Paint and Dye with Itajime

This is the last piece from my dyeing session a few weeks ago. It started as an experiment using paint and whiffle balls.

I did some itajime folding and clamping as you see below.

After clamping, I applied dye and let it batch for about 24 hours.

Here's the finished piece, which I feel has a lot more depth and complexity.

Wishing all my readers a very Happy New Year!

More Itajime and Over-dyeing

I started with an arashi piece made some time ago that needed a little something more.

I folded it, clamped it and applied black dye, made up of two blacks, Better Black and Jet Black (from Dharma Trading Co.) I used 3 tablespoons of each, some salt and 1 cup of urea. 

It batched for about 24 hours.

The black came out very intense and black, while the wooden discs resisted the dye

 giving the piece some nice contrast.

New Itajime Piece and More

Yesterday I created a new Itajime piece and over-dyed a few pieces.

The fabric was folded in thirds then accordion folded into triangles. 

I clamped it and soaked it in soda ash. Then I removed the clamps and applied dye by using squeeze bottles. Next I wrapped it in plastic and let it batch for 20 hours.The picture doesn't do it justice. I think my lighting was off. I like how it really glows.

Here's one I over-dyed. The original fabric is on the left. I scrunched it up, placed it in a plastic container and added a little Deep Orange to it.  I think it has more depth now.

New Stitched Shibori Resist Piece

Last weekend I did a stitched shibori resist piece in Yellows and Yellow-Oranges.  Lots of fun!

A Week Off

Lovely to sleep in with my dog this morning,  contemplating my week off from work.  Making plans in  my head for a variety of ways to go on our Cutting Edge Quilt Group's Challenge of "Montana de Oro."  Hoping to make headway on some of those ideas this week, if nothing else eliminating the ones that won't work for me.

Morning Glory and Super Moon Spotting

Nice to have a three day weekend. Not nice to have 3 migraines so far this weekend. Not sure what's causing them, Maybe it's stress and anxiety over the election, consuming too much Trader Joe's Tiramisu, change of seasons, who knows? Just taking it easy this weekend, can't do much else.

Emptied out all my old dyes from the little fridge in the barn. Getting ready to stir up some new ones to do some dying over Thanksgiving break.

Beautiful  Morning Glory blooming n the back yard, planted who knows when, has been a lovely surprise to enjoy.

A historic super moon is to arrive Monday night. 

It will be the closest full moon to the earth since 1948. 

Here's a picture of it taken Friday night from my backyard.  Looking forward to checking that  out.

Quilting Shibori-Stitched Resist Piece

I've been working on hand quilting a shibori-stitched resist piece made quite awhile ago.

  Getting close to finishing it.

I'm using pearl cotton using a big stitch and some French knots here and there.

Dramatic Sky

Yesterday morning we were treated to a beautiful sunrise.

 It was so very dramatic and had some of the golden yellow in it

 that I need for a quilt challenge in which I'm participating next year. 

Shibori Shirts for Almond Country Quilt Guild Auction

Here are a couple of Shibori Shirts that I have donated to the Almond Country Quilt Guild Auction which will be November 5th at Trinity Lutheran Church in Paso Robles.  Go to http://www.acqguild.com/holiday-auction-2016/  for more information.

Inspiration from Australian Aboriginal Art

My students created some fabulous Australian Aboriginal Art. Hope it inspires you!

Our Barn Studio Gets a Real Floor

This weekend, the concrete guys finished the floor. I can hardly believe it.  It makes the  whole concept of turning the barn into a teaching studio a viable reality.

Richard Serra's "Sequence"

Yesterday was the annual Arte de Tiza in Paso Robles City Park. I had 26 students show up and create a masterpiece in chalk. That didn't leave any time  or energy for working on any of my 'masterpieces.'

On the homefront, we had stage one of concreting our barn floor done yesterday. A crew of 5 guys came out and leveled the dirt floor, put down rebar, etc. working their buts off in the heat for 7 hours or so. Next weekend the cement gets poured. This is a huge step in turning our barn into my future studio for teaching surface design classes.

So today to inspire you I'm showing some pictures from our last visit to San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art which just reopened this year after three year of remodeling.  Here are some picture of Richard Serra's "Sequence"  that we found utterly fascinating its sheer size, shape and patina.

It is rusted steel, due to it standing outside for many years in a different location exposed to rain, snow, etc. It stands 40 feet high and the walls of the museum were built around it after it was reassembled there. It's on the first floor of the museum and absolutely free for the public to see.

The negative spaces are very interesting and how they allow other sections

 of the sculpture to show through.

The way the light hits the sculpture changes it's color and texture from very light to very dark with hints of a deep blue as you see in the last photo.

If you are in San Francisco be sure to check it out.

Itajime fabrics

Created a couple pieces of itajime fabric using procion dyes last weekend.  The top one is done over a  fabric previously painted with textile paints. I wasn't sure if the dye would permeate through the paint but it did, giving some nice textures and shadows from the painted layer 

in the circular openings.

Shibori with Seta-color Paint

Yesterday I wrapped some Kona yellow-orange fabric around a bucket with sisal and then painted it with Seta-color.  I wanted something with a wide diameter because paint doesn't penetrate fabric like dye does so I did not want to double up the fabric.

I painted it with a mixture of Blue and Violet Seta-color paint, 

very slightly diluted and allowed it to dry overnight.

And, here is the fabric.  It looks like black until you get really close to it.

Hand Embroidery on Batik

Last weekend a very good friend of mine, Kathy, turned 80. In lieu of gifts, she asked her friends to create something on  a batik square she sent to each of us. 

I had a lot of fun making this for her.

At her party, which was at McPhee's in Templeton, all the squares were displayed 

on a 'clothesline.'  I wish I would have taken pictures of them. 

There was such a wide variety of wonderful craftsmanship.

Happy Birthday Kathy!

Painted Fabrics from Judy Coates Perez Class

Here are some of my creations from the class I took from Judy Coates Perez last weekend.  See prior post for more information on that wonderful class.

Arashi Shibori using fabric paint.

This one is far from done, but shows a few techniques we played with  including stamping on fabric, laminating abaca fabric with copyright free images printed on them, etc. 

On this one, we applied salt while the paint was still quite wet. One of he cool things about painting fabric, vs. dyeing is that you get two values, one lighter, one darker.

Painted and scrunched and allowed to dry.

Accordion folded shibori

More painted and scrunched fabric.

For this one we put items underneath it and allowed it to dry. 

 Again, you can see how one side is much more vibrant the other.