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.
Last week I was working on getting some things ready to sell. I often do events in New Harmony, IN and have a lot of photographs from that historic tourist town. I decided to start a series of collages from photographs that might be appealing to visitors to the area.
Stories of New Harmony: Brick, log cabins mixed with modernity.
Stories of New Harmony #1
Stories of New Harmony #2
Stories of New Harmony #3
Stories of New Harmony #4
Stories of New Harmony #5
Stories of New Harmony #6
Stories of New Harmony #7
Well, I guess Mondays are lining up to be my “domestic” day. After making Mounds balls, I also made biscuits for supper later in the afternoon yesterday. Did some laundry and cleaning up a bit too. My husband hates to see things laying around and me…well, if I can’t see it, I forget about it and there are some things I want to remember I have to work on or at least think about so I can make a decision! (I recently found my Indiana sales tax form somewhere it should not have been…out of sight, out of mind. Luckily, I still could meet the deadline.) My “studio”, aka, the shrinking 9′x 9′ extra bedroom, does not give me the space to leave things out where I can see them and think about them. I pretty much use the whole house!
The thread came yesterday, so today I will again start stitching on a piece I am working on for my show. I should be doing that now, but well, here I am. I wanted to post some of the deconstructed results from last week, and I now have the photos loaded onto the computer.
I used different sized screens and some of these are overprinted…and may still need some more overprinting. And they have not been washed yet, but you get the idea. I really really love the breakdown look of this kind of printing.
The reason this whole piece of cloth is not printed is because I am pondering using these as 4 separate prints for wall pieces. We’ll see. They might need more printing on them.
Last week, I ran out of thread on a piece of art I was stitching on. Rather than take a whole day and drive an hour away to buy thread, I opted for an internet order instead. Of course! the company only had one spool of a color I needed, I found out later, and of course, I need more than one, so yes, I will be making that 1 hour trek in a couple of weeks, but I made a lunch and outing date with a friend, so driving an hour for thread won’t be all that I am doing that day. Oh, the down side of rural living…even if I do love it!
In the meantime, there is plenty for me to do while I wait for the thread….so I got started on making some prints on cloth. These will be deconstructed prints. First I had to create the screens. I smeared a few colors of dye paint onto the back of blank silk screens, then pushed objects that will create designs and texture into the paint. Then let dry for however long it takes. Purchased screens or homemade screens using framing wood pieces that lock together…it’s all good. I have learned something about making the homemade screens though. Do not use polyester sheers…they STRETCH! And you won’t like it. Use nylon material to avoid this. I am going to have to re-do some of my screens.
While I had the dye and the bubble wrap out, I decided to play. I do that a lot…try something new…see what happens. I laid my dry soda soaked cotton over the bubble wrap (to see how to soda soak cotton, see my tutorial on the sidebar), then laid a blank screen over it and pulled prints.
This deposits quite a bit of paint on the cloth, hence the following “monoprint”.
Since these two pieces use the same colors, they can be used together in something, but there is variation in the cloth.
I still need to finish one piece of cloth before I put my stuff away…maybe today!
But right now, I am making Mounds balls. ;=)
By my calculations, it’s almost 10 years since I started dyeing my own cloth. Ten years…sounds like such a long time! Actually it’s the same amount of time we have been living here in southern Illinois. It was 10 years ago this month or in April (can’t remember which), that I took a dyeing class…and it’s been uphill ever since. Wow. 10 years. I feel like such a pro!
What else have I been doing? In between shows and teaching I do get to play around once in a while. A couple of weeks ago I tried my hand at embossing black silk velvet. I used a rubber stamp with hand writing on it…cool, huh!
Naw…you’re not supposed to be able to read it!
At the Bloomington quilt show, my demo helper was a bit shy about trying to paint a face with Tsukineko inks, so I took the plunge. It’s actually easier than I thought it would be. I used a tracing of a face, so how hard is that? Start with the lightest colors and work your way up. She is actually not finished as I will do more highlighting and shading on her and I haven’t painted the eyebrows yet, but I think she is a pretty cool redhead. This was painted using aloe vera gel mixed with the inks, a trick from the ever cool Judy Coates Perez.
She has red sparkles in her hair too….I’m going to share how that was done in a minute.
Here is the fish I painted using Tsukineko inks. At the Bloomington show, someone reminded me of something I had wanted to make a sample of…I simply added it to my fish sample…
Bo-Nash bonding agent is a fusible that comes in a can and you sprinkle it like salt. It even looks like salt! So I sprinkled it in some places on the water and in the redhead’s hair, then laid some foil over it, heated it with an iron…and voila! Sparkling sprinkles! This is very fun. And I sell the Bo-Nash fusible and the foil, so call me or email if you want some. I think I will start putting sparkles on lots of stuff now…this is just way too easy.
I had a commenter ask about where to get Thermofax screens made, so I decided to just do a post about it.
Thermofax screens are awesome to use if you don’t want to mess with the photo emusion process on silkscreens. They are great to use to make prints on cloth or paper with your own photography. I turn my photos into black and white and then darken the black as much as I can. The copies of these need to be toner copies when you send them off for making Thermofax screens. HOWEVER, I have an Epson CX4800 printer that uses Durabright inks. Believe it or not, I accidentally send these prints to my screen maker and she was able to make screens that work perfectly from them, SO that means that the Durabright black ink has enough toner in them to burn a screen with. I was amazed. But for most of you out there using an inkject printer, this won’t work. You need copies with toner in the ink, either from a laser printer or a copy machine. I hear the copy machines with toner are getting rare.
So here is the list of people that I know from the quiltart list who make Thermofax screens for a small fee. Get in touch with them! Your other option is to spend tons of money purchasing one of the old machines that does this and spending money on supplies for it. I find it easier just to make my designs or prepare my photos and just send them off to these gals.
Pam Relitz is in the Chicago area: rockitz@tds.net
Bobbie Vance is in the Indianapolis area: fiberartbv@aol.com
Lynn Krawczyk, I believe is in Michigan: tatgirl207@earthlink.net
Construction fence rubbing
7/26/11 Update…I just received a comment asking to add this link to my list of Thermofax screen makers: http://www.northwoodstudios.us/screen_making_services.html
Check them out!
Here are some more bags I have stitched up. However, according to comments on the previous post, the boxed bottoms have won….so these will be getting pleats momentarily.
Ok, I need some help. I was thinking about making the bags a little different than I usually do….but then I couldn’t resist making some with a boxed bottom. You tell me which you like best.
Is it this way?
Or this way?
They are pretty cute sitting up….
I love what I do. I love my work. Looking at inventory after the past weekend, I decided I needed to dye a few more scarves and make a few more small bags. I am almost out of the ArtFul cloth zippered bags. And so this a.m. finds me printing cloth. I have 11 ready to stitch!
Killing time waiting for them to dry (actually, I’m taking a break), I was looking at my favorite pages on Facebook and came across something everyone might be interested in. Linda Matthews has gathered 250 free handbag and tote pattern links from across the web all on one page. There are so many cute bags on there! Now I want to make some just for fun. I have added the link permanently to my sidebar under her name, but here it is too. Free patterns for purses and bags.
Oh my…I STILL have not printed that screen from the last blog post…and that was quite a while ago.
Life is going on…I am preparing for the upcoming show season. That means placing orders for retail items to sell at the quilt shows. Sometimes it takes me lots of thinking to get an order together. There’s an instructional video with these sets of inks…that’s nice. I wanted to see it.
Now I have to try them out so I can demo them…then there’s some new books…mmmmm…
I sent an application in to enter a SAQA show for the first time. We’ll see if I can get past the jury. ;=)
I worked on my earring inventory last week getting ready for fall festivals.
I also started a new sample of a Christmas pattern. I am having trouble with my Bernina..it needs to see the “doctor”. I think the problem may be in the floor pedal…sometimes (well, maybe about 1/2 the time) it doesn’t want to quit sewing! This is annoying when you are doing applique…so I am not going to applique the gingerbread pattern until it’s fixed. I have to drive it to the shop an hour away from me. I will do that this week.
And last week I made a banner for my booth for art festivals. Now people will know who I am without asking. ;=)
$4.99 per yard
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