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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Two New Erics

Life has been going at warp speed over the last few weeks and this coming weekend is The Maine Event - the Maine SAQA meeting. It looks like no rest YET.
Meanwhile visions of new permutations of Eric have been bouncing into my head. One is a totally stitched version.  I want to do a bit of fill stitches on the shirt but it is otherwise done.

 

The other is a discharged version. I looked for my black fabric but then thought, "Why does discharge have to be on black?" I had 4 yards of a too dark olive I had made for another purpose and the color suited Eric just fine so here is Eric Discharged.

I really love this and may even try it again on a different fabric. Meanwhile I am very happy with this one.

a while later....

Not as good because the fabric was so highly figured but the discharge from purple to turquoise was a pleasant surprise.

Silk Screening class

I will be teaching a one day workshop at Fiber College in Searsport Thursday Sept 8th. Here is their blog post about me
http://networkedblogs.com/mqJIF