Surface Design Techniques | Crazy for Fiber

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Archive for the ‘Surface Design Techniques’ Category

Bamboo Fence

Monday, July 9th, 2007

I decided that the best presentation for this piece was to wrap it around stretcher bars. Finished, it measures 12 X 24 inches. I faced the bamboo with a piece of turquoise fabric to give it more stability for stretching over the frame. I like the hint of turquoise showing through the burlap. I have only tacked it so that I could take a photo. I have to do a tighter stretch. I like how it looks and am anxious to move on to something else.

Here is a closeup:

This morning I wanted to print out a bamboo graphic so that I could make a thermofax screen. Oh, oh! I haven’t printed anything since I got my new Intel inside Mini Mac. It took me until mid-afternoon to finally get the new drivers installed and the computer to recognize the printers. It requires a restarting the computer, unplugging the printers, saying several curse words and eating chocolate to get everything to work nicely together.

Here is the result, once I got the printer to work. This is a test on muslin.

I am going to use this image to make some small simple quilts, combining the bamboo image with some antique Japanese textiles.

Posted in My creations, screenprinting, Surface Design Techniques, thermofax | 3 Comments »

A Quiet Day in the Studio

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Today, Lisa took M & M to the zoo. Mr C went to the Cathedral to man the pantry — handing out lunches to the homeless. After a nice long walk with Maggie, I settled down in the studio with one of my ufo’s. I started this in Rayna’s class at Art Quilt Claremont. The background fabric and some of the pieces are screen-printed. The others are African batiks. I want to finish this for the wabi sabi show at the Japanese Garden, so I thought that adding some bamboo might look interesting. First, I did some hand stitching with Perle cotton.

I would love to keep the frayed edge of the background fabric, but am not sure how I can do that. I have thought of attaching it to painted canvas. I could cut back the batting and then stitch it to the canvas. What do you think?

Yesterday, I walked to Westmoreland to the Haggus McBaggus shoe store and bought a new pair of red Keen’s.

M and M were going to spend the night so that their parents could go out with Lisa, but Mia got a tummy ache so Miles came to stay with us by himself. He was so happy to come and stay by himself. Look at what I found for him at the Harbor Freight store. He is going to help Grandpa do some work around the house tomorrow while the girls have a day out on their own. Here is builder Milo.

Posted in M & M, My creations, Stuff I Buy, Surface Design Techniques | 7 Comments »

A Happy Fourth of July

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

Hope you are all having a happy day, celebrating our Democracy. We must never take it for granted, as we are now finding out. That is my itty bitty rant for today.

I am having such a good day. Time to relax, make some food for a dinner on the deck with Lisa, the anticipation of M & M returning to Portland tonight, with their Mom and Dad, and seeing all my work from the discharge class on the design wall.

I am so inspired by this cloth and can’t wait to work with it.

Here are some close-ups of the work that I had to bring home to finish. The first is the construction fence resist discharge. Next to it is the second skinny tape on the silk screen piece.

The next two photos show the pieces that were done with the linear pieces of tape on the silk screen. I just love how that ugly piece of brown discharged.

These two pieces are silk that has been over-dyed – also the piece on the right in the above photo. The fabric on the right below was gift from Jeannie who comments often on my blog.

This piece had torn masking tape on the fabric so where the tape was, it is darker.

The next piece had squished discharge paste the first time around so I added new elements, using turquoise dye in the paste.

These are samplers using turquoise dye in the paste.

These are silk pieces that had been over dyed. The piece on the right was from Jeannie. The bottom piece is cotton. The silk on the left is raw silk that has been over-dyed. These all used found objects.

This piece was done using a couple of thermofax screens.

And Just For Fun! I saw Deb R’s Simpson’s persona on her blog and had to try it. Go here to create your own. This looks scarily like me!!

Hope you are having a great day, too!

PS: I lost 4.4 pounds. I had to weigh yesterday because they were closed today. Yeah!

Posted in Discharging fabric, Holidays, Inspiration, Just for Fun, My creations, Rant, Surface Design Techniques | 13 Comments »

Discharge Workshop Day Two

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

I have sooooo many cool pieces of fabric to play with. There shall be no excuses for shunning the studio. I should give credit to our great workshop teacher, Jeannette DiNicolis Meyer. She is on the faculty of OSAC.

These were waiting for me when I arrived this morning, after being washed and dried. The first two were done with the torn masking tape applied to the silkscreen.

This was the piece that had skinny tape applied to the fabric. I love this.

Today we mixed turquoise dye with the discharge paste. It does not discharge so you can add color to discharged areas. Here I am applying the turquoise discharge paste, using a construction fence as the resist.

This is the piece after steaming, washing and drying.

I made another masking tape silk screen:

Here is the piece of fabric with discharge paste screened on the surface. This fabric is much browner than it shows here. The final piece is gorgeous. I’ll post a pic tomorrow. Jeannette proclaimed it the best piece of the workshop!!

This piece had large areas of smooshed discharge paste done yesterday and was looking rather washed out. Today, I used the turquoise paste to add back some color and design elements using a syringe and a screen.

Here is another skinny tape piece (raw silk) using the turquoise paste and one that was stamped with hydrangea leaves.

This is a piece that I painted with acid dyes a while ago. I used a foam roller with cut outs and rolled the paste across the fabric creating discharged stripes.

The rest of the work done today has not been photographed. I had to bring it home to wash. So there will be more tomorrow.

Posted in Discharging fabric, Dyeing, Inspiration, Surface Design Techniques, workshop | 8 Comments »

Discharge Workshop Day One

Saturday, June 30th, 2007

It was a beautiful day in Portland today. Here is Reva at work in the fiber studio at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts.

This is my first piece, discharged with some syringe writing and stamping with some circles.

It was a spectacular day for drying the discharged pieces.

We did discharging with a paste made of sodium alginate, thiox and soda ash. You can stamp, paint, screenprint, etc. The fabric is allowed to dry and then steam is applied with an iron or steaming in a big pot. You do not need a respirator until heat is applied to the paste. Here is Reva looking quite elegant in her’s.

Here is a piece that I did with the skinny masking tape. I taped a design on the fabric and then brayered the paste over it. You have to wait until tomorrow to see the result.

This is a screen that I prepared using torn masking tape. I did two pieces using this. One of them was a weird brown fabric that I had dyed ages ago. The discharged areas turned purple and it is really cool.

I did several other pieces, but no photos. After the steaming, they went into the wash. So, we will have the final reveal tomorrow. I love the camaraderie of a class like this. I am always so productive when I am in a group setting.

Lisa arrived safe and sound. It is so good to have her in the house. We took Maggie for a half hour power walk when I got home. Tonight, she took us out to dinner for a belated Mom and Pop’s day treat. I saved some Weight Watcher points for the dinner so that I could have wine. I ate no bread or dessert. I had a gorgeous mista salad and lamb and fava beans. We went to Nostrana, a happening and fairly new Italian restaurant. We have never been there and we will go back. It was good!

Posted in Discharging fabric, Eating out, Family, Quilting Friends, Surface Design Techniques, workshop | 6 Comments »

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