Something About Nothing

 My friend, Sylvia , drove up from her home in southern Utah for her granddaughter's birthday. Since she was in town, and we are both fully vaccinated, we decided to have a dye party together. It's been at least 2 years since we've seen each other in person! I think we spent more time talking than dyeing, but that's okay, it was time well spent. I taught Sylvia how to create resists by pinching the fabric, and adding rubber bands. We used small hair rubber bands to create a resist. This is similar to Kanoko Shibori. A one yard piece tied up with rubber bands before dyeing. Sylvia swirled and tied up her one yard piece. We did a little parfait dyeing too. Only appropriate that we do it in ice cream containers! All of our tied, twisted and clamped pieces after adding dye. Sylvia took her pieces home in a bucket, and we both ended up letting them stew in their juices for 48 hours before rinsing, washing and drying. Here are my completed pieces: Tiny hair rubber bands on pi...

Finished experiment number 2 I have a journal page I need to complete for an exchange. I decided to experiment with crayons and watercolors. My first attempt was to draw a face (below) and after wetting the watercolor paper I splashed it with random colors. It is just Eh. Not really what I wanted. Finished Experiment Number 1 Next I drew a face in crayon and purposefully painted it with watercolor. I need to work with watercolor more. I've forgotten how to use the medium, and the brushes. I've become accustomed to acrylics and working from dark to light. And if you mess something up you just paint over it! Not so easy to do with watercolors, but I am satisfied with the results. Experiment Number 2 mid-experimenting  The background on my hand stitched fiber art is finished. I'm now working on stitching inside the hands. It's a big experiment in itself and I'm not going to share photos now until the hands are complete.  I picked out the French knots on the half circle...

And the Stitch goes on. . .  -think Sonny & Cher -  hope I just passed along that little ear worm.  You're welcome. Swirly, twirly winds stitched in to the sky And now, The Hands... One Hand Two Hands Three Hands Five Hands Sometimes I know how to count. Each hand was traced with a chalk pencil then stitched using a basic outline stitch. These stitches go all the way through all three layers.  The back side so far. And although it is a basic stitch, each hand took a little over an hour to outline. It doesn't help that my carpel tunnel has been creating a lot of pain and numbness in my own hands.  Next it is time to fill in the back ground! I'm also dyeing more fabric for another project. I always have at least three projects going at one time  so I can bounce from one to the other when I get bored.  How do you work?

FYI: In an attempt to catch up the blog with the last year AND stay up to date, I'll be attempting two short posts a week. One that will show what I am currently working on, and one that will be back dated. Hope it doesn't confuse anyone too much (myself included!) I'm currently working on this 18" square, improv pieced art quilt. I'm thinking about entering it in to the Springville Quilt Show this summer. We'll see. I have an idea for a larger piece too, so if I'm lucky, I will have two new pieces to enter. If not then I will enter one of the pieces I created for my Art Cloth Mastery Show (more on that in another post). This piece is created with hand dyed fabrics. I was experimenting with gradations of color by adding neutral gray or black to blue. I really love the dark grays I made with these combinations. You can see the progression of the piece from the top left, down to the bottom right. This is the current state of affairs. I will start quilting the...

 I feel as if I have been in a fog this past year. I know many of you have felt it too. I've spent way too much time on social media, watching all the ups and downs of disease and injustice. Issues of injustice have been especially depressing. People of color have been dealing with these appalling issues for 400 years. I have been slowing learning throughout my life, but this year I decided to up my education.  Thanks to a friend I met in Houston, I joined a group of women in reading, watching, listening, and then discussing social issues in a private group. A wonderful group of women. I feel like I learned a lot, and made some new friends too. I've expanded my own reading as a result of the group. Here are a few I would recommend: So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo White Fragility by Robin Diangelo Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X Kendi There is also a Kids edition of Stamped, and a Young Adult edition ....