Sun Printing in the Studio Barn

 Been having fun creating sun prints in the studio barn with my friend Phyllis. 

 It's been very hot in Paso Robles lately, which is perfect for making sun prints on fabric.

 I'll post again soon to show how the fabrics turned out.

New Quilt Finished

 Just finished a new quilt that I started years ago in a Rosemary Eichorn Class offered by my Almond Country Quilt Guild. The class was on fabric collage and using a multitude of ways to alter your fabric. I'm talking melting it, painting it, tearing it, gluing it, you name it!

It's hard to tell in the photo that the clouds are slightly three dimensional, as are the silk roses appliquéd to the painted gold felt.  We used a heat gun to distress the acrylic felt and the painted it.

Ice Dye Fun in the Studio Barn with Friends

 Recently I had some friends from my  Cutting Edge Group come over to do some parfait ice dyeing, which is a process where you stack one piece of fabric over another adding dye and ice to each one and squish them into a container. As the ice melts the fabric get bits of dye from the pieces above and below them. 

Above is my  table with lots of tools and materials and a sample piece.

Here is a shirt I made for hubby.

My friend Kate gave me a lovely piece of silk to dye.

Above is a piece I folded and clamped prior to dyeing.

The piece above was just gently scrunched up and dyed.

Teaching a New Class on Painting Fabric At Cambria Center for the Arts

 

More Adventures with Ice Parfait Dyeing

 A couple days ago I did more experimenting with ice dyeing. Most ice dyeing instructions tell you to soak the fabric in soda ash solution for 15 to 30 minutes. That's fine if you are doing it yourself, but if you are doing an ice dye class or party, it makes it difficult for everyone to find their piece of fabric in the bucket, if there are 10 more in there. So I introduced the soda ash after sprinkling the dye powder on it.  

I used two kinds of fabric, a bright, white Kona cloth and a light weight, linen-like, mystery fabric that I found in a drawer.

Below are pictures of each, with the Kona cloth one on top.

As you can see the two fabrics took the dye completely different.

 Wish I knew what the mystery fabric was, 

but alas, I don't. 

You need all kinds of fabric, so I'm keeping both, but I like the Kona cloth one more.

Revisiting a Portrait Project

 In our Cutting Edge Fiber Art Group we set up a Portrait Challenge. For my project, I chose to revisit a portrait of St. Joan of Arc, which I started some years ago in a class taught by Rosemary Eichorn. It's been at least ten years ago that I took the class, if not fifteen. It was a fabulous class where she stressed the importance of playing while creating. She called it PLORK, which is a combination of Play and Work. Play being abstract without a goal and work being more goal oriented, serious and honorable. We used a wide variety of materials. We painted fabric, felt, stabilizers, etc. We heated and melted materials to create more interesting fabrics for our collage.

Below are two photos of my work in progress. The first one was taken at the end of the day of the workshop. The second one was taken a couple of days ago as I continue to make some changes here and there, with more to come.

I plan to add some clouds at the bottom of the arch, and under her feet. The image is from a painting by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, painted in 1854 titled "Jeanne d'Arc at the Coronation  of Charles VII." It's very baroque looking and one can never have too much gold

 and other ornamentation in this style, can they?

Painting on Fabric Using Shibori and More

 Painting Party  in the Studio

My quilt circle met in person (WOW) in my studio/barn to create some fun fabrics using fabric paints and a variety of techniques as you can see in the examples above.

My new rose bush produced this beauty last week.

 I love all the variety of values contained on this one flower!