Not Much News, But a Little

I haven’t posted for quite a while. My father-in-law reminded me this past weekend at our family reunion. He said he checks in from time to time to see what I’m up to! Well, I work a lot now and get very little done creatively.

A couple of weeks ago I stopped at a yard sale and purchased 14 old t-shirts for cheap because I want to make this. It just looks like fun.

Isn’t it the cutest? Can’t wait to wear one, but it’s too hot here right now.

I entered this is in a show and it was rejected. 😦

Still a Collage

TriState Artisans will have a new name this year and a new brochure for our studio tour in December. We are losing a few artisans on the Illinois side and adding a couple of new ones. You won’t want to miss it! Here is a photo of my work that will be featured in the new brochure.

More news: I am working on moving into a REAL studio space! A 20 x 80 foot building has come open across the street from where I work. The biggest portion of it will be my workspace and classroom for teaching. I am planning to put a small shop in the front part. Although I can’t be open every day, the shop will have my art for sale as well as consigned items by other artists/artisans. I am looking forward to getting in and getting some work done!

Another piece of good news…I was going to order another Square swiper yesterday because the one they sent me didn’t seem to work in my Android tablet. On a lark, I thought I would stick the one I had back in and check it. Lo, and behold, it worked! I could actually SWIPE the card, so I made two $1 payments to myself. Besides, I need to practice so I know how to use the darn thing. I guess the fees I paid were worth it! I think I’m going to love this little tool.

Indigo!

A couple of weeks ago I had a play day with Lynda of Bloom, Bake, Create fame. We had been planning for some time to try out indigo dyeing.  I finally had a day free!  Here are my cotton cloth prints.

I also tried three kinds of silk scarves in the vat but did not leave them in long enough. I attempted to re-dye them the next day in the vat, but it had oxidized too much. I then over-dyed them with a procion dye which actually turned out similar to the indigo dyeing.

On the left, silk chiffon (yummm!), then a silk crepe, and a silk habatoi.

A productive day!

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.

Innovations in Textiles

I had the blessing of being able to take a day off from my work and go to St. Louis this week to see some of the exhibits of Innovations in Textiles.  This is a biannual event that takes place in the area.  Every two years for a two month period of time, galleries and exhibits major in textiles and fibers; there are also lectures and workshops offered by major textile and fiber artists.  Quilt National travels from Athens, Ohio to the Foundry Art Center in St. Charles, MO.   If I lived closer, I’d be majorly involved!

But I wouldn’t miss Quilt National at the Foundry.  And this year, I had two pieces in an exhibit at Maryville University.  The exhibit is called Speaking of Fibers and was put on by the Missouri Fiber Artists (www.missourifiberartists.com).

I took photos at Art St. Louis of some of the interesting fiber works in Fiber Focus.  Here’s one by Suzy Farren, a MoFA member.  I love what she did with paper and various fibers.  I have her permission to share it here.

I Could Fear That Too

To get to Art St. Louis, we had to pass a building under construction…looks like it will be the National Blues Museum when it is finished.

Interesting and very tall building in Art Deco style at 6th and Washington…

Two fiber buddies who spent the day, Julia Sermersheim and Susan Spineto…Susan Marth met up with us in St. Charles, but I didn’t get any photos of her….This quilt didn’t have a center in it, so I had them get in the “frame”…

Julia Sermersheim and Susan Spineto

No photos of Quilt National, of course.  We ate at Picasso’s Coffeehouse in St. Charles…wonderful place with great coffee…I didn’t take photos of that either.

Third Degree Glass Factory on Delmar had marvelously creative sinks and fixtures….

Bathroom sinks and faucets in the Third Degree Glass Factory bathroom

We thought these were the bomb! (unless I can’t say bomb anymore)

I also found an interesting wall to photograph…

It sort of goes with this…which was hanging in the MoFA exhibit…

Weathered Places

Best of show winner, Janet (don’t know last name) with juror Victoria Crowder Payne and Barb Zapulla, who, I think did most of the work of pulling off this exhibit…Pat Owoc’s work is in the background…

More from the reception…I only know a few of these people!

Here’s my other piece in the show…

Fragments of a Life 5b

Here’s another piece from the show by Rosemary Claus-Gray.

Beach Reflections

Well, I’m going to wrap this up…it was a fabulous day…now back to working on my exhibit which is less than 3 weeks away!

Today’s Experiments

I am starting some new work.  Put colors together and piece.  Hmmm…not really satisfied with the salmon-ey orange color with the blue….I’m using my handy dandy 3-in-1 Color Wheel Tool. I also sell these now, so contact me if you need one.

I decided to paint it using either Setacolor or Dye-Na-Flow paints. I had forgotten how nice, fluid-y, and pigmented Dye-Na_Flow paints are.  It was the perfect paint for this project.  I might have used a different color though.  Now I have cheddar as the color for my art.  Well, I’ll be doing some other things to it that will tone it down a bit. Hopefully.

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.

Printing L A R G E

I was given some old dyes and some cloth that had been soda soaked by a friend who is downsizing.  The hot weather has finally broken here, so yesterday morning I was out in the patio.  I wanted to try out the new screens and I needed to get started working on silk scarves.  But for yesterday, I got out a piece of cloth from her stash.  It is  a white on white print and is over 2 yards long.  I printed on the back of it.  The fabric turned out way too light for my taste, but is still very much useable.  I’m not sure if it needed to be soda soaked again or what the reason was.  She said it had been soaked last fall…which may be too long ago.

I don’t believe I have printed a piece this large before, but I can see myself doing it again.  In the lower right corner is printing from one of the new screens we made. I used a paper resist to make the pattern. The other printing is from a design made with blue gel glue.

Just above that printing is the turquoise from the older dyes she gave me.  I used double the dye powder and thought that would compensate for the age, but apparently not as I can see a distinct difference from the newer dyes.  The new screens work quite well. Today, I printed on silk scarves and prepared screens for breakdown printing that I will print on other scarves.

One more thing:  both of my pieces were rejected for the Working Together show this year….that has not happened before! Oh well…there’ll be another place to enter them.