Textures and More with Fabric Paints

This past Tuesday, Kathi Battles and I taught a class on using fabric paints. She is also a member of The Cutting Edge Fiber Arts group. These classes were taught at Studios on the Park in Paso Robles, in conjunction with our Art Quilts exhibit.

 Below is a picture of Kathi teaching and demonstrating to everyone how to take advantage of the versatility of printing techniques one can use with the gelli printing plates.  Her enthusiasm was catching and students made some very. cool and complex, layered prints.

Here's everyone painting away!

I taught the first hour of the class showing how to use wet into wet watercolor techniques to create textures, followed by painting on dry fabric with a natural sponge  in an impressionistic style. This was followed by showing everyone how to do simple arashi shibori.

One of the cool things about using paint is you get two fabrics from the work of making one. One side is always lighter than the other.

We ran out of time and didn't get a chance to do the Itajime with paint. My sample is below. It is accordion folded first one way then the other way and clipped together with clothes pins. Paint is then brushed onto the fabric, getting into the folded layers. Let it dry, and unveil 

for some interesting patterns.

Below is a picture of all the fabrics drying. 

Fabulous Fused Fabric Collage Class

Today at Studios on the Park, Rene Jennings did a wonderful job teaching a class in how to fuse fabrics to create a collage of either a fish or face.  All thirteen students had a lot of fun making their creations. Here are a few examples.

Cutting Edge Good Fibrations Show at Studios on the Park

Our Cutting Edge Group has a show of our work at Studios on the Park, in Paso Robles. If you are local, hope you will get a chance to check it out. It will be up through August 26th. 

There's one spot left for the August 14th class, Fabulous Fused Fabric Collage and 

room for a couple more students in the Fabulous Fun with Fabric Paints class

 for Tuesday, August 21st. For more information, leave me a comment or email me. 

Here I am with my stitched shibori quilt, "Waiting Out the Storm"

Here's Andi Perejda with two of her beautiful quilts.

Here's Jeanne Surber with one of her gorgeous quilts.

Over and Over-Dyed Soy Wax Batik Silk Scarf

I was putting together items for our upcoming Cutting Edge Show, which we are setting up tomorrow at Studios on the Park, Studiosonthepark.org  when I  noticed an area on one of my scarves that was just too dark and blotchy.  So I tried using discharge paste to lighten it and that didn't work out well at all.  It made it worse. So then I over-dyed it, first securing a lot of the circular designs with rubber bands so they would be protected and still show up.  I then used some cerulean and fuchsia on it in select spots, wrapped it in plastic and let it cure 24 hours.  It looks a lot better now, not so blotchy and the yellow just glows beautifully.

Fabric Manipulation #2 and Upcoming Cutting Edge Group Show at Studios on the Park

I've been working on another fabric manipulation piece using the 'blooming grid' technique.

The inner piece I made a couple years ago and really liked but never did anything with it until now.

It wasn't 'blooming' as much as I wanted it to, so I decided to use some stitching to open it up more to reveal the lower fabrics. I stitched it to a piece of ice dyed fabric

 and couched eyelash yarn around it.

Below is a close-up of some of the center 'blooms.'

Our Cutting Edge Fiber Art Group will be having a show at Studios on the Park in Paso Robles. 

Below is the poster with more information.  

We have had two prior shows there one in 2012 and one in 2014.

We will be offering two classes, one in fusing fabrics to create an art quilt and another in using acrylic paints  with a variety of techniques to create textures and more on fabric. 

The cost for each class is only $15 for materials.

 If you are interested in either or both classes, email or call me. 

 Such a deal and great fun is guaranteed for all! 

 Hope you will be able to join us for the opening art reception on August 4th.

Discharge Tie Dyed Shirts

Last week, I found a little time to do some discharge dyeing on some new black T-shirts. Removing dye from cloth is a lot faster than putting it in, due to the curing time procion dyes need. I plan on keeping two for myself. The bottom one, which is a large, is for sale for $20. Let  me know if you are interested.

Beautiful Sunset and New Embroidery Stitch

These are pictures of the sky taken from our home on July 4th.  

I did not enhance them at all.  Incredible beauty that I never tire of seeing.

This is last week's embroidery stitch from my TAST group, called "Twisted Lattice."

I've enjoyed learning all the new stitches from this facebook group but not sure 

I'll continue with them much longer.