winners

cutting more insect stamps

Here are the winners of the 500th blog giveaway.

Jo Vandermay has won the Ultimate Guide to Art Quilting

Rita has won the Nancy Crow book

Ann McMillian has won the Thread Play book and

Wil has won the Free Expressions book

Gil counted herself out so she was not included in the drawing which is why the numbers might seem off. I used my tiny paper numbers in the brass bowl instead of the random number generator which I am getting to not trust.

I will need Jo, Wil and Ann to contact me through the contact form at the bottom of this page with your postal addresses. Please don't put them in the comment box.

Thank you all for your comments and I am planning my next 500 blog posts - just not all at one time (smile)!!

Picture Blocks

When my son's first boy, Zac, was born, I bought some 1 1/2" wooden blocks with making a picture puzzle in mind. He will be 5 this December so I finally got going on it. I bought 2 bags of 10 so I had a 4 X 4 square and a 2 X 2 square.

Getting ready to attach this photo to the 2 X 2 blocks with Matte Medium.

My son as a little boy.

Cutting at 1 1/2".

Blocks with matte medium on the top of the photo drying.

Fun project.

500th Blog Post

After 500 blog posts I am tongue tied! What to say. One things and this is probably the most important is that I have "met" some wonderful people through this blog. In October I will be going to the Netherlands to meet many of these wonderful women face to face. 

I have great email friends I met on the blog as well as a few of you who have come to visit me here in Maine. Yipee! Playdates!

Thank you all for being such wonderful followers of this blog. And now for some Giveaways!

As far as I know, this is the latest book on Art Quilting.

This was from an exhibit of Nancy's Improvisational Quilts

Libby's book for all you thread painters.

And Robbi Joys book which has an interesting dyeing section in it.

So Thank you for following my blog all of these years and leave a comment to win one of these books.

So what if ????

Today is my youngest child's birthday. He is 43. Holy Cow!! He lives in Malta with his wife and two boys. I'll be visiting them just before I come to the Netherlands in October.

So back to my waking thought. What if I take fabric instead of waxed paper and scrunch it up on a table, drop a clean silk screen on it, add drops of thickened dye on it and smear that into the screen with a squeegee? HUM???

I had a 2 yard X 18" piece of white fabric that was just asking for it!! I took a piece of terrible (course and low thread count) fabric that I had dyed a pink YEARS ago using "natural dyes". It looked awful. I like bright colors. So I used that as a drop cloth, scrunched up the white, dropped the screens and began screening dye in various (8) colors. I mixed up less than a quarter cup each.

Drops of dye on screen. I already know what happens when you put LOTS of dye on a screen - boring.

   Wet

Below, washed and dried. I consider this a huge success.

Detail

When I started I used print paste with soda ash added left over from my deconstructed silk screen day. I had to act fast and I could see time was passing quickly so I started throwing down chunks of fabric, scrunching and screening on thickened dye.

This was some chartreuse poor quality fabric - yuck!

This was the pinky stuff but after using a credit card, it looked better even though the dye molecules were almost exhausted.

This was pinky stuff too although it's hard to tell and THIS piece came out pretty well

Last but not least after I had scooped out as much dye as I could from the cups with a plastic knife, I tried the fabric over the hand like a mitten thing again. I purposely didn't use the red. 

The whole piece

Details

FUN!!

Playing with thickened dye

December is the month for deconstructed screen printing but my helpers and I are starting early. It's so much easier to blast a used screen with a high powered hose in your yard in MAINE in July than December (smile). I won't be showing any of my work yet but I did want to show my favorite part of deconstructed screen printing....the clean-up process. YES!

I started with a sort of failed dye experiment. I had dyed some burlap then used the dye covered burlap as a "stamp". It was OK but needed more dye. I used this on my table to "catch" any stray dye (like there's something wrong with that). Later I......

When I set up my screens I use various objects to create texture. I usually use waxed paper, plastic wrap and and a bag that held oranges.

When I am done these are covered with thickened dye. I also set up the screens on fabric which I want to add color. That was the burlap print.

Next I take the dye covered objects and use them as stamps

When all the dye is gone off these "stamps" I throw globs of left over dye on the fabric then use a credit card to blend them into the cloth.

This was already a dark and gloomy drop cloth that I used under some batik.

 I wondered what would happen if I just dumped dye on the cloth, crumpled and scrubbed it together.

RED. Very RED!!

I thought I had dumped all the thickened dye on the fabric and was going to the sink to wash out the Italian Ices cups when I discovered some golden yellow and turquoise sitting near by so I put the fabric over my hand like a mitten, reached in the cup and scooped out the dye. There was a touch of green too.

Then I took the turquoise and applied it with a credit card.

Looks very under-watery

Judith really indulged!!

This waxed paper was what I used to make the texture on the deconstructed screen set-ups. It was beautiful and I saved it in my sketchbook (of course). Later I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, "What if..." See tomorrow.

Prayer Flags

Some of you might remember that after the 4th annual Maine Event last year, the women who attended made me prayer flags for my speedy recovery from breast cancer. The flags and prayers worked!!

 After showing them on the blog two of my blog followers asked if they could make me one too and I received two beautiful flags from Tie-Dye Judy in Colorado and another from Penny in Ohio. Just recently, Judith made me one too from one of her dye experiments. I took one from a special friend from the string of flags which still fly outside my studio and decided to put the four into a "piece" so that I could hang it in my studio. Here are the flags.

Below is Judith's

Below is Penny's

This is Tie-Dye Judy's

And this from Peggy Lovejoy

Trying to find a combining color was a tough one. I am NOT a pink person but I settled on a pink LWI dyed cotton.

This is now completely quilted