New Hand Dyes

I tried waiting till my mother left before I started dyeing but...well...I have never been known for my patience.  So, here are some results.  The first was wrapped around a pipe and dyed--twice.  I love the green but for my monthly IT! project I needed a bit more white.  You can see more white on the piece on the right that I sprinkled with bleach.  That great red stripe up the middle is just the red table cloth showing between the two pieces of fabric.

The second one is a cotton piece that I dyed black.  I was hoping for a bit more texture but it will do.  This is just low water immersion with a really really heavy concentration of black dye.  At that, it still took two dye sessions to get it that dark.

This last piece is a commercially dyed black cotton fabric that I discharged with bleach.  I loved the discharged fabric that Beth gave me so I decided to try and make some more of my own.  Expect to find this in a wall hanging in the near future along with some feathers I collected at the Windsor Fair Poultry barn.

Rocks for my Mom

The visit with my Mom went very well.  I did conserve my energy and hired someone else to clean the kitchen and bathroom while I tackled the clutter in my front room/studio.  Her memory is failing but her eyes were sharp enough to see the pins and needles on my floor that I missed.  Believe me, she could have seen worse.

She has given me some of the rocks she has smoothed in her lapidary  to incorporate onto quilts.  Here is the picture of one that I have finished.  It has the rocks secured with floss and the edges of the small quilt have overcast chenille yarn sewn on for the binding.

The second quilt is not finished but here are the wire wrapped  rocks ready to be sewn on a quilt. When she comes back through on her way home from  Newfoundland, I will present to her the two finished companion wall hangings.

Give away

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Friday Favorites

This has been a hard week.  Not much creative happening in my brain.
1.  I had to admit that my IT piece was less than successful.  I do have hopes that it is salvageable but I need some time before moving forward on it. 
2.  I work at a University and Monday was our first day for the Fall semester.  I've been working long hours for a couple of weeks and have a couple more weeks of it while students gets settled in.
3.  My mother is coming this weekend.  I am looking forward to her visit but a summer of ignoring house cleaning is biting me in the behind.  Now I get to drag that tired behind home from work and clean, clean, clean. 

Not a lot creative is going on but at least I get to admire those who are getting to do fun things!

Bea at Dog in the Hole Studio has a book review of FABRIC EMBELLISHING The Basics and Beyond.  I've told you before how much I LOVE getting a preview before spending my money.  This one sounds like it will make it to my wish list.  And I quote her "I like this one because it's actually set up so that you can  try all the techniques and make a sample that will fit in a book that you make.  I like that."  She also has a great post on flour paste resist.  I especially love that post given my failure with the technique on my challenge quilt.  Hers are what I had hoped mine would look like.

Have I told you about Kate North's Stay at Home Robin?  I love the concept!  It is a Round Robin for those of us who are control freaks, at least about our art work.   And, even better, the instructions are very open so almost anything goes!  It is not too late to join.   They  are only on step 3 so it would be easy to catch up.  After my mother leaves on Monday (a holiday for me) I will get started on my SAH Robin.   In my cleaning I have collected a trash bag full of fabric scraps.  I am going to use them for the SAH Robin.  First I am going to dye them all using the same shade of blue.  Of course, they are not all 100% cotton and already have a color and a pattern.  The over-dyeing should give them cohesion but not make them identical.  I will have something to post by next Friday!

Gloria Hansen has a wonderful post on how she turns pictures into art using Photoshop.  She not only takes you through the steps she uses but tells you how she saves the different steps for future inspiration.  For people like me where the creative process is more natural than the organization process, those tips were priceless.  At the end of the post she states that she has started thinking about teaching her Photoshop skills in an online class.  You might let her know if you are interested.

Last, but certainly not least, SALES on dye and fabric paint supplies!  You might want to check your supplies, re-read Elizabeth Barton's blog on the basic colors to use to mix everything else, then check these sales out.
**  8th Annual Summer Sizzler Warehouse Sale, here at C&T Publishing on September 11/12
** Artist and Craftmens  September sales
**Dharma Trading  September Silk Paint and Silk Dye Sale 

I think I will end with Bea's mantra -- Now go and create!  Let me know how it turns out.

Disaster on the Bridge: Expect delays

Remember this picture?  It is the July/August picture for Interpret This! 

I was really excited about the picture.  I could see it done in a lino print, a silkscreen, or a batik or faux batik. I spent some time thinking about it and decided to try the faux batik technique of pool dyeing.  So, first I drew a picture, simplifying the architectural elements, and took it to Staples to make it bigger.  The finished pattern is 28" x 35".  I think going big was my first mistake.

I traced the picture onto duponti silk.  I then stretched the silk on my PVC quilt frame.  Once on the frame I traced the lines again but this time with a glue gel to act as a resist.  I left it to dry for a day and then started dyeing the different sections with dyes I had thickened.  It was the first time I had tried this technique and I was a bit concerned to see if it would work.  I colored a few sections and then washed the silk to see if the resist worked and the dye dyed.  It worked!!  I drew the resist lines again and finished dyeing the piece.  At this point, I thought the quilt was going to be a success.

The next step I took was to flour paste resist it.  Again I stretched the silk on the PVC frame and covered it with the flour paste.  A couple of days later when it was completely dry, I took the silk off the frame and cracked the flour paste.  Once cracked I restretched the silk (are you counting how many times I put that silk on and off the frame?) and painted the entire top with a dye paste.  Again, I waited a day for the dye paste to dry.  Then I removed as much of the flour and dye paste as possible, soaked the silk in some water to loosen the rest, then washed it in the washer with synthropol.

Hmmm....  good news and bad.  It had some lovely cracks.  It also had some really ugly spots.  Sometimes they were right beside each other.  See what I mean?   A lovely crack and then a smudgey thing

My heart was sick but I thought I would go ahead with the quilting and see what it looked like.  Okay, time to choose a batting.  Here I really made a huge mistake!  Silk is very soft and shapeless--especially if it has been washed repeatedly like this one had.  Did I choose a nice sturdy batting that would give it shape and form and let me  push it through the sewing machine?  NO.  I chose a cotton-bamboo batting that is wonderful for baby quilts.  What was I thinking???  Next mistake was choosing silk for the back fabric also.  Once basted together I tried quilting it.  No way could I push that limp pile of fabric through my machine!

Okay, now the story gets ugly.  Did I immediately give up, take out the stitching, take out the basteing, change the batting, and try again.  NO.  I kept trying to make it work.  (some of us are slow) Finally  I gave up.  Okay, now my choices were: 1) take out all that stitching without ruining the silk (yeah right), 2) add a layer by putting a firmer batting on the back and a new material for the new back (and lose that silk from the back?),  or 3) maybe putting some water soluable stabilizer on the back so I could continue quilting and then just wash the stabilizer off.  Yeah. that was the ticket (said lazy, cheap me).

Okay, maybe one problem solved but up jumps a worse problem.  The stitching is skipping, snarling, doing ugly things on the back.  So much for saving the back of the quilt!  I changed needles, changed thread, cleaned the machine, changed needles, changed thread, cleaned the machine again. Stitching got better but never totally got better.

The Bridge is officially a UFO.  Neatly folded and hidden away until I forget the nightmares it has given and decide to try again.

Detail of the windows.