Patterns, Patterns and More Patterns

It’s been busy this week with too much time on the computer. I’ve been documenting the patterns for several of my projects. There are many more to go, but at least I’ve established some templates and a bit of a system. In fact I’ve listed a couple of these patterns in my Etsy shop. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Over the past couple of years I’ve designed a variety of project bags – some to sell at my friend’s yarn shop, Knitch, some to give away as gifts, and many more to use myself.

This funky purple one was made for a friend and I liked it enough to make another for myself. It’s not clear why, but having half a dozen unfinished projects sitting around doesn’t bother me as much when they are organized in a pretty bag.

The same friend gave me a couple of great handmade reusable grocery bags. I love them, but two is never enough, so I decided to use up some excess muslin, and made these. May as well advertise my projects instead of some grocery store chain, right?

Now I have several more project bags in progress, combining fabric bodies with felted wool pockets and other interesting embellishments. I think one is going to be made from an assortment of black and white fat quarters and feature a piece of white cotton filet crochet on the pocket. 

There are also a whole group of felted bags – guess I’d better get busy and write up those patterns too. Before I know it I’ll have a book! That is if I can stop twittering long enough to get real work done. Follow me on Twitter

Ansel Adams Inspired

Have I mentioned the Ansel Adams Tribute project? The idea is to reproduce Ansel Adams photographs using fabric, quilting, and other fiber manipulation techniques. I thought it would be interesting to see if I could evoke the same depth and texture of the black and white photographs. For my first attempt I chose his 1948 photo From Hurricane Hill, Olympic National Park, Washington. Here is a link to the photo

And here is my attempt to reproduce it. (note: I haven't attached the rod pockets to the back yet, so those odd little shapes at the top are binder clips holding it up for the photograph.)

It’s interesting as a first attempt, but clearly does not reflect the detail and subtly of light, shadow and mist in the original. I tried using a bonding product called Mistyfuse™ to create the layers of mist on the distant mountains, and I really don’t think it worked. The bonding agent leaves a sheen to the areas where it has been applied that makes the mountains look hard instead of soft and ethereal. Again I would try an opaque fabric like organza.

The snow was made from cotton flannel, which may also have been a poor choice. In my original project plan I was going to use a furrowing technique to create the play of light and shadow on the snow. Then I planned to add highlights with white fabric paint. After working with it for awhile I found I couldn’t get enough distinction between low and high spots, and adding detail with paints or dyes was extremely difficult because the nap of the fabric defeated efforts to control application.

This is why I resorted to using two colors of fabric. I used spray adhesive to hold the small fabric pieces in place before stitching, but even so it was extremely challenging to add small detail, and more was needed. I might have had better results just using thread in shades of grey with an open toe darning foot to add more detail to the snow. A third, lighter shade of gray might also have helped.

Anyway, it was a fun project to think through, and I’m looking forward to trying some more of these. For the next project I think I’ll choose something a bit more angular and with less detail – perhaps ”Church, Taos Pueblo”, which Adams shot in 1942.