Stitching Away the Time

With nine and a half more days of school left, Saturday was mostly spent grading papers, unloading and loading the school kiln and lesson planning for the week.

I had a couple hours to do some more stitching on two of my unfinished quilts that will be part of my upcoming solo show at the library in July.  Any spare time I have is going towards getting those two done.  I do enjoy hand embroidery, although it is time consuming.

Today, I did a little work in the garden, planting more lettuce and some hollyhocks.  Both were planted slightly over a month ago, but didn't grow.  So I'm hoping with the warmer weather, the soil will be warmer encouraging the seeds to germinate and grow.

In the afternoon I went wine tasting with a friend in beautiful Paso Robles wine country.  Here's a picture taken at Halter Ranch Winery.

Fiber Coiled Baskets, Gargoyles and More

This was Open House week at the middle school where I teach, so all my time and energy went into preparing for that.  The rest of the week I was pretty much recovering.

My students have done some amazing work this year.  Here's some pics.

 These are the ceramic gargoyles students made as part of a unit on Gothic Architecture.  They still need to be painted black and then a coat of gray sand paint will be added to 'age' them.

 Students could create chimeras, gargoyles, or other mythic

 creatures as seen on medieval cathedrals.

Fiber coiled baskets made by the 8th graders as part of a unit on Native American arts.

Ceramic bowls in the style of Maria Martinez created by 6th graders. Students made simple pinch pots, added a coil to the top to learn how to score and slip clay, then carved their Native American designs into the pots.  Pots were bisque fired, then students glazed them.

Self Portraits, using a grid method, by 7th Graders

 Block Prints by 7th Graders

Metal tooled Medieval Letters by 7th Graders.

Fourteen and a half more days of school!!!

Dyeing Silk with Color Hue Dyes

My Cutting Edge group had a chance to experiment with Color Hue Dyes yesterday at our meeting thanks to a great demo from Rene Jennings.

Here's  a link to Dharma with more info about this fun, easy technique http://www.dharmatrading.com/kits/starter/sets/colorhue-silk-dyes-10-color-set.html

Below are pictures of our experiments.

Here is one of my pieces very wet and still on the plastic.

 Here's Ann Louise and I figuring out the next move to make in our creations.

Above is the dry version of the top piece.

Here is another one I made.  Both pieces are approximately 12 x 18 inches.

Here's a vibrant one Mary Ann was doing.

One from Ann Louise

Another of Mary Ann's

Soy Wax Batik with Dye-na-Flow Paints

Yesterday I batiked some silk and cotton using Dye-na-Flow paints.

I first waxed the large circle grids to preserve some of the white, then painted on the yellow and orange.

Then I used a tool that was rectangular with diamond openings

 to preserve some of the yellow and orange areas.  After the wax dried, I painted black over it.

After the black dried, I placed it in the freezer (read that you get more cracking this way) and then twisted it to get the wax go fall off.  I did too much twisting, too much wax came out, but I didn't know it at the time.  I then applied black over the whole piece and let it dry.  Closeup is below. I like it but wish it didn't have quite so much black.

This is a silk scarf.  Again I preserved some white areas, then painted yellows and oranges on it. Next I waxed over some of the yellow and orange areas, then applied blue paint.  Really like this one.

Shibori Shirts

Did some Arashi Shibori on  three shirts Sunday.

This one is a linen shirt with embroidered areas that stayed white

 due to the polyester thread in them.

This was done on a yellow Land's End T-shirt.

This was done on a Dharma White T-Shirt.

Sun Printing and Stenciling a T-Shirt

This past week I did some sun printing on a T-Shirt using my new Pro-Chem Transparent paints to test them out.  They have a very creamy consistency. They remind me of the old Versatex paints, which I really liked.  I diluted them two parts water to 1 part paint and using a large brush started painting away.

Above are pictures of the T-shirt laying in the sun.  I placed some dried leaves on the wet painted shirt. In the middle of the shirt back, I scrunched up the fabric.

Here is the finished shirt, top picture is the front.  Parts of it are very nice, but I wasn't totally pleased with it, so I decided to add stenciling to it.

Here is the front now. I like it a whole lot better. It needed something more

 and the stencil layer pulls the  colors together.

More Soy Wax Batik with Textile Paint

The paint has dried, been heat set, fabrics ironed and washed and here they are.

I added more paint and texture to the one shown in my last week's blog post.

Above and below, I am using a couple of some new tools

 purchased from thrift stores to create patterns in wax, 

both on the white fabric and after a layer of paint has been applied.

On this one, more paint was stenciled and stamped on after it was batiked.

In this picture you can clearly see the difference between the front and back of the fabric.  Because this is paint,  rather than dye, it does not permeate the fabric.