Search Results for: Three graces fabric painting

This moring, before finishing off my Butterfly potholders and working on my Corona Kimono, I was sewing the crocheted trim and the small red triangles on my Three Graces fabric painting.

Once I sewed the crocheted trim onto the bottom of the piece, I could see that the white triangle hanging down did need to be red.

So I used the red triangles I removed from another part of the quilt yesterday and hand sewed them into place.  (you can see them sewn on,  on the image at the top of the page).

Then I sewing the crocheted trim on the right side of the piece.   I didn’t get to sew the trim to the left side, I ran out of time since I wanted to get some other work done.  But I’ll finish it over the weekend or on Monday.

Once I do, I’ll know if the fabric painting is finished or if it needs more work.

“Focus Maria“, I told myself each time I pulled the needle through the fabric, the hand sewinf slowing me down.  The repetition calming me.

My Three Graces fabric painting has been hanging on my wall waiting patiently for me to work on her again.

Once I decided to dye the crocheted edging red and sew it on the bottom I was just waiting for the Scarlet fabric dye to come in the mail.  That happened this weekend and today I did the necessary unseen hand-stitching to hem the whole piece and create the small triangles at the bottom of it.

My intention was to make all the triangles red by removing more triangles from another piece of the old quilt and resewing them on the white ones at the bottom.

Even before hemming the fabric painting, I began my morning by pulling the stitches from the old quilt and freeing five red triangles.  (I always think of the woman who sewed those stitches when I do this kind of work.  These stitches were even, small and still strong enough to hold the two pieces of fabric together,  as the fabric around it was disintegrating.)

But once I saw the triangles at the bottom of the quilt, I kind of liked the mix of red and white, so I left them for now.

Then it was time to dye.

I pulled the old enamel pot, that we use for everything except cooking,  out of the back of the cabinet and filled it with water.  I heated it up to a boil and added the Scarlet Rit fabric dye.  Then, in went the crocheted edging that I cut off an old table runner and some scalloped crochet trim that I had in my stash.

The dye is the perfect color. It transforms the white crocheted from pale to earthy.   It’s drying now on the wooden rack next to the woodstove in the dining room.  I can’t wait to sew it on and see what it looks like.

I don’t know for sure yet, but I have a feeling once I do, this piece might just be done.

I have a lot of different pieces of art that I’m working on.  I’m still trying to get some more potholders made, but it just didn’t happen today. I’m selling them quickly, so I want to make more, but today my Three Graces fabric painting called to me.

When I’m doing yoga or dancing, my fabric painting hangs on the wall in front of me.  Today as I was doing the Warrior II (a yoga position)  I “saw” the bottom of the fabric painting as a line of red triangles pointing down.

So I cut the edge of the quilt and will remove some red triangles from another part of the quilt that I have and resew them on the bottom edge.

But still, it needed more.

In my mind, I saw red tassels hanging off the bottom of the piece.   I knew I had some very elaborately crocheted table runners so I looked through my stash and found these wonderfully crocheted edges sewn on a simple white table runner.

I cut them off and pinned them on the bottom of the piece.  Then I went right to my computer and bought some red clothing dye.

All that red.

It reminded me of when I first began this piece when the seriousness of the coronavirus was just becoming real.  And I thought of how I was walking in the woods and visited the Mother Tree.  How as I leaned my head against her, I saw red.  I felt red fill me up from the souls of my feet and settle in my first chakra.

Red, the root chakra. Grounding. Red like the menstrual blood that still flows from me from time to time. Red symbolizing courage, action, energy, and change.

All that red, helping to keep me steady.

Last night I stayed in my studio late hand sewing the felted animals on to the top of my Three Graces Fabric Painting.

This is a close up of the buttons and beads I sewed on last week.   I’m not sure what comes next.  This is what she looks like so far…

It’s important to make face masks.  But it’s also important for me to keep making my art.  One is about surviving the other about living.

I’m almost done sewing the buttons and bead on my Three Graces fabric painting, but it’s late and I’m tired, so I’m going to bed.

I’ll finish them up in the morning.

It was such a rainy gloomy day, I needed something to lift my spirits. So I went into my studio and danced to the Tribal Workout Video that my Bellydancing Teacher Julz made for us.

Then I worked on my Three Graces fabric painting.

I finished stitching all the symbols then sewed down the fabric in the middle of the piece.   Next, I’m going to sew buttons all around the edge of it.

Not sure what happens after that.

I continued working on my Three Graces fabric painting today.  I decided to stitch drawing of symbols regenerative energy that I found in my Language Of The Goddess book in on the white squares on the old quilt that I’m using as a ground for the piece.

This is as far as I got today.

I drew her eyes over and over again. Each time thinking they didn’t look the way I wanted them too.   And yet, each time they came out the same. I finally gave in.

Trust it,  I thought.  And I did.  Her eyes are expressing what I was feeling even if I not yet aware enough to see it.

I draped the doily around her head, a headdress, hair.

It’s the beginning of a fabric painting.  One I started thinking about in November that includes the image of The Three Graces.   I have some ideas about how to create her body.

Right now the “hair” doily is drying by the woodstove.  I let it soak in the pot of tea to darken it all afternoon.

I’m determined not to think about her too much.  Just take it one step at a time and see where it goes.

I started removing some of the appliques from the quilt I chose as a background for my new fabric painting.   I try not to think about what will happen next, but just stay in the moment.  This was just something I had to do to get the process rolling.

One of the wonderful things about doing this kind of work is that I don’t have to worry about making mistakes.  Because what may seem like a mistake, just leads to the next thing that I might not have otherwise done.

The process is a lot of small steps each building on the one before it.

It feels slow right now, but apparently I need the time in between each step.  I trust that there’s some sorting out going on between me and the piece.