts, my survival, my ability to go on is strength in itself. I am grateful.

Where the Heart is

And I’m going to need it. I’m probably having my right knee replaced again, due to an infection. If I can’t walk, I should be able to fly. I’m related to the Pteranodons, thru my mother’s side. I can survive anything.

Archival: The Drawings in the Pile

| ellenanneeddy
Fish drawing
Embroidered fish

For every embroidered creature in one of my quilts, there’s a drawing of that creature inside the quilt sandwich. I’ve always worked that way. The drawings are on Totally Stable, an iron on, tear away product by Pellon. I iron the drawing on to the back of the stabilizer and color it in with thread.

I wish I were good at drawing. I’m not. What I am is willing to do it over and over again until I have something I like. so there are piles of these drawings, some that get used and some that used to sit in a mesh laundry bin, mushed in with mountains of other drawings.

They weren’t bad drawings. Sometimes I’d pull them out and use them. They just weren’t drawings I’d used yet. But the mesh bag was a bit less than archival.

Today, Don unearthed his old file cabinet. Amazing! Flat storage!

I spent the rest of the studio day looking at old drawings that I’d saved, and gently folding them flat in preparation for being used.

It makes me wonder how much art we work on gets set aside, only to be mushed up, and forgotten. It makes me want to pay more attention to the side things that don’t quit work, just to see if they would work another time or in a different way.

Heron drawing

This heron needs some fineness. And perhaps a lot of thick thread. Now aren’t I glad I found her in the pile?