White Christmas?

Oh how pretty. This is what greeted me this morning around 7:00. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!


There won't be any dinning on the patio tonight. Can you see the snow falling?


Nice! No need to decorate outside if this keeps up.

Thinking out loud

Follow along if you like while I ramble through some ideas bouncing around in my head.

I am contemplating doing a different surface design technique a week. Kind of patterned after Jeanne Williamson's quilt a week idea. Some of the techniques I would explore would include:

Resists, both dye and paint.

Soy wax screen printing resist.
Potato dextrin.
Flour.
Wax paper.
Gel medium.
Gel glue.

Whole cloth dye painted and textile painted quilts.

Foiling

Use of unusual items both as tools and elements in a quilt. These could include soft metals, screening, foil, plastic netting, plastic fencing, rusted items, paper, fibers, roving, fusible web, plastic bags, feathers, tyvek, heat sensitive fabrics.

I believe a week will be sufficient time to explore most of these ideas. If I find a particular technique that I love the week may not cover it. My main interest is to document through words and pictures my failures and successes.

Stocking Day

The annual stocking making day at the Wink house! Every year a group of my friends get together for a day of sewing, food, some wine and a good time. These are my non sewing friends, so we try to keep it simple. My best friend and I are polar opposites. I lean toward obsessive compulsive, and she leans toward "close enough". Needless to say it usually means a fun filled day.

This is Jami putting the finishing touches on her Asian themed stocking. The girls have to work with whatever fabrics they "shop" for in my stash room. They are really brave about going in there. I'm pretty sure we lost someone last year.

Here I am in my left over dye Tye-dye shirt. I tried to keep the 6500 to myself. I'm more protective of it than I was with my children!


Jami and Chelsey.

Terri picking out her fabrics and trims. We ran out of table space, so the floor always works.

Leanna and her daughter Dotty choosing their fabrics.

Chelsey busy at the 6500.

Chelsey's finished stocking. Pretty nice huh?


Dotty about halfway there.


The finished pieces. Purple one is Chelsey's, maroon paisley belongs to Terri, black Asian is Jami's and the blue velvet is Dotty's. Leanna chose to do a table runner this year. As you can see the Asian theme was popular.

Class sample

This is one of the two patterns I will be teaching at one of the local quilt shops. The main elements are hand dyes silk roving and organza. I trapped some scraps of fiber between the two. It is free motion quilted to hold the layers together. This is a great bag for embellishing as the base is felt. Can be beaded easily prior to lining.

Domestic stuff

Nothing exciting going on today. I finished my fabric Christmas cards today. Now need to sit down and address them. I also managed to finish the stockings for the grand-babies. Of course I forgot to get a picture. No I am not going to open the boxes I spent a half hour packing to take one either.

I plan to get a few more done for other family members, so will keep the camera handy. I love this time of year, but am already tired of rushing around. I hate to post without a pic, so here's one of our tree. Yeah, it's a monster. It takes a full week to set up and decorate, so we always have it up by the weekend after Thanksgiving. Had to get a head start this year as we will be out of town the last week of Nov.

Projects, Ideas & Inspiration

Dextrin resist pieces rinsed, washed, pressed and ready to ship. The first is the black. I did find the black dye didn't develop as well as I wanted due to garage temp below 70. The brown piece developed better, but still shifted slightly to green for the same reason.


This is the pattern I sketched for my Painted Hills piece. The colors in these hills located just outside John Day Oregon is very close to what I saw while in Nevada.


Photo of the hills. Yes they really are this colorful.
First step of quilt finished. Many pieces of fabric fused using Misty Fuse. I applied Oil sticks to create shadows and depth. These will cure for several days before I heat set them. I plan to thread paint more detail before backing and FMQ.

Progress

Here is what I've been up to the last few days. The first two photos show the front side of the dextrin resist batching. Gorgeous reddish browns, and one in black.



These four show the backside prior to rinsing. Love the crackled, lacy effect.







A few posts ago I have a photo of some rocks I picked up on my last trip to Nevada. We drove to Virginia City from Reno one afternoon. The hillsides where blazing with color from these beautiful rocks. My wonderful husband was very patient about stopping several times so I could bring a few home. Below are the fabrics I dyed up trying to come as close as possible to the changing tones. I think I came pretty close. I have one more piece in dye. Hubby pointed out the "purplish" tones in the far right stone. Good eye!

Now I just have to design a quilt around these. I keep seeing long narrow 3 panels. Can't decide if I will piece this or tear the fabrics and fuse in place. Will have to do a few samples.

Here are some samples using gelatin plate printing. As soon as I catch up with myself I'll post a tutorial on the technique.



Photo of a few of the students in the plate printing class. Hey Loretta!
I know this is hard to see, but trying to photograph a clear shiny surface is difficult. This is potato dextrin in the curing stage. Going into my 3 day of waiting. I plan to get some dye onto these pieces tomorrow. Think I will do some color testing later this week. I need to come up with recipes for tans and rusts.

Christmas Cards

OK, I think I have gotten most of the need for wild color out of my system with this set of cards. They still need some stitching/embellishing and the backing done. I'll send these to my more open minded friends/family.

These are much more traditional. Well color wise anyway. The background is a sun printed fabric. The pomegranate is hand dyes, and the centers are hand painted. I plan to stitch using gold and outline with metallic pens or paint. May drop some shadows in too if I find time.



Here is a wide angle shot of both. Note my new design wall. I have needed one of these for some time now, but never got around to it. I finally broke down and did one only because I needed a surface to pin fabrics to when dextrin resist dyeing. So I thought I may as well buy 2 sheets of insulation while I was at Lowes. I've been photographing all the steps while doing the dextrin and will post the when completed.



This last photo is of some rocks I picked up in Nevada last month. I just love these earth tones. Believe me the hillsides were much more impressive than these small samples are able to prove. Poor hubby was made to stop 3-4 times on a very narrow road so I could gather these!

Creative overload

I seem to be paralyzed with creative overload. There are so many things I want to get done for the upcoming holidays, that I don't know where to start.

On the upside, I did manage to finish 6 sheers and 3 window scarves for my girlfriend. I have never worked with sheers as far as hemming etc... Now if it involved slashing, burning for an art style quilt I would have been right in my element. I did learn how to use the rolled hem foot/stitch. Something to file away in the back of my mind for future use in a quilt.

I think part of my problem may be that alot of these holiday things seem to be very traditional. I'm seriously thinking of sending fabric postcards instead of regular Christmas cards again this year. I have always done them in fairly traditional fabrics or style. This year I think family & friends may be getting cards done with hand dyes in turquoise, orange, lime and hot pink. I need something bright.

Thinking of doing a simple jacket for mom this year. She may be getting it in wild colors also if I haven't worked it out of my system with the cards.

Picked up Quilting Arts mag special edition for the holidays today. Haven't really had any time to more than flip through it though. Looks like there may be a few "out there" things I can use to chase away the traditional blues.

Challenging myself

This seems to be the only way to make myself sit down and do this. Here are some examples of what I'm working on today.

This is a piece that has been dyed using a potato dextrin resist. I just love the texture and weathered effect. I am currently trying to finish 3 more pieces using this technique, but seem to be having temperature issues. I believe it may be too cold in my garage for the dyes to fully develop. The pieces are rinsing out very faded. I may have to give in and batch these in the spare bathroom. Won't hubby love that!




This is a rusted piece. Again I love the organic "feel" to this technique. This technique can be over-dyed, or you can start with a piece already dyed.



I have 5 yards in a Santa Fe blue dye waiting to be rinsed/washed so they can be over dyed using a Rust red. This is a combination I call Southwest. Yummy colors.

Back to the "life getting in the way", the stucco guys are here, the phone is ringing, the cat wants in/out, and I need to go pick up a special order at the fabric store. Silly me agreed to make drapes for a friends living room. She is a very good friend, but seems to be afflicted with the same thought process of those who don't sew. They are under the impression that if you own a sewing machine, you must enjoy doing these types of things. Not true, but I do love my friends/family, so will occasionally cave to the pressure!

Life got in the way

As you can see from the original post, I haven't done very well keeping up with this. Things have finally slowed down enough I think I can focus on getting some things down on "paper".

Currently I'm doing some surface design using potato dextrin as a resist. I also have several LWI (low water immersion) projects going. The first run of the dextrin didn't go well. I got in a hurry and put the dextrin on the fabric before it reached the proper temperature. Knew better! Now I have some pieces that will need a few more layers added.

I'll post pictures as soon as I locate the batteries. Think hubby may have "borrowed" them for his camera.

If all goes well I plan to post technique tutorials with photos of some of the surface design techniques I use. These include:
Rust Dyeing
Mono printing
Fabric painting
Dextrin resists
Flour resists
Gelatin Plate Printing
Screen Printing
Low Water Immersion Dyeing
Hand Dyes
Foiling
I'm sure I missed a few.