Where Oh Where Have I Been?

     Where has the time gone since my last post? I think this may have been the longest time that has passed between blog posts for me. I kept meaning to make one, but then something would come up and I'd say maybe tomorrow I'll take a photo and write some lines. So let's catch up a bit...
     In mid-October, I attended my second session of the Art Cloth Mastery Class with Jane Dunnewold in San Antonio. We learned about over dyeing, discharge, more about color theory, and composition. And we critiqued the pieces we made for homework and made plans for the third session that will take place the last week in February.

dyed cloths on the line waiting to be over dyed

     After I got home, I took some of the cloths that I had discharged with various products and put them into a notebook so that I would have a reference of what the products looked like compared to each other and on different colors of dyed cloth.

two products compared on the same cloth

I had prepared many samples so I decided to cut up some of the discharged samples and make things with them. One of the things I did was to take an old canvas apron I had that was from Hershey, Pennsylvania and said "I Love Chocolate", and repurpose it. It had several stains on it so first I dyed it with two dyes... a blue and an orange. Then I sewed the discharged samples as appliqués on top of the writing and onto the pockets.

my "new" studio apron

     I also took some of the samples and pieced them together, made a quilt sandwich with ecofelt and dyed cotton backing fabric about the size of a placemat. I've begun to do some hand stitching on it.

The piece opened out

Detail of what will be a purse flap

After I finish the hand stitching, I'll fold it in such a way and machine stitch the sides and bottom, that it will be a small purse with a flap and straps. I'll post it as I make progress.

     When I got back home from my class, I was home for three days, and then I went to Chicago for a visit. It was great to see Autumn again. And to go downtown and see The Bean for the first time.

Me, doing a selfie reflection in The Bean

The Bean with Autumn's colors and Chicago skyline

Outside the Institute of Art the weekend of the World Series
hoping for a Cub's Victory

     And now I've started my homework for the Art Mastery Class that is due in February. And there is a lot of it. I hope I can be better about posting in the midst of the Holidays and homework. I'm linking up to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.