Lucious Hand Dyed Fabric

I have used a few of these in my quilts but there are so many more to use. Everything you see in this post is some method of shibori dyeing.

I played with new ideas creating this group of fabrics and also used some more common methods.


Common palette, different manipulations.


These were dyed black and then discharged with 3 different products.
Dyeing holds my interest as the possibilities are endless.
It is a challenge to decide how to best use each fabric.

Chasing Rainbows 6

I am so pleased to have finished another quilt in this series.
Each one is very different than the others which is my goal.

The coloration of this one is more limited that the previous ones. It will be an easy quilt to live with and will evoke a peaceful feeling, all the while keeping you interested and seeing something you haven’t seen before.

This is the fabric I created by dyeing several times before I did the satin stitching on this finished piece. If you are one of my Facebook friends you may have seen me post the fabric recently.
I really love making these. They are very labor intensive as I need to do a lot of thread changes, design and color decisions. Yet, a finished work is so satisfying.

Red Magic

I did shibori dyeing over some dye dogs and got some amazing new pieces to work with.

Over twenty years ago I painted this with thickened dyes. I was surprised how the red dye really made this come to life.


This is the before.
This was a green piece with some glue resist I believe. I was not expecting results as wonderful as I received with the red dye.
The photo below is the before picture.


This piece was given to me and it had been painted. The red really made it sing.

Four of us got together and carved our own printing blocks and then a few days later we got together and printed with them.
Since these were test pieces I didn’t use wonderful fabrics to print on. The red dye definitely brought this up enough notches that it is now something I will use in a composition.
There will be more to come in the future sharing my results as there were 20 pieces in the bucket.

And So It Begins………..

Who says you can’t use artist hand dyed fabrics and printed fabrics together?

This is the very beginning of a new composition I am working on.
I have been auditioning fabrics for the last couple weeks finding combinations that played well together.
These made the cut and will be joined by others as it goes merrily on it’s way to completion.

A Studio Is Never Finished–Part 3

Finding studio space for me can expand into any and every part of the house.
In this picture you see some fabrics I have recently dyed or painted as well as some from previous times.

When I play with fabrics like this I often find combinations of fabrics I would have never thought of putting together like these. They do have similar colors.]

Here is a very assorted group of fabrics that I am considering using, not necessarily all together.
Fabric is the thing that has been the starting point for me in my journey. I loved fabric as a child and have used it every since in one way or another. It fills my studio and inspires me to keep on creating and drawing my inspiration from it.
YES, it all starts with fabric, my own, commercial fabrics or some created by others.
And that my friends is WHY I need studio space!

Mary’s Scarves

Last night I showed Mary how to dye scarves and she really became the expert.

This group features her blues, greens and turquoise ones.

I have never tried dyeing with this black dye. The variations she got with the 3 scarves she dyed black was amazing.

Not only was the depth of color so different, but also the veining she got.

This rainbow of colors includes all the scarves she did with the warm colors, as well as some cool colors.

It is fun to see the variety of textures she achieved.

She dyed a total of 13 scarves, quite appropriate as her birthday is on the 13th of a month coming soon.

Our visit was over a little while ago as she heads back to the frozen tundra where the temperature is 15 degrees this morning.

The time went to fast and we had so much fun sharing family memories, and so much more.

A Pole And A Piece Of Fabric And More

Tonight we had our orientation dinner at Nancy Crow's barn before we start our week of classes.
The quilt you see here was made by Pauline Davy from fabrics she shibori dyed.
We are taking another shibori class from Jan Myers-Newbury called "A Pole And A Piece Of Fabric". I hope I produce something half as nice as this gorgeous quilt Pauline created.


Here are most of the participants who will be taking either Jan's Class or Nancy's class this week at dinner. The dinner was fantastic.


This is Margaret Wolf, our chef for the week. She is a creative cook who feeds us lunch, homemade afternoon snacks and dinner. Her cooking alone is enough to make someone become interested in fiber arts so they can come to the barn and take a class and eat Margaret's cooking. And yes, she is just as nice as she looks in this picture.


This is John, Nancy Crow and Nathaniel who have created this wonderful place we all keep coming back to for the wonderful classes and the whole farm atmosphere.

Keep watching as I share more as the week progresses. I am looking forward to it.

Irresistible

I have to admit when I look at the fabrics I paint and dye they are irresistible. The fabrics I am showing you today are cottons. The techniques I used on these are similar to those I used on the silks I shared on Friday.


To create this effect I used many layers of dyeing on this piece of fabric. It is one of my favorites.



This started as a pale yellow fabric with a white design. The white design is more like a paint and doesn't take the dye. You can see the reverse of the fabric here.
I creates a slight show through texture on the right side.



This piece also has at least three layers of pattern because of the multiple dye baths. The colors are cooler and not as strong as the red piece.



The layering on this is created with monochromatic blue dye baths. It almost looks like an Xray!

Don't Fence Me In

You see quite a variety of things on my blog.
I have been sharing fabrics I have created recently and have two more for you.
These are different than what you have been seeing recently and also quite different from each other.



This started out much like the fabrics I showed you yesterday. I did two different layers of dye. I hand carved a stamp that I used to print the rust design. Since I wasn't too careful when I carved the stamp a piece broke off. I then stamped the black with the piece that broke off and feel that creates an accent while also unifying the design.



This design is painted with undiluted Seta-color paint. The consistency of the paint lends itself to this style of painting. Symmetrical designs such as this are usually out of my comfort zone. I enjoyed creating this and am very pleased with the finished look.

You've Got A Friend + Colors Of My Silks

I had a great visit with a long time long lost friend today. Although we did see each other recently today was a "Girlfriend's Lunch".
I remembered to take the arrival photograph that I take when friends visit for the first time.



Once we started talking I never remembered to take food photos or the "Ladies Who Lunch" photo.
It's wonderful to see someone you haven't seen in 47 years and still be able to pick up where you left off and catch up on the years you've missed in each other's lives.

We've got a lot more catching up to do and we won't wait 47 more years to do it.

I also want to share some silk fabrics I have dyed and dyed and dyed! These have at least 3 dye baths on each piece to give depth of color and pattern to them.


I can not remember the order I dyed the colors in this fabric. I folded it differently each time I dyed it and the resulting fabric has many variations in patterning.


I also used at least 3 layers of dyeing in this particular fabric. Again I have no idea what colors, manipulations or order I did things in. These are not fabrics that are meant to be reproducible.



The patterning in this fabric is quite different than the first two. It also has at least 3 layers of color.

I can not bear to cut up any one of these so I would guess each will be used in a pillow.

I hope you enjoy the challenge of this puzzle.

Fiber Art Postcards

I want to share some of the Fiber Art postcards I have made. I continue to make them for special friends but I often forget to take a picture of them.



Rosy Future 1 is made with fabric I painted, stamped and stitched. It is in a private collection as are all of these.



Rosy Future 2 is the second in this series. It has the added threads and a jelly bead.


Hill Country is created entirely with commercial fabrics. You can put a stamp on these and mail them without an envelope with the same stamp you would put on a first class letter.



Night Bloom was made from the same collection of commercial fabrics. These are so much fun to create.
These can be framed in a standard 4 x 6 inch commercial frame. There are frames with any number of openings depending on how many cards you have to frame.



Crazy For You features gradations of hand dyed fabrics. The patterned areas are polymer clay which was placed on the fabric and run through the Pasta Machine which imbeds the clay into the fabric. They are baked after they are married with the fabrics. The seams are finished with decorative stitches.


My Rosy Future postcard is your puzzle today.

I definitely have a color signature! Rerun

I am looking over the fabrics I dyed in both Carol Soderlund and Jan Myers-Newbury's classes these last two weeks.
Since I went into both classes with no agenda other than to learn all I could I was slightly surprised how well the fabrics from one class worked with the fabrics from the other.

These were the fabrics I dyed for our Thursday project in Carol's class.

This group of fabrics started as a dark to light gradation of yellow fabrics. I overdyed them all with the same olive green using the same technique on all of them. These were done in Jan's class.

In addition to having the same olivey color this piece picks up the blue from the fourth example in the first photo. This was done in Jan's class.

It was a surprise to me that the fabrics we dyed and then discharged had my olive palette color when discharged.

Even these silk fabrics have the same color signature. Jan's class again.
I always am attracted to greens and blue greens.
In addition to these I also love fall and the colors Mother Nature provides to feast our eyes on.
But if I want to be honest I think I really love all colors and enjoy working with them, changing my palette I use from time to time.

Another chance to see Quilts: Another Dimension - The June Series Quilts Part 3

This is another quilt that mixes some recently created fabrics with some that were in my collection. There were a few places that created a challenge when I pieced this.



This quilt is fused rather than pieced. If you study this carefully you may be able to see where I cut a shape from one fabric and find the other part of the cut out in another location.



The multicolored design area of this quilt was first painted with thickened dye and then overpainted with fabric paint. The border is a hand dyed fabric.



The white background fabric that makes up the center diamond and border of this quilt came from one of my dye clean up rags. These can make some of the best fabrics.
I added shibori dying to the part I used for the center diamond. I struggled to find a fabric for the borders of this quilt. It was only after I finished it and I sent a photo to a friend that she asked me about using the same fabric in the border and the center section. I didn't even realize they were BOTH from that same dye rag. All of these fabrics were from my collection.



This is the other quilt in this series tht was created with fusing, rather than piecing.


The fabrics I used in this quilt had been in my collection for an extended period of time. I really didn't care for these fabrics. It was only after I started cutting them and putting them on the design wall that a very pleasing arrangement appeared. It is a simple quilt, but simple can be quite attractive.



Once you have used your dye to dye a piece of fabric the dye that is left is usually not able to dye another piece. The light lavender fabric and the focal section with the fan like appearance were both done with leftover dyes. I have a hard time creating, making and using light fabrics and yet I absolutely loved these two fabrics and made it a point to use them in this quilt. Most of the other fabrics were from my collection.

This concludes the quilts in the June Series. It does not conclude the quilts I exhibited in Quilt: Another Dimension. Stay tuned and you will see the rest of them.

Here you go!