Fiber Junkies Pt 2 - The Party

And the fun continues, not only did we have such a great day of playing and experimenting but we also celebrated a special birthday for Denny. Since Denny was born in the spooky month of Halloween and also wears spider earrings, we thought this a perfect theme. 

The plates, the napkins and creepy spiders, the tablecloth was a black web sheer covering a hand dyed fabric.

We all brought home a spider but I couldn't keep mine. I would come upon it in my studio and for a second, it scared me to death. I wasn't even thinking it was evil enough to play a prank on husband or son as I know they would return the prank - so in the garbage it had to go...but it was a good one!

We hung dyed cheesecloth and Denny was given a shawl of cheesecloth to wear. You can see both tablecloths on right along with chocolate eyeballs and spiders on top.

Gen made a pot of soup and served it in a cauldron...

along with Mary's wonderful pumpkin cheesecake.

Oops....how did he/she get on there...

and best thing of all - home made breadsticks to look like witches fingers, cleverly created by Mary. How cool is that and an added bonus...they were delicious!

On to the jewels...yes there were lots of interesting jewelry like spider noserings being modeled by  Carol, Gens daughter who always visits us when she's up from Florida.

Denny has a glow in the dark spider necklace, a wand and broom and gorgeous hat...

and the group. We are a crazy group but we do have fun and enjoy the creative input we are able to give to each other. It's always a learning day but also a laughing and inspiration day. Happy Birthday Denny!

Too Early for the White Stuff

As a rule, we never have snow this early - Nov 1...Yikes.....I do like snow as long as I don't have to drive in it or shovel it. I love to watch it falling but then I want it to be gone.

 The weather channel was right for a change, living in such a mountainous area, they often don't get it right.

 It's odd to see the fall foliage still on the trees with the snow coming down...

 a winter wonderland. I'm glad I have some great sewing projects just calling to me...

 and some hot soup and cocoa.

Til next time...

Judy

Fiber Junkies Pt 1 - The Technique

Our Fiber Junkies group met this past week for another day of experimenting and fun. We were continuing with the project from the month before. Denny introduced us to a technique she learned from Judy Coates Perez. 

Last month we created a collage type base using fabric such as muslin and added images on top. Very thin napkins (peel off the back), patterns for sewing, tissues paper were used to create an interesting backdrop. I mixed up the pictures and the 1st step is below...The next thing we did (above) was to add a wash of color over the top. We used transparent paint so a lot of the imagery would show through. I also added some watered down Lumiere metallic to give it a little sheen here and there.

Next step was to draw an image on top using a fine pointed sharpie. I over exaggerated my image as I wanted a lot of the positive space inside the image to show up with the background technique.

I did go back and blend just a little more Lumiere the inside of the tree, but most of the paint was applied around the outside of the tree. I used Lumiere, once again in a wash as it can be a very dense paint and I wanted the original imagery to show in places. I still have to layer it with a thin batting and quilt it. I like the piece, kind of different. I don't know if I'll do it again but I do love anything with layering so it just might happen.

This is Mary's piece that she started last month.

She added some interesting imagery without the paint and I love the way it works.

We always hover over Val's pieces as she always seems to create the most amazing work and this time is no exception. Her starting base above....

and her ending piece.

Kate had a wonderful image she had created months ago and wanted it to be the focal point of this piece without covering it up. She was still deciding where to go with it, so in the interim was working on a piece for her sister.

I do love the color change in the negative space starting with pink at the top and green at the bottom. The tree is very effective with all the colors.

This is the beginning of Denny's piece.

and here it is finished. I like the way you have to see into the image to see what's going on - 2 athletes - one grabbing his foot and the other throwing something - a great idea.

This was Gens original...

and finished with imagery and the final wash. It's really a fun technique and always a surprise to see the way the imagery works under layers of paint.
Join me again soon, we had a wonderful day celebrating a special birthday and a great Show and Tell.

Finishing Up

In the fiber group I'm in -  Fiber Junkies, we love doing deconstructive screen printing, especially in the warm weather when we can work outside. This summer we met at Vals - our "official" gathering place for this technique as she has such a great space. I always bring a number of blank screens and often don't get around to printing them. 

 Like this one....it was left in the garage when I unpacked the car and I just came across it the other day.

 The wonderful thing about this technique is that you can leave a screen with dried dye on it indefinitely.

 and it prints when you are ready to. I had forgotten the colors I used so it was a nice surprise when I started pulling the squeegee.

 I printed around 6 pieces.

Now the challenge of figuring what to do with them.
I've been in a funk since I've been home from Ireland, not able to get back in my studio with so much catch up to do in other areas. I also want to do a series of quilts using some of the pictures I took but I need to edit them first. Anyway, doing some no-brainers, simple things is good for me right now and easing me back into my art.

Up, Up and Away

Well, here we are going on our first trip to Ireland, on our own and driving on the "wrong" side of the road so it should be a little crazy. We are both very excited and look forward to seeing many beautiful places, meeting warm and friendly people and buying lots of fabric - mainly woolens which I love.
 
We are going to the southwest part of Ireland, the Ring of Kerry, Dingle Pennisula and the place where my grandfather and great grandfather were born.

Will have lots to share and hopefully many great pictures for future quilts.

Have a wonderful, creative 2 weeks...
See you in a while

PS The picture above is the Cliffs of Moher, one of the places we'll be going to.

Fiber Junkies Pt. 2

Well, we breaked for lunch which seems to get longer and longer, we always have so much to share. We usually do our show and tell at this point. 

Val brought some wonderful fabric she had screened on top of which had been deconstructed screen printed already.

She has a screen she made using the image from a plastic mesh.

 And how clever is this, Val did a drawing which she made into a screen - such a great look...

 and this lovely piece of deconstructive fabric with an screened edging on the side.

Back to work -  in the afternoon, we used unquilted fabric and a soft gel medium for attaching images to the surface.

Kate had some wonderful images; this is a waterfall, accidentally left sideways when I photographed it.

We used printed napkins, as well as old pictures or anything that struck our fancy.

We put them down with soft gel medium - some of us painted around them.

This is Dennys, she wanted to incorporate family photos in hers.

Kate had less glued on images so she could showcase her drawn image in the backdrop.

Gen is still working. Next month, we'll revisit our pieces and see where to go from there.
Til next time.

Fiber Junkies

Well, I'm a little late in reporting on our recent Fiber Junkies meeting last week, getting ready to go to Ireland and lots to do. This month, we explored painting on fabric that was already quilted. Denny, who saves everything, has lots of end pieces from completed quilts. 

The pieces were interesting to work with. We also had whole cloth quilted samples that Kate brought for us. She's constantly experimenting with quilting designs and these were her gorgeous discards.

After working with both styles - wholecloth and strips, I think I preferred the strips as each fabric added a different element to the background.

So how did we do it  ?....using rollers, brayers, sponge rollers and brushes, we applied paint to the surface. We used house paint - the many samples you buy at paint departments to test on a wall before using. I finally found a use for them. They seemed to work the best. The fabric needed to be sealed before applying more expensive paint on top that might get lost by seeping into the unsealed fabric. This paint worked like a charm. You can already see the wonderful transition.

Another thing we used was the samples from decorator books. So many of the fabrics are prequilted into lovely designs like the one above and below.

The paint highlights the design so well catching the tops of fabric and leaving the recessed stitched area untouched by paint - most effective.

Here are some of the samples, although in my excitement I failed to note which one belonged to who, all were fun and interesting.

Like I mentioned before, I really liked the multi fabric strips...

when done, such a great palette and also very busy.

This is one of my favorites although I don't know who it went home with. Now to figure out what to do on top, something simple - maybe a silkscreen or more details in paint - maybe in metallics.

This was an old piece of canvas I had painted and mucked up a bit - a while back. I just added a bit of circles to it and some blue paint. It's very busy but I like it and hope I can find a use for it.
Til next time...