More Ice Dyeing - with Denny

I really love the process and finished products from ice dyeing fabric. Denny had heard me go on about it and thought she would like to give it a try. So, a few weeks ago I gathered up my supplies and headed to her house for a wonderful day.

 As it turned out, I didn't need to bring any supplies for Denny. She has such an extensive supply of various items in her studio that she was all set. Here are the bins with my old oven racks on top.

 Look at all the dyes Denny has. She had a really great tip, which is to tape a color swatch of each dye color to the top of its container as an easy reference.  It doesn't show well in this photo.

 This is Denny with her 2 bins and a wire shelf over them. Do you see the fabric in the bin underneath? This is actually my favorite thing, to place fabric underneath that catches all the extra dye as the ice melts.

 Here is my dye - yellow and blues, a winning combination!

 I decided to take a photo of the dyes I use as a reference.  Robin Egg Blue is my new favorite color for ice dyeing.

 This is part of the set up for a parfait style ice dyeing in a plastic bucket.

This is after the ice and dye were added.

                                             
We both got such wonderful results. These above are Denny's.

These are 2 of mine on some bamboo rayon Denny gave me. They are wonderful, much better than the photo.

Fiber Art and Nature - 3 Perspectives

Mary Stori, Judy Simmons and I hung our latest exhibit at the Arboretum. It is entitled "Fiber Art and Nature - 3 Perspectives". The exhibit opened July 10, 2014 and is open until late September.  We were very happy to be offered the entire exhibit space at the Arboretum Exhibit Center for this lengthy show. Each of us has about 20 pieces on display, all of which are for sale.   We have hung the labels for each piece, but the details of tidying the hanging wires and exhibit signs were done after we left.  Here are a few photos of it when we left.

This is the entrance to the exhibit. It is a very large wall on which the exhibit signs will be hung. Our bios and artist statements will be hung next to each of our pieces. The 2 pieces on the left are Judy's, the yellow on in the center is Mary's and mine is on the right.

This large wall has some of Judy's pieces on the left and mine on the right.

This wall has many of Mary's pieces.

More walls with Judy's pieces. It looks much nicer after the hanging wires are tucked behind the pieces.

More of my pieces mixed with Judy's.

The smaller items look nice stacked , but the hanging system doesn't always accommodate it well.

We spent a lot of time arranging the pieces before we did any hanging.

Most of the time we arranged them by what looked best next to each other.

There was another long wall where we hung 5 of our large pieces.

Mary's pieces were on another wall.  Sure wish I had photos after the tidying up of the wire.
You can also check out our exhibit on the website of the N.C.Arboretum by clicking here.  If you are in the Asheville area, try to stop by. It is a beautiful Arboretum.

Art Mob Exhibit

A few weeks ago I was juried into a new exhibit space in Hendersonville, N.C. which is a mountain community just south of Asheville.  It is called Art Mob and it features artists from the region.  I made the price tags from some paper cloth (shown in an earlier post) for this exhibit.

 Most of my marbled series are hung in this space.

Also some of my smaller pieces from the nature series are featured.  It is not a large area but it had plenty of space for the 18 pieces.

I am excited about this new venture and was so happy to see Art Mob featured in the newspapers in Hendersonville and in Greenville a week after I opened here.  Click www.artmobstudios.com/ to see their website.  Be sure to stop by if you are in the area.

Coral Floral

The past few weeks I have been inspired to pull out some projects I had started a while ago.  My latest piece had the top with its floral motif completed and was ready to be quilted.

I wanted it to finish it at 12" x 10", a nonstandard size in canvas wrapped frames. So I needed to make the frame myself.  I pieced 2- 10" and 2- 12" stretcher strips. Then I attached a piece of foam core cut to fit over the top. In this picture you can see the construction at the back. After covering with batting and fabric, I  pinned a matching piece of fabric for the back. I then hand sewed it on.

I stitched in leaves with a green variegated rayon thread to fill the background.  "Coral Floral" is completed and available in my Gallery Shop.

Paper Cloth Labels/Tags

The past week I have been preparing for some exhibits and needed labels/price tags for each piece.

Gen had made some beautiful ones for the PTA to use in an exhibit a few years ago. I just loved them.  So I thought I would make some for myself.

I started with some small pieces of the paper cloth I made last year.

I cut them to fit white tags I bought and sewed them on. Now I have several dozen.  I just love them.

Blue View

Another unfinished piece is now completed!

 This is a tree design I have been drawing for a while. I thread sketched it onto this hand dyed fabric.

I like working with these multicolored cotton threads and used them for the thread sketching.

 Next I chose this hand dyed organza fabric to layer over the piece. I hand quilted some of the main vine/leaves on the organza to attach it to the main piece. I left it all loose to give the look of distance between the two layers.

"Blue View" measures 18" x 15" and is available on my Gallery Shop.

Grassland in Spring

The past few months I have chosen some unfinished projects to work on. Usually a piece is unfinished because it is not turning out the way I wanted.  It is always a challenge to figure out what needs to be changed and a lot of satisfaction when I can achieve this.

Several days ago, I was able to complete one of these pieces. It was quite small. So I decided to mount it on a cloth covered 8" x 8" frame. In the past I have used a few different frames.

The first frames I used I needed to make from stretcher bars because I couldn't find canvas wrapped frames in this size.  I assembled 4 - 8" pieces similar to the ones pictured above. The problem with these is that there was not much support behind my pieces, even when covered with cloth.  Then, I made some art pieces that would fit on 8" x 10" canvas wrapped frames. This is a common size and easy to buy. I liked working with these a lot.

But then I found this birch frame with a gesso coated top in an 8" x 8" size. I thought I would give it a try.  I covered it with cotton batting and then my piece. I really liked working with it. On a recent blog, Mary Stori shows how she covered a very similar frame.

This is my completed piece I named "Grassland in Spring". The changes needed were relatively simple. I painted the light green area green. It was previously a gray blue color. Then I added the hand dyed green cheesecloth and thread painted the light green area. Lastly, the sky was the wrong shade of blue and I painted some silk organza a pale gray, applied it over the sky and quilted it.  "Grassland in Spring" is available in my Gallery Shop.

Coral Trail

I really enjoy working with the fabric I have painted with a marbling process. Recently, I started a new piece.

The painted fabric is layered with a wool batting, stabilizer, and backing fabric. This is what it looked like after a little stitching to create organic shapes in the teal and lime green areas. I continued to add more shapes and then stitched with a stones design to fill in around them.

 The main piece is completed but then I need to decide how to finish it. Lately, I have really liked making a separate back piece on which to attach the main piece. It usually takes a while to choose what I would like for this back piece. This photo shows one option - a commercial print with a hand dyed silk gauze over it.

 This idea has the same fabric choice as shown above to use in the bottom area with the addition of a lime colored hand dyed gauze on the upper part.

 This option shows a really nice hand dyed cotton in a green.

This last option  was my final choice. It is a nice shot cotton with green and blue colors in the weave.

 The top was finished with a soft line edge. This is a detail from the back.

"Coral Trail" finished at 13" x 18" and is available in my Gallery Shop.

Flamingo In The Grass

Something I really enjoy doing while at the beach is ride my bike or the golf cart. There is always something fun or quirky to see. Those plastic flamingo figures amuse me and they appear in the yards of many people.

 I particularly enjoyed this one tucked into a lush, pretty garden with some pink flowers. I wanted to use it as a focal point in a new piece.

I started by drawing a close up of some blades of grass.

Then I chose this piece of fabric that I had dyed using a deconstructed printing process.

Then I chose several hand dyed green fabrics to cut as the grass.

 I painted a flamingo on pink fabric. Then I did lots of quilting of leaves in the background.

Next I cut out some other pinks to represent flowers and added some beads for flower buds. I chose a hand dyed green fabric for the border and layered the hand dyed cheesecloth on top.

 "Flamingo in the Grass" is available on my Gallery Shop.

Early Spring

Recently I completed a small mixed media piece entitled "Early Spring." It started when my mixed media group, Fiber Junkies, was  working with modeling paste last fall.

 Gen had given each of us a small gesso coated board which I painted in shades of green, blue and purple. Then I tinted the modeling paste a light green and applied the tree design.

Next I painted small pink dots to represent buds that appear on the tree in early spring. I covered an 8 x 10 frame wrap with hand dyed cotton and cheesecloth and mounted the piece to it.  It was a little tricky to decide how to mount the board. I decided to sew velcro to the cloth on the frame and then glued the corresponding velcro to the back of the painted board.

"Early Spring" is available for purchase on my Gallery Shop.