Sneak Peeks

Yesterday I was back at work on my Gammill. Well, not really working. I was finishing a project that I can't show yet, as it is to be a surprise. But, it was fun. Here are some sneak previews.

This is the backing, a marble-looking fabric that I love and have used for many projects. It has a silky hand and gorgeous coral/salmon/peach colors.

I was putting a serious dent in my stash of black and white fabrics for this and a couple other projects recently. As I rummaged around looking for suitable pieces, I came across this piece and decided to use it. A long time ago, I tried out some methods of discharging color from black fabrics. I think it was in American Quilter. This is a piece of twill with some star-shaped areas and some blobby areas. I did some freehand flowers. Hopefully these pictures will enlarge when clicked. I used a variegated cotton thread called Tie-Dye.

If you remember my little experiment with my Neocolor 2 crayons, I had done a gradient on dry fabric using every one of the 84 colors.

My original idea was to label each color so I would have a sample of each. Well, that was way too scientific for me, and since I did not record the colors at the time, it would have been difficult to do so later. So, yesterday I grabbed a fan-shaped paint brush and swished over the whole thing with some water. I had only used half of a piece of muslin, so I folded the other half over it to absorb colors. I love the mottled look of the "absorbent" half!

New Project

Here is a peek at a new patchwork project that is underway. This is all I can show until after Christmas...yes, I am actually starting some Christmas gifts before the second week in December. I love the bright colors popping against the black prints.

When I was making my second journal for my online class, I had lots of narrow pieces of watercolor paper left over from trimming the papers to size. These are perfect for bookmarks and experimenting with different types of embellishment.

The top one has a strip of hand-dyed fabric fused to the watercolor paper, and then I doodled on the fabric with gel pens. The center one also has fused fabric and some fiber and ribbon embellishments. I printed some words on a transparency master in different fonts. The word "laughter" is just stitched on to this bookmark. I like the effect. The bottom one had a light lavender wash of paint, and I just doodled over it with the gel pens.

In fact, I doodled my way to the mountains on Friday while DH was driving. The scenery was not too good in the gray fog and rain, so it was fun to work with bright colors. Here are a couple of new pages in my art journal.

The spiral feather is similar to the floribunda feathers I learned from machine quilter Nichole Webb. I used them on the white wedding quilt I made for Dave and Emily. Now I am working on another project to go with the quilt, so I need a little practice on these.

I have an interview lined up on Thursday for a teaching job at an elementary school in North Raleigh. The job begins January 2. I started making appointments for doctor visits in the event that I get the job. Today I am off for my annual mammogram. I also made an appointment with the ophthalmologist who performed my Lasik surgery back in the 90's. My last eye check was in 2001! That is awful. I have been squinting at my crossword puzzles, so I know my near vision has gotten worse as I have gotten closer to the big 6-0.