Stuff…

September 20, 2011 by 6 Comments

I have not blogged in a while.  I have been busy prepping for a couple of shows as well as my solo exhibit.  But tonight I will post a couple of things.

First, I finished two silk scarves today.  They have been rusting for a little too long…I had a show over the weekend so they were left alone with the steel wool. But today I did more printing on them with  new Thermofax screen designs and a 50 cent on clearance bottle of Lumiere paint in Old Brass color.  It looks good on rust dyed silk.  One scarf  is silk habatoi and one is crepe de chine.

Then there is this photo of an unknown bush that I took at Harmonie State Park in Indiana a couple of weeks ago.  The flower is pretty but I don’t know what it is.

I am trying hard not to freak out as the countdown to the exhibit goes on and I look at all the work I have left to do.  I think I see some late nights coming! I wonder if I really have time to take a day off to go to St. Louis for the opening of Speaking of Fibers (I have two pieces in it) and to view Quilt National…you betcha I do!~

 

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The Next Day

December 8, 2010 by 9 Comments

Ok, I need some help.  I was thinking about making the bags a little different than I usually do….but then I couldn’t resist making some with a boxed bottom.  You tell me which you like best.

Is it this way?

Or this way?

They are pretty cute sitting up….

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New Product Time

October 31, 2010 by 2 Comments

I recently ordered some of Lesley Riley’s TAP Transfer Artist Paper.  I have been wanting to try this for some time.  It is wonderful and I love it.  It transfers beautifully.

Here is my first sample.  There will be more.  I used a little play on words…

This is a color transfer…I did not color it with pencils or anything.

I have some for sale…contact me if you are interested.  There are 5 sheets in the pack for $13, full instructions and a sheet of silicone release paper.

In other news, I have been cleaning up my workspace in the garage, cleaning out the fridge and trying to use up dyes before they get too old.  I dyed several yards of stuff and then discharged some designs on the black.  I found out there was lots of green in that black dye.  The big circle stamp is my new favorite thing to stamp with.

I discovered I could set the white balance on this camera according to the kind of light I am shooting in.  Holly Knott has a great tutorial on her blog about shooting your own work.  It is well worth reading, especially if you can’t take it to a photographer and need to photograph your own art.  Read it here.

I couldn’t resist ordering wool roving in my last order and have been playing at felting beads. Aren’t they cute?  Pretty easy and fun to make.

Tuesday is election day.  I will be working as a judge doing my civic duty and guarding the integrity of our elections.

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What I’m Getting Done

October 16, 2010 by 1 Comment

Some days it’s not so much, except for a visit to Curves and errands. I finally got my life arranged where I could start doing some printing this week.  I need to print several yards of cloth…how much I’m not so sure.  I guess I’ll know when I get there.  Thursday I got dye paint mixed and then yesterday I got 4 yards printed.  I have 3 weeks before I vend at my next quilt show, so I need to make good use of the time I have between now and then.  After printing the cloth, then there is sewing it up into items for the home.

I call this a VERY improvisational screen printing technique…basically, I just paint circles and drips on the screen and immediately print it.

I made table napkins from the other colorway I previously printed.

There will be matching tablerunners also.

Someone on my blogroll has now turned me on to what a “potato chip” scarf is.  Today has seen me online hunting up a pattern and yarns.  And ordering.  Since I don’t really knit yet, I will crochet it with a big hook.  My nieces may get these cool scarves for Christmas….we’ll see how I get along.  I also got my new printed fabrics ironed.

From the Lion Brand yarn website, the double boa ruffled scarf…

My plan is to do three colorways for Select Collections.  I will print black and white as well as more of the amethyst, curry, and turkey red colors.  That’s all I’m gonna do. Ideas need to percolate too.  It takes about an hour to print two yards of fabric in this manner.  I can’t do it all in one piece as my set up won’t handle it at the moment, so I do one yard at a time.

I now have sets of inks for sale…I have the Mini Stations for painted faces and the Basic colors Mini Station.  Contact me if you’re interested.  These are very nice inks to work with if you like to do detail work. They look wonderful on the cloth I dye on which is a 76 x 74 thread count.  I won’t use Setacolors on this cloth…it just looks better on Pimatex cotton, but these inks paint well on this pfd cotton, which I like about them.  Each mini-station comes with a helpful dvd, and there are tutorials on the internet to help you learn to use them too.

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Week In Review

August 12, 2010 by 5 Comments

It’s been a strange week. I slightly twisted my ankle last Saturday, but no pain and swelling showed up til Sunday afternoon.  And it swelled up really good by Monday.  I hobbled around the house determined not to let time be a’ wastin’…

I kept ice on it a lot, but also spent time at my sewing machine.  I had printed a huge piece of cloth a while back and decided to make these…those of you who read my blog will recognize the cloth…I love these…

Since I sold my first set of screen printed throw pillows last Saturday, I am now highly motivated to keep going, so I sewed up a few more covers, after cutting lots of fabric for the backs.

It’s too hot to be outside printing since we don’t seem to be able to move past 100 plus degree days. But I have lots of indoor work to be done as long as I can keep supplied with everything I need.  In my “weakened state” I made a request  on Facebook to see if anyone was going to Walmart. Could they check on zippers for me please?  One of my friends did go there but they didn’t have any of the polyester zippers I needed for my bags. So I placed an order with Brewer which I needed to do anyway, but wasn’t ready to do it this early.  I ordered a bunch of zippers, but they only had one box of the Cloister Brown and I needed many.  Sigh.  But the three zippers I got are enough to hold me at this moment.  I am making bags which are liners for a basket purse.  My friend Kay is a basketweaver and we are teaming up on this project.  I think the liners might help her sell the baskets better.  She did sell a purse and liner last Saturday. Woohoo! She has two big shows next month, so I gotta get busy.

And then there’s my own work…I am giving thought to creating hand dyed cotton napkins with matching table runners.  This is for the Select Collection event to be held in November.  The theme is home and wearables.  I dyed some shibori designs on fat quarters.  Table napkins, anyone?

Kay likes them and thinks they would be great as napkins.  What do you think?

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Working, Working, Working

July 6, 2010 by 8 Comments

Last week I took advantage of the wonderfully mild weather to get out in the patio and work on silk scarves.  I screened on most of them.  I used deconstructed screen designs, glue designs, and paper resist designs.  Some of my breakdown screens didn’t print very long.  The new silk screens that Julia and I made worked well, but I see mine are starting to stretch a little.  Perhaps that is because I didn’t review Kerr Grabowski’s instructions before we  made them!  This throw together scarf design turned out to be my favorite.  Since I ran out of good breakdown prints, I used other screens and partial designs on it.  Another idea has emerged for me to use for future screening.  I love the contrast of a large bold design over smaller prints.

The other side of this scarf is a bit different, just because with printing by hand you can get lots of variety. This scarf was printed using all three of the types of printing I mentioned earlier. I’m having a great love affair with chartreuse and turquoise this summer, as well as all the blends in between the two that happen when one does not wash the screens between printing.  This scarf is printed on silk charmeuse.

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Filed Under: breakdown printing, dye paint, dyeing, hand dyed silk scarves, printmaking, silk scarves Tagged With: , , , , ,

Serendipity Printing

September 25, 2009 by Leave a Comment

I’ve been sickly this week, just a cold, but still had to push on and get some silk scarves dyed and printed for another art festival this weekend.  Starting life as the dropcloth for printing a scarf…I think I see the start of a new piece…I added some more marks to it.

fabrics 001

Besides black, I used Dharma’s Greenish Brown color, doubled.  It looks really brown when first printed, but after batching and washing, it looks more olive brown, drab olive, whatever.  I like it.  This is on cotton, not silk.

Filed Under: breakdown printing, creativity, dye paint, new art, printmaking, screenprinting, Thermofax screen printing Tagged With: