More Bleach Discharge

These are some pieces that I made about a month ago, but have been so behind in blogging....
These were done a little differently than my process before. I used circles and leaves as "masks" and sprayed bleach on the fabric to get a resist effect.


These were folded and then the edges were dipped in bleach. Lots of different shapes you can get with folding.


This one was a shibori wrap that discharged a little too quickly! It is mostly brown, rather than its original black. Subtle, but a neat pattern.


Now I've just got to DO SOMETHING with it!

Thimbleweeds Quilt Retreat

The last weekend in September, I was lucky to be able to go to the Thimbleweeds quilt guild annual retreat in Jemez Springs, NM. I went last year as a teacher, but wanted to go back this year to play!

The class I took was Pet Portraits with a great art quilt teacher from Santa Fe, Holly. I was a little too intimidated to do a fabric portrait of my dogs Anya and Coco the first time out, so instead got a couple of books from the library on fish. These are my results from the weekend.


This one is almost finished--just need to add some beaded eyes and maybe some bubbles.




The goldfish top is done, but not quilted. The fun part with this one was adding the non-cotton fabrics for the seaweed.


Just a fun fish "portrait" with a gilted frame--an African fabric that I had just enough of. I hand dyed the background, and the black and copper fins are black fabric that I bleach discharged to reveal the coppery areas.

I'm Published! x 2

Getting into the back to school routine has really cut into my play time! I end up spending about 2 hours a day shuffling kids to and from school, then work while they are gone, in the evenings, and on weekends. So, my brain has been pretty much fried--too fried even to make much art. BUT....

I have been published in two different publications in the last month. The first is the Jewelry book that several artists collaborated on: Jewelry Beyond Time. Get more information and a link to order with a $5 off coupon here.

The second time was quite a surprise, as I have two jewelry charms in the current issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. I participated in their charm challenge earlier this year, but hadn't heard that my pieces were going to be published. Of course, I didn't take pics before I sent them, so you'll have to look in Issue 26. I'm on pages 51 and 56, with charms #3 and #57.

Hand Dyed Rainbow Fabric

This summer, I have been dyeing a lot of fabrics, as you have seen a glimpse of in a couple of previous posts. This technique has become one of my favorites--making a rainbow type gradation from one color to another.

The top 2 pictures are detail shots to show how the colors blend. The other pictures are of the full pieces--about 36 x 44 inches--so you end up with quite a large piece of fabric to work with. I love how the colors blend into each other. Even with planning the colors and order, the end result is always a surprize how they blend--like a unique fingerprint. I can't tell you how many trips to the fabric store I have made this past month for PFD (prepared for dye) white Kona cotton! Total fabric addict here!

Shibori Hand Dyed Fabric

As I was loading the pictures for the last post, I saw these pictures that I don't think I posted before. These were done with my dye group friends--the top ones are batiked and dyed fabrics, and the bottom one are various fabrics done with several traditional shibori techniques--fabric folding, pole wrapping, etc. I have had too much fun dyeing fabrics this summer!

200th Blog Post

Apparently, this is my 200th blog post! Wow, who knew I had so much to say and share!

I am just popping in to post a couple of little canvas projects that I recently made, inspired by Alisa Burke's cool free-wheeling style. I simply painted plain duck canvas with acrylic paints, drizzled more acrylic, and added a little glitter (who can resist?) and a little faux graffiti writing with black sharpie. I turned them into a reusable notepad and pen mini portfoli and two simple bags with a zipper closure--about 6 x 10 inches or so. They are turning out to be great travel bags for little bead/ wire work projects or for sewing notions.

Weekend Sewing Retreat

Catching up again. A couple of weeks ago, a friend invited me and another buddy to her cabin in the Jemez mountains, about 1.5 hours NW of Albuquerque. We spent a long weekend there, working on our quilting projects, watching the hummingbirds on the porch, taking a small hike here and there, and all-in-all having a totally relaxing girls weekend.




Mind you, I have a 3 year old and a 6 year old, so they got to spend some quality time with Daddy, while I enjoyed some much needed peace and quiet.

I was also very productive. Got 3 full quilts assembled (I had all of the blocks done before I went up). Here are two of them:



Party's almost over. School starts for one kid on Thursday, so its early mornings and rushing around time again. I think that this is the first summer that I haven't been looking forward to back-to-school. I've been having too much fun dyeing fabric in the back yard while the kids make mud pies, and "chocolate milk", and lakes, and moats, and snail habitats. My longarm quilting work schedule kicks into high gear when the kids go back to school, so I guess I'm just not ready for that yet. Oh well, it is coming, ready or not!