Fiber Junkies - Working with Transparencies

The first meeting of Fiber Junkies in the new year was held at my home. We are missing Denny so much; she is temporarily on a leave of absence due to health reasons....she is most anxious to see what we are up to and us to see her....... Soooooooo ....we did a face-time for our show and tell - most successful.

It was so great to hear her voice and see her latest which is always so inspiring and usually puts us to shame.

She had several pieces in the works which she shared....

Mary is our other very prolific member who is so productive and creates such beautiful things. Mary and I share a booth at Woolworth Walk and these felted items are big sellers there....small enough for tourists to bring home in a suitcase...but so decorative and functional. I've seen Mary put little battery operated lights inside.

These are my favorite with added texture in the way of felt curls, stones and twigs.

Well I thought this was clever....Susan loves to photograph texture and use it in her work and here is a book she made through Shutterfly with pictures of texture....How cool is that! Below that are some pictures of Gen's journal which she makes from scratch (pages). Each page is numbered and lined with all sorts of fun pictures on them. The opposite page is usually painted or a technique she has learned from one of her groups...usually the "junkies".

I could drool over them all day.

It was on to the project of the day....taking any image (size of computer paper or smaller, black and white or color), scanning them onto the computer, printing them out on a transparency. Please note you must use an ink jet or the ink won't release.

Laying the transparency face down on fabric recently brushed or moistened with an acrylic medium...and using the back of a spoon or burnisher, rub the image and rub and rub...The ink will release onto the fabric. It's interesting to note that you can print a transparency and use it down the road...no time limit on using it...which is cool.

Here's Gen above who wanted to transfer a colored photo...Getting a little side-tracked...we all loved Gen's blouse which matched her imagery...getting ready for spring.

I love the ones that Kate did...all pictures of her home in Folly Beach. She took pics, turned them into line drawings in a photo editing program and chose such beautiful fabric to print them on.

Here is another one of Kate's above....

We face-timed with Denny again at the end of the day...she worked along with us and was transferring pics of her family....such a good idea on Denny and Kate's part to do this. It was a fun day....always is..

My Own Personal Challenge

Our guild had Nationally known quilter Susan Cleveland a few months back to present a lecture and workshop. I loved all the techniques she showed us and wrote an extensive blog on it. I decided I wanted to try some of the cute tricks she used on her quilts and make a smaller version for myself.. Although her style is so different from mine, I can see myself using many of her techniques altered to suit my tastes.

This was to be a VERY small piece - just a learning piece. I wanted a pieced background with a little bit of interest which I added with some stamps. Once I had the background, it was onto trying some of the fun techniques.

First up, was the piping - one of the things I loved the most was the very teeny, tiny piping she used. I have always been a fan of piping, have used it for years in both quilts and clothing construction. I've also always made my own rather than use the limited colors and coarse quality fabric of store bought...BUT nothing this thin. I love it. I have it laying between a pencil and a large sewing needle to give you an idea of how thin it is.

I thought it might be a little tedious to make because it is so thin but no......it's really quite easy. First,  cut a strip of fabric the length of what you need + 2 ", cut the width @ 1 1/4" wide. This does not have to be perfect. Wrap the strip around the piping so lengthwise edges on both sides match up. Sew as close as you can to the piping without actually stitching on it; most people find a zipper foot to work well. If you have a BERNINA, a #3 foot works like a charm. You can enclose the piping, lay it so it fits into one of the grooves on underneath side, with the side to be sewn to fall under the needle.

Here's Sue's  handy little tool - Piping Hot Binding for cutting the piping evenly and making the placement of it on the edge the perfect distance at every point. The tool has a groove which holds the piping, the excess fabric hangs out beyond the edge and is cut with a rotary cutter. You have your choice of 1/4" seam allowance or 1/2" as you can see if you look carefully at the tool. I've always trimmed my own piping and thought "Why do I need this"....well think again, this simple little tool is wonderful, a time saver and makes such a professional piping. I love piping and will be using this lots and lots.

 You can see how much the piping adds to the above seam.

This was not one of Susan's tricks but I happen to love machine buttonhole stitching and thought this piece lent itself well to it. I must add that I used a size 12 cotton thread and a topstitch needle # 100/16. Top stitching needles have the largest eye and will handle more thicker threads.

The other thing Susan cleverly uses is the Prairie point. I've also used many of them and think they are so neat but Susan uses more than one fabric, adds stitching and other doo-dads ....so here is my version. I was fresh out of "doo-dads" but think they look cute anyway. I mentioned before you can also hand stitch with this heavier thread (below) which I also love to do. I bought some of Susan's thread and realized when I got home I had quite a bit from Sulky who also makes a very nice #12 cotton thread (both on right)

My friend Marene, took up the challenge with me to make a small piece using the very tiny binding....and revealed it at our meeting yesterday. It was a nice surpise as much time had gone by and thought she might have forgotten. Mareen's is on the left.

And here's mine.........I will probably not use it for anything but it will serve as a nice reference and also a nice day of memories with Susan. 

Solitude

I have been busy creating pieces for an upcoming exhibit I'm doing with 2 friends at the NC Arboretum. Kate, Mary and I have done an exhibit there before; they give us the entire second floor to fill with our work. It's great fun and a wonderful opportunity to show and sell our work. The arboretum being nature orientated prefer that we exhibit things nature related - easy for the 3 of us as we all have done many pieces around that theme. I've been making some smaller pieces in a 9 x 12 size and using a pre-stretched canvas as a mounting board.

 My inspiration for the piece was a photograph featuring beautiful skies and sheer leaves in front. I always use my own photographs when printing on fabric...making it more personal and also to avoid any copyright issues. I took the above photograph on one of my travels. I needed to make it into a portrait orientation. I also knew that printing this photo would give me an 8 1/2 x 11 size which would be way too small.

 I needed to cut the photo in half after putting it in photoshop and making it a vertical orientation by unchecking the "constrain proportions" box allowing me to adjust the sides to any size. With some photos, doing this can distort the image but with nature, it usually works just fine.

 I was able to print each half of the photo into 8 1/2 by 11 prints, making it large enough to mount onto an 9 x 12 canvas and wrap around to the back.

The 2 halves were joined together by fusing a small strip of fusible web (around 1 ") along the top edge of the bottom photo, laying it over the top photo and fuse into place. It would be very obvious if you did a straight cut and then fused. It's better to cut along an uneven edge - in this case, the tree and building silhouette. Up close, you cannot see where the 2 pieces were joined which was my goal.

Next came the leaves to use as overlays. I had several options and made samples to see what created the most pleasing effect. I was working with organza which is very sheer with lots of body. The first sample was a silkscreen with a dark gray/black paint. It was way too heavy.

I 

I loved the leaf and screened it on paper and then removed a lot of the dark areas using white out. From that new print, I was able to make another silkscreen which has a lighter look. After screening this onto organza, they were cut out. I liked the new look but thought they still might be too heavy.

 Throughout the process, I used a padded surface. Since organza is so sheer, much of the paint seeps through to the padding to create some really great images and fabric.

 My next option was to print these leaves onto organza using an inkjet printer. Inkjet images are much softer than a silkscreen which uses paint.

 I think I like this look better. The images were cut out and the edges burned with a wood burning tool giving a nice look to the edge which is obvious in the finished piece.

A branch was machine embroidered onto the surface. The leaves were attached using a monofilament thread stitching down the vein lines. I look at this piece and the first thing that comes to mind is a quiet, peaceful place hence the name  ...."Solitude".

Vat Dyeing

I had the opportunity to take a class in vat dyeing on Saturday. I always wanted to try it but hesitated because of the lye that was used in the process. My friend Denny recently took this workshop and loved it - felt very comfortable with it so I decided to jump in. 4 of the 6 gals in Fiber Junkies all signed up - we were off and running. We did 2 pieces the first being a test piece. The process in a nutshell; you work with fabric, usually silk or cotton dyed with an acid or mx dye both of which can be discharged. A vat dye mix, some paste and I assume discharge of some sort is then applied to surface through screening or stamps. The vat dye image removes color underneath and replaces it with the color of the vat dye. This is done through the final step of steaming.

The paste mix is quite gummy and easy to apply. We all brought stamps and other kinds of imagery to use in the first step.

Here is my piece before it was steamed.

The next step is to get them ready for the steamer. They are layered with fabric in between so no piece touches another. This is done while the dyes are still wet.

After being rolled up in fabric, they are then rolled in paper to capture any excess moisture that might accumulate on the package from the steam.

The steamer is quite sophisticated with double gas burners. It has a rod the pieces are initially rolled on making for an easy placement in the steamer.

Here is my piece after steaming - the colors quite vibrant.

Next piece was more involved; we carved stamps out of pieces of insulation board using a wood burning tool. We all wore masks and worked outside as the fumes from insulation board are not good. Since I have no drawing skills, I used this wonderful stencil created by Mary Stori - it worked out so well. The pieces of board were cut the width of the scarf so we could have a nice design that fit perfectly.

The idea was to remove as much of the background so the color of the scarf would show. I had a hard time with that concept until I actually saw the finished product and then the lightbulb went on! I just kept burning away as Charlie, our instructor told me to.

Charlie had dyed a beautiful assortment of silk satin scarfs, choosing a color was difficult - just so many luscious colors.

Kate did a wonderful design she drew with a sharpie first and then burned it out

and her scarf....before steaming.

After wrapping and steaming once again we were ready for the water soak.

We were all so anxious to see the results - even though they only had to be soaked for 10 minutes, it was the longest ten minutes ever!

Denny's came out beautiful; she worked with rayon as she's allergic to silk. It was interesting to see how the process worked on rayon and it turned out wonderful.

Here'e Kates - beautiful and her favorite colors.

This is Val's drawing as she was transferring it to the insulation board.

She worked with a cranberry colored silk and did a lot of overlapping - and the results were wonderful - no surprise there. Val is our resident artist; everything she does is magical!

And my cat-tails, before steaming which were also overlapped...

and the finished piece I'm doing a happy dance as I'm very pleased with the results and even more so to find the technique fun and comfortable to work with.

And the resident cat - Rudy, I'm a cat lover so he became my pal that day. I have to say that
Charlie Slate in Greenville, SC does a beautiful job with this class. I am looking forward to taking another workshop from her.