Year of the Hand Dyes

I've deemed 2009 the year of the hand dyed fabrics. I really have been obsessed with hand dyeing and want to do some more. I am hoping that I will get it all out of my system and then I'll have to deem the next 500 years the Years of Sewing the Hand Dyes.

I want to get it all out of my system for many reasons. 1)I don't want to buy 5,000 yards of PFD fabric to dye, 2)I can't make fruity, sweet beverages out of any left over dyes, and 3)I will eventually run out of shelf space in my studio for displaying my lovely art hand dyed fabrics.

And to make matters worse, I've now got on order some bulk perle cotton to dye along with my fabric. You know, a girl needs to have matching thread to go along with those luscious hand dyes.

So the last couple of days I've been using up the last of my IDyes. In case you don't recall, these are the dyes you use in your washing machine. I had about 8 colors left and wanted to get them used up. In the first photo you see here, I combined IDye colors to create these two batches. I ended up with some mud colors in the lefthand group, but I guess sometimes you might need some of those huh?


Here are two groups of blues I created.


And here are two groups of greens.


And after all that, I still have a couple of colors of IDye left, although not complete packages as I like my colors a little lighter than if I'd used the entire dye packet. So there they sit, still waiting. I could throw them away, since there isn't much left in each package, but hey, I can't throw good dye away. So hmmm, I could give it away!

Here is a project I started yesterday. It will be a small wall hanging. My next step on this is to add color.


I had been working on a quilt for a few days and suddenly I decided I'm not liking it anymore. I wasn't enjoying it and wondered if it was worth continuing. Have you experienced these thoughts on a project? I decided to set the project aside and perhaps one day I'll see some potential in it. But I just didn't want to waste my time on it now.

Wednesday This & That

Hey! Hello! Whatcha been up to? Have you missed me?

I've recently been a bit busy with visiting relatives and working on outdoor projects, so I haven't been a good blogger lately. I haven't had time to make or work on anything either.

I did, however, grab some time to work on my hand stitching project while in the car lately. So here is a little progress on that.


And look at these two great fabrics I purchased. I'm going to dye these.



Another thing I've worked on lately is a new look for my website. Please take a look. I hope you'll like what you see there.

Waiting

I've finished my quilt. I've named it Waiting. You can decide what she is waiting for.

Waiting
31" x 26"

Yesterday afternoon my Internet service went on vacation. It was out for about 24 hours. It was a hard and grueling 24, but I survived. I guess you could say I was Waiting for it to be restored. How addicted are you to the World Wide Web?

Last of the Hand Dyes

Here is my latest gradation. This is Deep Yellow and Lilac. I ended up with some very interesting greens. Not exactly what I was expecting, but that's part of the fun. And when you aren't using pure colors in dyeing, well then, expect the unexpected!


I mentioned in my last post about working on a quilt entry for the Blurred Boundaries exhibit. Here is a sneak peek. I have even solved my name dilemma and thought of one. I guess it just took some thinking time. By the way, I've shown you part of this quilt before. You can see the background in this post.


Oh and are you wondering about the title of this post? Well this will be the last hand dyed gradation for a week or two as I have depleted all my PFD fabric. I need to get some more ordered. I know I can squish some more fabric onto my shelves. I just know it!

Blueberry

Here is my latest two-color gradation. I'm calling it blueberry because I think I would maybe see some of these colors in a bunch of blueberries. I used brilliant blue and lilac to create this gradation. It is a very subtle gradation, I imagine because the two colors are close together on the color wheel.

I decided I should document my two-color gradations somehow. I'm hoping that my friend, Vicki, will be proud of me for recording my efforts, although they are somewhat simplistic. Vicki??? How am I doing here? Is there hope for me?

I've been working on a mixed-media quilt this weekend that I am hoping to finish within the next day or two so that I can get some photos of it and submit it to an upcoming quilt show. The deadline for submissions is June 28 (deadline has been extended one week). The show is Blurred Boundaries and you can read all about it here.

I need to come up with a name/title for the quilt too. I always have such a difficult time naming quilts.

Amazed and Baffled

I am so amazed that last weekend we were having temperatures in the 30s, and getting slushy rain. Today we are into the 80s and I'm wearing shorts.

The first two photos show some textured surfaces that I added color to yesterday. The top one is Neocolor II crayons and textile medium and the blue one below is Dye-Na-Flow.


My mail delivery person brought me a package today. I ordered some art supplies and I could only find one supplier who had the colors I was looking for. This was the first time I had ordered from this company and, well, I was quite baffled to see this box. Baffled, because I knew what was inside. See that little bubble wrapped pouch in front of the box? That is the supplies I ordered. You can see below what was in the bubble wrap.


Okay, am I missing something here? Was there a great need to package this small order in such a huge box? They shipped it priority mail. I know the Post Office has free priority mail boxes and there is a small one that would have worked perfectly in this situation. Sigh! I think it's one of life's little mysteries.

You Want Me to What???

The photo above is my results of a two-day dyeing session. By the way, is it "dyeing" or "dying"?

This is a two-color gradation of fuchsia and bronze. A few years ago I had tried my hand at hand dyeing and found that I wasn't happy with my results so I stopped. I even got rid of all my dye and chemicals. I think the main reason I wasn't happy with my results back then is because I wasn't using very good fabric. The colors weren't bright and lively, but dull and well, just plain dull.

So now that I know I can achieve some great results I have been in a dyeing kick. I think I've gone through about 40 yards of fabric to this point. I have used some of the fabric for my deconstructed screen printing trials.

Well anyway, so at one point I used to have some books on dyeing. Yep, got rid of those too, way back when. So here I am trying to remember how to do two-color gradations. I have a pretty good idea on what needs to be done, but I just wanted to double check. So I started searching the web for some tutorials on gradations. I found a few and they pretty much confirmed what I thought I knew. But there was one thing, okay maybe two, that I didn't remember, or perhaps it's that I hadn't ever seen it before. The information I was finding was telling me to take and give equal amounts of dye and water in order to gradually change the shade, and in the end they said to dump the remaining dye down the sink. Huh? Why waste perfectly good dye? Nuh uh! Not gonna happen! So I dumped the remaining amounts of dye into a bucket and added a piece of fabric. The piece shown all alone in the top of the photo above is this piece. Pretty lovely piece of cloth, and just think, they wanted me to dump that down the drain.

So anyway, another thing I didn't remember when doing this two-step thingy, was to create two pieces of fabric with just the pure colors of fuchsia and bronze. Sigh! All six seven of the fabrics are a mix of the two dyes. I guess I should have done an eight-step gradation and included the pure colors too. Oh well, do I care? Probably not.

News Around the Web

Sue has created a new online class. Creative Book Making will make it's debut on September 4. The class is 6 weeks and you will learn how to make some awesome hard cover books. Great timing for making gifts for the holidays.

Two Creative Studios has added a new free project to their line up. Sue shares her quick and easy Foiled Silk Cards here. Also at Two Creative Studios, some new Classes on Demand have been added. You can see all that are offered here.

Vicki of Field Trips in Fiber blog has opened an Etsy shop. In Vicki's shop you'll find fabulous hand dyed fabrics and also her spectacular tie dyed t-shirts, along with some painted fabrics and more. I love her fabric gradations.

Debra of Debra's Design Studio blog has also opened an Etsy shop. At Debra's Design Store, you'll find many wonderful machine embroidered designs for sale. Just imagine what you could do with these. Applique them to your clothes, quilts, handbags, and more! My favorites are the hummingbirds.

Sherry of Sherry Carrigan blog has made a quilt using my new Class on Demand Creative Art Quilting Techniques: Fused and Painted Backgrounds. Check her work out, she's even got four more quilts started. Way to go Sherry!

And I can't not give you a photo to gaze upon. So here is what I worked on this past weekend when I was all bundled up trying to stay warm in the freakish weather we were having.


I made this 12" x 12" art quilt for the SAQA Benefit Auction 2009 - One Foot Square. The auction begins on September 10. Mark your calendars!!!

12 x 12 x 122 Gallery Exhibit

You may recall seeing these mixed-media paintings a while back. Well they are in a gallery exhibit called 12 x 12 x 122. 122 artists prepared four 12" x 12" canvases and all are on display at the BECA Gallery, New Orleans.


The exhibit opening was this past weekend and there are photos of the opening night here. In one of the photos you can see a peek of two of my pieces.

To inquire about the purchase of these or any of the art in this exhibition, please contact BECA Gallery (becagallery@gmail.com). Are you going to the exhibit?

Art on My Walls

Many moons ago I showed you that I was painting frames. Well I used those frames to frame some art prints that I've been collecting. Finally, this weekend hubby helped me get them up on the wall in Studio B. Don't they look awesome?


On the wall just to the right of the prints above is this quilt that I received in a swap with Peggy. I've had this up on the wall for a couple months or more now.


Today I'm all bundled up with winter clothing again. Our temperatures have been totally weird and yesterday we were in the 30s all day with slushy rain. Today again we are in the low 40s with rainy weather. Brrrr, we've even turned the furnace on. How weird, just a week ago we had the air conditioner on.

Guess What Day it Was?

New Class on Demand

Remember the photo I showed you in the last post? Well this is the finished project. I made this art quilt for a new Class on Demand that I wanted to create. The technique is fun and easy and uses up many scraps. If you are interested in learning my method for this type of art quilt, you can find more information about it on the Two Creative Studios website here.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

As I am typing this post, I have the French door open to let in the morning air and to listen to the birds and to let the cats sniff the outside. But all I hear is the back-up beeping of equipment working across the road. Sigh!

I'm not too newsy today. I do want to share with you one of my most favorite web sites. I get a daily chuckle from this site and sometimes more than one chuckle a day. The site is here and it's all about cats. Photos of cats are posted with funny text along with them. Now I do find some of them not as funny, but for the most part they are great. They even have a sister site for dogs, if you prefer dogs more than cats, although I just can't imagine why you would.

Another little item I'd like to discuss with you is this: I've just posted in my Etsy shop that I'm having a June special. The special is FREE SHIPPING, within the USA. Thanks for looking!

And I leave you with a photo. This is a little something I am currently working on. More information about that later.


Happy Tuesday!

Twelve by Twelve Reveal: Identity

Today is the day! The Twelve by Twelve group reveals their quilts with the theme of identity. The twelve quilts will be appearing throughout the day, please check them out. You can read more about my quilt over there too.