Dye Day

I didn't pick the best of days for dyeing, it was a little cooler today than the past couple of days but I soldiered on. I had bought some new dyes and instead of mixing my own colours I decided to go for mixed colours this time to have a play. I just did some very basic dyeing to see what the colours looked like but I did them at fifty percent which is what I usually do.

My first half metre on the right was scrunched into a tray and had a quarter cup of dye poured over it and left for 15 minutes and then another quarter cup of dye poured over and the colour was manipulated through the fabric so that there were no white patches. The second half metre had the other half cup poured on it, scrunched and then the fabrics were layed into a container and pressed firmly down so there would be a little bleeding.

The textures were interesting, lots of light and darks on the first pieces and on the second pieces I was surprised that there was very little bleeding of colour.

First up is a deep lime, as you can see the mix had settled and I got a rich spicy orange colour instead and interestingly it is two different tones plus darks and lights in the piece. The second piece has a hint of green in it which is interesting as it was placed on the top of the boysenberry and nothing on top of it.


The greens are more attractive than they appear. The mixed piece had been placed at the bottom of the tray with the blue on top of it but it is more of the Eggplant that shows than blue. I found it interesting how pale the second piece was too.


Brilliant blue - it probably would have been darker if I had it at full strength. The mixed piece was placed between the Green and Eggplant.


And lastly this is Boysenberry. I think I will play with adding some black to it and possibly some Eggplant. It is a nice red without being harsh.

For some reason when I blot from Picasa I can only get four photos and poor old Eggplant lost out on the transfer, it was nice too!

I am having another day tomorrow with a friend coming over to have a play for the first time. More fun and this time I have some large pieces of sheeting I will play with as I like to use the big pieces for my backings.

Now just to hope that all this decides to publish and not disappear into the blogger black hole.
More tomorrow. 

Spring

Well it is officially Spring and today is Father's Day but did the cats have to bring in a (live and screaming) rabbit for Ken's present? Losing it in the house was not a good start to the day either. I did discover it finally behind a large desk that was surrounded but lots of "stuff". Poor Ken finally managed to pull the rabbit out unscathed and took it outside to one of the paddocks and let it go - lucky rabbit.

The weather lately has been warming up (as it should) but we have been having cold winds coming off the sea (bitterly cold actually). A good time to get organised for lots of dyeing as I do all my dyeing outside (under a nice veranda). I am lucky to have a four metre bench to work on or is that lucky to have a husband who doesn't like to throw things out and came home with the bench from work one day and asked me if it could be useful. Now all I need is an outdoor sink with hot and cold water (I am planning that too but that is part of the long term plan).

On my way around taking photos of some of the areas that had been boggy mud and are now drying out I took this photo - I like the tractor tyre pattern and it is very three dimensional.




My other mud photos didn't quite come out as well but it was interesting to study the patterns and textures that were there. I am still trying to think how I can get tyre patterns onto fabric from one of our cars - I love the pattern it makes - next time it rains and there is some mud I will take a photo to keep as a record.

I really have been lazy as far as creativity goes - nothing has called my name so far. I really must get on as there are one or two small projects that won't take much to finish and it is always satisfying to cross something off the work to do list. And of course I do love my lists. 

I am back

Actually I have been back three weeks now and I only realised on reading my last blog entry that I was supposed to be writing to my blog while I was away - tsk, tsk, I never did. Actually I didn't feel that I saw much that was of creative interest although I did find the geology of a couple of areas I visited interesting. Actually I hardly took any photos at all.

So where did I go - without boring anyone too much I visited friends in Portland, Oregon where the day after I arrived we had a record high of 103 degrees - hot. We went to the beach for the day via Tillamook for icecreams. To beat the heat another day we went to Mt St Helens which is an amazing place to visit.

Then off I travelled to Calgary for the opening of the Stampede and what fun I had there. All the parade photos that I took were of horses - anybody would think that I liked horses. I also did a side trip to Banff where the photos were all geology and plants.

I then flew down to Boulder, Colorado for my residential workshop with Judith Trager and I have a photo below of my first day (there were five days in all). It didn't help that I came down with a virus and sneezed and coughed all week. It was amazing that we were 6000 ft above sea level - that is like halfway up a mountain to me. And of course those 100 degree plus days. Thank goodness for airconditioning is all I can say. What a wonderful place Boulder was.


Anyhow off I went to Paducah in Kentucky to visit the American Quilters Museum and generally check the place out. This time the 92% humidity at night nearly bowled me over - phew. And of course those temperatures. Funny that I didn't miss the fact that it was the middle of winter at home during this time. I enjoyed the old town area of Paducah and exploring around there.

After waiting for St Louis airport to reopen after the large storm that had gone through the city the day before creating mayhem I went to Las Vegas - I wanted to see the glitz and glamour of the city at night with all the neon lights and I wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. Well I saw it all and I was not disappointed. But those temperatures again - actually I didn't find them that hot compared to the cooler summer temperatures at home which was interesting. I didn't get sunburnt at all.

San Francisco was last on my tour where I spent a couple of days before flying home. After five weeks of travelling I was getting tired of living in hotel rooms and other peoples homes. It was good to get back to my own bed. Although I have to say I didn't enjoy the Novo-Rota virus that I caught as soon as I got back to work - it had been going around Oamaru while I was away.

Anyhow that was (briefly) my adventure. I don't feel as though I have been very creative since I got home - there has been a lot to do. The most creative I have been is doing some baking yesterday, ginger crunch, afgans and kiwi biscuits - yum.

Glad to be back blogging and must write some more. 

Last Days

I'm heading off tomorrow and although I am planning to keep in touch via internet cafes I am not sure if I will be able to send photos or not so there may be just text entries instead.

It has been so cold over the last couple of weeks - well it is supposed to be winter, but it has been a prolonged cold. We often get nice sunny days after all the snow and frost but there hasn't been much of that lately.

I have been putting out bread for the birds. I save old bread in the freezer and bring it out on cold days. Not the best of shots but this is a group of Wax Eyes feeding - the bread will be gone within the hour. There are Sparrows, Blackbirds and Larks also hanging around but they are shy feeders compared to the Wax Eyes. Around the back of the house the Swallows are doing their aerial aerobatics - they are wintering in by the spa pool which obviously keeps the worst of the cold away for them. Fantails are flitting through the garden looking for insects and driving the cats crazy as always - thankfully they are never caught. And I have seen a large flock of ducks coming in to land down on the pond. The pond is full and the neighbours paddocks are flooded and swampy which they are loving.


I have managed to sew some blocks together for a future quilt. I will leave putting the top together until I get home. I have a mixture of lighter shaded blocks which will shade down to some darker blocks. I have used mainly paua colours again, blues, purples, teals with hints of greens. I am thinking it might be the sort of thing that a Kiwi living abroad might want to remind them of home. Just a couple of piccies of some blocks below to show the variety of colours. Very simple piecing but I thought very effective.


 

Getting Ready

I am wanting to bring some fabrics with me to give to quilters that I meet on my trip. What else to take but some NZ themed fabrics. I have been cutting and folding squares and of course peeping out at the bottom are some sheep - have to have sheep. I am also going to take lots of dyed fabric with me but I am yet to make my choices as to what to take - probably lots of greens to promote NZs clean green image.


I have also been covering notebooks. These ones are covered with dyed fabric but look nothing at all yet the fabrics by themselves are fabulous. They probably need some embroidery/stitching to bring them up more but I am in a hurry and this is all there will be.


I also did some in NZ fabrics to bring along as give aways - I am quite pleased with how they turned out. And when the notebooks are finished the fabric can be taken off them and reused for something else.


I still have some more notebooks to cover (hopefully I will meet lots of people to give them to) and a couple of goodie bags to make for my surrogate grandchildren. And of course I will have to go shopping to find some goodies to put in the bags.

After that the only thing I really have to think about is a bag for my camera. It is currently in this huge bag that my husband bought for it - way too big to be carting everywhere. I thought I would make a double padded carry bag for it that won't look so out of place for me to carry about. Hopefully I can get myself organised and get all this done this weekend. Next weekend I hope to reserve for packing and then it is off on the aeroplane and winging my way to Portland Oregon for the start of my trip. 

My Weekend

I hate when things disappear into blog heaven and have to do it all again - it is never the same.

Our club had their biannual exhibition and invited me to have a sales table ( there were only three other merchants). This is the only time I go out of my way to sell fabric and was happy to sell my fabrics. This is my entire stash of dyed fabric (for now). I figure that I can replace anything that I sell with more fabric. It was a great day and worth my while being there.


Shirley from Dyeing 2 Design was there as well. She has a new range of fabrics that she is selling (check out her blog). I had to buy some for some blocks that I was making over the weekend - they are wonderful blendy colours. I will put up a photo when I am a bit further ahead with the project. I am not sure when Shirley will be putting them up for sale on her web site but they will be worth buying - the photos on her blog don't do them full justice - wonderful blendy colours.

This quilt won Viewers Choice - the workmanship is amazing.



This is one of my quilts - I started making it during our last exhibition. I have never seen it hung before and thought it was amazingly vibrant. I plan to bring it to the US with me and give it to a friend's young son for his bed.



I had to take a photo of this quilt. I think it is a real snuggle quilt - warm and inviting colours. Of course I am biased - I love 9 patch.


All in all a wonderful weekend (though cold) and I loved the wonderful display of quilts, the inspirations and wonderful colours.

I think off to the spa soon for a hot soak - brrr Winter is not my favourite season. 

Lavender Luggage

Isn't it gorgeous? This is going to be my carry on bag for when I come over to the US (only 23 sleeps to go). It doesn't show here but it is quite a little fattie. I am planning to fit in a change of clothes, my camera (large), toilettries and my journal stuff (incl pens, pencils, stamps etc) and a few other bits and pieces. Ken thought I should have bought the black set (there are three of them in all but I only wanted the large one here) but I thought how boring when everything else will be basic black - I wanted purple and this was close enough.


Queens Birthday weekend coming up and our quilt group are having their exhibition. I am having a stall selling off my stash of dyed fabric - hopefully will make a little more spending money for my trip. And of course I have a good excuse to dye lots more fabric when I get home. I will post some piccies from the exhibition after the weekend. 

Christine's quilt

I like the collage of photos of this quilt. I have spent the past two years making it - on and off during that time - I didn't want to hurry the process. It is a quilt for my best friend's birthday in June. And now I'm hurrying to finish sewing the binding and make a label for the back.

The colours are my favourites and in fact this was my collection of special fabrics that I found hard to cut into, that is until I decided I wanted to make a quilt for Christine. These are her favourite colours too - the wonderful paua shell colours.

So at the moment everything else takes a bit of a back seat to getting this finished. The cats are helping by sitting on it whenever they can and softie that I am I can't disturb them - that's what is making it a slow process at the moment.

 

Found them

My glasses have turned up - phew. I was out getting in firewood for tonight (it is late Autumn down here don't forget) and there under some wood were my glasses, safe and sound. I am so relieved as I really didn't want to be buying them quite now.

I attribute my luck to a personal charm I created after reading about them in Keri Smith's Wish Jar Journal. I had a Japanese coin that we found under the seats in our car, I wished upon it and make it into a bracelet with some fabric. IT WORKED FOR ME!

Where are my glasses?

I know I had them on yesterday but I had them on and off during the day as I was doing various tasks. I was sure I had them on when I went outside to do some photographs of some fenceposts that look interesting but the photos were not quite what I was wanting. I was sure that I had them on when I went out and got firewood as the sun was bright and my glasses are anti-glare. I know I didn't have them on when I went to check the crock pot for tea as they would have steamed up and I wouldn't have seen a thing. So WHERE ARE MY GLASSES?? I am usually very good and never, never misplace them but they are missing in action. I know I can cope without them - I just have to make sure I have sunglasses on hand for outdoors and I have my reading glasses and computer glasses for those more close up jobs. But WHERE ARE MY GLASSES?

Something old

I did these pieces early in the year. They are small and I was just having a bit of a play. It was my way of trying to do something creative when I didn't know what else to do. I was actually in the middle of doing a lot of quilting and sewing but had the need to create something.

I love the simplicity of the palm tree - my first play with a fancy blade in my cutter too.


The lady was based on a picture I had seen and had admired. I would love to do a series of myself and my friends like this - of course there would be lots of artistic license to create the portraits (translated means that no one will actually be recognisable by the time I have finished with them).


Oh well, back to the housework I promised myself I would do today and then give myself a couple of days at the sewing machine. 

Quiet Time

Well the blog has been quiet but that is all. There has been a lot going on that hasn't been at all creative or that I want to write about or share.

I am keen to get back into some printing and also have an idea for a quilt that I want to make. It involves making a lot of blocks and then cutting them up and sewing back together, nothing I haven't done before. It is the sort of thing that once you start it is hard to stop as it is so much fun.

I have my trip to the USA coming up soon and I have been doing a lot of planning for that and looking up lots of sites on the Web. I am travelling by myself and leaving my husband at home (he had his big trip earlier). I usually read a lot of books at night and in the mornings. This time I am planning to do a lot of writing/journalling as it is very portable and hopefully will be lots of fun. I am not a fan of a lot of hand sewing but have considered doing some crochet and knitting as well but I am not very proficient.

In fact I want to start writing more in those quiet moments while I might be waiting or sitting relaxing. I can't say that what I write will be riveting reading but it will be soothing for me.

I did catch up with some friends recently in Christchurch and it was wonderful to see them again, it makes me appreciate how valuable good friends are.

So, my promise to myself is to do something creative this weekend apart from a quilt that I have to bind for a friend's birthday.

Printing Play

I decided to have a bit of a play today - not the best of weather but not too cold for me to work outside. I had some Manutex to use up (and still have lots too). I used white fabric as my background to check how my prints were going. I did a couple of my linear woodcuts but found out the hard way that they absorb a lot of the dye and not much gets onto the fabric. This could still be good if I want to do a bit more of a softened effect rather than hard edge. The foam roller after it becomes quite saturated is difficult to work with and the hard rubber rollers don't take up the thickened dye. I have some small fluffy paint follers that are quite firm so they might work better next time. I just had a play with some stamps and the top of a stencil rather than waste the dye after doing some leaves.


I enjoy doing the stencils but by this time I was down to using a foam brush and I didn't find that as good. The flowers were on a foam roller that I inked up and ran the length of the fabric which gave me dark to light as it moved. The animal print stencils tend to start to smudge if I want to do an all over pattern and they are better as a tone on tone with the fabric. I like the leaf stencil and have used it before long long ago.


And then I went over to using some (very old) discharge paste. Sadly it didn't work well but look at what happened with a woodblock that I used. There must have been something dark on the wood that came out when I put the discharge paste on it and printed. The pattern is a little darker in reality and I was pleased when I was able to join it up ( it is a 1/4 block print). I like this as a background piece. Worth doing some more on my plainer dyed fabrics and see if they sell. If you peer closely at the bottom of the cloth you may make out some other patterning which was more discharge paste that didn't work - darn it. I will have to open a fresh bottle and try again.

It was frustrating when things weren't quite going right straight from the beginning. I might have another play in a day or so and improve upon my mistakes. I haven't been wanting to use fabric paints at this stage but rather just work with discharging and using thickened dyes.

Onwards and upwards - there is always more to learn. 

Experimental Works

I have been having a bit of a tidy in the quilt room and discovered these. There was a fun day at a not so local Embroidery Guild. It is amazing what can be done in an hour or so. There was lots of layering, sewing and burning going on. I did tend to be a bit enthusiastic with the heat gun and some of the pieces were a bit too firm to sew through afterwards (should I have wanted to do some embellishing or something). I am not sure where I would take any of this but it was certainly a lot of fun and something new.

 

Off Quilting

No photos today. I have had a quiet week with nothing to show.

I am off on Good Friday down to Dunedin and Southern Quilts, Southern Women. It should be a lot of fun with four days of classes, shopping, lectures, exhibitions and smoozing. I am taking lots and lots of fabric half of which is my dyed fabrics - yum it was lots of fun to select the ones that I was going to take.

My purple hair has caused a lot of reaction at work and I hope to have as much fun with it in Dunedin too. I have had some people absolutely speechless and others who can barely keep their hands off it. It is fun, lots of fun.

I will be taking lots of photos so there will be something for everyone to look forward to when I get back and start to put them up next Wednesday (Tuesday for those of you in North America).

Have fun while I am away, I certainly will be having lots of fun and a little bit of mischief added in for good measure.

Yesterday's dyeing, today's ironing

I had lots of fun yesterday and it was good to have it dry so quickly last night - how come the regular washing doesn't dry as quickly. I started to iron the fabric this morning - I like the old fashioned way that I grew up with and that is doing it on the table with a woollen blanket and an old sheet. Unfortunately I kept getting help as you can see - great warm spot to sit and still observe the birds outside. I haven't got all my fabric showing, just what has been ironed so far - it is a slow process for some reason.


These pieces below are one of my favourite techniques that I haven't done for a long time. The top two pictures are of small pieces about 12 x 8 that I sit on top of the trays of dyed fabric. They absorb some of the colours in a sort of marbled pattern. I did scrunch down on them at one stage so they are darker than usual but I do like the patterns created. The bottom two fabrics were scrunched in trays and colours slowly spread on with a spoon and left to run for a while before placing other colours on and again left to run. I did this about three times with a final pale colour poured over top to take the whiteness out of the light areas.



Just another picture of the fabric on the table by the iron showing a little of the textures. I love the serendipity of the colours and although I know what colours I used it is amazing how they change in relation to each other.


I'm inspired now to start printing onto my fabrics and doing some discharging. I have a large pile of plainer dyed fabrics that are crying out for some attention - onwards and upwards ! 

I have the tools

I went out this morning and bought some woodcarving tools for doing my own blocks - now there should be no stopping me. Any little piece of MDF is now in danger of being carved into a stamp. I have some doodles that were inspired by a glass panel that I saw in a book on Gaudi. I am keen to make some of these up as I think they will look good on fabric.

And speaking of fabric I did some more dyeing today - I was inspired by someone elses blog to go back to a technique that I hadn't used for a while of carefully spooning colours on some scrunched up fabric and leaving them to bleed and blend before putting on the next layers of colours. It gives some wonderful textures. Pictures tomorrow as it is all on the line tonight and hopefully will be dry enough in the last sun of the day and a gentle breeze to carry it along. I love the textures and multi colours in fabrics but really must steel myself to do some plainer (but textured) pieces of fabric that are necessary to offset the splendour of the multi coloured pieces.

More Woodblocks

Argh, this posted too quickly without any words so here goes at editing it - I had the same problem with my earlier post too.

These are my latest woodcuts - they are done using what is called the reduction technique. I started with the yellow block, printed it and then cut out some of the tree and printed it in orange, cut more again and printed in green. I think I like the yellow and orange tree best. This series also has a key block which shows in the red and green print, the key block being the green outline but I am not so fussed on using it over the other blocks, it looks rather good by itself as can be seen in the last photo of my wood blocks. The plain coloured blocks below were test prints each time I reduced the block for printing.

The tutor is slowly getting used to me not wanting to make pictures and really I want to make woodcuts specifically so that I can print onto fabric. I can't wait to do some of my own but need to buy some tools (shouldn't be too hard), get some small offcuts of wood (should be easy but as the husband is involved it will be near impossible) and find time !

The big weekend

I am getting ready for the big weekend at Easter - Southern Quilts, Southern Women.

I thought I would dye my hair a nice blue - Brazen Blue in fact - it sounded nice on the packet anyhow, but I don't think it should have been quite this colour. For once the camera was very accurate with the colour - it looks perhaps Vicars Violet or perhaps Cardinals Crimson but definitely not Brazen Blue! Well this will knock a few socks off my friends.

Quiet Week

It has been a quiet week, I have been feeling very tired and lacking in energy. I haven't been getting much time for myself to relax and unwind and I think it has all caught up with me. Anyhow nothing that a couple of small dyeing sessions can't fix. I dyed mainly in half and one metre pieces and tried a new technique of dyeing - some worked and some didn't quite work.


I always enjoy dyeing and the serendipity that it brings. There are some odd colour combinations, some unexpected surprises (well it is all unexpected really) and there were a couple of "why on earth did I do that!" pieces as well. There was nothing that cutting up into smaller pieces won't fix. And for once I ironed it straight away - usually it gets folded and put away with the ironing only being done when I want to use it which is what I always do anyhow, iron just before I use it that is.

I am feeling a bit more relaxed now and ready for the stresses of the coming week and coping with all that I have to fit into it. 

Currently on the table

I have pulled out my book by Jane Dunnewold - Improvisational Screen Printing - wonderful book and I really must do some printing. There are some great ideas there and lots of ideas that you can take further.

I recently bought a very inspiring book by Janet Edmonds - Three Dimensional Emboidery. Well it is more like 3D fibre and lots of other "stuff". I loved some of the ideas to play with. One in particular was a piece that looked like a huge cone shape stack of pancakes. Yum. There were also a lot of vessels made of coiled fabric in the style of coiled baskets only the idea was taken further with more stitches and texture. I have been wanting to make "nests" for a long time now and this book gives me lots of inspiration to add to some of the samples that I have done previously. (I hope I can find them).

Creative catch up

I seem to have been full on since returning from my weekend at Wanaka. The bookmaking class was excellet with lots done. I have done a collage of work from my own books on the upper LH corner and the rest are other students (who were happy for me to take photos). It was great to get so much done in the two days but we had to work hard to achieve so much. I made two bound journals (red and blue), a photo album (purple), and an oriental book in a box (dyed indigo and print). I was pleased to be able to work with fabric for these and there was one lady in our class who had glued beads onto the front of her photo album and another who inset some embroidery so I know that I can take this idea further.



Back home and off to printmaking class - I can't remember what the tutor called this technique for the two prints but I think of them as one being a positive and one a negative block. The blue block is the "reduction" block. I can carve more design into it and print with another colour onto the blue print. I can do this as many times as I want with as many colours. When I have finished I then use the other block with a dark colour and print over everything to hide the white lines from the first print and it will also give more definition to the final print. This is as far as I got and I hope to do more next week perhaps (we might be doing screen printing next week though).



I am really enjoying the woodcarved blocks - I think I have already said that I am doing this class to see what I can get from it to be able to make my own blocks to use for printing on fabric.
The tutor knows my intentions and has been very encouraging and I am starting to feel more comfortable with doing the carving. I can see that my blocks are going to have a very basic folk art (or is it "my six year old could do that") style.

Just to finish off here is a view from my motel at Wanaka - it doesn't really show the true glory of the mountains as it was still quite dark when I took the photo and I had to do a few adjustments to it. When I try to describe the mountains I think in details of fabric and embroidery stitches for textures. Truly glorious.