Together at Last

Here are the hibiscus series quilts hanging together in the Madison Contemporary Fiber Artists' "Wild Things" exhibit at Olbrich Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin.  

I think this is large enough to read if you click on the photo.

This show will end with an artists' reception on April 7, 2013.

Hibiscus 1 is Finished

Over the next few days I will share photos of the finished Hibiscus series.  They will hang together in a show at Olbrich Gardens, "Wild Thing," beginning next week and through April.

Hibiscus 1 is 16" by 21" and features acrylic inks painted on cotton fabric.  I used cotton threads -- 50w and 40w for quilting.  I used cotton batting and cotton on the back.  The binding is a commercial batik -- a very dark green and black leafy kind of thing.

The Japanese beetle was painted with metallic acrylic inks and accented with black 50w thread.

And for Beth: the backside.  I left the hanger in the photo -- it's an aluminum stick -- about an inch wide and less than 1/4 inch thick so it can be screwed into the wall where it's hung.  Using white fabric on the back was a mistake -- you can see all the little thread nasties.   I debated hitting it with a roller full of paint, but I'm not sure that's such a good idea.  Still thinking about it...

Taking Advantage of a Situation

As long as I had the table, I figured I should take advantage and do something else.  I haven't really ever worked in a series, but I like this photo and it seemed like a good idea.


I haven't done any dye painting in a long time.  I have lots of dye thickener in my refrigerator from some "...Fire" blog experiments.  And I have the table.

I have some fabric in the dye studio (AKA the NE corner of the garage) that was in a box labeled "soda soaked fabric."  I took a piece that wasn't too wrinkled and taped it down over the plastic protecting the hibiscus pattern.  

I hope this works.  I don't know how long that fabric has been in there.  I don't know if it is really soda soaked.  The dye thickener was on its last legs -- I tossed the remainder after I finished painting the fabric.  And the trouble with dye painting is that I haven't done it in so long, I had to get out my notes.  I hope I mixed it up right.  I won't know until after it batches and is washed out.  This is somehow worse than the usual excitement with dyeing.  I hope this works...

And instead of my design wall, the action is all under the needle today.  I have started quilting the ink-painted hibiscus.

To see what people who are using their design walls are doing, click here to go to Judy's blog.  

Creating my Own Reality

I've been doing my painting on the kitchen table.  This means two things:

1: no eating at the kitchen table  (I don't consider this a problem because it also means: no cooking in the kitchen).

2: The light from the fixture above the table is great for eating and homework, but not so good for painting.

So I rescued my little ott light from the art table corner of the family room and set it up.  Ahhh... much better.

I was having a little trouble getting the color right for the flower.  The photo is more pink and the flower is more orange.  Of course, I don't have to do either color (I could make it purple, if I was so inclined), but I like the color of the flowers.

They are pale peach during the winter when they grow inside; but in the extreme heat we are currently experiencing, they are a lovely shade of dark pinkish orange.  So I brought in a flower and played around with the inks until I had a color I liked -- somewhere in between the photo and reality.  

I think it is ready for the needle -- I have to suppress the urge to keep adding more paint because I can do so much more with thread.  

And Rosie after her walk.  In case if anyone was wondering if it is hot here...

Stop Stressing

And do something!  This should be my new motto! 

I really wanted to get started on my "Wild Thing" piece, but all my photos, drawings, ideas, and inspiration are buried on my original hard drive.  I can get to them, but it takes gyrations that I'm just not up to right now.  And I have it on good authority that my computer will be back to normal (whatever that is) within a week or two at most.So I don't want to do anything that will change things over to the hard drive I'm using right now.  Also, this computer is maddeningly sloooooow and I'm just a wee bit spoiled, I suppose.

So I took this photo in my garden yesterday.

And these supplies.

And a tiny bit of what's left of my precious PFD fabric and did this.  Not a bad start, is it?