"Waiting for Dawn"

It all started with a

one-of-a-kind print from many moons ago

Print Made from Raised Impression on a Small Serving Plate

and some hand dyed fabric remnants

After doing some dying, printing and piecing, I had come to a stopping place with a piece I was working on and started to clean up after making a mess.  Just couldn't bring myself to toss the dyed remnants.  I had 8small,  orange tone triangles and a several feet of left over strips of mottled grey fabric.  As I opened the draw were I save workable remnants, the print of a small bird caught my eye.  It had been hiding in that drawer for at least a couple of years.

I tried several arrangements of the remnants and finally settled on a design that I liked and set about piecing it.  On my worktable lay some green fabric that I thought might pull out the muted green in the print.  Yep.  It worked so I pieced a border with it, backed it with batting and fabric and set about doing simple stitch in the ditch quilting.

I could have bound or faced the piece, but since it was 12.5" x 12.5" and I had a 12" square stretched canvas on hand, I put a boxed facing around it and stapled the facing to the back of the canvas.

Stapling the Facing to the Back of the Frame

To finished the piece I cut a mat board backing, glued it to the back, attached small D-rings and strung the piece with hanging wire.  Waalaa!  Another brain fluff was complete.

"Waiting for Dawn"

 I dearly love the creative moments which come about with no planning, just the joy of making something from nothing.

Always remember, never fear to experiment.  

Sometimes wonderful things happen.

© Linda Friedman 2017.  All rights reserved

Water, Bird and Fish in Fiber Art

Life is Full of Surprises

It was great fun to see these three of my works in the Shaped by Fiber II exhibit at the Mission Viejo Library as the lead in to the great video that Laura and Luke Bisagna created.

3 of My Works in the Beyond the Edge Fiber Artists Exhibit

Always remember, never fear to experiment.  

Sometimes wonderful things happen.

© Linda Friedman 2016.  All rights reserved

Salvaging an Idea - Bird and Leaves

After screen printing a large image of an iron gate I had the bright idea of adding a free motion embroidered bird and skeletal leaf forms to the image.  After a few days of off and on stitching of these forms, it was time to audition them on the gate image.  Much to my chagrin, the bird was "lost" amid the intricacy of the screen printed image and the leaves cast a ghastly shadow that merely served to make the image seem as if the edges were blurred.  Ach, what a waste of time, I thought; however, as I was placing these stitched figures on a white background to photograph them as documentation of a flop, magic happened.  The bird looks very alive and vibrant against a background of the leaves.

Here is the Bird

Here are the Leaves

Waa laa!  The Bird Comes to Life on the Leaves

and a New Project is Begun

Cranes over Marsh Land

The lure of possibilities inherent in the screen printing processes has overpowered the siren calls from the sewing machine. I haven't 't tried my hand at this before now, but, as of today, I'm hooked. I do not have the lighting equipment for the emulsion method, but there are myriad other ways to utilize the screen for printing and now I want to try as many as possible.

"Cranes Over Marsh Land" utilizes 4 different printing methods.

Step One involved cutting a sheet of newspaper slightly smaller than the back side of the screen frame.

In Step Two a rough circle was torn out of the newspaper. This was taped to the back of the screen with masking tape.

Step Three involved placing the screen on fabric that had been pre-washed and pinned to a padded board.

In Step Four ink was placed across the top of the screen and drawn across the circle shape. This was repeated 4 times, twice at the bottom of the fabric piece and twice at the top. A quick washing of the screen followed.

In Step Five, wide masking tape was torn in strips and randomly placed on the back of the screen. As in Step Four, ink was placed across the top of the screen and drawn across the entire screen. Again, a quick wash of the screen made it ready for the final printing.

Step 6 involved drawing a flying crane shape onto the dull side of freezer paper and cut out with a craft knife. This piece of freezer paper was then ironed, shiny side down, onto the back side of the screen.

In Step 7 ink was placed just above the crane shape and then drawn across the screen. Yet again, the screen received a quick wash.

Step 8 involved placing painter's tape along the bottom edge of the top print and along the top edge of the bottom print and ink was drawn across the open space, thus creating an integration of the top printing and the bottom printing.

Because the dark gray "marsh grasses" slightly show through the red strip overprinting, another layer of red will need to be made, but once that is complete and ironing sets the color, quilting can begin.