Black Birds in Tree Now Available!!!

I'm so excited to announce that my stencils are now available through StencilGirl Products!!!
 

The stencil is available as an inverse of the design and also as a traditional cut out.

 

Black Birds in Tree Inverse with Lilac and Ecualyptus Tsukineko Inks.

This page is the result of brayering a sheet of clean paper onto the Inverse stencil while it was wet with alcohol inks.

 

Oliver and Transport Update

John with our new pup Oliver!  He arrived last night late around midnight and was super excited to be here, at first he was kinda scared but when he saw Angel (our sheltie) he became a bundle of quivering excitement!

The gal who rescued Oliver paid for his transport up here to Iowa, and to which I have to say thank heavens because we raised about $75 for the transport which wasn't anywhere near what it cost to ship him here, some $1100 later!  So the money I raised will be put aside for his first visit to our vet at the end of the month!  He's up to date on all of his shots but will be needing his next heartworm treatment, and he's also intact so we will be discussing with the vet when the appropriate time will be for  having him neutered. 

We decided to name him Oliver, it was Junior, and he responds to it already!

WIP's Corn 2013

Corn No. 1

Corn No. 2

Corn No. 3

Natural dyed cotton fabrics, timtex, machine stitching, aurifil threads.

Dog Transport eBook Special!!!

Dog Transport eBook Special!!! 

 

I've marked all four of my Natural Dyeing eBooks to the special price of $3.99 to help raise transport funds for Junior the labradoodle from Texas to Iowa!!! 

He also needs to be neutered once we get him here to Iowa, he's eight months old and the cute wore off so now he's coming to live with me, we will  have many years of happy walks together! http://www.kbaxterpackwood.com/e-Books.htm

I will post a photo of the new pooch as soon as I have permission to do so, not everyone wants their images out on the net!

Natural Dye Blog Crawl

Check out my other blog where I'm hosting a

 

Natural Dye Blog Crawl
 

this weekend!!! 

 

There are some super talented artists dyeing with natural dyes on the blog list,

so stop on by and say hello!

French Pearl Cotton - Yummy!

Stopped by my favorite haunt today, JB Knacker in Gilbert, Iowa, and found five beautiful skeins of vintage french pearl cotton!

Some of the thread has some foxing but should come out with a gentle washing. 

Lino Blocks Castings

I'm not sure what else to call these little slivers, except for castings.

WIP - Greg with More Beads

Greg is in a holding pattern now, I added some 13/0 delica's to her eyebrow section and then put her aside so I can work on a couple of other projects.  The last bit I want to work on, on this piece, is to take the trim out further, more fringe like. 

Looking for a Bead Source

Ok, am looking for more of these beads since the shop that sold them went out of business. 11/0 seed beads in an olive lined in ocher and a transparent olive lined in ocher, transparent brick red lined and a transparent yellow lined.

WIP - Greg with Hand Stitching

Now with some hand stitching.

Auditioning some supplies to see what will work for embellishments.

WIP - Greg with Beads

 

Natural dyed silk fabric machine stitched with aurifil thread.  

And now some detail shots, a combination of vintage glass and plastic beads.

WIP - Greg with some Beads

My beading spot on the sewing table.

Greg will be getting mostly purple, green, and some orange, beads.

WIP - Nocturne Series

I like this one way better than the first one to the point that I'm ready to start layering more color, texture, etc., on the first one I started. 

Birds in Tree stencil, watercolor, tsukineko ink, pitt pen, copic marker.

Went to Hobby Lobby and picked up some lino boards to carve, I have several sheets of this in my wet studio that I cannot find for the life of me! 

I have one of these floating around my studio as well, this one is slightly larger text size than the one I have and the price was low enough that I purchased a second font plate...

An Old English font.

Somewhere in my wet studio I have gobs of print blocks I've carved, it's time to go on a treasure hunt!

WIP - Nocturne Series

 



Nocturne Series - Now for some stitching.  

 Birds in Tree Stencil design on kona cotton fabric painted with tsukineko inks, birds outlined with copic pen, timtex batting and aurifil cotton thread.

WIP - Birds in Tree

First design made with the Birds in Tree stencil design.  The stencil to the right is Birds in Tree Inverse - works best as a mask or with a large brayer full of paint!  More photos later...

Stencil Heaven!

 

 

Tsukineko ink on watercolor paper using my two stencil designs.

Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil -  works beautifully as a mask when laying down color!

"Bird in Trees Inverse" Stencil sample.  I'm in love with both of my stencil samples, if you don't hear from me well you know the drill send whoppers and cheesecake cause it means I'm holed up in my studio!

Oooh Stencils

 

Yesterday something absolutely wonderful arrived in the mail for my approval, my sample stencil from one of my own designs "Birds in Tree"!  I've been playing with it ever since it arrived, and of course the inevitable wait time for layers of gesso to dry had to be endured, but over all I'm having a blast this afternoon!

 

More layer as these two layers should be dry and ready for the next several processes, which includes some ink/pen techniques and then more layering.  I see some numbers and text in this piece as well. 

 

Tomorrow I will have some fabric samples to show and tell. 

June Short Story Blog Chain

Starting Date: Saturday June 1, 2013
Open to all forum members, even after it starts!

This month's prompt:
BugsYep. Bugs. Simple and easy. Prose, poetry, play. Fiction, nonfiction. It's all good, all bugs.

Instructions:
Simply post your blog's URL in this thread to join. I'll let you know in this thread when it's your turn. Once your turn comes up, you have two days to complete a blog post using the prompt. When you are finished, please add a link to your post on the thread.

Each post should be less than 1000 words if possible. Read and comment on other participants' posts if you possibly can--they'll be doing the same for you! Please include a list of all participants' blogs (not necessarily their actual posts for the month) in your blog post.

*****************

Bug story located at my Nature/Writing Blog

WIP - Sunshine and Roses 061713

It should be finished tomorrow sometime, this piece has been a break through piece for me.  Break through in that while beading and stitching I resolved some issues I had with another piece I constructed way back around 2001, Big Blue Stem.

Big Blue Stem - Earth Pigments, Natural Dyes, Cotton, Cheesecloth, Stitch. 

This piece has been languishing in my studio for about twelve years.  From time to time I trot it out, hang it on my wall and alas nothing, nada, zilch, zip!  And then late Saturday night, whilest I was stitching on Sunshine and Roses it occurred to me to experiment with overlaying digitally printed silk organza fabrics onto the right hand panel.  More coming soon...

WIP - Sunshine and Roses

 

 

 

 

Hmmm it's so bright and cheerful that that's what I went with "Sunshine and Roses".

On My Sewing Table

Finishing of a piece I've been ignoring for several years now, it feels great to finally finish off some of these WIP's.

 

Bjorkboda Progess

I've started stitching on this piece again, this time with a renewed vision.

Beadless

I started adding some beads to the Queen Anne's Lace umbrels late last night and then decided I didn't like them.

So I plucked them off and am going beadless, yes I like this piece much better now, will add an edging for a finished look.