31 October 2011

One more ERIC (for now)

My wonderful brother, Eric, was just here visiting with my cousin Margo. They came for my Dad's 90th birthday. While he was here, he saw a digital print on fabric I made of him and his dog that I manipulated in PSE. He really liked the "smile" on his dogs face. She has since passed from cancer so her happy face is especially wonderful to see. Here is the digital print with snow dyed fabric and discharged corners done through a cracked flour resist. By the way, my wonderful brother brought me PSE9. Told you he was wonderful - feeding the habit!


This isn't finished yet. I am waiting to see if he wants a binding with hanging sleeve or stretched on a frame.

28 October 2011

Eric Collage

My newest ERIC is a collage of hand dyed and hand painted fabrics and a solvent transfer image. I wanted to unify all the parts so I rolled gold paint across the entire piece which I think was successful in unifying. I do like this 14X14 piece.


23 October 2011

21 October 2011

What fun - dyed quilt jacket

Well this was almost too much fun. I got this idea from the Kemshalls who used a old quilt Linda had made, over dyed it and used it as "material" to make a jacket. Just before we adopted Niamh, our standard poodle, I bought the most beautiful corn flower blue quilt from TJMaxx. When we brought Niamh home a few weeks later she was in heat and couldn't be neutered until she wasn't any longer. You see where this is going??? The quilt was never the same; covered in spots that just wouldn't come out.

Well, I got it out from storage, made a coat pattern from packaging paper and cut out the pattern pieces. I surged all the raw edges, and used the thickened dyes with a credit card (see this batik tutorial) and "painted" the pieces using the quilt pattern already on the quilt.

The coat was too big and too cold for a Maine coat so I ripped the pieces apart and re-cut the fronts, back and collar from those pieces. I had to cut two new sleeves - more form fitting- from the remains of the quilt and dye paint them to match. Well, it is done and awaiting the separating zip which I will pick up tomorrow. I really like this cute jacket and it is warm enough for cool day.




16 October 2011

Pretzel bags

These are Rolled Gold Pretzel bags. I painted one on the front and one on the back. I heated them all on the unpainted side. The small bit is the strip of sealing on the bottom of the bag.

The ice cream wrappers bubbled flatter than the pretzel bag which was much harder to control. It just wanted to curl into a ball. I like the ice cream wrapper much better, easier to handle and the end result is much more vibrant.

15 October 2011

Melting Ice Cream (wrappers)

I saw this somewhere and I thought I would take one for the team and eat an entire box of ice creams. That of course was before I stopped eating sugar and grains BUT I still have the ice cream wrappers. In another burst of team camaraderie, I thought I would try painting and melting these little puppies.
Here is the self explanatory process I followed:

The wrapper

                                                       Time to paint with artists acrylics

                                                 
                                                       Two pieces before the heating process

                                                              Heated with a heat gun

What I found was that the ice cream wrappers melt/blister into smaller bubbly sizes as in more textured than Tyvec while holding their shape better as in not curling into a ball - they stay flatter. They are also easier and more fun to acquire except now I will have to buy the ice cream for other people and ask them to carefully remove the wrappers without tearing. I like this product a lot but now will have a bit of a resentment while other people eat ice cream I bought!!  Perhaps the beautifully textured surfaces of these pieces will be enough of a consolation; they are quite beautifully textured.

13 October 2011

A dyers house

                                                                   A dyers shower
                                                                  a dyers shower floor
                                                                     a dyers lamp

                                        You don't want to see the kitchen - I mean my wet studio!!

Now it is 2 days later and this is the yarn dried

10 October 2011

Procrastinating caftan

Well!! I have been tossing this white rayon caftan aside, into drawers and anywhere else that I can't see it. WHAT can I possibly do with this HUGE caftan. I think it was a case of "white page fear".
Yesterday I decided to dye some sports bars that I recently purchased (more WHITE) that needed lots and lots of color. I also dyed burlap, scrim, cotton thread both embroidery and pearl and corn husks which didn't come out. I learned a  very important lesson.

Lesson learned:
When you soak fabric in soda ash and use your high speed spinner to extract all the soda ash, you need tons more dye than if you had just hand squeezed out the soda ash.

What happened:
After squirking ALL the dye I had made up on two measley sports bars, a small piece of burlap, an even smaller piece of scrm and two small hanks of floss I ended up filling a spray bottle with soda ash to try to get the dye to MOVE.

After Lesson:
I wrang out the caftan by hand (slightly drippy) laid it out on my open trash bag, did my gathery thing and squirted dye which to my delight wicked and spread through the rayon. See me smiling?

The reults:

close-up of caftan draped as only rayon can...


Aidan my Springer who knows what to do when anyone shows up with a camera!

Later that day I soda soaked 5 yards of white cloth for a new technique I am working on (stay tuned). T H A T is an appropriate use of a high speed spinner. The fabric was dry, folded and put aside for another play day within a hour. I think I loved my high speed spinner just a bit too much. When used for the correct thing, it is invaluable but when not...learn from my lesson.

01 October 2011

Sketching with thread

I don't think this is thread sketching the way the term is used in surface design but this is a sketch done with thread and a needle.

I threaded the bobbin with metal thread (thank you Margaret for your wonderful workshop). I did the sketching on the back and the front is the bobbin side. I like this. I am now working on four or five new Erics all with different techniques. I keep thinking I'm done then I find more and more ways to express this motif.