Daily Fiber

Two more water color exercises.

Posted on December 5, 2020December 3, 2020 by Laura Kate

These are fifteen minute improvisational watercolor sketches that I completed this week. I am following the daily practice book “Watercolor is for Everyone,” by Kateri Ewing.

DREAM FEATHERS

Draw a curved line with a pencil. Using three different colors of your choice, paint each side of the feather with quick, light strokes. When the painting is dry, use a pencil to lightly draw lines along the paint strokes and also on the feather shaft.

THREE COLOR LANDSCAPES. Using three colors of your choice, make a quick landscape from your imagination.

Colors for both landscapes: Winsor Yellow, Burnt Sienna, French Ultramarine Blue. In addition to my Sumi brush, I used a no. 2 round and a rigger brush.

Here is a link to Kateri Ewing’s website.

Portfolio | Kateri Ewing

quilting

Jackie’s Pandemic Quilt

Posted on December 4, 2020December 8, 2020 by Laura Kate

While visiting my mom last week, she showed me this quilt, just come back from the long arm shop. She called it her Pandemic Quilt. Apparently, in order to earn that name, a quilt must be made entirely with materials you already have in your stash.

**Close up of nine blocks, including Spring and Summer.**

She told me that the inspiration for this improv, scrappy quilt came when she was experimenting with embroidery patterns available on her new, very fancy, baby lock machine. Take a look at the flower in the upper left corner block, above. After working this center she cut it into the shape of a pentagon. This allows for the crazy log-cabin piecing to take place. After a little experimenting, she embroidered the block centers first, made her cuts and then did the piecing. The centers include the words “Spring” and “Summer.”

The white sashing and black cornerstones give the quilt a fresh modern feel.

Good work, Mom. I love to see you get creative.

Addendum: Jackie says,

” I think this quilt is a good example of combining techniques. The embroidery is strictly modern and surrounded by an old technique of crazy patch piecing. A purist would hand quilt this but my old arthritic hands no longer hand quilt so it was finished on a long arm machine which is also a modern invention. “

knitting

Wednesday WIP

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Laura Kate

Here before you is the glove I cast on a little over a week ago. I had expected to make faster progress. It was my travel project for a recent car trip to Ohio. My biggest roadblock was light. When I had time to knit, I found myself in locations with poor lighting. I had underestimated how the lack of contrast in value between the solid yarn and the variegated yarn would slow me down. So that’s my big excuse.

Another problem arose because I wasn’t working from a pattern or chart. This proved troublesome on the thumb gussett increases. Fortunately, here the lack of value contrast turned out to be my friend. Inconsistencies in the stitchwork are not obvious to the casual viewer.

**I love the texture created by working purl bumps on alternate rows.**

Now that the palm section is done, I will drop the blue yarn and complete the fingers using the variegated. That means one less element to deal with. Perhaps my knitting will go more swiftly.

painting

Indigo and Rust

Posted on November 28, 2020 by Laura Kate

This exercise explores the complementary hues Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna.

The paintings are done with paper in the landscape form. The brush is double loaded: first dipped in the blue, then the sienna. After stroking it in long stripes, a little water is added at the bottom of the stripe. Alternate striping with blue and sienna hues are continued until reaching the bottom of the paper. Metallic paint is added and then a light sprinkling with clean water to encourage mixing and mingling.

For my last sample, I was inspired by a photograph of the Irish coast. First I penciled a few lines on the paper to guide my color into the shapes of sky, water, sand and rocks. Then came the paint, followed by the sprinkle of water.

I am enjoying painting in this fast and loose style.

Here again is the link to Kateri Ewing’s site.

Home | Kateri Ewing

painting

Exercise Four: Painting without a Plan

Posted on November 27, 2020 by Laura Kate

No matter how uninspired we might feel, ideas are right under our fingertips. We simply have to find them. This is the moment when Guiding Principle Three kicks in: Look to a source of beauty.

Memories: I have this memory of looking at the full moon and noticing what I’m calling a Moon bow – This is a ring of light a hand’s distance from the moon itself. The glow was magical. I was puzzled that my husband couldn’t see the ring, nor did it show up in a photograph of the moon. I tried to paint what I remembered.

Art work: I am a fiber artist who works with many quilt designs. There is a quilt block known as a log cabin. It is an old design, going back, really, a few hundred years. Traditionally, there is a red square placed in the center. It is said to represent the hearth. “Logs” in the form of fabric rectangles are stacked on all sides of the center. Here is my painted version of the log cabin block.

Poetry and nature: I follow a photographer named Catherine Arcolio who posts under the name Leaf and Twig. The very moment I was working on this exercise, her post arrived in my in-box: a river surrounded by low hills and a three line poem. I had to paint it.