Up next!

Today I finished my poppies piece! Check it out- more pics coming whenever the weather decides to cooperate so I can take it outside for a photoshoot…

 It’ll be going up for sale in my etsy shop shortly, better pics to come I promise!

Now on to the next project, or one of the next projects! It’s something that’s been burning a hole in my brain lately, words and stitched letters. I’ve had this book, well I should say, our family has had this book and I am lucky enough to be it’s guardian, forever. Check out the published date- 1879!

 I remember poring over the pages when I was kid, maybe that’s how I got my love of lettering and typefaces. NO Comic Sans or anything even remotely like it in this, of course and thank goodness, it’s all beautiful hand-rendered lettering, ciphers, and flourishes.

Having been to design school in the pre-computer days, I can truly appreciate the skill and finesse that goes into hand-lettering. We spent many hours in class drawing letters, keeping our thicks and thins consistent, ascenders and descenders in check, and spacing correct and fine-kerned, all done using a technical pen. Ugh do you remember those awful things? Always clogging and drying out if you left them too long. I remember one of our instructors had been a sign painter in a previous job and would often pull out  a brush and some ink and hand render beautiful brushy script in a couple of simple skillful strokes. The entire class would ooh and ahh over the amazing talent he had. Anyways!

I’ve started to embrace my inner flourishy geek, of course I love the modern clean style of new fonts and lettering too, but I really get all swoony over this old style, full of ornament,  and each letter perfectly designed, adorned, and positioned. I’ve been wanting to make a sign for my art area, so I got all inspired to pull this book out and found a perfect start to my madness.

 Check out the banner with the awesome floral swirls and bannery traily goodness. LOVE it.

 So with some new age help, I scanned in the page from the book, blew it up on the computer, then printed it out to size. I traced out the banner, “S”, and floral accoutrements (adding a few extra floweries) on tracing paper, then hand-drew in the rest of the word in the banner. I also added a few hearts in the floral flourishes as well, it’s kind of my signature!

Next I’ll transfer it to fabric. I found the perfect chunk in the stash that my friend Jean gave me, I’m just giving it a wash to preshrink it and it’ll be ready to go.

So switching gears from this and as I wait for the fabric to wash then dry, I’m heading up to the sewing room to work on our latest FVMQG challenge quilt using the FreeSpirit Habitat by Jay McCarroll line. I am going to wing it, I have  a sketch and an idea so watch out fabric, here come my scissors! 

And next week I am giving a short talk about my art process and work at our monthly Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild meeting, so if you’re interested, drop in to the meeting! You can find more info here.

Off to sew!