The Month Of May – Part 2

In the last post, I was telling you about the last day at Tan-Tara resort at the Missouri Fiber Artists (MoFA) conference.

After Annie gave her presentation and we checked out her quilts, the style show was next.  I took photos of almost everyone’s garment because they were all so wonderful, but there’s quite a few to post, so I will post a few here and if you are interested in seeing the rest, you need to join Facebook, Like the Missouri Fiber Artists page, and I’ll have the rest of them posted in an album…eventually!

These gals can sew and not only can they sew, they are in to making their own cloth using surface design.  The garments and ideas represented in the fashion show were awe-inspiring.

I can’t tell you who made this. It all went too fast. This is a fiber student doing the modeling.

This is Carlene Fullerton doing the modeling. I think Sharon Kilfoyle is the creator of this smashing silk piece.

Carlene again modeling a gorgeous jacket.

I thought this little orange jacket was quite creative.

And the winner for Best of Show is….

The wedding dress…made entirely of white plastic bags! One of the students made this.

Stay tuned…Part 3 is coming.

Just Stuff

I have been pretty busy since the last time I blogged here.  January always brings with it the really well intentioned plan that I will actually get my tax information together early for a change…NOT.  Here it is February 13 and it hasn’t happened yet.  And now I’m in the throes of…wait for it…spring cleaning (yeh, I know it’s early, but…) and getting ready for two shows in a couple of weeks.  So there you have it…I do not have time to pull those tax records together.

I have been…pulling down my solo show on Jan. 29, then determining which pieces would go into a juried show (if I get in).  All that paperwork has to be turned in.  The Illinois Artisan shop always has a big quilt event during the Paducah quilt show…sometimes I get stuff in to them and sometimes I don’t. This year I filled out their paperwork and decided what will go there, along with a couple of scarves for their wearable exhibit.  There has been online work too getting photos and info onto websites of groups I belong to.  Check out missourifiberartists.com.  I recently got some of my work catalogued on that site.

Fading Glory, deconstructed screen printing, photo transfer

I did some work with rusting…I layered a few layers of cloth on both sides of a rusted piece of metal and wet it with vinegar.  It doesn’t take long to get an image.

I am going to start working on small pieces of art and these will be part of a series.

Someone has been giving us fresh potatoes and I am having a hard time keeping up with using them.  I found a recipe for Hasselback potatoes online and I thought they looked pretty yummy.

Hasselback potatoes before cooking...

They are sliced not quite all the way through, sliced garlic clove is inserted between the slices, then add some salt and butter and drizzle olive oil over the top.  Bake in the oven.  I can think of some other herbs that would be good on them too.

after cooking....yum!

Birthday party to attend this past weekend and a fund raiser on Sunday afternoon, I was privileged to be invited to set up a small table to sell items.

Tomorrow I am shampooing the carpet. ;=)

At The Gallery Part 2

Here’s a couple more pieces of my exhibit that have not been seen on my blog before.

Sticks and Stones #3

Rust dyed cotton sateen, silk screening, stenciling, applique, hand writing, paint, ink, dyes, stitching with polyester thread.

Sticks and Stones #4

Rust dyed feed sack, discharge dyed cotton sateen, silk screened, stenciled and stamped, paint, dyes and automatic dish washing liquid and other discharging products, hand writing, inks, stitching with polyester thread.

Dyeing Classes

On the 12th I taught basic dyeing and discharging classes with a few gals from the Raintree quilt guild.  Here are some of their stunning results with discharging.

Catching Up

On Friday, February 11th, after 3 attempts to go, I finally made it to Form, Not Function at the Carnegie in New Albany, IN. A friend and I first visited Jane Dunnewold’s wonderful exhibit, Etudes: A Daily Practice on display in Louisville, KY at the Hite Art Institute. We enjoyed that very much, then went to New Albany to find the Mexican restaurant, which had moved, before we went to Form Not Function.  I love Jane’s work. It was an awesome day and I really should do that more often. It just reminded me that I don’t get out enough!

Back to life at home….my husband and I went out to eat at an awesome Mexican restaurant the next night in Marion.  Can you tell I like Mexican? Here’s what I got…Don Sol’s Fajitas.

The salsa was excellent and there was enough food to take home for lunch on Sunday!  The restaurant is Don Sol’s in Marion, IL.  If you are in the area try it!

Last week I painted dryer sheets.

This week I ironed them.

This week I painted sky fabrics.

And dyed all of these things.

Cotton and rayon circular scarves, jumbo cotton rick rack and a bunch of onesies.  Walmart now sells organic cotton onesies made by Faded Glory.  They are so nice and soft.

Well, that’s my week so far.  I have more to do before the Bloomington, IN quilt show next week.

Curry

I love curry powder…actually I love lemon curry powder the best.  It has a little lighter taste than regular curry.  I buy it at the Green Earth health food store when I get to Edwardsville.  I don’t know where else to buy it, but you can get it in the bulk section there.  I don’t use it in a lot of things, but when I want  it, I like having it on hand.  I was filling a small spice jar with it the other day and decided the color was so yummy I had to take a photo.

Now, compare that with this piece of cloth dyed with Curry dye.  Are they close to the same color?  It’s yummy too.  There is also Amethyst on this cloth.  I bought the Curry dye powder this year and now it’s at the top of my favorite list.

I am going to have to do something awesome with this piece of cotton.  As for the lemon curry powder (the stuff you can eat), try it in your chicken salad the next time you make it, along with dried cranberries or fresh grapes and slivered almonds. It makes a delicious salad.

Week In Review

It’s been a strange week. I slightly twisted my ankle last Saturday, but no pain and swelling showed up til Sunday afternoon.  And it swelled up really good by Monday.  I hobbled around the house determined not to let time be a’ wastin’…

I kept ice on it a lot, but also spent time at my sewing machine.  I had printed a huge piece of cloth a while back and decided to make these…those of you who read my blog will recognize the cloth…I love these…

Since I sold my first set of screen printed throw pillows last Saturday, I am now highly motivated to keep going, so I sewed up a few more covers, after cutting lots of fabric for the backs.

It’s too hot to be outside printing since we don’t seem to be able to move past 100 plus degree days. But I have lots of indoor work to be done as long as I can keep supplied with everything I need.  In my “weakened state” I made a request  on Facebook to see if anyone was going to Walmart. Could they check on zippers for me please?  One of my friends did go there but they didn’t have any of the polyester zippers I needed for my bags. So I placed an order with Brewer which I needed to do anyway, but wasn’t ready to do it this early.  I ordered a bunch of zippers, but they only had one box of the Cloister Brown and I needed many.  Sigh.  But the three zippers I got are enough to hold me at this moment.  I am making bags which are liners for a basket purse.  My friend Kay is a basketweaver and we are teaming up on this project.  I think the liners might help her sell the baskets better.  She did sell a purse and liner last Saturday. Woohoo! She has two big shows next month, so I gotta get busy.

And then there’s my own work…I am giving thought to creating hand dyed cotton napkins with matching table runners.  This is for the Select Collection event to be held in November.  The theme is home and wearables.  I dyed some shibori designs on fat quarters.  Table napkins, anyone?

Kay likes them and thinks they would be great as napkins.  What do you think?

Progress!

Working out in the patio yesterday, I dyed 10 of these…Sweet little onesies for sweet little babies.

Between Monday and Tuesday, I finished 8 new silk scarves and have 3 more waiting to finish.  I need some time to decide how to finish them.  I want to do more wax designs.  There is only one in this group using my new “BIG sponge” stamp. I love the BIG sponge.

Life At My House

I’m so bad…I haven’t blogged in forever.  I guess I can just take you through what I have been doing the last couple of weeks… in pictures.

I went to Terra Haute to an exhibit that a friend of mine was in.  We went to a place she had once gone to school and I saw interesting things to photograph such as this structure.

Interesting glass close to where we parked…

Then made lots of fabric beads and made earrings from them…this pair sold…

I’ve been making liner bags to go in Kay’s basket purses…a little collaborative effort…

I made ciabatta bread for the very first time…it turned out great…I love it…

We went to my  family reunion…outdoors at a state park on the hottest day of the year…

That’s my brother…he was not a happy camper…

We left on Friday to go home for the reunion and were having AC problems at the time.  Well, it’s Tuesday and we are still waiting for the repair guy.  Lucky we are staying cool though.

Back to the “dye studio” and scarves and onesies this week…

Took this while the scarf was drying…

Pole-wrapped and dyed, stamped and a rubbing applied.  The rubbing plate design was made on a piece of cardboard with hot glue.  Great way to make rubbings.

Working, Working, Working

Last week I took advantage of the wonderfully mild weather to get out in the patio and work on silk scarves.  I screened on most of them.  I used deconstructed screen designs, glue designs, and paper resist designs.  Some of my breakdown screens didn’t print very long.  The new silk screens that Julia and I made worked well, but I see mine are starting to stretch a little.  Perhaps that is because I didn’t review Kerr Grabowski’s instructions before we  made them!  This throw together scarf design turned out to be my favorite.  Since I ran out of good breakdown prints, I used other screens and partial designs on it.  Another idea has emerged for me to use for future screening.  I love the contrast of a large bold design over smaller prints.

The other side of this scarf is a bit different, just because with printing by hand you can get lots of variety. This scarf was printed using all three of the types of printing I mentioned earlier. I’m having a great love affair with chartreuse and turquoise this summer, as well as all the blends in between the two that happen when one does not wash the screens between printing.  This scarf is printed on silk charmeuse.