More Shibori Fun

A couple of weeks ago I dyed this Dharma Rayon shirt using the Arashi technique. 

The shirt's a little large on me, but I really like the drape of the rayon and how good it feels.

I had a couple friends from my lap swim program come over to do some T-Shirt Dyeing in my studio-barn. Here's a couple of their shirts. The one below was a very nice linen shirt. Although I had a  good variety of colors available, she apparently liked the same colors I used.

Front

Back

The shirt above was a 100% cotton from Kohls.

Below are a  couple of faux shibori, or fauxbori as Betty Busby called them. We used Dye-na-Flow paint on these. The top piece is silk, which was placed on top of the cotton you see below. 

Good way to get a two for one deal. Not sure what I'll do with them, 

but I like how they relate to each other.

  

Below is another 'faux-bori' silk piece.

Painting on Fabric with Betty Busby

   

         The week before Easter I attended a Betty Busby workshop in Carpenteria. It was incredibly fun and inspirational. I learned lots of  new techniques and methods to add to ones previously learned. Betty was a very giving teacher who kept us moving from one creative activity to the next. I brought home lots of fabrics to finish and some ready to be made into art quilts. Unfortunately I also came home sick due to some bad tuna I had the night before we left. I'm finally feeling ok again. Sorry the picture is a little blurry.

   We made some sun prints. We painted the fabric and while it was still wet, we put flat objects and stencils as mask on the fabric. Betty let us choose from the many vinyl stencils she has made using her silhouette cutter.

   We put them outside and allowed the moisture to evaporate.  After they were completely dry, we ironed them and worked with paint markers, intense pens, and more paint to bring out the designs. Below are three in various stages. The top one being the most finished one.

I'll show some more next week. Still catching up on lots of project after being gone almost a week.

Sweatshirt Makeover

       I've been working more on the sweatshirt makeover that I started in Kathy Howards's class, early March. I want to finish it so I can enter it in the Seven Sisters Quilt Show in San Luis Obispo, which means it needs to be done by early June.  Today I was machine quilting the back. All the quilting should be done while the garment can be laid flat, 

which of course makes it a whole lot easier.

I was having such a hard time finding an appropriate erasable marker that would show up on this piece so I could see where I was quilting.  The ones I have are white or blue, which are the same colors as the back of this jacket. It's very frustrating

 when you can't see where you're suppose to be quilting. I tried my new Bohin pencil set I bought recently but the chalk pieces kept breaking on the linen fabric with hardly any pressure.

If you have a favorite brand of marking tool for machine quilting, please leave me a comment below. I've been using the chalk pencils by Clover, but would like something darker for use on lighter pieces. I have heard mixed comments on the Pilot Flexion Pens that some quilters are using. I did find a Dritz purple marker that so far is showing up, but it disappears in 48 to 72 hours.

On a happier note, Lesotho Pink Ice-plant ground cover in our front yard

 is just stunning right now because of all the rain we've received this year. The color of it is so similar to the color in my jacket above. Go figure!