Rusting with old bed springs

My friend Kate found this wonderful treasure in a woods near her - mattress springs and very, very rusty.

She had taken them apart, harder than it looks and then gave them to her "rusting" friends.

So I'm experimenting, now that the hot weather is here and the time for rusting.

After I soaked the scarf in a vinegar and water solution, I went to town with the rust.

Why use a little when a LOT will do even better.  Will keep you posted.

A New Small Piece

I've been working on another small piece, this one to be mounted inside a mat board. 

I started with an image of an old window and added some silk noil on the left.  Noil is a real coarse silk that's very nubby; it takes a dye beautifully but doesn't print clearly because of the coarse texture, but the color worked so I used it.

 I thought I wanted to use a tree in front of the window so I silk screened the image using black textile paint. The image wasn't real clear which I liked in this instance.

 I also added some gold couching thread along the seam line,

and stitching around the tree...

and some gold paint sticks on the tree for highlights. I love using paint sticks. They are so easy and give good results.

After quilting the piece, I used double stick carpet tape to attach to the mat. I like using mats for smaller pieces; it's an easy way to finish the piece - no binding or facing and ready to put in a frame.
Til next time....

Ink Jet Printing

I've made a lot of deconstructive screen printed fabric over the last couple of years and it's hard to know what to do with it.  It's a very busy fabric and sometimes hard to match with other fabrics. 

I haven't printed anything using my printer in a while and thought I might try and print on a piece - just to see what would happen. The piece was a little paler than the picture shows and I was hoping that some of it would peek through the ink jet print.

I found a couple of images in my files that I thought would blend well when layered. I took this photo of an old rock building in Waynesville

and this of an old train trestle in Athens, GA where my daughter went to college. I blended the 2 photos in Photoshop Elements. The most fun part is trying all the options for blending once layered; I usually use "overlay" which shows both photos equally blended but this time the option "Difference" was really effective.

 I used 100% opacity so I wasn't sure if it the fabric would peek through, but it did and I'm very happy with the print as a result. We'll see where we go from here.

Sun Printing with Fiber Junkies

Fiber Junkies met last friday for a fun day of sun printing. The weather was with us and Val had set up her garage space into a wonderful work area. We had some interesting fabric to work on and used a variety of transparent paints.

You can see Val's hands here, painting her already dyed fabric with Set a Color and using several colors.

Leave it to Val to think of something really cool to do. Next she'll lay objects on top to block out the sun.

Even the smallest piece of fabric did not escape our hands.

We laid the fabric out on big boards as well as pieces of foam core and waited and waited for the magic to happen.

A variety of objects were laid on top; we found the heavier items that hugged the fabric worked best, although even at that, there were a lot of faint images.

These lacy ferns from Val's garden did give somewhat of an image even though they weren't snug against the fabric.

This piece used ferns - very successful and done on an already dyed fabric.

This plastic place mat turned out wonderful. I haven't seen them in years but someone said you can still get this in tablecloth form at Super stores. It looks like I'll be making a trip there soon.  What we don't use in sun printing, I think would work in deconstructive screen printing.

Gen had great success with leaves - her secret - press the leaves in a book for a week before to flatten them and before they dry out.  They were still moist but very flat when she used them to create this wonderful piece. Of course we all had to have a turn with her leaves after that. This was probably the best piece of the day.

Gen - Sun Printing Queen for the day.

All in all, it was fun to play with friends, laugh at the misses and oooh and ahhh over the successes. We had all the right ingredients so I don't know where we went wrong.  This technique has always been a hit or miss for me, today was a "major miss". But the one fabric that was beautiful - the fabric base used to cover the table - yummy.

The Woods

I've been working on some very small pieces lately.....They go together fairly quickly and I can manage to find little spurts of time to work.  I'm taking part in the Southern Highland Craft Fair this October and small is usually better. I'm also part of an online gallery - Galleribba which features the work of artists; all work must be 12" or smaller. 

For this piece - The Woods, I started with a lazer copy of a photograph of rocks.  I used an acrylic medium to coat the fabric, then laid the copy on top, piled books on top and let it sit for 24 hours.  Next I had to soak the copy/fabric in water and peel off the paper backing leaving the photo on the fabric, a little time consuming but I like the results.

I also had pictures of icicles I transferred to fabric with my printer and then cropped

I tried combinations of fabrics and some different images to screen on the rocks.  I screen images on clear plastic to lay over fabric to preview them. This one was of an old chair I really loved, but not good here.

This combination was too bold.

So I resorted to my old standby of trees to screen onto the rocks. I also added a face up in the corner. I dabbled a little green wash of paint on the rocks to pull in more green and outlined the tree with gold mylar thread for a little sparkle.

I did some screening on the strips - used lots of words.

And the finished piece.....I am linked to Nina Marie Sayres Off the Wall Friday

You'll never know what you'll find

When I visit my daughter in "Cabbage Town in Atlanta, we always take these wonderful walks. I don't know how the name originated but it's a very old part of Atlanta and in the process of being gentrified. Her neighborhood brings back memories of my growing up years; I lived in a neighborhood, just a neighborhood, real sidewalks on both sides of the street, no Home Owner's Association, houses close together so you could keep an eye out for your neighbor friends. It's kind of like that where she lives.

 As we walked around, we saw some wonderful and interesting yard art.

 I've always loved yard art, but not the conventional kind.  I like to scour Goodwill and the flea markets

 This was a bit over the top, but really fun to stop and read.

 I loved this metallic sculpture...

and the old hula hoop...

 a red torso with arms and legs growing out of the ground.

 I love the sculptures on top of the slate columns and the rusted iron works.

 This old sign on one of the buildings was one of my favorites - the site of the old neighborhood grocery.

 But this wonderful tree was my absolute favorite. I scanned the picture into Photoshop

and using a filter, made it into a "photocopy" which I'll now make into a silkscreen.
Til next time....

Thank You for Serving

In honor of our country's true heros who serve our country with honor and so selflessly, thank you. My uncles, dad, granddads were all in the various branches of the armed forces.  Until the day they died, that part of their life remained a time of pride.  If they were here today, I would hug them and tell them thanks.

 My Uncle Ted Sandell.

 My dad - Ed Sandell - first row, last on left.
Have a safe and wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

A Dumb Mistake

Well, I am a dummy. I've been ordering silk from this company for years; I know how it arrives, always the same...

 in a roll, wrapped in heavy black plastic, usually a piece of paper in between the paper and fabric (except I was thinking it was corrugated cardboard, not paper). You know - most packages you get in the mail are tightly packed, it takes more than 1 person to open, and this was no exception. After much struggling,  I took a razor blade, and thinking I had plenty of wiggle room..

 I ran it down the length of black plastic and to my surprise - cut through to the roll of silk organza.

 I didn't think it was so bad at first, but then started peeling off the layers and layers

 and layers.  I was mad at myself but then measured out the strips.  Each strip was 9" wide before the next accidental cut.  When I print on fabric, I cut them 9" wide X the width of the fabric, in this case 54" and then I Bubble Jet them.  So now I have ALL this fabric;  I have no choice but use it for printing!

Was it fate?...hmmmmmm....