Art – Page 16 – Elliebelly Knit & Dye Works

Fleur

Posted on June 9, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

This week’s theme at Wednesday Stamper is Flowers.

I did this piece.

I started with a piece of undyed raw silk. First, using white fabric paint, I stamped vintage looking text randomly across the fabric. Then I transferred some vintage botanical flower engravings from transparency onto the fabric, using matte medium. I used Stitch Witchery to attach a vintage doily that I found just this morning at a yard sale on the the fabric. Then, I attached the girl’s face (from Paper Whimsy) and stitched over and around it with gold metallic thread several times. I attached the strip of dark green hand-dyed velvet underneath the girl with Stitch Witchery and then stamped the word "fleur" on the piece of celadon green ribbon and attached it to the velvet the same way. At this point, the background looked too white, so I put a silvery wash all over the silk on top of the stamping and transfers. After that dried, I mixed some white fabric paint with a small amount of a celadon green paint — just enough to tint it slightly — and overstamped with vintage text again. For the final touch, I sewed on a halo of green beads and the vintage Mother of Purl buttons.

Our Weekend: Harry Potter, Mudballs, & The Garden

Posted on June 3, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

It has been pretty much your average weekend around here. Food. Pool. Family. I thought I would share a couple of quick snippets with you.

First off: Tomatoes in the garden. Actually, it is just tomato, singular. As a native Californian, I just can’t bring myself to water during a drought. I figure anything that can’t make it on its own is just going to have to return to the earth. But look at this one lone little tomato, surviving through drought and some kind of nasty looking wilt. Isn’t it beautiful?

Next up: Mudballs. Ellie and I sat outside with my mother in law yesterday and worked on mudballs. Really. To be more exact, we were experimenting with the ancient Japanese art form dorodango. We were both fascinated by pictures we saw of balls that we first thought were glass, or maybe ceramic or even metal. But they turned out to be mud. Our first attempts were by no means anything like the photos we saw, but we have yet to burnish and finish our layers. One of our unfinished little balls is pictured below, but you have really got to go and see the real thing. Simply incredible. You can find instructions and photos here => http://www.dorodango.com/create.html if you want to try it.

Finally, Harry Potter. I actually know people who aren’t obsessed with the countdown to the exact moment when the book will be available. People who don’t plan on seeing the movie the very first day it opens. Let me tell y’all, my whole household is obsessed with both events. I decided to dye some Hogwart’s House Colors-themed yarn this weekend, and came up with a cool little Slytherin moss and gray. Although I can’t imagine any possible weather that would permit this to be worn in Alabama in July, I still intend to knit up a neat little Slytherin scarf. (The Judge is undoubtedly a Slytherin.)

Nearer and dearer to my own heart is this Hufflepuff sock yarn. It makes me think of bumblebees, or maybe even of Uma Thurman on her yellow motorcycle in Kill Bill I. But the colors are undoubtedly Hufflepuff and I am hoping to find a few quiet moments to knit myself some socks to wear while watching the movie and lounging around the house reading the book the following week.

More About MooTah, Wednesday Stamper, and TV Debut News

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

Tonight I’m going to answer the emails I got about yesterday’s MooTah post. But first, I’m going to show you my piece for this week’s theme at Wednesday Stamper, which is doors.

It is a fabric and paper collage, using some of my hand-dyed fabric and ribbon, and some of my favorite images from Paper Whimsy, including the mysterious doorway. The stamp I used down at the bottom is part of a lot of vintage typeset I found at a little store in my neighborhood. Included with the alphabet stamps were five or six plates that look sort of like company logos that might have been used for letterhead or advertising. The part that reads "Star" is part of a stamp for Star Company.

Ok, on to MooTah. In answer to several questions (I was very complimented that y’all liked him enough to ask!):

(1) MooTah is made mostly from vintage Asian Fabrics that my friend Kara sent to me, although his arms are homespun fabric. His back is made from a fabric that says "Handwoven Silk, Made in Thailand" on the selvedge. It is the same fabric I used underneath the button eyes.

(2) MooTah’s eyes are made by sewing on little circles cut out of the Thai Silk, which wanted to immediately fray around the edges and resulted in that sort of cool, uneven look. I used a gold metallic thread and stitched not too careful circles around the eyes. Finally, the buttons themselves are some kind of old bone buttons I got as part of a vintage lot. I’ve never seen buttons with big holes like that before and I really like them.

(3) This is MooTah with his namesake, Squirt-MooTah

(4) Squirt is not interested in MooTah but Harry is very enamored with him.

MooTah continues to be a big hit around our house. I’m going to have to pull out the rest of the fabric Kara sent and see what I can put together for Ellie, who is insisting she wants a MooTah too.

I have one last bit of news. I heard from the producers of That’s Clever, that the segments I filmed for them will appear in episode HCLVR-415, which will air sometime in February or March. As much as I am really eager to see myself on TV, I’m not entirely sorry it is so far off, as I’m a little bit nervous about how goofy I’m going to look jumping around on the kids’ trampoline. You can use the episode number to look on the HGTV website as it gets closer to the air time to see the specific dates the episode is set for. My two segments are on fabric portrait collage and ATCs.

Mootah

Posted on May 31, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

My kids love Miyazaki movies. Actually, the Judge and I do too. He makes wonderful anime films that captivate the four year old and the sixteen year equally. That’s a pretty amazing concept for anyone who has teenagers.

One of Ollie’s favorites is The Cat Returns. Without ruining it for you, because you really need to see it, I’ll just tell you that one of the characters is an ENORMOUS cat named Mootah. Somehow, overtime, we have come to call our own huge sweet cat Squirt by the nickname Mootah, a very fitting name for him. And somewhere along the way, I decided Ollie needed a stuffed toy Mootah of his own. Please, please keep in mind that I am not a seamstress and that this is a knitting and collage art blog. Nonetheless, I’m going to show you a picture of my little Mootah, who I have had to pry out of Ollie’s sleeping hands for purposes of photography.

Isn’t he cute playing in my spice cabinet? What a guy.

One last thing before bedtime. Earlier this week, I promised a picture of the baby socks I’m knitting out of my Poppy sock yarn. These are small baby socks, so they are a quick knit and I’m enjoying the way the yarn stripes.

I wish socks for big people would knit up as quickly!

Preparing To Transfer

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I’m preparing to do some Poloroid Transfers this afternoon. To get ready, I did some photography and have used some of it with vintage images and writing from my collection, to make collages that i can use for the transfers.

This picture from the farmer’s market

became this

And a flower in my garden

became this

I can’t wait to work on the transfers later on today.

This week I’m doing something fun and special with some old friends. Some of my hand-dyed yarns and other items will be available for sale at Club Thread beginning on Wednesday for the next two weeks. I’m especially excited about doing some collaborative work with Tara from Urban Fibers. We have a few things in the works, including the most fantastic tote bag for knitters! I’m excited because I just received a large shipment of Blue Faced Leicester yarn, as well as more organic merino, so I will be busy with my dyepots for part of the holiday weeked, and am excited about some new colorways, like the Rose Garden, pictured below, as well as repeating some recent favorites like Treasure and Lizard. I’m hoping to have the www.elliebelly.com fully stocked by the end of the month. New items are starting to creep into the store in dribs and drabs, so please drop by for a look!

The Altered Workshop Round Robin

Posted on May 20, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

My art journal has come home from over a year away. It traipsed all around the country, back and forth, on it’s travels through the studios of my best art friends. It was a simple concept — I made a big piece of felt and sort of wrapped it around lots of loose pages made of different papers and fabrics. The exterior was a plain brown, but when you opened it up, the interior of the felt had been patterned with jewel toned mohair fibers and I sewed little Swarowski crystals and tiny bells inside of it. The idea was that the simple exterior would open up to reveal a cacophony of art and sound and texture and color.

The journal succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.

See? It’s sort of plain and simple. When I opened it, I saw this.

It was like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one when I began looking through all the art my friends had made for me! It’s beyond perfection.

First, there was this piece, from Karen O.

Then, pieces from DJ

the sadly blogless Kara

and Lou

Judy felted fantasy fish for me.

Joanne quilted

Chris gave me words

And Andi offered inspiration.

Vicki made this incredibly beautiful piece.

Catherine made this fabulous clipboard called Play Day

Shirley made two very beautiful pieces.

and Caroline painted.

And this is my original piece, that I started the round robin out with.

It was a wonderful round robin. I’m sorry it’s over, I’m happy to have so much beautiful art to look at over and over again and to touch and think about. I can’t wait for the next round robin to start!

Turquoise

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Joyce Makes Art

I’m a little bit late with this week’s TURQUOISE theme for Wednesday Stamper. This is my piece for Andi’s Bits and Pieces round robin journal. The minute I saw this metal plate, I knew it was what I wanted to use for my piece.

It was hard to get a good photograph of this piece. The words at the top read "at first it was hard to say who was the most surprised at the discovery." The small metal doodah at the top says "laugh."