Thick Or Thin?

Paper that is!! 🙂

I promised Laura Kate who is a fiber artist, that I would post about sewing on paper today.  I hope you check out Laura Kate’s AWESOME blog!

I like experimenting with many different art materials as many of you may know!

In January of this year, I shared about sewing on Canson mixed media paper in my art journal.  If you want to revisit that post, you can find it here: In Stitches…

Last year, February 20th, I shared about sewing on Swedish Tracing Paper, you can find more about that here:   Swedish Tracing Paper

I recently created some new experiments using Swedish Tracing paper.  It is difficult to SEE that the sewn image below is a eye… I love looking at the back of a piece too!

Sew, (pardon my pun) what papers are best for sewing?  Thick or thin?

Well, I have discovered that depends if you are hand sewing or using a machine?

If hand sewing, such as this eye-opener on 140 lb hot press watercolor paper, it helped to use an awl to pre-punch my holes.  (A needle would also work if you don’t have an awl).

If machine sewing, be sure to use a sharp needle (paper will dull it rather quickly) and sew at a slow pace.  I used rice paper here:

If the paper is slippery like deli paper, it is better to double it so the stitches won’t rip out.

I often use my sewn paper experiments on my Gelli plate.  I like how the stitches create their own subtle patterns.

I think the best way to learn is EXPERIMENT!!  And record your findings in a journal.

How do you remember YOUR art experiments?  I hope you share them with me.

Cheers! 🙂

In Stitches…

I’m having fun sewing on paper in my art journal and adding collage papers.

I can only sew in one direction since my journal is bound but I like the challenge it adds:

I start by gluing a piece of paper randomly on a page that I explained more about here: It’s A Splash!

Since the stitching is on BOTH SIDES of the paper, one side is a total surprise:

These paper collages are keeping me in stitches!  I enjoy using two different colors of thread, one for the bobbin and one for the top stitch… they add an unexpected color surprise!  And each collage is unique!

What have you created or discovered this last week that brought you unexpected joy?  I hope you share it with me!

Cheers! 🙂

A Little Mending…

I was having computer issues yesterday so wasn’t able to post my weird bird…

However, this bird is “sew” much more so I wanted to share it with you today! 😉

I started with one of my Gelli-plate prints that I made from a recent online class with Carla Sonheim.

Next, I added a little collage and stitching:

A Mending Birdy

I think we could all use a little mending now and then…

Perhaps your heart, body and/or spirit could use some special care.  I hope you can be extra gentle with yourself today.

Cheers! 🙂

P.S. Thank you for all the kindness you have shown me with your comments and likes.  It means so much to me! ❤️

February’s Square Project

Perhaps you remember, January’s Square Project?  I am adding a section of paper collaged squares and circles each month to complete a challenge I made for myself.

Well, I had to add a little stitching to January’s section with my sewing machine, not sure that it helps but it was super fun to stitch on paper:

February’s section is less busy… phew! 😉

I used two methods I learned from Carla Sonheim’s 365 class, the scraping paint technique and text collage.  I like to take her instructions as a starting point and then take them a step further to make them my own.

Below are my notes in my art journal (please excuse the chicken scratch and word misspellings):

My completed section for February:

I think it looks so pretty, how about you?

What I liked about February’s experiments:

I haven’t had much time to pursue creating fabrics with my designs… life has been busy.  I still want to do this but looks like it will be later in the year.

I am excited to see what ideas will inspire me for March.

Cheers! 🙂

Swedish Tracing Paper

I was dying tissue paper yesterday for an online class I’m taking… I will share more about the class in another post.  I was using colored India ink to create this one on tissue paper:

I decided to try this experiment using Swedish Tracing Paper.  I previously purchased a roll from Amazon for $16.07 for another online class last year.  It feels a lot like interfacing and is sewable…

I had a piece that I previously had sewed on so I experimented by spritzing it with water and adding India inks then folding it to create a pattern:

I just love the richness of this!!

It was so saturated with inks that I grabbed some sheets of deli paper to see what ink it would soak up.  And I was excited to see that it transferred the color and the stitching to the deli paper:

And I got two additional prints on deli paper:

 

I wonder what would happen if I sewed a pattern with the thread?

More experimenting ahead!!

Cheers! 🙂

Hot And Cold

My sister-in-law made us these beautiful potholders that arrived in the mail yesterday… just because! ❤️  A wonderful surprise. 🙂

 

I just love the colors and patterns and stitching… I’m not sure I can use them for hot foods as they are too pretty!

And speaking of cold… we woke-up to 8 inches of new snow yesterday morning! 😮

I guess winter isn’t done with us in the Pacific Northwest.  Time to make a homemade pot of hot soup on a cold day!

Cheers! 🙂

A Little Silly Fun…

I needed a gift for a “white elephant gift exchange.”  I’m not quite sure where this terminology came from as it has nothing to do with elephants! 😉

To me, it means to re-gift something I received and don’t need or perhaps, give something “creative.”

I decided on a little silly fun this year and created this one-of-a-kind gift!

A “Caroler” in a former life that I purchased at a thrift store years ago, I made him into a quirky guy that loves the lake!

It was super fun to create a poem to go with him… I will get to that later in this post.

This silly guy actually moves – his head slowly turns in circles and his right arm moves up and down when he is plugged in to an outlet.  A little weird, I must say!

I started by giving him an old cup for a hat and taped a bird on top.  The bird house came next.  On the back, I added this “key” message (from a candy wrapper):

He needed a beach towel, so I cut-up an old wash cloth and sewed the outside edges. I used a paper napkin to represent “happy hour” where friends gather to share an appetizer and a drink as you can see in my first photo.

Below, I created a fishing pole from an old paint brush and beads – including a bead for a fish:

He needed a little summer outfit so I sewed some fabric to give him some pizzazz and cover up that ugly green outfit he was wearing – who says men can’t wear skirts!! Hahaha!

I finished him, by adding a Christmas ornament of a chair, a rubber stamp image of an image in the woods and writing a message on the base:

Below is one of the stanzas I wrote for my poem to the song, “Over The River And Through The Woods.”

 

Over the river and through the woods

We look forward to each year…

The memories we make

At this beautiful lake

Are the treasures we hold dear.

I look forward to seeing who receives my creative surprise… I encourage you to “think outside the box” when you give a gift!

Cheers! 🙂

And The Materials Are…

I wanted to show you the collage materials that went into making my weird bird from yesterday:

Did you guess ALL 10 materials?  Well, if not, let me help you out!

1.  I started my bird collage with a word from this children’s dictionary for my bird’s body.  It started me thinking about a sewing theme.

2.  I altered pages from this old sewing book with acrylics before using it as part of the bird’s tail and nest materials.

3.  I color copied a doodle I did previously and cut it up for my bird’s hat.

4.  I used my gelli-printed deli papers for my bird’s head, wing and nest materials.

5.  A paint sample card for the bird’s eye but I didn’t like the yellow color so I turned it over and used the other side with the bar code!

6.  An old button was perfect for the top of the hat.

7.  A sequin for the eye.

8.  Old sheet music that I gelli-printed for the base of the nest.

9.  Swedish Tracing Paper that I had gelli-printed a feather stencil – this tracing paper feels more like a fabric.  It is a super fun material to collage with BTW!  I think I purchased it on Amazon.  It comes in a large roll.  I used it under the bird’s body for the nest.

10.  Tissue from an old dress pattern was used over the sheet music for the nest – a fun element of surprise. 😉

I usually use a glue stick to glue everything down and outline my bird with pencil to give it a little dimension.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the FUN I put into this BEST Dressed Bird!

Cheers! 🙂

 

Sew It Seams…

Some days I’m “drawn” to words in the dictionary to create a weird bird.  I often have no idea what I’m going to create and for me this is really fun!  😉

Sew it seams was the case for the Dressmaker bird:

If a bird could design a dress, do you think they would use the feather stitch?

Happy Weird Bird Wednesday!

Cheers! 🙂

 

 

A New Variety

I decided to try drawing with thread today:

It is a pear stitched with variegated thread on black felt using my sewing machine.

As I started stitching it, I got the idea to try stitching deli-printed gelli prints over the felt.  The above pear is actually the back side of my experiment:

Since I was using black as my background, I used yellow colored paper for my shadow.  It looks rather Halloweenie, don’t you think?!

This whole experiment started from my sketchbook this morning:

As part of my assignment for week 2 with Cat Bennett for “Sketchbooks: Making Art A Practice.”   I loved how the lines looked for the blind contour.  I only looked at the pear and not my paper while I drew it.  This gave me the idea of stitching with thread.

I hope you aren’t tired of pears yet!  I found a list of 10 varieties in the USA online:  Green Anjou, Red Anjou, Bosc, Comice, Bartlett, Red Bartlett, Concorde, Seckel, Forelle and Starkrimson.  Some I had never heard of!

Happy Experimenting!  🙂