Around the World Blog Hop and New Shibori and Tie-dyed Baseball Caps, Part Deux

Judy Sail, whose blog I have been following regularly for years,  kindly invited me to participate in the "Around the World Blog Hop."  She does some wonderful dyeing, crocheting, scarves, etc.  Check out her blog here .

Many fiber artists are participating in this blog hop through answering 4 basic questions about their art.  So here we go:

1.  What am I working on?   This past weekend I played around with  doing some more over-dyeing using shibori techniques.  This was a piece that I previously clamped and dyed, using accordion folding with large metal washers and small tiles.  I refolded it in one direction, then another , put rubber bands around it and squeezed black dye into the folded edges.  I'm liking the complex layers of pattern and design.

Below is a closeup.

Below is an overdyed pink and orange ice dyed print, on which I used a shibori technique

 called capping.  

And recently, I've started tie-dyeing a few hats, just because.

Here's the results from Sunday's experiment, which didn't turn out as well as I hoped it would, 

but it's ok. I either needed to stitch a more simplified leaf or do 2 to 3 rows of stitching around the maple leaf, so the shape would show up better.

2.   How does my work differ from others of its genre? I have been fortunate enough to take workshops from a lot of great teachers, Jeanette de Nicolas Meyer, Caryl Bryer Fallert, Rosalie Dace, Melody Johnson, Sandy Cummings and am currently taking an online class through Craftsy from Jane Dunnewold.  I love learning new techniques but do not want my finished work to resemble theirs.  I try to allow the fabric to dictate the direction of the design and that's where the focus is, like in this quilt. Although this quilt has mark making which I've learned in a variety of classes, it is combined with lots of free-hand embroidery which I've enjoyed doing since I was 16.

3.  Why do I write/create what I do?  Because I have to.  It is what makes me tick and keeps me sane.  With teaching art full time in a middle school, I really have to make a conscious effort to carve out time for my own creating.  I'm trying to find two to three hours every weekend, and trying to hang in there until summer, when I'll have more time to truly experiment. 

4.  How does my writing/creating process work?  This will be my 116th post.  I started my blog shortly after getting an article on Itajime Shibori published in Quilting Arts (December/January 2012/13).  I'm a teacher at heart and like to share with others my experiments since I have learned so much from visiting other artists' websites.  Hopefully what I do will inspire someone else to play around with creating fabrics.  Blogging is also a great way to keep an art journal and chronicle my work for myself.  Someone whose blog has inspired me is Linda McLaughlin, so I am inviting her to join in the blog hop.  I've been especially enjoying looking at her fabulous hand-stitching in her weekly leaf series. Her blog is "Notes from Studio B"  and you can check out her lovely work here .

Shibori and Tie Dye Baseball Caps

I developed an insatiable interest in all things Shibori while pursuing my Masters degree a fews ago.  This past month on the "And then we started it on Fire" blogsite  (See link in my list of blogs to the right), different artists have been presenting information and experiments on stitched shibori.  I had a couple of hours yesterday, in between grading papers, cleaning, an all the other 'stuff'  one has to get done, to play around with stitching a leaf shape,

 

then adding small washers, etc. to the inside of the shape as I was gathering it up.

 I pulled up the stitching very tightly and soaked it in soda ash for 15 minutes.  Next I squirted dyes onto it. The fabric was a commercial varigated orange to begin with.  Stay tuned for the rinse out, coming later today after work.


I recently tie dyed a hat.  A friend of mine reallylike it and asked me to make a couple for herself and husband.  Before rinsing out:

Check back later to see how these turned out.

Pacific International Quilt Festival 2014

Yesterday I made my annual pilgrimage to Santa Clara for the Pacific International Quilt Show with a couple of good friends.  It was fabulous as always.  Here are a few of my favorite quilts.  Hope you enjoy them too.

Flowers of the Arab Spring by Susan Shie - Below is a detail.  This was a very moving quilt about the sad state of women in the Middle East who dare to speak their minds and demand rights.

Blockade by Martina Hilgert Vervoot

This piece had wonderful texture and lines.  I need to experiment more with 

 with those insertions of skinny lines. I took a great workshop from Rosalie Dace, as did this artist, where I first learned how to create those. 

Below are detail photos.

I like how the quilting stitch goes from a narrow line to the oval satin stitch.

End of the Spin by Melissa Sobotka.  

This quilt shows the ends of spools of yarn used for weaving the weft.

The closeup shows the great job Melissa did with raw edge fusing of the fabrics. 

 It won an award for best use of color.

My friend Isolde entered a quilt into PIQF for the first time, a beautiful one of Ulm Cathedral

Garden Photos

Had to get out in the garden today. It was way overdue. Did some raking and weed pulling,

 then threw lots of mulch on it. I have quite a few pomegranates.  

Played around with the photo above in Photoshop and came up with this.

  The shadows really add a lot.

The last of the Sunflowers

More Hand-dyed fabrics

Had time last Sunday to do a little dyeing. Here's the results.

This was folded and dyed in a small box, with orange in bottom of the box

 and blue added to folded edges.

Closeup of piece.  Definitely needs something more in the middle, silkscreening 

or some kind of texture.

This one I accordion folded the fabric, rolled it up, put a few rubber bands around it to keep  the roll together and  placed it into a small container.  Next I squirted dyes into the folded edges on both ends.

Really like how this one came out.

Closeup

This one was scrunched up into a small container, adding one color at a time, scrunching up more fabric, adding another color and so on.

Close up

Another Closeup

This one was placed in a large garbage can lid.  I pleated the fabric at tboth ends, tyeing it together and made small circles using rubber bands at random in center.  Then I squirted different dyes onto it.

This closeup shows the floral like designs.