Rusty Gusty

My maternal grandmother's name was Augusta Bendikta Anderson Peterson, but her friends knew her as Gusty. She was born in Sweden and immigrated to the United States around 1900. I loved spending time with her and she taught me my great love for fiber art. Gusty would sit me in her lap and let me guide fabric through her treadle sewing machine as she treadled away. Later, she taught me the treadle rhythm, which I find very soothing to this day. I am playing around with rusty stuff and also photo transfer on watercolor paper, so I've incorporated these two techniques in this piece that I'm calling "Rusty Gusty":

That's Augusta and Herman, my grandfather, on their wedding day. My piece is not complete yet, but I dabble with it a bit every afternoon, and find the connection to my grandparents to be quite pleasing. Amy has been helping me along with the photo transfer technique, which I am finding a bit trickier than transferring onto fabric.

While testing the DuPont gold gutta on my silk swatch, I doodled a bit and then added the dyes for my scarf (see yesterday's post). I mounted the silk doodle on some watercolor paper and have made it into a little Christmas note card:

I probably ought to market these and call them "Holiday Doodles". Hmmmmmm, maybe next year!

PEACE