Inspiration | Crazy for Fiber

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Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category

Checking Off

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

I have a to do list in my head. I really should put it on paper, but my personality doesn’t function that way. I checked off a couple of things on my mental list.

I finished the revision of Indigo Construction for the Line Dancing show. I made some small rod pockets and hung it on a piece of green bamboo. It looks great.

Here is a detail with the new stitching. These are both clickable.

I also decided it would be good to look at the supply list for my Depth of Field Shibori class. Gulp! I need “at least” 20 yards of pfd (prepared for dyeing) fabric. I went to the Dharma website and ordered 15 yards of Kona cotton. I also ordered 5 yards of organic cotton muslin, 59 inches wide. It is pricey, but I wanted to try it out. Here is what the website says:

This fabric is the one you all have been asking for. 100% pure Certified Organic cotton muslin. The cotton itself was grown on a G.O.T.S. (Global Organic Textile Standards) certified farm and certified organic by a G.O.T.S. certification firm. It was whitened with Hydrogen Peroxide, which is the only method of whitening approved by G.O.T.S. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about that natural yellowish color causing color shifts in your dye job. It is also a very nice organic fabric to tie dye or batik for that reason. 5 oz./square yard and about 59″ wide. This is a tightly woven muslin fabric, with a nice smooth hand and surface. A great flat woven organic fabric for all your needs. Organics are about double the cost and price of non-organics, that’s just the way it is. This one was actually one of the best deals we could find. So it’s time to “put your money where your mouth is” as they say.

Fabric Details

• 100% Certified Organic cotton muslin

• 5 oz per square yard, 59″ wide

• Thread count is 40 threads per inch x 40 threads per inch

• You can dye this with our Fiber Reactive Dyes

• Suggested usage; Clothing, quilting, drapes, wall hangings, home decor etc. Muslin is very versatile!

• We found that this shrinks 3% in Length and 3% in Width

• Available in cut yardage ( bulk discounts levels at 10+ yds. and 25+ yds.)

• Machine wash in any temperature water

I have to tear the fabric into 2 yard lengths and scour it before the class.

It was a gorgeous day here in our neighborhood. I went out for a couple of walks and enjoyed the sun on my face.

I thought I would share this nice little note that I received from one of our priests at the cathedral.

I’m sitting in Kempton Hall for a lecture on labyrinths, surrounded by the lovely soft evening lights of Kempton (none of the lights that shine upon the artwork, however), and I suddenly noticed that the new exhibit has been hung. I want yours back! Your fabric art of Jerusalem delighted me over and over as I’ve been in Kempton these last two months.

Thanks so much for your show. I’ve not yet been to Jerusalem, and I feel as though I’ve gained a sense of the wonderful natural light in the Holy City. And your colors — glorious!

So thanks for your creativity. You are SOME ARTIST!

Blessings,

Catherine

Made my day and gave me encouragement to get back to work! Tomorrow, I am meeting Terry down at the Contemporary Craft Museum for lunch and an art date. I need to get out of the house and be inspired.

Posted in Construction series, indigo, Inspiration, Stuff I Buy | 12 Comments »

Sensory Overload

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

This week is turning out to be a fabulous art quilting week. I just finished Wendy Huhn’s class last night. Today, I went to see a show of work and hear a lecture by Ann Johnston. Friday, I am heading to Tacoma for the Quiltart Symposium for a couple of days. Whew!!

Here are some images from yesterday’s work in Wendy’s class. In the morning, we did transfers of images using transparencies printed with an ink jet printer and gel medium.

The top transfer is an old cigar label – Omar, the tent maker on canvas. The next two are photos that were transferred to cotton. The bottom is a photo of the earth transferred to organza. This was so much fun and quite easy to do. Any kind of ink jet printer can be used, but you must have ink jet transparencies.

In the afternoon, we made these fun acrylic stamps with leftover squares of acrylic and that foam stuff you find at Joann’s and Michael’s.

I am not sure how much I will use some of these transfer techniques, but I loved hanging out with other artists and being inspired by them. One of them was Trisha Hassler, who I have mentioned before. She does the work with metal in her work. She is such a great person to hang out with for a few day.

After a disappointing weigh-in at WW (I was up a bit), I spent some time getting some computer stuff done before Terry picked me up for our Art Date with June. We took in a small quilt show of Ann Johnston’s work at the Vancouver campus of the Washington State University. Ann did a lecture which I thoroughly enjoyed because I love, love her work and want to try some of her dye painting techniques. Yum!

Here are June and Terry checking out the quilting on this whole cloth quilt. Ann is now using a long arm and loves the quilting that she can do with it.

After the show, we enjoyed a nice dinner together. I always enjoy my time with these Portland friends.

Posted in Inspiration, photo transfers, Quilting Friends, Surface Design Techniques, Uncategorized, workshop | 4 Comments »

A Happy Fourth of July

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

Hope you are all having a happy day, celebrating our Democracy. We must never take it for granted, as we are now finding out. That is my itty bitty rant for today.

I am having such a good day. Time to relax, make some food for a dinner on the deck with Lisa, the anticipation of M & M returning to Portland tonight, with their Mom and Dad, and seeing all my work from the discharge class on the design wall.

I am so inspired by this cloth and can’t wait to work with it.

Here are some close-ups of the work that I had to bring home to finish. The first is the construction fence resist discharge. Next to it is the second skinny tape on the silk screen piece.

The next two photos show the pieces that were done with the linear pieces of tape on the silk screen. I just love how that ugly piece of brown discharged.

These two pieces are silk that has been over-dyed – also the piece on the right in the above photo. The fabric on the right below was gift from Jeannie who comments often on my blog.

This piece had torn masking tape on the fabric so where the tape was, it is darker.

The next piece had squished discharge paste the first time around so I added new elements, using turquoise dye in the paste.

These are samplers using turquoise dye in the paste.

These are silk pieces that had been over dyed. The piece on the right was from Jeannie. The bottom piece is cotton. The silk on the left is raw silk that has been over-dyed. These all used found objects.

This piece was done using a couple of thermofax screens.

And Just For Fun! I saw Deb R’s Simpson’s persona on her blog and had to try it. Go here to create your own. This looks scarily like me!!

Hope you are having a great day, too!

PS: I lost 4.4 pounds. I had to weigh yesterday because they were closed today. Yeah!

Posted in Discharging fabric, Holidays, Inspiration, Just for Fun, My creations, Rant, Surface Design Techniques | 13 Comments »

Discharge Workshop Day Two

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

I have sooooo many cool pieces of fabric to play with. There shall be no excuses for shunning the studio. I should give credit to our great workshop teacher, Jeannette DiNicolis Meyer. She is on the faculty of OSAC.

These were waiting for me when I arrived this morning, after being washed and dried. The first two were done with the torn masking tape applied to the silkscreen.

This was the piece that had skinny tape applied to the fabric. I love this.

Today we mixed turquoise dye with the discharge paste. It does not discharge so you can add color to discharged areas. Here I am applying the turquoise discharge paste, using a construction fence as the resist.

This is the piece after steaming, washing and drying.

I made another masking tape silk screen:

Here is the piece of fabric with discharge paste screened on the surface. This fabric is much browner than it shows here. The final piece is gorgeous. I’ll post a pic tomorrow. Jeannette proclaimed it the best piece of the workshop!!

This piece had large areas of smooshed discharge paste done yesterday and was looking rather washed out. Today, I used the turquoise paste to add back some color and design elements using a syringe and a screen.

Here is another skinny tape piece (raw silk) using the turquoise paste and one that was stamped with hydrangea leaves.

This is a piece that I painted with acid dyes a while ago. I used a foam roller with cut outs and rolled the paste across the fabric creating discharged stripes.

The rest of the work done today has not been photographed. I had to bring it home to wash. So there will be more tomorrow.

Posted in Discharging fabric, Dyeing, Inspiration, Surface Design Techniques, workshop | 8 Comments »

What Are Friends For?

Wednesday, June 6th, 2007

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE: When I am in a funk, there are a couple of fellow bloggers who can send me an e-mail or make a comment that oozes a kind of love that means the world to me — Judy in the Dyes and Thea Quilts aka Dee. they both happen to be Episcopalians, like me and we have a lot in common. Dee proclaimed me to be her doppelganger.

INSPIRATION: I have been privileged to meet some great artists as I travel around taking classes. I always love seeing them in person which is not often enough. Two of them have blogs that almost always inspire me to get back in the studio and make something — Liz Berg and Melody Johnson. They are both very talented and extremely generous.

CARING CONCERN: There are too many of you to name individually, but I really appreciate the comments and messages of help and concern when I am feeling out of sorts. Rayna, for instance, sent me a link to an article about lymphedema that was in the NY Times yesterday.

LAUGHS: Deb of Red Shoe Ramblings and Melody Johnson, again, always make me chuckle. There are others who occasionally have a fit of hilarity, but these two can see the humor in the darnedest situations.

A WAKE UP CALL: OK, confession, this one is the reason I am writing this post. I just thought I would add the others to fill out my post -heh! Karoda is a blogger who I dearly love — for her wit, her passion, her sense of justice, her courage and I could go on. Yesterday, she had a post, titled “Silence is Golden.” I read it and reread it and woke up this morning and changed my life. No computer time except for work on the SDA site and checking e-mail once in a while. No TV during the day. I listened to music while I cleaned the fridge and worked in the studio. I felt more energetic and alive. I had fallen into a very bad habit when I was ill of sitting with my laptop in front of the TV, tuning out the world. Karoda’s words spoke to me loud and clear as if she had been charged with writing that post just for me. Thank you, my dear friend.

I have lots of other friends who give me love, laughs, care and inspiration. You know who you are, and I don’t want to forget you, but these friends came to mind as I was thinking about writing this today.

QUILT CONTENT: I cleaned up all my fused silk scraps yesterday and today, I got them out again to make another cruciform piece. Here is the cruciform, made with skinny pieces of yellows and greens.