Wall Art #5

Today's project:

This print has been ready to mount as long as all the others, I just couldn't decide on the right background.  Today I was looking through my stash and pulled out this piece and decided it was the right balance for the blue.  It is a piece that was originally dyed green, and this summer I over-dyed it shibori style in blue, just using up some left-over dye.  I'm happy with the result.

Additional Wall Art

Previously in some August and September posts I shared some screen prints that I was making into wall art.  As shown before, these are some of the prints I started with.

I have now finished the 4th piece in this group.  (I know, slow progress.  I have been working on some other things, but several of the projects I've done this year have been for exhibits and can't be shared.  So while it may seem like I haven't been doing much, I continue to work on these "secret" projects.)

The piece at the bottom right is the one I have just completed.  I really like the look of the "stitch print" fabric as background - it really goes well with the simplicity of the prints.  The fabric is stretched over a 9x12 canvas and stapled to the wood frame.  The prints are layered with batting (no backing) and thread sketched around the image, then the edges are satin stitched.  The size of the print fabric was trimmed so it would fit inside the wood frame of the canvas, in order to be able to hand stitch the print to the background/canvas.  The hand stitching is done with #5 perle cotton and a running stitch.  I have a few more covered canvases ready and waiting for prints to be stitched on, as soon as I do the machine work.

QC6 Day 22

My time at quilt camp is finally winding down.  My husband arrived today, so I will be departing in a few more days.  As I said yesterday, I'm trying to squeeze a few more things in before I go.  We had some errands to do in Wolfeboro this morning, so again a not very productive day in the studio.  However the reason for the errands was to go to the library to make prints for screens and the post office to mail some orders, so that part of the day was productive.  We have had 12 orders through our Etsy shop over the last 3 weeks - the most ever in that amount of time so PGFiber2Art has definitely been productive!  We've also added 8 new screens to the shop these last 3 weeks and also screened tote bags.  Check us out at the link above.

What I did get done in the studio was to rinse out the 2 indigo pieces from yesterday.  I'm satisfied with the results, especially the scarf, which really didn't take much dye on the first go-round.  The green piece will probably have some more surface design added.

I also put some more pieces in dye for another "experiment".  We have some instructions for dyeing with a "suede" finish, so decided to do a comparison between the "suede" ingredients and standard ingredients.  Here are the 2 dye pots of plum waiting till wash out tomorrow.

Elizabeth did some quick printing this evening making "cloud" fabric.  And I burned some more screens today that are ready for taping.

QC6 Day 21

The days sure go by quickly.  It was cloudy, cool and gray this morning till mid-afternoon.  So the morning was spent indoors on the computer working on business stuff.  But I did get some things done this afternoon and evening.  I had 2 pieces sitting in some left over dye that I washed out; one in yellow & coral, one in blue.  I knew a lot of color would wash out because the dye was pretty well spent, but I like the soft colors of the coral & yellow.  Hopefully not too much will wash out in the final machine wash.  The blue is darker than I expected but probably more will wash out of that too.

Then I did a little screen printing with thickened dye on a couple of pieces that have been sitting around - previously dyed and/or surface designed - waiting for something else. I really like the texture this crackle screen adds.

I decided to dye a couple more pieces in the indigo pot.  One is the silk scarf that I pole wrapped and dyed before, but it came out with very little color so this time I used small glass marbles banded with rubber bands.  And I had a fat quarter that was a pretty solid green, so I accordion pleated it and banded it every few inches.  Here they are after dipping; tomorrow I'll hang them in the sun to dry.

I also put some other pieces in soda ash to soak so they'll be ready for more dyeing tomorrow.

Quilt camp (at least for me) will be coming to an end soon - just a few more days!  So I'm trying to fit in all the things I still want to do!
 

QC6 Day 14

How can 2 weeks have gone by so quickly?  I guess when I look back at all I've done it's not so surprising but it sure doesn't seem like 2 weeks!  Today was definitely a productivity day!  I spent most of the day - all day - printing, trying out a couple of techniques I read about.  The first was a resist process by Jeannie Palmer Moore, printing with white paint on white fabric.  After it dries and is heat set, you apply liquid dye with a brayer.  I got so involved, I forgot to take "before" pictures of the white on white fabric!  But I do have pictures after the dye is applied.  Tomorrow will be the "wash out" to see the final result.  Of course, part of the process was using some newly made screens, so that was exciting too.  Here are a few pieces.

 This is the biggest piece, a half yard.  the screen used here is "crackle".  I used 3 colors of dye - coral, yellow, and parakeet.  The other pieces are all 9 or 10 inch pieces of fabric.

Along with this process, I tried another great idea from Diane Doran.  When finished printing with a screen, a lot of paint gets washed away in the clean up.  Usually I print on extra fabric to use up the paint but an even better way is to print with a slightly damp sponge which not only uses up the excess paint but helps clean the screen at the same time.  I got lots of extra prints from every screen I used.  Luckily I had brought along a Cherrywood scrap bag of 6 x 9 inch pieces which were perfect for using up the extra paint, and great colors to boot.  If you are not familiar with Cherrywood, take a look at their website - great hand dyed cottons with a suede-like appearance.

Above I was using a sponge to print with the excess ink.  Below, all 3 prints were made using the sponge and all are white paint, even though they appear different on the 3 colors.

Above are more of the prints on a drying rack.

Another technique I tried was using a brayer and liquid dye over texture plates.  This fabric could be cut up and used as is or another layer of surface design could be added. 

 

And one more thing, I made an addition to this piece that I started the first week with a sun print. Can you tell what's different?

  

QC6 Day 12

As indicated in yesterday's post, today was a road trip day.  We started off with a stop at the Tuftonboro library's annual book sale, and I found a lot more than I expected to.  The best find is the big book of clip art - all art in the public domain.  I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet, but I'm sure it holds a treasure trove of images for screens and inspiration!  There are a couple of other books for design ideas, plus some on quilting, embroidery, felting & knitting, and mixed media.  Lots of inspiration!

From there we headed to Portsmouth, NH to the first of 3 quilt shops we visited.  All 3 are participating in the Row by Row Experience shop hop, so we picked up our free patterns and a few other goodies.  The row designs include sailboats, hot air balloons, and a pinwheel-type design. The painted quilt blocks are on a garage door at the Village Quilt Shop in Berwick, Maine - we did  jump over the border from eastern NH to add another state!

In between, we made a stop at Salmon Falls Stoneware outlet store.  They have some beautiful pottery.

I showed a piece of orange fabric yesterday that I did some discharge on, but didn't have a picture of the over-printing.  I added turquoise "bubbles" to help tie it in to the row that I want to use it with.

After the all day road trip, a stop at the grocery store, and then fixing dinner when we got home, there wasn't time for much else.  I rinsed out the pieces in the dye pots from yesterday (the red napkins and the small pieced log cabin piece) but they require more washing before they are ready to show.

Tomorrow there is a fiber art fair in Center Sandwich, so we will probably head over there for a bit.  But hopefully get some more project work done as well.

QC6 Day 11

Today was a wash out - wash out of dye, that is.  I had 3 things batching over night that I showed you yesterday - the shibori pole wrap, clamped piece and napkins.  The napkins weren't as dark red as I wanted so after rinsing I put them back in soda ash and then back in the dye pot with some additional dye.  The pole wrap looks much better now - more balanced, and the clamped piece (circles) is interesting.

I finished my "row" from Keepsake Quilting's pattern.  The pattern is only 4 blocks; I added a third Yankee Puzzle block because I felt it looked more balanced, and plan to use it as a table runner instead of part of a quilt, so length doesn't matter.

I was going to layer my Artistic Artifacts row for quilting, but decided I wanted to add a border to make it a little wider.  Since I didn't have a piece I felt worked, I decided to print my own.  I had a piece of hand-dyed orange, and wanted to add texture and/or print.  I started by printing an all over design with discharge paste, which takes color out when heated with an iron. 

On the left I've applied the discharge and started to iron the bottom corner; on the right is what it looks like after ironing.  Then I went back to the print table and screened another image over top.  But I forgot to take a picture so I will share that tomorrow.

What else did I do today?  I made a peach pie; that's my assignment while I'm here - a pie a week!

I put together a small collage in neutral colors and machine quilted it, then put it in a dye pot - the leftover cobalt blue.  The dye is not full strength, so I'm hoping it will turn out a paler color than the piece with circles above.  This is a process we saw on a Quilting Arts video called Quilting and Dyeing Serendipity.

And finally, a little bit of a sunset.

Tomorrow, another road trip!

QC6 Day 10

Ten days already?  It's hard to believe we've been here that long!  Today was mostly a studio/sewing day.  Here is the day in pictures.

I tried out some new screens.  The photo above is before and after.  I added a little pine sprig to the fabric in the bottom photo.  In the pictures below, I was trying out a ledger page from 1899 and a postcard from 1908.

I decided to over dye the shibori piece in yesterday's post.  I wrapped it with the lighter part on the outside and put it in deep purple dye.

 

I also decided to try another type of shibori, using shape resists.  These circles are clamped above, below, and between the folded layers of fabric.  It was a light blue when I started.  It is in cobalt blue dye.

I crackled the flour resist piece and applied dy-na-flow paint.  After it dried, I washed it out.  It wasn't as successful as I hoped - too much paint; the Dy-na-flow is thin and pools underneath, which I forgot about.  But there are some decent parts.  (That is the bottom picture below.)  The top is a set of 10 linen napkins in a turkey red dye bath.  (Thinking ahead to Christmas.)

I also worked on sewing together my row from Keepsake Quilting.  It's all together, but I haven't taken pictures yet so that will be in tomorrow's post.

Finally, to end the day, a trip to Bailey's Bubble for ice cream (Maine Blackbear) and the evening sun after a thunderstorm.

QC6 Day 8

This morning I spent some time sewing to complete a quilt row that I started putting together last night.  It is for the Virginia Row by Row Experience.  This is actually a national shop hop for quilters' as they travel around through the summer.  There are quilt shops in 34 states participating, and over 1250 quilt shops!  If you visit participating shops in person, you can pick up a free pattern for a row designed by that shop.  The theme is "seasons" so all the shops chose one of the 4 seasons for their design.  Many shops also offer kits for their row if you want to make yours just like theirs.  If you combine 8 rows into a finished quilt and are the first person to bring it to a participating shop, you can win 25 fat quarters of fabric.  Row by Row Experience is the national page from which you can access all the participating states and shops.

The row I am working on was designed by Artistic Artifacts.  Judy featured thermofax screens created by PGFiber2Art (that's me and Elizabeth!) and wooden printing blocks with strip piecing to create a contemporary spring row.  I followed her lead to create my own fabric featuring text screens ("art" and "stitch") on top of a gelatin plate printed background, and added a final layer of screen printed ferns.  The base fabric was hand dyed, so the whole piece was created from scratch beginning with white cotton.  (I shared the picture a few days ago but will show it again.)  This is the row that Judy designed.

Here is my hand-made fabric.

This is the row that I made using my fabric and pieces of batik for the strip piecing.  The darker strips between the rows is some of the "tree bark" fabric shown in yesterday's post.  That will also be used for the binding after the row is quilted.

I'm not planning to make a quilt with the rows I collect (at this point); so far I'm just thinking table runners.  We got the pattern from Keepsake Quilting (New Hampshire) last week, and will be visiting a few more shops tomorrow.

QC6 Day 6

Today was much cooler and quite windy all day.  I got a few things done this morning before heading to Moultonborough for the library used book sale and Center Harbor for a stop at Keepsake Quilting. (Yes, we were just there on Tuesday.) I don't know if you can see the white caps on the lake but they were quite big compared to the calmness just 2 days ago.  I washed some 5" squares and hung them to dry - it was a great day for drying fabric on the line.

 

I found just a few things at the book sale - mostly embroidery design books for inspiration.  Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a book that was recently recommended, so was glad to find that.  And the prize - Zucchini 75 Ways!

On the way back, we stopped to pick up some lobsters for dinner at Bart's Seafood.  It's just a roadside stop with an eclectic collection of rusty stuff by the entrance.  But a typical New England scene.

I did some more studio work when we got back.  One thing I did was try out a product called Color Magnet.   It is a dye attractant that you apply to fabric before dyeing  and those places should be darker than the rest, making a tone on tone fabric.  I used thermofax screens to print all-over designs.  In these pictures it is wet from the application.  We'll see how it turns out tomorrow.

A quirky thing about New Hampshire is the things you see along the road.  Here's one example.  There's a barn we pass that has always had a giraffe head in one of the windows.  A few years ago, there was a new addition - a baby giraffe! 

This year, we're back to just the momma giraffe. But in the window to the left there is a new addition.  I believe she's wearing a military helmet.

QC6 Day 5

Hope you enjoyed your 4th of July.  The 4th at Lake Winnipesaukee was a washout this year - literally.  It rained off and on all day - I've never seen such a quiet 4th on the lake.  Although fire works can be heard now, so I'm sure there are more to come.   The day was spent mainly in the house, not much work in the "studio" today. 

This morning was a good time for computer work.  I added 4 of our new screens to the PGFiber2Art Etsy shop - check them out!

I printed fern #2 (above) on the fabric from yesterday that has gelli printing and 1 layer of text screen printing.  I really like the way it turned out.  I also threw a few previously dyed pieces into the soda ash solution to get them ready for over-dyeing to spruce them up.

And then this afternoon I made a strawberry pie - at least we could have a patriotic desert with our hamburgers & hot dogs!

I attempted to do a little bit of sewing but didn't get very far.  That was my day.  How was yours?