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Archive for the ‘Discharging fabric’ Category

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Changing Direction

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

Before the triple disasters hit Japan,  I pretty much had the next 3 1/2 weeks reserved for getting ready to travel there and two weeks there and a few days to get back in the swing here at home.

Yesterday, I was pretty much useless. I couldn’t get my mind around doing much and I was glued to the TV. I finally went to my studio late in the day and started putting away the fabrics I had used in the river piece. It was a big job because I had used lots and lots of fabrics. I finally finished that today.

Tonight, I made 4 fiber post cards to send to those who are buying books through my website. One is up at the beginning. Here are the others. I repurposed an older piece that was not working as a larger piece. They are all silk.

This morning, I went to Fabric Depot, the mega fabric store in Portland, to see a demonstration of the fairly new product deColourant. It is a product which discharges dye as it deposits a new color and it is relatively non-toxic. I had used the product and had some problems with the color washing out. The demonstrator was Nick Coman, a fiber artist from LA.

Here are some of the samples he brought with him. I was very impressed with the brightness of the colors in these pieces. He said they had all been washed.

This is a neat t-shirt.

 

This was a batik rayon scarf. The ginkgo leaves were added with de Colourant.

Here is Nick at work. The t-shirt he is wearing was done with de Colourant and had survived many washings.

OK, here is the secret. See that heat gun? It is very important to get the de Colourant very dry and then heat set at a high temperature. The heat gun does that very quickly for small areas. We watched that green de Colourant become brighter and more vibrant as he hit it with the heat gun.

And so, I had a pretty good and creative day. We had buckets of rain and thunderstorms and a brief tornado warning. I had to go out to pick up my organic veggies and I got soaked.

I want to do something for earthquake relief. I am planning on putting some work on Ebay. You can designate that some or all of the proceeds go to the Japan Earthquake Relief. I will let you know when I do that.

 

 

Posted in Discharging fabric, Japan, Postcards, This and that | 7 Comments »

All Washed Up

Friday, November 19th, 2010

or out.  This is after I waited a day for the scarves to dry and cure. Here is the before I did the washout.

This was a big disappointment to me. I think the black and the blue deColourant are a bust. I think I will just try to do an overdye of them now and try to rescue them that way.

I have not had a good day. I have a cold that is moving to my lungs so I have to be careful. I found out that the daughter of my good friend, Suzy, died from an apparent heart attack on Wednesday. She was only 45. The heartache for people I care about continues. My intrepid BIL, with leukemia, loves hunting and so he is going out with his buddies today and tomorrow. I hope he has a great time.

Now, to watch a movie with Mr C and attempt to felt some ornaments.

Posted in Discharging fabric, This and that | 7 Comments »

The Storm Before The Calm

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

I am in multi-tasking mode. Doing this and that and nothing is close to being finished. So far I am coping.

I decided it was time to do a major purge of stuff from my office. I have stuff from my year as guild president that can be tossed. I have a box of registrations for the SDA conference from almost two years ago. I needed to shred the registrations because they contain personal information and credit card numbers. My shredder is old and very primitive. I fried it about 1/4th of the way into the job. I have a new one that can do 12 sheets at a time and cross cuts. Now, I have boxes of lovely packing shreds. However, it will go into our recycling bin. It may take a couple of weeks to get rid of all of it.

Remember this piece that I made last spring? The Old Growth Forest?

It has some redeeming value – really! I have an idea to cut it up and create a more complex piece. Amazingly, I bought a gorgeous piece of hand-dyed muslin at PIQF which just looks beautiful with this.

When I want to cut something like this up, I print a photo of it on paper and play with it that way.

I think it has possibilities!

I ironed the two scarves that I used the deColourant on yesterday. The scarf with green and blue in it was done with Colorhue Dyes. I was wondering if they would discharge. It looks like they did. The proof will be in the wash out which I will do tomorrow.

Poor Scooter! He is having cabin fever. We have had lots of heavy rain showers so our walks have been much shorter. Here he is doing the Downward Dog in the studio tonight.

I was mistaken, I have one more page in my sketchbook. Tonight’s piece is playing with lines and titled, Fissure.

Posted in Discharging fabric, My creations, Sketchbook Project | 5 Comments »

Disappointments, Challenges, Opportunities

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

I didn’t post last night. I had a High Fiber Diet meeting. I came home with a headache because of an incident at the meeting. I also came home to find that Allegro did not make it into the SAQA Beyond Comfort show and was very disappointed.

Then, a member of High Fiber Diet e-mailed me with great news that our Bird’s Eye View show was accepted for the Maude Kerns Art Center in Eugene. The bad news was that they wanted it when I had scheduled it at Trinity Cathedral in March and April. Eek!

So there you have my disappointment and my challenge.

Now that I am seeing some of the work that was chosen for Beyond Comfort, I think it would not have played nicely in the show. I have another show to enter that is looking for:

Quilt artists are encouraged to present works where they are reaching outside the terminology of a quilt. Surface Design artists are asked to show works that use various materials in a fiber technique (i.e. weaving with wire) or to stretch their fiber techniques to new boundaries.

So, back to the Bird’s Eye View show. What to do? Well, amazingly, last night at the meeting, we discussed trying to do more than one show — possibly finding a venue and mounting a show. So, that is what I am doing. Bird’s Eye View will go to Maud Kern’s and we will have a new show titled, Back to Nature. I invited members to bring me work that references the natural world – abstract or representational. We will jury a small show to go to Trinity. I am really excited about this and have gotten great response from members today.

So, there you have my opportunities.I feel energized and invigorated.

In a comment to my post on the experiment with deColourant, my friend Judy said they had experimented with it in Jane Dunnewold’s studio last week, and they found it worked best to let it dry for a day or so. I hate to wait, but that is what I am doing with a couple of scarves I treated today.

They will probably get another layer of something. Here they are on my drying rack:

I used this piece of corrugated cardboard to print. I love it.

I have one more page in my fiber sketchbook. The one up there is deconstructed windows.

Posted in Bird's Eye View, Discharging fabric, High Fiber Diet, Juried Shows | 3 Comments »

Time’s A Wastin’

Monday, November 15th, 2010

That is how I feel most days of late. I get up thinking I will really accomplish something today. By the time I get my mundane tasks done, catch up on SDA web work, read blogs and Facebook, it seems as if the day is gone. Part of this dallying is due to my constant worry about those I love who are dealing with problems.  I can’t seem to get into a real creative groove.

Tonight, Mia and Miles are spending the night so that Steph and Jack can hear their friend, Tift Merritt sing. She was Steph’s maid of honor back in North Carolina. Scooter was so happy to see them. He kept sneaking down the hallway to their bedrooms. He usually never goes back there.

After I got them settled for the night, I went down to finish my experiment with deColourant – a discharge agent with added color.

I cut some shapes with freezer paper and added the stuff. The blue is a spray, the copper is a metallic and I used a clear spray on the right side.

Here is is after it dried (with some help from the hair dryer) and was ironed.

Here is the back side.

However, here it is after I washed it. Whoops! What happened to the blue? I wonder if I should have let it dry longer?

I like the effect that the spray gives. I think I need to do some more research and experiments.

I have only two pages left in my fiber sketchbook. I am going to come up with another regular practice. I like that I can come down to the studio and accomplish something in short period of time. It is nice to have something done!!

Posted in Discharging fabric, Sketchbook Project | 6 Comments »

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