Stones and 3D Shibori

 Over at the "...Fire" blog this month's technique is 3D Shibori.  Here is a link to Nienke's wonderful post on this fun technique.  Apparently if you tie up "stuff" in polyester and boil it, it will change the shape of the fabric.

I was all excited about this and eagerly scouted my local thrift store for polyester scarves.  No, I didn't seem to have any of my own and because it's October in Wisconsin, the only scarves I found were the knitted variety that are supposed to be worn for warmth rather than style.

I did score a beautiful navy blue silk scarf that I'll be using in a future discharge experiment, but I found only one possibly polyester one.  So I got some sheer curtains that appeared to be polyester and gathered up some river stones.  I tied them up and threw them in a pot of boiling water.  I did the same with a scarf that I suspected of being polyester.



I let them boil together for 20 minutes, then plunged them in a bowl of ice water.  When they were cool, I unwound the string and removed the stones.  And it worked!

I did just a corner of the scarf because of its dubious origin.  I'll probably try a different  tying technique on the rest of the scarf.

Here is a closeup of the scarf.  It's still wet in this photo.

And here is the chunk cut from the sheer curtain.  The scarf dyed it blue!  I was thinking that I wanted something like mushrooms on a piece I'm working on, so I plan to try it again with only white fabric in the pot.

I'm linking up with Nina Marie at "Off the Wall Friday."

Blogger's Quilt Festival -- Statia's Hummingbird

"Black Chinned Hummingbird on Oleander"

From a photo © Statia Dougherty - used with permission

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures : 20" by 25"

Special techniques used : painted on wholecloth cotton with fabric paints, trapunto, thread painted and quilted with cotton thread

Quilted by : Karen Silvers

Best Category : Art Quilt, Home Machine Quilted, Wall Hanging

I created this quilt after being inspired by my friend Statia Dougherty's wonderful hummingbird photos.

I had some new fabric paints from Prochemical and, after securing permission from Statia, I tried them out with her photo as my guide.

The little bird was layered and quilted first before I layered and quilted the background so that he would stand out from the background.  I used Aurifil 50 weight cotton threads.

I chose to finish it so that it would resemble a matted photograph with a frame.

I'm linking up with Amy's Creative Side Blogger's Quilt Festival, Fall 2012 edition. 

Playing with Paints

 Yesterday I attended a workshop with Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists.

The workshop featured Golden Artist Colors and artist Sandie Bacon (here).


We had a great time painting on different kinds of fabric.  Sandie brought us all sorts of goodies to play with.

Sandie brought these drapery samples and I stenciled on some Iridescent Gold, then over that some modeling paste mixed with orange interference paint.

On this one I first stenciled some Micaceous Iron Oxide (oh-- I love saying that!) and then the modeling paste over that.

Sandie showed us how to make "skins" by smearing medium over a piece of plastic and adding a little paint for color.  Let it dry and voila!  A semi-transparent "skin" that you can paint or stitch over.  It reminded me of when I was a kid and we used to smear glue on our palms, let it dry, then peel it off.

And  I got to play with a small Gelli-plate.  This was just some paints smeared on it, then I kissed it with a texture plate before "printing" the fabric.

 I like the "prints" made with the texture plate better.

But I really like the gelli-plate prints on this scrim.  They're in order from first to last.

So I think I may try to combine all these bits into one single piece.  Hmmmm.....