Play Date and Blue Roses

Last Saturday we got together for a play date and to celebrate Beth's and Rosalita's birthday. I'm not telling any secrets but Rosalita said she is turning 39 again. The play for the day was silk screen and collages. For my attempts I wanted to try using watercolor crayons with the silk screen. So, first I watched Jane Dunnewold's DVD and then I gave it a try.

Here is my first attempt. I drew directly on the screen with the crayons. I am currently infatuated with blue roses --I'll show you the reason why later--so I drew blue roses. I screened the image using a print paste so there is no color except the crayon. I printed onto 6 ft long length of fabric I had dyed with some blue and green dye earlier. So, the blue and green in the background is from the previous dye. The crayons left only the distinct markes I had made. I probably printed 6 or so times before the marks were too faded.

This is my second attempt with watercolor crayons and silk screen. This time I used two new thermofax screens I had made from a photo of a pomegranate cut in half and a photo of the rind and some loose seeds for the second screen. I colored the screens using the water color crayons and then screened them using a metalic gold print paste. The results were a wonderful mix of the colors and each print was colored slightly different. I printed onto the fabric I had eco-dyed with mums at one of our last play dates. I overlapped the images so that it would be more of an allover pattern rather than a print of pomegranates.

In the afternoon we tried to make fabric and paper collages following the directions we found on Wen Redmond's blog. She also has these instructions for collage. Unfortunately it was a while since we had read the article so we did our best. Here is my attempt. I think it is a good beginning and just needs several more layers of stuff.

Okay, on to blue roses. I am going to make a piece named Blue Roses from this silk dress I found at Goodwill.  I am not sure yet how I am going to turn them into a quilt yet. I think I will also include the eco-dyed and silk screen rose material and the bureau scarf I have already started embroidering with my hand dyed pearl cotton. I am open to suggestions.