Stash Building or Hoarding?

On my way to the bus stop on my way to Honey's on Friday, I saw my neighbour going to his car, holding a fabric sample book.  I don't know them well but I know that he has an upholstery shop on Avenue Road.  Inbal tells me his wife is an interior designer.

I asked him if he had any old fabric sample books, told him I was a textile artist and would be happy to take them off his hands.   Saturday morning, he showed up with some 20 books of fabric samples in all shapes and patterns.  Like this:

 

Yesterday afternoon, Menachem and I took apart one book.  A lot of work to remove from the humungous staples. 

 

 And to remove the paper backing.  I made an executive decision to cut off the paper.  So I am making piles of the naked fabric and piles of the fabric glued to the paper - I am saving this for paper collage.

 There was also a pile of fabrics not in books.

 I see many possibilities.  So am I building my stash or hoarding?  What do you think?

 

 

What I am working on

I decided to work on a fabric collage with some of the fabric I bought at B-Textile and stuff I have in my stash.

I started with the background stripes in colours I felt went with the flowers in the fabric I previously spoke about.

I wasn't as diligent as I used to be and will try to remedy that in the future.

I went to B-Textile a second time hoping I'd find my wedding dress fabric (the white textured stuff) but alas they didn't have it.  So I decided to use pieces of what I have left - it was purchased in the late 60s, and a remnant at that (I was smaller and the dress was a mini).

So my initial layout was this:

 But I didn't like the wedding dress bits.

And I didn't like the white stripes.

And I didn't like the white background in the flower pieces. 

This is where I am now:

 

I put some ribbon over the white stripes to give it some oomph.

I outlined the flower fabric with a dark green dupionni silk. 

I made two flowers from the wedding fabric, one I outlined in the darker pink-red fabric because otherwise it didn't stand out against the peach fabric.  And in the middle, I put a fabric bead, made from the dress my mother wore to my brother's wedding. 

On Friday, I went with Honey and her friend to the Etobicoke Quilters Guild show and I saw a quilt which was crayons on white fabric.  When I got home, I crayoned over the flower fabric's white background and now I am happy with that.

Now to embellish.

Fabric Collage on Hand Made Paper

 Pre-Covid, I was planning to go with Devora to a paper-making course near London, Ontario.

We never got around to actually going but during Covid, I decided to order home-made paper from "Papertrail", the company which ran the paper-making course.

And in a spurt of creativity, I don't exactly know when because I didn't blog about it at the time I made four collages using 5" X 7" paper and fabric scraps.  the purples were from Alana and Michelle's , some pieces from a dress of Elsie's and other purple bits and bobs in my stash. I still have a small container full of purples so maybe at some point I'll make more purple collages.  I actually saw a tryptich on an 8 1/2" X 11"sheet, but I digress.  I am assuming I made the collages in the summer of 2024 because I photographed them on September 14, 2024 after I had framed (Dollarama frames) and hung them on the wall.

 

 

Recently, while looking for fabrics for another project, I was reminded that I have a bin of blue small pieces and white wedding gown small pieces.  So I am going to try for another 4 collages in blue and white.  I must admit that I am trying to recreate the same or similar designs in case I am not inspired to create something totally new in design.  So sue me.

And here are the 4 pieces I made.

 

And now I am moving onto browns, golds, beiges and whatever else seems to fit.

 

 

 

B Textiles

 While Carmit was here, Honey, Devora, Carmit and I went to see an exhibit at the Koffler Art Gallery.  I was not impressed.  Carmit managed to 'splain the concepts but wallpaper, torn sheets and staples did not do it for me.  I know, I am both a snob and a boor.

The second part of our outing was a trip to B Textiles.  That's the fabric store on St. Clair West which was closed for 20 year and reopened fairly recently, under the same family ownership.  A treasure trove of 60s and 70s fabrics.  We were impressed but too overwhelmed to shop.

          A really rotten selfie, I am short but not a foot shorter than Carmit.  For historic purposes,             it  shows we were there.

I decided to return by myself this week, looking for a particular fabric.   It is a piece from my wedding dress.  Said wedding mini dress, was made from a remnant about 3/4 yard of fabric.  I have since used pieces of it in various textile art works, but am running low (55 years since the wedding and a good 40 years of sewing since).

 

 Alas, they did not have it.  Lisa (of the B family) told me that a wedding seamstress had come and bought up most of their white fabrics.

I decided to buy some fabric and got a half yard of each of the following.  They are all synthetics but exactly what is a mystery.

The first, because I liked the paisley pattern.  It is not cotton but a silk screen with the selvage "Carsilca International Screen Printing". And it has a paisley pattern.

 

The second, because it is so out of my comfort zone.  Flower power, also synthetic.I can see it paired with a peach fancy fabric someone gave me years ago and a deep pink/magenta dupionni silk in my stash.  What exactly I will do with them, I don't know.

 

And the third I bought because I intend to cut it up and use the individual silver circles with frayed edges in other pieces.

And before I forget, at the Faigie Estate "sale", I picked up a bag of what I thought was quilt batting.  Turns out it was white wool felt. Carmit said to wash a sample to see how much it shrinks.  A 12" square turned into a 9 1/2" square. So I won't be using it for bed quilts butI can use it for my wallhangings.  The texture is quite nice.  I may finally try some needlefelting on it.  This is what it looked like before washing.

This is what it looks like after washing.  Lovely bubbly texture.

 

And again, using up stuff

I made crazy quilt blocks years ago.  I had one which I finished but never "framed".  The colours were not my usual pinks, purples and blues but rather browns, rust, oranges.  Looking through "stuff" my mother gave me, I came across an Israeli made tea towel (shows you how old that one was) and decided to use it for the frame.  ?

Long story short, I had a strip left of about 8 cm wide and 36 cm long.  I wanted to make something like this, a ceramic piece Inbal had gifted me from a trip to Arizona.

 

I tried my hand at air dried clay. Total failure.  So not my medium.  So I decided to try making something from fabric.  Several years ago, POM had a workshop using flexi-firm stabilizer.  After the workshop, I noticed that people had used a small piece of it and thrown the rest away.  I went garbage diving and pulled out the leftovers, for "future" use.

I cut the pieces into squares and rectangles, and sewed them together into larger pieces.  So I have a bunch of 8 cm pieces. 

I figure if I make a sandwich with an embellished top, two 8 cm flexi-firm pieced pieces, back it with felt and zig-zag the edges, I should have a comparable small art work. 

On top of each tea towel piece, I centred a diamond shaped piece of, what else, fabric from another old project.  Then I attached a metal bird and several beads, et voila.   Still have to figure out how to hang it but I digress.

 Three more and I'll be done.

Update:  not sure I'll make them into little hangings.  May just make them into fridge magnets.

And I whipped up some more, also from bits and pieces.

Final decision.  Fridge magnets.

Next UFO, WISP or whatever you call it

 This is part of a crazy quilt project I started years and years ago.  I had made abut 8 of these blocks, intending to do the seams with the embroidery stitches on my machine.  After I had done most of the stitches, I didn't like the feel so I painstakingly unpicked them and dismantled the quilt.  

I went to Fabricland and bought fabrics which contained blue and other colours and made separate crazy quilt blocks, using the additional colours in the borders to inform my embellishment colour choices.

 

While searching for something in my stash, I cam across this unfinished block.   I also came across a sleeveless cotton blouse Inbal had left behind.  I decided to make a shidduch.

I will now (starting December 15, 2024) embellish with some of the below.

December 19, 2024 - Finished (with triangle corners on back for hanging).

I really enjoyed this one, auditioning the reds, blues and beige/peaches.  The fabrics are mostly from wedding dresses and the findings I have accumulated along the way.  I find that I really like embellished crazy quilt.  Shaking hands, however, do not make for easy needle threading.

 

 

Fabric Bowl

 Not much to tell here.

Susan Rose demonstrated at L&S how she made fabric bowls for her guild's sale at the Calgary Film Festival.  I took her instructions and improvised in keeping with my commitment to use what's in my stash.

Long story short, this is the bowl I made.

Front

 

Back

 

Side view. 

 Quite fiddly because of the stiffness of the flexi-firm.  Might try it again with regular quilt batting.

If you want more explicit instructions, contact me.