Something About Nothing

I had a few deadlines this week which have kept me from posting! First project up was to finish a second quilt for the Springville Museum of Art Quilt Show . I created the pieced top while in Fountain Green a few months ago and was able to quilt the top in a way I REALLY liked.  After blocking the quilt, while trimming the top, the quilt told me I needed to be more drastic in my trimming.   Do your quilts talk to you?   I do hope I'm not the only one! This one said I should get rid of some sections of black.  I chalked out the lines and decided to sleep on the decision. I wasn't sure I wanted to cut out all that pretty quilting! When I came back to the quilt the next day, it yelled "YES! YES! GET RID OF SOME BLACK!"   So I ruthlessly took the rotary cutter and chopped out the black bits I'd chalked in and then finished it with a facing, a sleeve and a label all before midnight the night before the deadline!   Whew! But then I forgot to ...

I really had a great time in Carol's class however by the time Thursday afternoon hit I was overwhelmed with all the new information I was learning.  I had to step back and just watch for a little while. There were so many beautiful colors and patterns all around! I just had to sit and soak it all in! That afternoon we also learned how to discharge and over-dye a t-shirt using a shibori pole.  And how to make this cool design using thiox immersion discharging. I pulled myself together after a good nights rest and did a little more work on the last day.  One of my favorite things I managed was this piece.  I had discharged it earlier in the week with thiox paste but the thiox wasn't strong enough.  Notice the lighter round shapes in the back ground? So I pulled it out, threw some of the same washers on top along with some other circle shapes and sprayed it with DeColourant mist. I think it looks like a ...

One of my favorite projects from Carol Soderlund 's class was printing with Thiox in print paste. I created a thermofax screen from a photo of a coneflower and used it in my printing. I really like the texture. It reminds me of a commercial batik. The fabric on the left is the printed/discharged piece, and the fabric on the right is the original ice dyed fabric which I tore this piece off of. I want to discharge the rest of the fabric!  This piece was a fabric which I dyed by spreading the dye across with a big paint brush.  I didn't like it much but I am liking it even more with the discharged letters.  I think I will throw some tangerine dye on top next.  This is a piece I didn't like which I over-dyed with several blacks.  The color came out more purple than black.  I then used a circle thermofax screen and some 2 day old Thiox paste to put in a little texture.  The Thiox wasn't strong enough to take out all of the c...

See the organic pattern on the piece below?   It looks like the outside of a cantaloupe doesn't it? That is the pattern you can get using potato dextrine as a resist! We started with black commercial fabric, as well as pfd and hand dyed fabrics. I applied my potato dextrine through some stencils. The fabric at the top is a black commercial fabric and the one on the bottom is an overdyed commercial fabric.  Polly is making designs into the potato dextrin.  It has to dry completely before the discharge or dye can be applied over the top. In our case, we had to run and get all the tables into the barn so that they didn't get rained on! The next day we applied the discharge paste and got some really cool results. My black piece got a little over worked. In other words, I went over the potato dextrin too much in a few places, not allowing it to form the nice big pattern it is known for. The over dyed commercial fabric ...

One of the first projects we did in Carol Soderlund's class was to make interesting critters from commercial dyed black fabric and various tools using basic Itajime folds.  We discharged our critters in a bleach bath. The folds and do dads acted as a resist. After a rinse, an anti chlor bath, and then several hours of drying we over-dyed the pieces. Here are a few of my creations:  A medallion fold, some clamps, clothes pins and a set of acrylic squares. A simple fan fold two ways, a couple credit cards and some rubber bands.  A flag fold, two credit cards, clamps and clothes pins.   Another flag fold, some wooden rectangles and clothes pins.   A double fan fold and clothes pins.  This double fan fold, two mason jar lids, washers and rubber bands produced. . . . . . this piece:  I love the funky images that appeared because of the washers being shoved into the lay...