Sue Bleiweiss

texture, lots and lots of texture...

Have you seen this new product out by Superior Threads?

 

I was curious so I bought some.  It sort of resembles a polyester lining fabric.   You stitch it to your fabric, blast it with some steam and it shrinks up and creates some fabulous texture.  I played with it today and I love it!  I tested it on cotton, silk, and velvet and it worked great on all three.  My favorite however was the velvet.  I ended up stitching the Texture Magic to a 1yard piece of silk velvet and then turned it into a bag:

I actually was motivated to make the bag because of the trim.  I found a 1 yard piece of that trim in my stash. 

I have no idea where I got it but I love it and it worked perfectly with the color of the velvet. It doesn't really show well in the photo but it's got a little bit of sparkle from the beads and some gold threads. The bag is about 15" wide along the bottom and stands about 11" high.  I used silk for the lining.

Anyway, I think this is a great product!  You can find it here on the Superior Threads website. 

painting, carving, stamping...

this past Thursday we had an absolutely gorgeous sunny 70 degree fall day here ...

 

the view from my back deck was full of shades of yellow with a little orange, red and green mixed in.  It was too nice to be inside so I set up on the deck to do some fabric painting...

 

8 pieces of canvas 20"x30" each hanging on the line drying. I did a ton of fabric dyeing too but I haven't gotten around to ironing it all so it's not photo worthy yet.  So what's next for the canvas in the photo above?  well today I spent a couple of hours carving some new stamps...

These are all pretty large stamps - the one in the lower left measures 5"x6" to give you an idea of how big the other ones are.

I'll be back later this week with photos of some stamped and embellished fabric...

ride the wave...

Lately I have been doing a lot of experimenting with working with a flat quilted surface. Working flat with the intention that the finished product will hang on the wall is a challenge for me because I'm used to working with either functional objects with structure like books and boxes.  I am enjoying it though because it's a new challenge and I do love a challenge...

 

"Waves"  hand painted  canvas on black cotton, 20"x24", machine quilted

and a close up:

 

(note that I've lighted the contrast in the above photo so that the quilting shows, the true colors are in the full sized photo above)

fabric paper or paper fabric?

whatever you call it the results are pretty amazing.   To make these pieces using old pattern tissues and cotton fabric I used Terri's directions from her awesome book Creative Paper Quilts. 

They were all painted with Golden Fluid Acrylic paint.  Each one measures about 18"x20" and I'm amazed at how soft and pliable these are.  Now to cut them up and turn them into something...

three messages...

"three messages"  20"x27" hand painted canvas, machine quilted

I have always been drawn to the number three and I recently did a little research into what the meaning behind "3" is.   Here's what I found:

The spiritual meaning of number Three deals with magic, intuition, fecundity, and advantage. The number Three invokes expression, versatility, and pure joy of creativity. Three is also a time identifier as it represents Past, Present and Future. Consecutive Threes in your life may symbolize the need to express yourself creatively, or consider your present directional path in relation to past events and future goals. Three may also represent promising new adventures, and assurance of cooperation from others whom you may require help. Three typically symbolizes reward and success in most undertakings.

I thought that was pretty interesting and it certainly explains why I've always used a grouping of three when I create something.  

fiber cuff

I made this for a challenge sponsored by Roc-lon earlier this year.  It's made with their multi-purpose cloth.  The challenge was to make something with an 8 1/2"  x 11" piece  so I decided to make a piece of jewelry with it:

 

The piece they gave us was white so the first thing I did was paint it black.  Then I added some foiling and beading.  The cuff closes with a magnetic jewelry closure and is about 1 3/4" wide.   The multi-purpose cloth takes paint beautifully and is very easy to sew.  It's a thick cloth but it has some drape to it and it cuts without fraying.  Kelly over at I Have a Notion is now carrying it in her online store if you can't find it in your local fabric store.

painting canvas

Early yesterday morning my studio looked like this:

I spent most of the day painting yards and yards of canvas fabric.  A very enjoyable way to spend the day.  Here's a few of the pieces I painted:

 

 

Now that these all have a base coat of color I'll go back to them and add more layers of paint and imagery.  I used my new favorite paint - Golden Fluid Acrylics on all of these.

While the fabric was drying I decided that I needed a new sketchbook.  I wanted a wire bound one so that it would lay flat when opened so out came the Zutter Bind-it-all.

9"x11" filled with 70lb drawing paper.  The  Thai marbled paper I used for this sketchbook  is from Hollanders.

Thanks to everyone who came by and watched my studio tour video for the QA open studios event.  Thanks for all your comments, I appreciated every one of them and I apologize for not having answered all of them personally yet.

Tea?

I've had this teapot shape in my sketchbook for a while...

9" x 3" x 3" 

lots & lots of books...

A shipment of our new book Creative Ways with Books and Journals arrived yesterday...

and so I've spent a lot of time in the last 24 hours packing and shipping and packing and shipping...If you were among the first 100 to pre-order a book  (or if you were one of the artists chosen for the gallery section) from us then you should receive your book by the end of this week if you live in the US.  International orders will take a little longer to arrive.  When you do get your book Terri and I would love it if you'd consider posting a review of the book on the Amazon product page.  We set up a special group in the ning group just for those of you who purchased a book so if you have any questions you can ask and of course we encourage you to post photos of what you make in the group so we can see what you've made.

And now that the books have been packaged and shipped and I've fulfilled all my other studio commitments I am now starting to brainstorm about where I want to go next with my work.  I've been spending a lot of time in the last few days making lists and mind mapping in an effort to narrow my list and determine what I want to focus on going forward.    But before I move into any new projects I spent some time cleaning up in the studio and decided to cut up the last of the leftover surfaces that I had made last week and turn them into some quick note cards:

I like to keep a stack of note cards on hand so I have them when I need them. These were very easy to do since the collage surfaces were created right on a piece of Mistyfuse on top of a piece of parchment to start with.  All I had to do was cut them up and then iron them right to the front of the card.  Easy!

Mixed media collage surfaces with Mistyfuse

For the past week or so I've been working on several pieces made from my technique of mixed media collage surfaces using Mistyfuse that are for a gallery section in a book due out next year.  Unfortunately I can't show you the pieces (don't you hate it when bloggers say that!) but I can show you some of the postcards and ATC's that I made with the leftover surface pieces:

It had been a while since I had made any of these collaged surfaces and I had forgotten how much fun it was.  I spent a better part of a day just making one surface after another so I have a bunch more still to work with. 

All of these postcards and ATC's are up for grabs - if you want one, just drop me an email with your preference and address and I'll send you one.  Sorry all gone!