Dyeing Play Day

Our Fyber Café group had another fabric dyeing play day at Meredith's in Grants Pass last week. We had great weather and smoke free skies. I did some more shibori and helped others learn how. The first piece is done with Procion MX Terra Cotta dye, the 2nd is Bronze. we love the bronze, it mixes well with other colors and sometimes the colors separate so we really did not know what color it really was. This is the first piece I have only used Bronze.

These three pieces were done with turquoise, electric blue and indigo. The photo really doesn't do the colors justice.

Bronze and electric blue, I really like this piece.

I did 3 pieces by accordion folding them, then ice dyeing them with combos of terra cotta, fire engine red, rose brown, and fuchsia. They are folded in half so you see only a part of the fabric.

As soon as I got home from that I packed for a 3 day camping trip to the Oregon coast. It was so beautiful

It was glorious weather, great tide pools, campfire and friends. I am linking this with Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click here to see what other talented textile artists are doing.

Ice Dyeing Play Day

Our Fyber Cafe group had a play day at my house to do ice dyeing. We were sweating it, the 3 previous days had been 100' but we got very lucky and it cooled down on Wednesday, to 70 for us, just perfect. We set up on wire racks with plastic & wire baskets for the fabric, layered on ice, and then sprinkled dry dye powder over the ice. We used all the baskets and wire racks that I had put out. The big yardage is Clare's, she spiraled each end of her yardage, with blue and purple dyes. Lorraine used a twist from the corner to pattern her fabric with indigo dye.

At the end of the day we were running out of baskets, so I pinned my last pieces of fabric on the clothes line. Using leftover liquid dye concentrates from a previous dye day, I dripped it on the fabrics. I had a lot of black that we did not use, and a limited color palette, no red or yellows.

I ordered silk charmuese scarves if people wanted to dye them, there were a few leftover, so I dyed them, I think I will use them as gifts when I go to the family reunion this summer.

I have been wanting some brown fabric for different applique projects and was having trouble mixing a nice one from turquoise/fuchsia/yellow primary colors. So I ordered Terra Cotta, Dutch chocolate and bronze from Dharma. Bronze is one of our favorite colors, but we really have no idea what color it really is, because it always splits into it's different parts, but it goes with just about any color we mix.

I believe that these are Electric blue & indigo, and Chinese red & fuchsia, with maybe a little terra cotta too, they have not been ironed yet, I just wanted to get something to post on Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday check her blog to see what other talented textile artists are doing this week.

Play Day at Meredith's

Whoeee! I had fun at Meredith's, for detailed description see the Fyber Cafe blog. We did ice dyeing, discharge with decolourant, and bleeding tissue paper. I mostly worked on T-shirts, ice dyeing the light ones, and discharging the darker ones. I used several stencils, and decolourant, I really like the red one with the spirograph pattern. I think I will further embellish at least one of the ice dyed ones. I did ten fat quarters of white cotton, in several group colorways. One set had jet black, warm black and bronze, then on two of the pieces I added warm yellow, and two others I added orange. I wanted rich deep colors, a few of them did come out dark, but several were lighter. The next set of colors I used was turquoise, bright green and navy, on two pieces I added bright purple, and on the others I added fuchsia. Having a set of coordinated colors, gives me several options to create a cohesive art piece. Playing with the bleeding tissue paper was fun, we applied ripped pieces with water, and the colors blended. Unfortunately I rinsed mine after removing the tissue, and lost most of the color. At the end of the day my hands were very colorful! It washed out quickly by the next day, but stayed in my cuticles for a week.

Photo Transfer at Pat's

We had a wonderful time, printing photographs onto fabric, at Pat's on President's Day. A nice group got together, and brought their photos to download into Pat's new Laptop computer. I had a handout on preparing treated fabric, printing from Windows Photo Wizard, and printing from Adobe Photoshop. We mostly used the Photoshop program, because it allowed us to enhance the photos, kick up the color and contrast and otherwise play with them. We also wanted to print 8" x 10" to save fabric. Dorie and Meredith were impressed with how it could make an average photo (or photographer)into something special. We printed several photos for each person, and played with cropping and flipping images. By lunch time we were ready for a fabulous potluck, taco soup from Pat, homemade bread from Amy and brownies, banana bread and various other desserts. Really good cheesy-melty french bread from Landreth. After lunch we mostly talked about printing options and what to do with our photos, and called it an early day. I am looking forward to seeing what people make with their prints. For more info go to FyberCafe.blogspot.com

Looking forward

I am anticipating fun tomorrow at a Play Day at Pat's. The Fyber Cafe group is going to work on printing our photographs on to fabric. Pat has a new laptop and printer, so I went out to her place yesterday and we checked to make sure we knew what we were doing. It's a good thing we did, cause the new printer kept wanting to steal our photos from Photoshop, and we couldn't find the Windows Photo Wizard for a while. We also figured out how to download my photos from a flash drive and hers from her camera card. We printed onto fabric from Photoshop and Windows, and the fabric went through her printer great. So we are ready for about 8 ladies to join us on Monday. I got several quilts out for a trunk show of my photo-quilts, to demonstrate what can be done with photos on fabric, I also have several wonderful books to share. I updated my handouts for printing on fabric, and printing from Photoshop, so it should be an informative day. We are also going to sew projects from our photos.

Making Leaves

Several of our Fyber Cafe ladies attended a leaf making workshop for Sherry and Kay. Sherry's fiber group in Ketchican, Alaska has a grant to make a 17 foot fiber tree in the children's section of the new public library. They need thousands of leaves, so we spent the day painting and stamping on paper and layering with a stem and fabric backing.

They still need to be trimmed and coated with gloss medium, Sherry had samples of finished leaves for us to admire. We had a wonderful lunch and it was fun to make a mess with paints and help a wonderful cause.

More Ice Dyeing

Several ladies from Fyber Cafe came over to do some more ice dyeing, as they missed the workshop. We did silk scarves and a shawl, silk yarn, cotton muslin, and almost a kitten.

The pinks are all mine, I put a bunch of scraps together in one basket, so they came out similar, I used fuchsia, red, and burgundy dye. My cheesecloth came out peach, and I got one muslin with bronze dye, that came out a rich salmon color. I tried some silk hankies, in plastic strawberry baskets, but now I don't know what to do with them. They are not handkerchiefs they are layers of silk fiber for spinning. For more info see Fybercafe.blogspot.com there are more photos posted.

Anticipation

I am WAITING for fun! Tomorrow my art friend Peggy is coming over for a play day. I have been wanting to work on some discharging, but I had to wait for my Dharma order of anti-chlor, it came quickly, now I'm waiting for my friend. I'm also waiting for our dye workshop in two weeks. I have wanted to try marbling for a long time, so our textile arts group "Fyber Cafe" finally got organized to try it at our workshop. We will be using paints, not dye, but we felt we needed enough space, and the outdoor environment(sort of in an open garage) so we could all work on it together. The anticipation is killing me. We got a marbling kit from Dharma, and one of the ladies in Fyber Cafe has all the trays and combs for us to use. I am sort of organizing this effort, so I need to cut up strips of newspaper, and get some supplies together. Also in the plans is ice dyeing, we have had several show and tell efforts to "ooh and ahh" over, and I am drooling to get started on this too. When I get to the workshop, I just vibrate with excitement!! and just have to go, go, go!! It is the highlight of my summer!! Heavy use of exclamation marks. So with all this fun running around in my brain, what to do in the mean time? I have been working on this months challenge for the site andthenwesetitonfire.blogspot.com using muslin and watered down glue to make a crumpled-textured fabric, I have layered on tissue paper with more glue, and the next step is cheesecloth. But I have to go buy more cheesecloth, as all that I have is dyed, I have no white cheesecloth. This is the second time this has happened, I want white, and it is all dyed! I assume the next step is to paint the fabric we have created, but who knows, I'll have to check back on the site, and see what is next. So my creative juices are flowing, but I CAN'T WAIT!!

Journal Covers @ Pats Play Day

A bunch of us got together at Pat's for a play day, sewing journal covers for black and white composition books, and for smaller spiral notebooks. We had a great time, sewing "skinny strips" into our hand dyed fabric to accent and add interest to the fabric. When we had what we wanted, Pat helped us trim to size and layer with lining, batting and pocket flaps. The sewing was quick, after getting everything assembled. I had one piece of fabric already done as a sample, and another I put together with scraps from a photo project. These plus the third piece I made that day, created some really interesting journal covers. My fabric was a red/orange/yellow dyed print that I added yellow and fuchsia strips to, or yellow and red strips. The one with the red, also got embellished with extra trim, dyed cheesecloth and yarn, and when I got home I added vintage red plastic buttons. I had made, at home, two smaller spiral notebook covers as sample for the workshop, I made a handout with directions, but we didn't have time for that technique. Mine were made out of two hand made soy wax batik fabrics, from the dye workshop at Vera's. Both were pink and purple, printed with cookie cutters, one stars and the other flowers, they worked great for covers, I had a hard time trying to use them in quilts, because of the large pattern. I added Angelina fibers to the stars and beads and couched thread to the flowers, both have a button & hair scrunchy closure.

Preparing for Pat's Play Day

Our textile arts group "Fyber Cafe," is having a play day next Tuesday, so I have been getting ready for some of the projects. I will be doing a demo with the "Skinny Strips" from the blog andthenwesetitonfire.blogspot.com It will make a piece of fabric that will work well with the journal covers we plan on making. I also made a piece of embellished fabric with a strip of a photo I had leftover, some batiks, dyed cheesecloth and melted Lutrador. This will also be used for a journal cover. We will also be doing a variety of other sewing projects, covers for small spiral bound notebooks, a small change purse or other purse patterns. If we have time Kay will also do a hands on weaving project with found natural materials that she teaches to school kids in Alaska. So it will be a productive busy day, we can embellish all these projects with a variety of stuff also. Looking forward to just visiting with the creative ladies of our group, and PLAYING!

Play Day at Vera's

6 Members of the Fyber Cafe, textile arts group, went to Vera's for a play day. We took several homemade gelatin plates and our acrylic paints. The young girl that I mentor was able to go, 'cause it was spring break, and I love having her along, she is so creative. We played all morning with the paints, masks, and foam stamps on the gelatin plates. Peggy worked in a series of lavender purple and yellow moons, with stamped dragonflies, Pat made a raven print and a red lily on a textured green background. Several people played with wood carved blocks from Indonesia to stamp their fabrics, and a new lady worked with a discharge process, to remove the color from black fabric. She used "Finish" dishwasher liquid for her discharge medium. I made several "Moon" prints also, as it leaves a big area to show through the bottom layer of paint, also a favorite was a bird on a branch stencil that we used as a mask. We had a brown bag lunch, but Vera had made a pineapple/rhubarb pie, oh delish!! After lunch the new lady, Landreth, showed us how to make 3-D flowers and bugs for decorative coffee sleeves. They were beautiful finished up in a cluster. She uses Golden Medium GAC400 as a sealant, as it bonds into the fibers of the fabric and is very stiff and permanent. After that we made a few more prints and cleaned up for the afternoon. We had an awesome time, and tried different techniques, which is a great way to spend a play day! I'm looking forward to see what everyone makes with their fabrics. Next up, a field trip on Friday to the Big Portland Sewing and Quilting Expo! Yeah!!