Painted Fabrics ala Mickey Lawler

Sorry I haven't been able to update my blog in almost two weeks.  Have been incredibly busy with getting the elementary Art Docent Program revved up for this next year and trying to get my classroom ready to go for next Tuesday when the little middle school darlings arrive.

But last Wednesday, I took a break from all thing school related and painted some fabric, ala Mickey Lawler style, http://www.skydyes.com/  Her book, Skydyes is fabulous.  It's been out forever and has wonderful, easy to follow instructions and tips on painting beautiful fabrics.

So here's a few I did.

Above is the front, where I applied the paint and below is the the back side of it.

In the picture above,  you can really see the contrast  between the front and back.  This is something you don't really get much of when you dye fabrics, because the dyes permeates the fabric much more, whereas the paint sits on top of the fabric, with the excess showing slightly on the reverse, similar to commercially silkscreened fabrics.

And another.

And another.  This was lots of fun and very improvisational, which is the way I like to work.

New York Beauties at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles

Last week, on a little mini-vacation, I had a chance to visit the  wonderful San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles http://sjquiltmuseum.org/ where they had a great show of New York Beauties.  There are about thirty quilts from 1850 to present day, in so many different variations of this versatile block.  Last year our guild block of the month chairperson, Rana, chose this block in some interesting variations and members made some wonderful quilts.  If you get a chance, get up there and visit.  The exhibit goes through October 27th.  Visit their website for more info.  Here are some pics.

New Pieced Quilt Top

This quilt was not an easy one for me, but I did enjoy the process a lot.  Sometimes when I am creating, there is a direct line, a clear vision of where I want to go and how to get there.  This time, I felt like I was floundering a lot.  I created a lot of  small blocks using innovative piecing techniques, like cutting and inserting, strip piecing, skinny lines, etc.  I could make a lot of those blocks.  It truly is very fun, creative play.  Here's what I came up with.   I plan on doing some stitching or drawing to bring out the details in the negative areas at the top of the weeds.  They are just a little too nebulous in their shapes right now and I want them to be more defined, not so 'blob-like.'  Let me know what you think.