Something About Nothing

 I took Jane Dunnewold 's Paper and Metal Leaf Lamination online course. I enjoyed it very much. Jane is an excellent teacher. I've only made time to make a couple sample pieces, but I look forward to using the technique in more of my work. The awesome part of this is that you can add paper to your fabric and it can be easily stitched and washed. Last night I had a dream about a piece using this technique. Now I just need to put it all together in real life.  Jane is also publishing a book about the same technique that will be out next year.  Here are the two sample pieces I made using some of my  Thermofax stamp designs anyone can buy on Jane's website: Turntable thermofax screen with dictionary page and an atlas. It's fun to see the atlas, and antique ads I used for this one. I have the metal foil and will experiment with it soon.

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 collaborated with Jane Dunnewold to make some of my hand carved stamps in to Thermofax screens which are now available to anyone to purchase! There are 19 designs which can be ordered in either the 5"x7" or 8"x10" sizes.  Click on this link to order!   I played with a few of the designs and made some fabrics. I then used a couple of these fabrics to make some zippered bags. I really enjoy using thermofax screens and paint on fabric. They make screen printing so easy.

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 ...

 This weekend was the Home Machine Quilt Show in Sandy, Utah.  Practically my backyard.  I entered a quilt in the show:  SWR - "Sylvia Was Right"  I started the quilt while at the Pie Plates Retreat. The blue was created using Color Magnet with a thermofax screen and turquoise dye.  The purples are the leftovers from an ice dyed pieced that I then over printed with a thermofax screen of onion skin cells and human brain cells for the Science challenge of The Printed Fabric Bee. When I started to piece I planned on using the two pieces of fabric I had dyed along with white for an accent. My friend, Sylvia, decided to give me a challenge by throwing some scraps of peach at me.  I complained like a big baby and told her I didn't want to use.  I used it, and she was right, thus the name SWR. I'm sorry this photo is a bit blurry but it gives you an idea of the wonky, free form piecing I used to create this piece.   I didn't win a rib...

Last month I packed up some supplies and headed out. . .  . . .to my friend Timmy Burton's studio in beautiful Heber, Utah. Earlier in the summer I created some hand dyed fabrics and decided that this orange and yellow piece would be perfect for Susan's Sunflower piece.  This photo looks kind of green but you can see in the other two photos that it is very orange and yellow.  It reminds me of summer!   Timmy has a thermofax machine so I created a screen of a sunflower from a copyright free image I found online. I created a couple different shades of Jacquard brown textile paint to fill the fabric with lots of sunflowers. I wanted the look of a field of small sunflowers. I like how it turned out! I really love the fabric's the rest of the ladies have created for Susan this month. So much creativity in this group! Stop by The Printed Fabric Bee blog or Susan Purney Mark 's blog and leave a comment for a chance to win this month...

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to head up the canyon and spend time working in my friend Timmy's studio.  The day was perfect! I decided to use my time to work on my piece for The Printed Fabric Bee . October's Queen Bee was Jackie Lams of Studio Lams and her theme was Science. I decided to create some drawings of different things as they look at a cellular level.  I created a thermofax screen of blood cells, brain cells, onion skin cells and eucalyptus leaf cells. I tried them all out on paper before I moved to fabric. Once I decided which screens would work best,  I pulled out a piece of ice dyed fabric as my base. I really liked the look of the onion skin cells. They almost look like an old brick wall. The blood cells and eucalyptus leaf cells designs seemed too heavy  so I chose to use the brain cells in turquoise. I made a very large piece of fabric. I only needed a 12x12" and 6x6" piece. I'm sure I can figu...

Leslie Tucker Jenison was the Queen Bee for September for The Printed Fabric Bee.  She chose Urban Surfaces as her theme because she loves the look of layered textures of old walls, peeling paint, and graffiti on building walls. I have been looking forward to this theme!  I wanted to do something that would resemble a wall with bits of paint peeling away to reveal other layers of mystery.  I started with a piece of fabric I dyed in one of my favorite color ways:  Next I added a few words in turquoise here and there from a thermofax screen I made from an image I found at The Graphics Fairy . I must have been very caught up in the process because I missed getting a photo of the next layer - another thermofax.  It was comprised of lots of scribbles.  I printed them in brown and yellow.  You can see a little bit of the results on the lefthand side of this photo of me stencil more texture: The next layer of texture was created using a stencil I...

Lynda Heines ' theme for August was Inspirational Words  and she wanted her 8" x 18" pieces to be in southwestern colors.  I knew I wanted to make a thermofax screen to use in her project and so I searched the internet for inspirational quotes and then arranged them in photoshop.  You can click on the photo below and copy it for yourself.  Feel free to use it to make your own thermofax screen (for personal use only please!) I dyed a piece of pfd cotton in a lovely turquoise.   This is my favorite southwestern color! To add some texture I used my zentangle thermofax screen and some Speedball fabric screen printing ink in turquoise. And then I added the words on top using Speedball fabric screen printing ink in a deep plum. I really like this color combination. Here is the 6"x6" piece that is part of this months giveaway: If you would like a chance to win all nine of this months pieces head on over to Lynda's blog or The Pr...