Designing New Quilt

Time to take some of my precious hand dyed fabrics and do something with them instead of keeping them in stacks in my overcrowded studio.  But, it's just so hard for me to cut some of these fabrics up.  However it is clearly what needs to be done.  Here's some pictures from my design wall of fabrics I'm considering for a quilt. Five of the fabrics are hand-dyed, the other six are commercial ones.

The fabric in the top right is a stitched shibori piece I made a couple of years ago. 

 That's the one that will be hardest to cup up.  

Pacific International Quilt Show - Santa Clara (PIQF)

Had a great time at PIQF yesteray. Saw wonderful quilts and artistry as usual.  There were more 'modern' quilts which I enjoyed. I find their construction techniques very interesting and especially like the ones inspired by artists of the modern period.

Here are some of my favorites.

Gazania by Evelyn Wickman.  Closeup  of center below.

Redwood Cathedral by Lyra Bobo

 Geometric Transparency by Cheryl Isbell

Love in the Digital Age by Kristin Shields

Closeup

Song of the Sea by Kathy McNeil

Closeup of needlework

Brush Fire by Christine Seeger

Griffonage by Susan Hotchkis

Closeup

From a special exhibit entitled "Wicked" based on the book, sponsored by Cherrywood Fabrics, this is a quilt by Kathy Durochik featuring deconstructed text.  Very interesting, as were many in this exhibit.

Dye-Na-Flow Shibori

Last week I blogged about how I added a layer of stenciling using thickened dye paste  to my hand painted scarf.  Although it added more interest, it was too subtle for me.  It needed a darker value and some spark.  I decided to try a third layer using Dye-Na -Flow paint.  I wrapped the scarf around a PVC pipe (see below)  and painted it with Emerald Green.  It took only an hour or so to dry enough to unwrap. Put it outside and in ten minutes it was completely dry.  Ironed it up and I love it.

Printing on Silk Scarves with Thickened Dye

This year for the Guild Auction, I'm donating two silk scarves.  There are pictures of both in my previous blog post. Yesterday, I printed with thickened dye on the hand-painted one, thinking it needed more 'something' to add interest.

While I had the thickened dye, I found another couple pieces of fabric, one cotton and one other silk scarf and printed on them as well. I had not done any thickened dye printing in a very long time. I forgot how easy it is.  I had to make up a new batch of the sodium alginate, but that goes very quick. Since I wanted to print without pre-soaking the fabrics in soda ash, I just added a mix of soda ash/baking soda to the thickened paste and liquid dye concentrate.  There's a four hour life to the paste once soda ash has been mixed into it, so it's use it or lose it.

Here's the results: