Something About Nothing

 On  June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court leaving access to an abortion up to individual states. Many states have still opted to protect reproductive rights, and the right to an abortion, while others have totally banned abortions. It's a right that was fought for 50 years ago and is now gone. There have been many demonstrations and pushes to protect  One of my quilt friends, Maria Shell, decided to make a Reproductive Rights Community Quilt called The United States of Uterus, and asked individuals in each state of the United States to make a block. She asked me, and I was happy to contribute. The quilt is still in progress but she has all the blocks she needs. I look forward to seeing the completed quilt. I decided to make a design that I could screen print on fabric and then do some stitching on top. I designed the image in Photoshop and sent it to my friend, Stefanie Dykes at Saltgrass Printmakers. She made a silk screen for me and then tau...

Lynn Krawczyk has recently published a new workshop on DVD.  I LOVE Thermofax screens and use them whenever I can.  I was excited when Lynn invited me to review her new DVD class. While I don't feel that Thermofax printing is that intimidating, I know it can be for others and I think that Lynn's DVD takes ALL the intimidation of this process.  She walks you through everything from choosing a good image, to how a screen is made, and how to create lots of lovely prints.  I especially liked her advice on how to line up the screen to create a two color print.  She also shows several fun projects to make.  I especially liked her birds printed on ATC's.  It gave me an idea for a project my daughter needed some help with. My oldest daughter came home from DC for a brief visit and asked me to help her friend, who was recently baptized, bind some letters from the people at church.  Because of the small margin on the letters, and the thickness of ...

I love this stuff. This time I used the color magnet with a couple of thermofaxes I made (the writing and eyes on the left), a stencil I made with my Silhouette (middle fabric),  and a new thermofax I received from  Carol Sloan  (bee on the right). Here are the fabrics after the Color Magnet was applied and dried onto pfd: And here they are after they were dyed using  Fiber Reactive Procion dyes in plastic baggies: Can you see why I love this stuff? The less dye you use the better the contrast. . .  . . . and, for better or worse,  the dye is attracted to the smallest bit of the color magnet. I was even able to layer the color magnet and have it all come out perfectly. The dye also attracted to the portions where the dye did not cover the background. This last piece was my attempt at a mosaic piece for  The Printed Fabric Bee   and it is my least favorite. I wonder how this would over dye? ...

 Gerrie Congdon  was this month's Queen at The Printed Fabric Bee.   She requested fabric with wonky, organic lines and she said that she liked orange, red and chartreuse.  Now that is a color way I can get in to!   I started off by creating a half yard piece of ice dyed fabric using Gerrie's three colors.   The Chartreuse is hiding on the right hand side. Next I designed a stencil using my Silhouette electronic cutter and a sheet of  transpanency film  from a photograph of tree bark.  Believe it or not, creating the stencil was the most time consuming part of this project! The stencil is hard to see in this photo but it is sitting on top of the fabric. Little tiny lines and irregular shapes cut perfectly. I taped the stencil to the bottom of a blank screen. . .  . . . and pulled prints over the entire piece with red textile paint (Jacquard) .  Here's a close up of the resulting pattern. ...

I'm very happy to be a part of The Printed Fabric Bee. Our first Queen Bee, Lynn Krawczyk from Smudged Textile Studios , issued the challenge for each member to create a piece of fabric with the theme: Orange Circles. I started the piece by silk screening Jacquard orange textile paint onto cotton pfd fabric. . .  . . .  and then over dyeing the piece  dutch chocolate brown . I felt it needed more so I created a new resist of circles using glue on a silk screen and overprinted a couple times with a few mixed oranges and came up with this piece:  Ta Da! One person said it looked like roses, and I agree, but I also think it looks like lots of coffee cup rings, which is very appropriate for my coffee addicted  loving friend, Lynn. AND NOW for the most EXCITING PART  of The Printed Fabric Bee. . . A GIVEAWAY! Each member of The Bee made an extra 6" piece of fabric to be given away! That is right  YOU  could...

My friends  Sylvia,    Anne , Helen and I had a  play date  while at the Utah Quilt Festival this week. I set up everything in my hotel room . . . with plastic trash bags covering the bed, table and floor. . . . . .and we went to work. Sylvia wanted to learn how to use a thermofax screen. . .  . . .so I showed the 3 of them this simple surface design technique. Sylvia had fun experimenting on one of my ugly fabrics with a thermofax screen I purchased from Lynn at Smudged Textile Studio . Anne used one of the coneflower thermofax screens I created on to a hand dyed fabric. Helen used a paisley thermofax screen I had purchased from Judy Coates Perez .  Helen used another piece from my ugly fabric. I also showed them how to use a silk screen with a stencil. After we finished screening,  Anne wanted to learn how to carve an eraser stamp.  I demonstrated using s...