Design Wall Stuff

Today my design wall shows a bit of progress on Neptune/Poseidon.  And a bunch of other stuff -- I love those two reddish monoprints and I'm still not sure where I'm going with the stuff on the right.

I did finish quilting the squares for my new bag.  Now I just have to assemble them.  Of course, it's not that easy.  I want to put a zipper compartment inside and that's not part of the pattern, so I'm going to have to rewrite it.

Check out other design walls here on Judy's blog.  

Curses! Foiled Again!

 Last week on my design wall, there was this piece of fabric that I had to do something to.  But I wasn't sure exactly what to do to it.

I finally decided to do some more foiling.  Yep -- foiled again!  But no cursing.

 Because it had already been foiled with glue, I used black Mistyfuse shapes and scattered them around the piece.  I really like the black Mistyfuse on the black background.  I had to be careful not to hit the previous foiling with my iron and I also made sure I worked around it with the fusible web.

I pressed the pieces of Mistyfuse, then added the foil on top.  I really like the way the foil isn't a solid blob -- it has the pattern from the fusible because the foil sticks only to the glue in the fusible web.



This is the final finished piece.  It was dyed, then waxed and over-dyed, then foiled twice.

 This is my final art cloth.  It started out as a snow-dyed madala, looking something like the piece on the left.  I know I took a photo of it before I sent it on its journey, but I can't find it.  Fortunately, I had two that were almost alike.

Beth from Maine was the first to get it.  She used something called "fugitive media."   Basically, it means that she used things that normally aren't permanent on fabric -- chalk pastels and water soluble oil pastels in this case -- then she painted them with base extender and heat set.  There is a much more eloquent explanation of fugitive media here at "...And Then We Set it on Fire."

Then Laura painted it with red Setacolor paint and sun-printed it using round shapes, foam cut outs and gravel from her driveway as resists.

Here is a detail showing the paint and the final foiling that Jenny did.  She followed the starburst design that happened during the original dyeing.  It's a pretty amazing piece.  I'm enjoying having it up on my design wall.

For other design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.

Final Summer Design Wall

My kids go back to school this week!  So now I have no excuses for not getting anything done.  Well, except for all those school, musical, and sporting events.

First up, on my design wall is my final Round Robin Surface Design Swap piece.  I have to figure out what to do to this.  It's been dyed, waxed, over-dyed, and foiled.  Darn... I was going to foil it.  I am trying to decided what to do next.  Paint? More foil?  Discharge?  It's hard to do anything that won't disturb the foiling that's already on there.  Hmmmm.....stay tuned......

And this mess is the result of a week's work on my ereader pattern.  Last week (sadly, my last post), was a big whine about cutting before quilting.  I got it right this time.  Quilt, then cut.  I'm currently auditioning fabrics for the front pocket.  There is a finished bag in the upper right corner of the photo.

For more design wall fun, click here to go to Judy's blog.

Surface Design Redux

This is the piece I received for July in the Surface Design Round Robin hosted by the creative minds at "...And Then We Set It On Fire."

I held this one to the very end of the month (the time allotted) -- I was doing my stress-out thing because it has all this beautiful subtle color.  Initially, it was rust-dyed, then masked and painted with Setacolors.

I didn't think that my usual heavy-handed, in-your-face, gonzo approach to COLOR was appropriate here.  But what to do?  Again, this is not my fabric; it belongs to someone else and my usual approach to COLOR might not be appreciated.  Why not?  Well... ok.. not really sure why anybody wouldn't demand over-the-top color, but not everyone does.  Go figure.

 My first inclination was to add leaves and flowers.  I got out my hand-carved stampers and thought about it.  Hmmm.... then I got the bright idea of carving a new stamp -- a goldfish -- and doing a weeds in the water thing.  I thought I could mask off some of the greenish-yellow bars and stamp over them so it would look like fish hiding behind the weeds.  But then I didn't really like that idea for this -- I thought something more abstract would be better.  And I have the stacked triangle stamper and the curly cues.  Hmmmm...


I got out some of the sparkly Setacolors -- orange and lime green -- and mixed them with the lightning medium.  I used this because I was going for subtle (remember subtle?) and the color by itself is pretty intense. The lightning medium makes the color less intense without changing the viscosity of the paint --  very important when you're using stamps.    I didn't want runny paint.  I wanted nice clean images.

And here is the finished (for me, that is) piece on my design wall for today.  It's ready to send on to the next person.   Click on the photos for a closer view.

For more design walls, click here to go to Judy's blog.

Round Robin Moving On

I am participating in a Round Robin Surface Design from "...And Then We Set It on Fire" blog.

I received this rust-dyed fabric and stuck it on my wall for a couple of days.  I regularly experiment with my own fabric, but this was someone else's.  Yikes!

After a couple of days of cogitation, I covered it with rice flour and after it dried, I painted it with thickened teal dye.

I was not happy with the edges -- they're empty -- so I mixed up some golden brown and stenciled on some leaves to make the whole thing come together.

The reason the edges were empty is because I had to tape down the fabric to smear on the rice flour.  It's been my experience that applying color to the edges of flour-resisted fabric causes major gloppage in the dye color, so I erred on the cautious side and left them empty.  I like the stenciled leaves.

This is the finished piece -- it's been sent on to the next person in the group.

And this arrived this week.  It's been rust-dyed and over-dyed.  There is a lot of subtle color going on here, so my usual heavy-handed use of color won't do.  Hmmmmm....