Stamping Project

After a week of lost time being sick and feeling rather uncreative, I am back at it and enthusiastically working on several pieces. I just finished a small piece for my TARTS (Textile Arts) group using stamping. They gave us sticky back strips of insulation that I cut up and stuck to a piece of cardboard. They also gave us a piece of moldable foam that you can heat with a heat gun and then press onto a textured object (rubber stamp, metal object, etc.) to make a negative image stamp. I molded the foam on a fatigue mat that has about 1" holes in it, then on some rocks on my back patio area, and on a piece of plastic mesh. The rock stamp was rather interesting and organic enough to be very useful. I used brown, rust, and cranberry PRObrite pearl textile paints. I had just gotten a couple of new rubber stamps so I printed a few things with those directly on the fabric as well (pine needles and multi-squares). They will both be very useful for future projects.  I was at first reluctant to cover up a nice piece of hand-dye, but the stamping was very fun and after I gave up on the bright red they gave us in our project kit, I had a lot of fun using my own paints to do the stamping. I did use the bright red on the project I completed and it worked well there, but that and the red mesh stamping was enough of that color for me!

Plastic Mesh:

Fatigue Mat:

Loose rocks in backyard patio area:



Commercial stamps:


The group of women that I get together with every Tuesday morning decided to take a small road trip to Missoula last Friday to see my fiber art exhibit at The Whooping Crones Gallery and I went with them. There were 9 of us and we had a great time. The gallery wasn't open when we got to Missoula so we stopped at a fabric shop called Selvedge Studio which has great unique fabrics and I bought a couple of pieces. Then we went to the gallery and everyone got a chance to see my quilts hanging with the nice lighting and all in one place. We went to lunch then hit a quilt shop on our way out of town where I bought a few more pieces of fabric, but I got small pieces so I kept it very reasonable on this trip! All in all it was a very nice day and I enjoyed the company of my friends immensely. They are a great group of women and I appreciate that they include me in the group and encourage my efforts in this rather offbeat method of quilting that I do!








I am doing the base quilting for my textile arts group challenge piece and then I will be attaching the various elements to it and finishing with possibly some embroidery or beading. I only have a few more weeks to complete it so I'll have to see what I can get done. It will be in the 2nd annual TARTS fiber art show, An Affair of the heART, in Hamilton, Montana over the Valentine's Day weekend, and they will be voted on for prizes. I'm not sure mine is going to be worthy of a prize, but it will be interesting nonetheless. I have figured out how to use all of the elements they gave us without making it look to cluttered I think.

I finally pieced together a backing for the brown tree piece I was working on numerous posts ago, and I am ready to layer it and get to the quilting. I think as soon as I get the challenge piece together that will be my next effort. I think it will be a fun one to quilt, although as usual I probably won't know what to quilt on it until I choose a thread, put it under the needle and give it a go!