Have a Seat

Quite a while back, on a visit to my daughter, I noticed this wonderful old chair next door, just sitting there by itself - Picture time! I love old, vintage-y things and thought this might make a good image for a small quilt.

The peeled layers of paint were wonderful.

along with the old fashion like arms

and texture.

This chair had been painted many, many times.

I also thought, what a great silk screen this would make. I liked this angle of the chair, thought it captured it the best. I pulled it up in Photoshop Elements and made it into a photocopy. There was quite a bit of "noise" surrounding the chair which I removed by cutting away from the picture and in closer to the chair, using white out. I wanted the screen to focus on the chair and not what was going on around it.

I also did some photocopies and then screens of some of the texture in the chair.

and - Have a Seat. It's a small piece and was fun to do, used up some scraps, made some new silkscreens and worked with the deconstructive screen printed fabric which is hard to use.

Un-named but Finished!

I'm finishing up old pieces - samples I made years ago. This sample was done for a book I wrote on fabric marbling;  I've always liked it but had no use for it as it was, I thought quilting would make it pop and perhaps turn it into a pillow or small wallhanging.

 This is a whole cloth piece. I cut leaf shapes out of contact paper and laid them down on white silk before marbling. Marbling is a quick process so I was able to print it and remove the contact shapes before they loosened and fell off naturally. I then went back with silk paint to fill in the white leaf shape areas. It was a tedious process but I like the results.

 I wanted to make the leaves pop from the background; laying an extra layer of batting underneath the leaf area will do this.

 I also take advantage of being able to use up half filled bobbins in thread colors I can't use. I made sure my bobbin tension was spot on so no weird color thread appeared on the front.

 The quilting was free motion following the lines of the marbled pattern.

 The leaves were outlined with a rayon decorative thread; the veining done with the same color thread.

I used stretcher bars to frame the piece.

And the finished piece still waiting for a name. The leaves look to be floating so I think that might be a possibility.

Tea and Silk Screens if you Please

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter took myself and her mother in law - Jan to a tea at the St. Regis Hotel  in Atlanta, GA. It was a belated Mother's day gift as unbeknownst to my daughter, that date is booked a year in advance. This was almost better as it was so relaxing, we had our choice of tables and such a lovely treat.

  The hotel is beautiful and luxurious and made us feel so special.

 Little nesting areas of couches and comfy chairs for eating, talking and sipping .

 We started off with a glass of champagne, then had our choice of many different teas. I ordered the house blend, a little flowery and so delicious. Little cakes and sandwiches were brought out. I don't think I had a favorite, had to have a bite of each - no dinner that night!

 We loved walking around, the lobby was beautiful.

Our tea was on the second floor looking down and the staircase

 - like something from a movie.

 One of the most fun parts was checking out the Ladies room. It was gorgeous...and the tiles...

I was taking photos like crazy to make them into what else....

 a silk screen. The photo of this tile was put in photoshop and made into a photocopy using a filter. Now all I need is a lazer copy to be able to run it through my Thermofax.

 For each tile I took, I turned them into both a photocopy and something called "find edges" - one of the filters.

 This is "find edges" of the tile above it. I think it will make an interesting screen.

 And this one I really liked the veining on, a little heavier but interesting. So here it is in

"find edges".
All in all, a great day, spent with people I love, great goodies to munch on, champagne and tea and even an unexpected source for imagery for my quilts - wow, doesn't get any better!

Sh'rooms

Morning walks can be a great source of inspiration for me. One of the neighborhoods I walk in, is an older community - lots of trees, bordering on forests. The houses are probably quite dark inside as a result, but the feeling outside walking is wonderful. I think my love of forests and woods is right up there next to trees. 

There's always interesting things to see but when I come upon mushrooms, I feel like I've hit the jackpot. There weren't too many on this particular morning but enough to make me happy - look at this big beauty...

and another with a part of the cap broken away, making it a more interesting shape.

Some smaller ones withe some wonderful caps....

and  splits.

The underneath is so delicate but beautiful for printing as well as deconstructive screen printing which was my goal for the day.

I sliced the mushrooms very thin to @ 1/4" thick making them easy to work with for screening. The long stems on the larger mushroom were really interesting; I was able to get 5 cuts from it.

This is the underneath of the cap of the largest mushroom.  I love this and am thinking maybe I could turn this image into a silk screen.

I combined parts of different mushrooms;  even though they didn't look like a traditional mushroom, I'm interested in the overall effect, which I think I'll like.

I prepared quite a few screens that day, this is only half of them. And there they sat and sat as life got in the way.

Well, week 2 and here I am, finally getting to print off my screens which is always exciting as you never know what you're gonna get.

I used colors I had mixed up some time before as I was too anxious and wanted to get right to it. They were also colors I like working in - think they were blue-grey, stormy sky and blue-green. I also had a little seafoam green left, now discontinued so this was the last of it. The above are the wet dyes screened onto soda ash treated fabric and waiting to be covered and batched. I'm loving the stems.

I prepared a very large piece of pfd mercerized broadcloth cotton so I could keep on printing and printing, luckily I have a large table to handle the size. After washing, you can see how subtle the colors are. The stormy grey is the darkest, the blue greens are in the middle and have a greenish cast and the blue greys are across the top. I like the color palette,  I've always liked the more neutral and subtle colors.

Here are some detail shots. I know, hard to find the mushrooms in many instances but I do like the patterning they produced.

The stems came through great. I tried to overlap the prints as I was screening so I would have a more continuous piece of cloth, some places I succeeded and some not.

The bigger prints are 2 of my favorites as you can see the detail on the mushrooms.

The seafoam is along the bottom.

This is another favorite - the smaller caps and stems which are very recognizable.

This was the underneath side which is shown at the beginning, not as effective in the deconstructive screen printing. It's probably better to use it to print with like below.

And a piece of organza with deconstructive screen printing and placed over the fabric directly above it. I love the sheers for layering and always try to include some when I'm printing. Now what to do with it. I do have some ideas churning and hope they play out the way I picture them.