Month: June 2019

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ICAD Week One

Seven days, seven little index cards, so far so good in my index-card-a-day challenge attempt!  I’ve already slipped a bit behind for this week, but I know what I want to do for the two not-yet-started cards, I will catch up.

ICAD Week One

 

On Day Seven, the prompt was “stencil,” so I played with my stencils from TSC Designs and Mayco Ceramics.

The yellow stencil is from one of the big box craft supply stores, and while the design is lovely, it has a sticky back that has been causing problems,  It sticks to everything, and the bond is stronger than a lot of the tapes I use.  It is starting to pull itself apart.  The sticky back is a great concept, makes sense to have a stencil that doesn’t slip while you are using it, but I’m concerned about the self-destruction of the stencil , and the potential damage to the artwork that I use it on.

The colors are the Tsukineko inks from TSC, applied with Fantastix fillable markers.  I like the look achieved by overlapping layers of color and shapes or lines.  I will be exploring this technique in fabric, and I already want to try quilting the resulting fabric with a different design, not trying to follow the stencil patterns.

Over the past weekend, I took an inspiring class on making felted wool flowers.  Check back on Thursday for the more on that.

 

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Another Daily Challenge

No, this doesn’t directly involve art quilting or any stitching, but it is all about my ongoing attempts at art journaling.  I am, for the third year, trying to complete the 60 day Index Card a Day (ICAD) challenge.  Check out the link, the artist that puts on the challenge has a great website full of ideas and tips for mixed media art journaling.  While I struggle to journal on a regular basis, I do believe it is a great way for artists and those who want to be creative to work on skills, habits and ideas.

Getting back to the ICAD event, the challenge creator posts lists of themes or prompts for each day of the challenge.  Sometimes, the daily prompt just doesn’t do anything for me.  That’s when I tend to go astray in keep up with the challenge.  When the prompt is something like “meerkat” or “cassette tape,” my mind wanders to things I much rather do, stitching, making a cake, taking a walk.  The first year I attempted the ICAD challenge, it did not go well.  I completed only 11 cards, and half of those were done six months after the challenge ended.

Last year, I fared better; thirty-three cards completed.  These are not intended to be great works of art, and I try to keep the time put into them to 15 minutes per card.  Of course, some take a bit longer, and I still want to fill in the gaps of the cards I didn’t attempt.

Today, I am six days into the challenge, and I have six cards:

Will I keep up the early momentum?  Now that I’ve blogged about it, I hope that I will.  The challenge started last Saturday, so I will post my weekly progress on Tuesdays.

 

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Day by Day, Tantalizing Threads

A  very quick post today… I am more than halfway through my stitch out project of all the colors of House of Embroidery threads.

I don’t know yet how I am going to join all of the postcards that I am making in the course of this adventure.  I initially wanted to make them into a little fabric book, but I might make them into a flat wall hanging to put in my booth at quilt shows, as I have some of the colors available when I am on the road.

I’m enjoying seeing the colors stitched out, and I am looking forward to using these threads more in my collages when I get through this daily project.

 

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On Thursday, check back for my progress on yet another daily project that I just started, the annual Index Card a Day Challenge.