Shoes!

A lot of my friends at quilt shows check out my shoes. I’m glad they do, because I have fun decorating them with Tsukineko Inks. Here’s how I do it. I didn’t take photos as I decorated these shoes, so I’ve recreated one of the flowers step by step, below. Of course the blank page is what can be hard to get past. My inspiration came from traditional Baltimore Album designs.

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I started by marking the center of the flower, then added seven dots around the outside for petal points. To be safe, you can do this in pencil first, then follow up with ink. Fill in the center and then draw some funky petals. Next roughly fill in the petals with the lightest color.  Then I brought in  three additional colors, using the darkest color around the center. The white areas that remained were filled in with the original pink color, then I drew some rough leaf shapes in light green between each petal.  Then another ring of petals, some filling in with a light and a dark green and voila – it’s a flower!

Since coming back from the two spring shows, I have been working on the website. All my Tsukineko products are on-line with updated inventory quantities. And right now, until midnight on March 31, 2012, you can get 13% off your Tsukineko purchases at DippyDyes.com. Thanks!

Handwork

Here’s a picture of what I have been working on since I got home from the shows:

You will need to enlarge the picture to see the detail; I have included an American and Euro 1-cent piece for scale. The fabric is about 19” / 48 cm square. The white vine is stitched resist, the pink bits are Kanzashi flowers. I love both of them, but separately. I’m not sure they work together. The fabric color is more celadon green than the grey that I see.
The stitched resist is totally inspired by Itchiku Kubota’s work. It reminds me why I love the results, AND reminds me why I don’t do this work on pieces for sale. I stopped counting my time at about 4 hours. However, I’m a slow, deliberate stitcher. The cloth is nice, but rather flat – I need to do more to it, or keep thinking about those flowers. Thanks for looking.