Studio Sunday

Happy Sunday!  I've got my second cup of coffee and I'm ready to share all of my studio fun from the week (mostly Saturday LOL).  I almost got some stitching done last night but fatigue caught up with me at 8:00 pm and I would have had to set up my sewing machine which is still in a box from the July move.  So one of the things I was playing with was a new paper towel fiber art piece.

This piece above I created in 2012 after teaching an on-line workshop on Joggles.com.  I had been playing with making my own art stamps from sticky-back foam and thought it might be cool to print on dyed paper towels I had.  A lot of the pieces I have collected were originally created in a workshop I took from Traci Bautista back in 2005 near Seattle.  I think it was the first time Teesha and Tracy Moore had ever run the "Art Fiber Fest" retreat.  It was fantastic!!!!  I got to take workshops with Traci Bautista, Lisa Engelbrecht and DJ Pettitt.  

Anyway...I decided to pull out some of my stash of paper towels along with some new ones resulting from recent ink and spray play.  Using a piece of cotton muslin, I applied full sheets of Steam a' Seam Lite and laid out my collage and fused it down.  I did iron the paper towels first.  Next, I stenciled on top of the layout using my "Spin" stencil from Joggles.com and let that dry.  Now I'm ready to top it with a piece of soft tulle and a layer of batting and begin free-motion stitching.  I think I will leave the edges frayed but we will see.

I'm not a heavy embellisher by nature so I will incorporate some hand stitching and light beading on top as well.  This will be a good project to take to work and relax with during lunch.  Below, you can see a selection of used paper towels from my stash.  They are just saturated with color and make you want to dive in!!!

While I was playing with stencils this week, I pullout out my very used "Shooting Stars" stencil which was still covered in spray ink from the last use (there are benefits to not cleaning your tools LOL).  I took the stencil, sprayed it with water and flipped it onto a piece of cardstock and this is what happened!  That's a lot of color!!!

So, of course I couldn't stop there!  I had to take the image and create a repeat pattern with it in Photoshop!  You can see all of the watercolor effects from it and I LOVE it !!!!

Then I played with the Hue/Saturation and changed it up a bit.  I do love the subtleness of the shades below as well.  We'll see where this design lands!  

And lastly, I created more collages using copies of my Gelli printed and painted papers and came up with this look.  Yummy but I haven't explored this one yet in repeat but you know that will happen!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and keep on creating!!!

Margaret