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.

 

I'm feeling lucky

I had a couple of hours to kill before I would be picked up for my weekend away so thought to myself - what can I do in this time other than housework?

I printed my woodcut onto a wonderful tan shaded piece of fabric - very ethnic as I am wont to say. I used a foam roller and as you can see I didn't cover the block as well as I had thought. (BTW it is about 9 x 9) When I was playing with cropping and colour on the PC I chose "I'm feeling lucky" and it looks good too. I think I will use it as the theme for my weekend.

I think I will look into raiding the offcut bin at school for some smaller pieces of MDF and some of the more odd shaped offcuts. This could be lots of fun.

 

This week's print

Darn it, I lost my original post. I never have quite the same inspiration for words the second time around.

This week the tutor thought that my print was very Aboriginal and said that he thought it should come up well on fabric. I hope so because I made a complete dogs breakfast of my prints on paper - the colours tended to be too similar and didn't show the design well. I have done more carving on the woodcut since and taken out a lot more of the background. One day soon I shall print them all onto fabric. I haven't been enjoying the white paper that we have been printing on in that I don't like the white lines and would prefer to have coloured backgrounds.
Anyhow it will all have to wait a bit longer, I am away for the weekend.


I'm off to Wanaka for the weekend. The Otago Embroiderers Guild use the high school there and have a weekend of classes with a little shopping added on. I am doing the book binding class which I think will be fun - I am not really much of an embroiderer anyhow. I haven't really organised myself well for the class. I should have most of the things on the needs list somewhere around the house so I have started to gather them up. I have started to organise some clothes too and if I pretend to do some housework in the middle of it all then I will have accomplished something for the afternoon.

I will try to remember to take my camera and take pictures - some of the classes are quite interesting and very creative and can be easily interpreted in all sorts of fibres. I think there is even a class in paper making too. Fun, Fun, Fun. 

An old project

This poor thing has been hanging in the wardrobe for a very very long time waiting for me to get back to it. I was wanting to do something wonderfully inspired with embellishments on it but the hand quilting in the centre panel is all that I have managed so far. The centre is a hand painted panel that I bought many years ago and as you see inspired the colours that I have used. I have lots of wonderful threads that I have bought over the years and some wonderful pieces of shell but I can never decide what to do - almost as if I don't want to be in danger of doing too much. One day............ 

What I am planning to read

Of course top of the list is my Quilting Arts Magazine that arrived yesterday - wonderful thing overseas post as I am sure that with having a subscription it came extra early. There were some interesting articles and pictures that will demand lots of attention. I find that even the advertisements are worth reading and checking out too. I am planning to go over to the USA and Canada later this year and there might be some places that I can check out when I am over there after all I am not going all that way without doing some serious shopping.

I got a couple of books from the library on symbolism in art which I think will be an interesting read - I had read small pieces before about the symbolism in pictures and what it all means but I wanted to delve more into this and see what there is to bring to quilts.

My other book to devour is one on Hundertwasser. His pictures are so colourful and inspiring. I am amazed too by his architecture and design. He lived (and died) in New Zealand and his legacy to New Zealand I suppose you could say were that he designed some public toilets - apparently they are quite a sight! Anyhow I think this will be an interesting book.

Printmaking class

The top print is dry point which was very messy but fun. It started off a bit of a mess but when printed came out okay. It was supposed to have a Pacific feel to it. Not a method that I will do much more of but was worth learning.

The bottom green and yellow print was another woodcut which I enjoyed. I want to learn more and be able to carve my own prints and stamps for printing onto fabric of course. These are all done by the "reduction" method (sounds smart doesn't it) . Again this was supposed to have a more Pacific flavour but I decided in the end that it felt more Scandanavian - big turnaround. I would liked to have done it in red and black but had to work with the colours that we had in class. Can't wait until the next class to do some more.

On the line

There is nothing more enjoyable for me when I have been dyeing than to hang it all out to dry after washing out - I pet it all out and then stand back to admire and look at all the nuances of colour and texture in the pieces.

This was a piece that roughly pleated on plastic and then sponged colour on - I like the texture but I think I want to play with application of colour a little more. Down in the bottom left corner there was some blue that had run from another piece on the same plastic and I like how it stayed separate and didn't really blend too much with the other colour being sponged on top.


These both had the sponges placed amongst the scrunched fabric and then wrung out so that the dye transferred - very interesting and lots of fun. Love the seredipity of it all.

Love the earthy colours of the piece on the left but for the life of me I can't remember what I did, it looks better closeer up.

Would you believe blue, apricot and pink were poured on separate areas of these two fabrics scrunched together in a large bowl and then each colour mixed (separately) with brown rose poured over top. I find it hard to believe but that is what happened and this is what I got.

After all this I am still enthused to dye more - perhaps that is why I have ordered more fabric. But then I never can decide what to make with the fabric after that  

Back again

Oops, I am a bit back to front here - I lost these photos that were supposed to be at the bottom of my previous blot - oh well never mind.

I had a bit of fun with sponging dye onto some roughly pleated/folded fabric

I played with the sponges again and sponted onto the rumpled fabric on the two left trays and wrung the sponges out in the fabric in the two right trays. I suspect all these experiments will come out quite light but I loved the dark earthiness of the colours in the trays

And we can't forget a photo of my security guard. He turned up a bit late and was flustered until things settled down. He is always very alert and takes his role seriously. My Husband was in the shearing shed (hidden by the shrub) and was being a bit noisy which gained a growl or two. Tabby (very original name here) also sits on guard at night when I am in the spa. He takes his duties very seriously.

So now all I have to do is wait a couple of hours and start to wash out the fabrics. That is about as long I can manage to wait. I usually time it so that I have lunch during this waiting time. So then, more piccies later when I have it all washed and on the line. 

The sun was warmish so ...........

The day was cool but the sun was warmish so what else was a girl to do. Now this is not what my hand is supposed to look like - but I always get too excited when playing with my dyes and burst out of my gloves. Can't complain about the gloves, excess supply of surgical gloves that I was given from work


Now here is my dye studio - on the left the dyed fabrics, then we have my dry bench for fabric and my notebook and the small bench (ha, ha) has all my dyes. The water supply is underneath the small bench as you can see.

This picture of the small bench also shows my small dye mixing table - it usually has a nice table cloth on it to catch all those drips.


Oops, where did all my other piccies go - better send out the search party - there are more to come. 

Serendipity

I was auditioning fabrics and found these. When I am dyeing I always keep a few small pieces of fabric on hand, usually f1/8. When I have finished dyeing a piece of fabric in a tray I will layer one of these small pieces of fabric over the top lightly and where they touch the surface they pick up colour. It was originally to stop the tops drying out too much in the sun (in times past when we had super hot days).


I like the marbly type of effect they give. The pink and green have both been used more than once and I may use them again to give some more multi coloured effects though they can also come up very good on multi dyed fabrics as well. Of course now that I have the pieces of fabric I am not sure what will happen to them next but they are nice to have in the stash and admire every so often. I always enjoy the serendipity of doing something like this - never knowing what to expect because it is never the same each time.

Now that Autumn has come with a crash I must order some more fabric to dye on the few warm days that we will have before winter. The cold days of winter will become my days to do printing and play with the wood cuts that I am hoping to make in class over the next couple of months.