Fiber Junkies Nov, 2016 (Queen for a Day)

Fiber Junkies met at my home yesterday and what fun it was. John (hubby) bumped into Gen on the way out wearing the same vest so had to get a picture.

 With only 6 members, it's easy to become a close knit group. We started a while back to celebrate important mlestone birthdays. Mary's was last April but due to family issues with 2 of our members, it had to be postponed. We also choose a theme that's meaningful to the birthday girl.

 Mary is our wonderful beader and we had great fun coming up with beading ideas. Mary emailed us to tell us she would be late - the day of....soooo We were so happy as we could then set up our surprise and have it ready when she arrived. We usually sneak off into the kitchen and do it bit by bit hoping not to be caught. The table was set with a natural colored silk noil fabric to go home with Mary for dyeing, napkins with beaded rings, a cake with beaded edge trim and beads on the table.

When she walked in, she received her crown, sceptor and beautiful scarf with"bead queen on board"

 Next, into the studio to make use of all the wonderful tools Denny brought for her Acouquilt and many die cuts. Actually she had a suitcase full ....so a huge thanks to Denny for her generous and sharing spirit.

 It was very exciting and so fast and easy to do. We were all able to do many, many cuts.

For applique shapes, it's best to put a fusing on the back. With the Acouquilt, you can layer up to 8 fabrics including the fusing, lay them on the die, cover them with a thin plastic board and run through the machine.

 and voila!

 We all kind of staked out places to work...oops...what is that wine glass doing there?

 Onto to lunch.

 Next, into the family room for some show and tell. Mary has been making some darling fabric/felted bowls. The fabric has been further embellished with many surface design techniques we worked on at earlier FJ meetings.

 This is one of Gen's pieces from the last meeting when we did transfer dyes - really came out nice and colorful.

 Denny showed us an Ohio Star she recently finished and I think one of the prettiest I've ever seen. I love her choice and arrangement of fabrics, makes me think I might want to do one.

 Here is another one of Denny's memory quilts made of T-shirts from her husband. What makes this so appealing is that each block was bordered with a patchwork of fabrics adding so much more color and interest to the piece.

 Here is one of Val's luscious scarves she made in an eco-printing class she recently took.

and screened with "bead queen on board".
What a day! and what a group!....love them all!

SAFF - Southeast Animal Fiber Fair

The Southeast Animal Fiber Fair makes its way to Asheville every fall where they take over the buildings in the Ag center which are huge. You know you are in for a day of wonderful things to see, feel and buy. 

 If you are a knitter or a weaver, even better as most everything deals with rovings and yarn.

 I don't do either although I've always had a secret desire to knit, well.... I can knit a little and know how to make a simple scarf but that's the extent of it. I still love the hustle and bustle of these kind of events....

 and all the color, color everywhere...

 and the piles of curly rovings.

 This vendor was here last year and does the most magnificent Santas, this one is life size!

 Shelves of floss, yarn and every kind of fiber you can think of...

 and buckets where you can just reach in and touch - sooo soft.

 And speaking of soft, this sweet little French angora rabbit was at the fair for everyone to see and pet. He seemed to be quite calm with all the attention he was getting. I've always loved fur. My mother told me once, when I was a little girl - every Christmas I would get a new fur animal and I would have the fur worn off by the next Christmas...

Well, I couldn't bring that sweet little bunny home so I did the next best thing, brought home the most adorable teddy for my granddaughter; this little teddy is made of baby alpaca. You can't imagine how soft it is. I can only hope it makes it to my little Audrey  ( - :

Disperse Dyes for Dyeing and Printing - Pt. 2

Fiber Junkies met in Oct at Gen's house to continue to work on the technique of dyeing and printing with disperse dyes.  The first meeting was to prepare/paint the papers, the second meeting do the transfer. 

 You can see how easy it is - lay the painted paper face down, iron with high heat. Even if you fabric is not real heat tolerant, you do have the paper in between to serve as a buffer.

Whatever was painted on the paper appears on the fabric. 

Mary also tried blended wool (upper left) worked well

Here is one of Denny's masks on left and how she uses it on right. Denny is great at layering and layering. It's kind of addictive once you start. You can keep adding more and more color or patterning without changing the hand of the fabric.

I loved working with sheers, the upper right started with a background, a butterfly was added and then a tree on top of that (on right). The imagery and color is more subtle so it's hard to over do something.

 And a sheer.

 Some wonderful samples of our days accomplishments.

 Kate brought some curtain samples from a decorators book. They were fun to work with as they has the cardboard border all around giving them stability.

 Here's Gen modeling the last fashion in hat wear.

Gen showed us a neat tool for machine quilting - on left you can barely see it as it's clear. It has a slit going down through the middle which is where you sew and can move it in an direction so the line is continuous. You need a special foot to use this tool. Gen is sewing on her right, loves this tool especially good for those of us who can't sew a straight line.  Well I'm in!!

 And Denny's happy and latest quilt she showed us during lunch. It's sewn with long strips and appliqued flowers on top.

 Mary's latest piece is exquisite, created with old linens and lace and a theme of "silver dollars" as I've always called them - also a money plant.

Such a happy day.

Disperse Dyes for Dyeing and Printing

Last month we ventured into a new technique for us -  disperse dyes for transfering and printing on blended fabric. The fabric has to have at least 50% of a synthetic, preferably a fabric like polyester which is more heat tolerant than something like nylon.

Denny has worked with this technique extensively and led us through a day of fun and experimenting.

First thing was to show us her samples for inspiration.

Some of the background created with this technique used a silk screen on top as a second layer.

Lots of layering - much of what you see is the result of layering first one paper painted with disperse dyes, then the second paper and so on.

Denny uses lots of masks where she creates a background, lays a mask down - in this case the image of the girl, then lays more papers down on top to iron the dyes onto the background. When the mask is lifted you have this wonderful effect.

Here's our work space - lots of paper - computer paper works well, which has disperse dyes painted on top of them in any manner you want.

They can be solid, stripes, dots etc, there are endless possibilities in the way you paint the paper. You can also silk screen an image on paper using these dyes.

A transfer pen also works well, applying it to paper and then ironing the paper onto fabric to transfer the marks.

There are also iron on transfer pens in colors.

Denny also brought lots of dyes to share so we were off and running.

The first step is very fast and easy...any paper you paint on is fair game. The above is randome dots created with a brush. You can even use the newspaper underneath where it is the "over-flow" paint on it.

These papers were created using a stencil.

This paper was multi-colored....

and this one had stripes. It looks like this paper was laid over corrugated cardboard and rubbed with a fabric crayon which is a form of disperse dye.

This stencil was passed around a lot as you can see.

After these are dried, they are ironed right side down on a piece of blended or 100% polyester. The dyes are transferred through heat and only work on fabric with synthetic in it.

We just met for the second part of this mini workshop so .......Next time, the results. I will say, this technique has endless possibilities and it just gets more exciting as you work. One thing leads to another...leads to another.