Very cool book

I buy books that are recommended and so many are the same old rehashed techniques with different authors. This book, Surface Treatment Workshop, is something else all together.

I have their old book Image Transfer Workshop from 2009

It had some good image transfer techniques. Their new book is for mixed media  and I have to say, some of the materials are new to me. Just because most of these techniques are for application to flat (paper not fabric) surfaces, some of the products can be used on fabric and the book is filled with inspirational ideas. 

They choose one product and show up to 7 ways to use it. If you ever do mixed media or are just looking for a great book filled with ideas and inspiration, this may be the one!

These are two of the three hanks of wool I dyed using MX dye and vinegar. Although they have a soft heather look, it is not the look I was going after.

You can see by comparing the pictures that the second one is very pale. The first two hanks I had in warm solution for a few hours and the darker "brown" was in over night. Very pale colors. I will mix up some acid dyes which I can use and be done with in literally 15 minutes.

And now "True Confession" time. Since I finished the last strip of the circle quilt, I have used every means of avoiding joining the strips together and I can't figure out why. Now I think I know. On this quilt I am "butting" the strips with no added batting. There is very little room to maneuver. I did a sample to make sure my joining strip measurements were accurate. The reason I had decided to do this was because I had run out of purple and green fabric at the beginning of December. Then I dyed some more. This is what I will do today. I will try ONE join and see how it goes. If it is as difficult as I am imagining I will use wider strips and add batting just like on the QAYG tutorial. SO on Monday, I will have "something" to show you. It will be at least two strips joined but better yet, perhaps all the strips joined. I do have a lot of process pictures so far. I also have to add the 6" border - 2" in the green and 4" in the purple . I also have a GREAT bias tape tutorial coming up after than. It is amazing. So if you ever bind your quilts or art piecs, you won't want to miss that!!

Strip 6, the last one!

This is the 6th and last strip. Next I will start trimming the strips and using the QAYG method, connect the 6 foot strips into a 6 foot square. Then I will add the border so stay tuned for that!

Angular vermicelli 

Dog foot prints. I love my dogs!

Tree of Life

Leaves

Spools 

This is the last circle which I am using as a label

The dyed wool for the log cabin knit lap blanket rolled into balls using my swift.

Also the Bernina is back with a new motor. I haven't plugged it in yet but I am trusting it will be a treat!

Strip 5 done

And here are the next 6 circles

Scallop shell

Nautilus shell

Not sure what these are but I liked them 

Frog eggs

This is a tribute to the commercial quilt I bought years ago that I am still using. It will be  moved to the guest room bed.

These are muscle shells

And this is a felted bowl a friend made for me. In the close-up you can see tiny seed beads. Just beautiful.

Two pieces dyed together

Now this was TWO pieces of fabric wrapped together on the 1" rope. I put two pieces of fabric on one "resist item" but BOTH in different ways. On these two pieces, I wrapped the turquoise piece on first then ended with the green piece. You can see all the intense blue color on the end that was not in that much contact with the rope. 

Washed and ironed

The dye solution was intense blue, boysenberry and deep navy - one tablespoon each.

This fabric was on the "inside" of the green and came out more uniform

Now these two pieces of fabric were wrapped on the washing machine drain hose SIDE BY SIDE. This first one was a LWI piece of bright orange and didn't it come our great. Reminds me of Koi in the water.

 wet

  Washed and ironed. This was a fat quarter.

This was a "failed" shibori piece. Figured I'd get my 2 cents out of it and it actually came out fairly well. The dye solution was the same as above, one tablespoon of intense blue, boysenberry and deep navy.

These were the two placed side by side and rolled. Even though it looks dark on the left, the "end" was on the top.

This was all TOO much fun and I hope to do more.

Fun with Ann Johnson

The first time Judith and I got together for our play date, I was a bit tired and spent most of the time taking photos of her working so I was REALLY looking forward to having my own fun with some of these technique.

After working with Judith I realized the importance of properly sized containers. These were just a few I picked up at the dollar store. I also used a small bucket, plastic bags and an empty DVD lid (very nice).

I'll just mention two of the experiments I did even though two involved more than one piece of fabric.

For some reason I was obsessed with this white vent hosing so it was the first thing I tried. I had an almost full yard of LWI fuchsia fabric. It was easy to roll up, probably the easiest , and I ran a string through the center to compress the vent hose and fabric as best I could. I then pout the entire roll into a plastic bag with 1 cup water, 1 cup of dye solution and after 15 minutes, one cup of soda ash.

While it was in the pan I rotated it about every 15 minutes trying to get uniform coverage. This was the easiest of all the techniques because it opened like an accordion when done. The others were WAY harder to get off their resist piece.

The dye solution on this piece was 1 Tablespoon each: Purple, Boysenberry and Basic Blue with enough water to equal one cup. I did wait the 15 mintes before adding the soda ash but just left the fabric in the bag with all the liquids for one hour. Ann was right, one hour is enough.

 washed

Dried and ironed

I really like this and it may be my favorite but other other techniques had great results as well.


This was the most beautiful soft piece of Rayon Challis you can imagine. I had dyed it nutmeg although it was much more a rusty color than red in real life.
I don't have a before but this is a section of a quilt made with the Rayon.

This was rolled on the plastic chain and the dye solution was 1 tablespoon each intense blue, navy and boysenberry. It soaked in the water and dye solution about 15 minutes then I added the soda ash and waited an hour.

Strip Four Done

Strip four is done and I've left this first circle full width to show you about how close I stippled to the edge of the fabric strip. Remember, these strips need to be joined along the long edge. I have about an inch on each side unquilted. I will use this for straightening with the rotary cutter as well as quilting after I "butt" the seams. A full post of this in the next week (fingers crossed)

They are 12" tall and 6 feet wide. They will have a six inch border (2" + 4") which I will flip and sew. This is a modified QAYG project.

Came out better than I thought.

Little Hands is one of my favorite designs. I can just see all these little kids waving at me with their little hands.

This is a reminder of how much I love my partner, Brian. He has waited on me hand and foot during my recovery, INSISTING, he needs to do whatever I require. He is a one in a million and I thank my Higher Power every day that he came into my life 12 years ago.

This "Text" was inspired by another quilter named Marion who gave me permission to copy her idea and link back to her blog. Her site in written in both German and English so you don't need translator. As you can see from her blog, she did a great deal better than I did.
I may go back and do a "light" fill pattern for those poochy puffs left by not quilting. I'll take photos if I do.
Thank you Marion for your generosity!!

Here it is:

My invention, done on paper first and inspired by some filler from Laura Kemshall

A modification of a patter I use on my BEST ever book covers. It is a spiral with waves.

This is a Leah Day pattern. I had never tried it but I like it very much. Reminded me of "muscle shells" motif I like a lot. We probably have at least one ton of mucles shells on the beach for every man, woman, and child in the state - smile.

Check out the FIRE blog

And then we set it on fire