DYEING IN THE BACKYARD

I really want to make that 'Weed' painting into a art quilt.  My major hold-up is the fabric.  I just don't have the right colors, and I know from experience, if you're looking for something specific at fabric stores you'll never find it.  That left only one alternative - I must dye the fabrics myself.

I remember reading an article in a magazine about dyeing...and I had flagged it.  All I had to do was search through my magazine pile.  Jeez.  Actually, it didn't take long, I had an idea where it was, and after a little thumbing through other magazines, I found it fairly quickly.

The magazine is Art Quilting Studio Magazine, and there was an article entitled "Flat Dyeing" by Robin Ferrier.  It shows how to dye on a flat surface so you can get more even, consistent coloring.  I know how to dye in a container, tub or bag.  It would entail alot of constant swishing around to get the color to be even.  I've actually never had color come out even, so I wasn't even going to try that.  Robin's method looked pretty easy.  The weather has been great so I was excited to try it!

I stopped at Home Depot and picked up a roll of painter's plastic.  It's thinner than she recommends, and I probably won't be able to re-use it.  But it comes in a huge roll, so I'm all set.

I realized once I got started that I'm missing some essentials.  I'll have to scrounge at garage sales for things like stirring spoons, buckets and large Tupperware type storage containers.  I don't want to use anything that I need from the kitchen, because it can't go back to the kitchen after this.

Here's where I really regretted having hot water in the studio.  I had to bring a tub of hot water out from the house, so I decided to bring all my dyes and stuff down to the back yard.  Everything more or less met in the middle, out on the picnic table in the back yard.  

I had had the fabric soaking in soda ash since early morning.  I mixed the dyes by guess and by golly.  It will be a surprise if I get what I was after!

Here's what it looked like after I got done, I left the fabric there all night.  I was amazed at how hot to the touch it all was.

Needless to say, it dripped on the grass.  The grass is now red, green(er) and brown(er) in places - of course!  Grass is a cellulose fiber too, isn't it?

The next morning, after everyone was finally up, I rolled everything up and took it down to the washing machine.  I separated plastic and fabric, rinsed and rinsed and rinsed out the fabric, then tossed in the washer with Synthropol.   

They didn't come out exactly like I envisioned.  I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to mix the right blue.  But, this is okay.  I can work with this for my Weed project.  Oh, and I should mention, this 100% cotton fabric is a soft, loosely woven fabric that I recycled out of some old curtains that were at our new house that I didn't want to use.  It will be a very soft look.

Here's how they came out:  

That pile of threads came out of the dryer with the fabrics. I'm thinking about saving it because of another  article I just read in someone's blog who mentioned that she keeps odd threads and uses them in her projects occasionally as surface embellishment.  Anyway, her little basket of threads looked pretty cool!  I know, I'm screwy, but I can't help myself.

PAINTINGS ON DISPLAY THIS MONTH

Some of my paintings are now hanging in a local pizza place - Proletariat Pizza in White Center.  

We first discovered this place by chance, while driving by. What caught my attention was the font on their big overhead sign.  It's a very cool Art Deco font. Very different than everything else in this neighborhood of porno shops and Asian markets.  White Center is definitely an area that can only get better.

We went back a few nights later and enjoyed one of their great pizzas, and have been back several times since.  It's owned and operated by Mike and his wife, who make the pizza dough every afternoon and hand-make the pizzas - when they run out of dough they close the doors! 

We noticed the art on the walls and asked about it.  Mike told us they planned to invite artists in to display their art.

Several months later I saw a request from them on Facebook, asking if anyone knew of an artist that would like to hang in their restaurant.  I figured my paintings of 17th & Roxbury, which is only a few blocks away, would be perfect for there.

My paintings will be on display through the month of August.  I highly recommend you stop by for a pizza and tell them you heard about them from me!  There will be an official Art Walk on the third Saturday of the month, maybe I'll see you there.

RELAXING DAY IN THE STUDIO

After our big Family Get-together at our house yesterday, we deserved a relaxing day of play.  After a very nice walk in the park with Lucy-dog, I went up to the studio and played around.

Over a month ago, I picked the interesting top from a weed-plant that I saw while walking in the park.  I put it on the dash of the car and its been there ever since, where I could see it and think about it.  I find it's shape very interesting and have been thinking about rendering it in a painting or fabric.

Today I got it out of the car and brought it up to the studio and started drawing and painting.

One of the things that's fun about acrylics is that they dry very quickly so you can make changes and alterations very soon.  Here's the drawing after I started putting acrylic paint on it, in the different stages as it progressed:

Now I'm thinking about how to do it in fabric...hmmmm.

SNITZEL WON AWARD AT RENTON RIVER DAYS

I usually try to put something into the Renton Annual Art Show.  This year I had two distinctly different entries because along with my usual industrial type painting I entered one of my Snitzels.  

I was pleasantly surprised to find an invitation in this Tuesday's mail, with complimentary tickets, to attend the Preview Party on Thursday night because I had won a prize.   It didn't say what prize or which piece had won the award.

Last night I was delighted to see that the Snitzel was the one that garnered the attention.  It is so much different than what I usually do.  And different from much of the other art in the show.  This piece is a fabric collage, more or less.  This is one that I have been posting about it's progress on this blog.

It won the Lucille Culliton Award of $100.  Cool.

We have fun at the Art Preview.  They serve free catered food and wine.  I head straight for the wine!  Then we look at the art until they serve the dessert.  This year it was Tiramisu. 

I have only one complaint (if anyone is listening) - I wish it started earlier in the evening.  What's with waiting until 8pm to even begin?  Maybe we could start at 7pm?  That would be nice.  Thank you very much.

STEEL PLANT #1 FINISHED - ?

I'm loving it!

This is Steel Plant #1 

acrylic on canvas

24" by 30"

TRYING TO GET IT ALL DONE BEFORE WEEK'S END

First thing this morning I cleaned the floor in the studio so I could pin baste the 'Mystery Quilt'.  It's bad enough having to mop in the house, you shouldn't have to mop your studio floor....geez.

But I must say it's very nice to have room enough to lay out a big quilt - although this one is not big - on the floor and get it basted.

Afterwards I definitely felt the need for a nice walk so  Lucy and I headed out.

After lunch I went back to the studio and worked on my Steel Plant painting.

Here's what it looked like before I started:

And here's what it looks like now:

You might notice I used a lot of red in the underpainting, but today I used a very limited palette of just Indigo Blue, Quinacridone Gold and a little Cadmium Yellow Medium and lots of white.   I like it.  I will let it rest for a week and then look at it again.

DRUNKARD'S PATH

Here's another UFO I pulled out.  This is a Drunkard's Path pattern made from some Rose & Hubble fabrics with a beer motif.  The dark blue background fabric had beer bottles all lined up, so does the off white, tan and light blue fabric.  The red fabric has a woodgrain pattern on it, supposedly the 'pub'.  There is also a tan fabric that has beer foam (suds).  The blocks were made using an easy-to-do method I picked up from someone at the quilt shop.  You cut out a bunch of circles from freezer paper, which has plastic on one side so when you iron the fabric to it it will stick temporarily.  You cut circles of fabric a little larger and iron the seam allowance around to the back, then zigzag the circles to a background square.  When finished you cut the unit into four squares and end up with the Drunkard's Path unit.  There are all kinds of ways to arrange the different units.  It's a fun little block to play with.

I had the top made up and a few extra units.  I pulled a solid blue out of my stash and used that for the border, putting on a small border of the red first.   The corner stones were extra units.

There is still a big pile of the suds fabric which I'll use on the back and enough of the red woodgrain to make binding with.

This quilt should go to someone who loves beer.  I finally figured out who to give it to, so now I"m anxious to get it finished.  

MYSTERY QUILT SOLVED

I once owned a quilt shop in Renton....that sounds like the beginning of another story.  Anyway, we did a lot of 'Block of the Months' (BOM) and I have lots of them in little project boxes.  So this one was on the top the other day, so I grabbed it down and started in on it.   A lot of the times I used to have to make the blocks to show everyone what it should look like, other times I just made the blocks because I wanted to!  This one I probably made the blocks because I had to - they are not type of blocks I like - too country-looking.  But, all the blocks appeared to be there and there was a little extra fabrics.  

This BOM was a mystery quilt - you wouldn't see how it all went together until the end.  Every month you'd get a little pile of fabrics and directions for that month's block and at the end of twelve months you'd get the directions to assemble the quilt top.

I had all the blocks but, oh-oh, there was no directions for the final top.  I had no idea how it should go together, but I figured I could figure it out!  

I put the blocks up on the wall and started moving them around....and around....and around.  After about an hour of that I decided to give up, I couldn't figure it out, and it was going to be too small anyway.

I dug through my stash and found a yard of fabric that went with the rest of the blocks (that's the best thing about scrappy blocks) and started adding pieces of sashing to get the pieces to fit together.

And here it is - a finished top!  I still need to make a back for it, and quilt it.

It is a lap-size quilt, about 64" by 52".

Do you want it?

Whoever gives me the best reason why I should give it to them can have it (then I'll have to hurry up and finish it).

FIRST IN THE STEEL PLANT SERIES

OMG!  Did I just say I was starting another series?  You'd think I'd have learned my lesson, but seriously, I've been wanting to do some paintings of the Steel Plant.  I'm not going to say I'm doing a bunch of them.  I'm just going to nonchalantly say this is the first.

When I drove a truck every day I was going to Vashon Island a lot, mostly to haul the leachate runoff from the landfill with a tanker.  I would cross over the West Seattle Bridge (elevated above Spokane Street) in the early morning and see the Steel Plant and just be enthralled.  I can't say what it is exactly, but the way the sun hit all those pipes and metal buildings with steam coming out.  There are piles of rusty scrap outside, railroad tracks and cars, cat-walks, chimneys and occasionally, if you were lucky, you could see red-hot bars of steel coming out of one of the buildings.  The ground around the plant is black, there are mud puddles that reflect the light and the men are driving equipment around the yard.  It's all very.....I don't know....industrial?  

Now that we live in West Seattle I really need to put what I see on canvas.  Here is the beginnings, the underpainting - mostly I was using up what was left on my palette.  I really like it just like this, but knowing me, it will get too real-looking very soon.  This is 24" by 30".

My husband and I recently went on a tour of this place, the Nucor Steel Plant with a group from Historic Seattle.  I thought I'd be able to take pictures from the inside, but alas, it was not to be so.  They said I could take all the pictures I wanted....from outside their fence. Phooey!  Once the tour started I began to question why I was there!  It was scary, dirty, hot and smelly.  We had to walk on the cat-walks- metal grates suspended over the yard.  I hate walking on something you can see down through.  I have a very great fear of heights.  So, needless to say, I had a death grip on the hand railing, which was filthy with who-knows-what kind of dust.  By the end of the tour, most of that dust was either on my face or on my jeans.

It was a very interesting tour in that we learned a great deal about how steel is made.  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and generous.  Almost all of the steel made in America is made from recycled materials, hence the big piles of rusty scraps in the yard.  Nucor is very proud of the fact that they are 100% recycled material only.  We got to see the cauldron where they mix the metals and melt them down to make the steel.  It was a little like I would image Hell to be.  Hot, loud, dirty and it even smelled a little sulpher-like.  There were so many things I wish I could have photographed, but I restrained myself.  I'm going to have to walk down around that area a little more and see just how close I can get with my long-lensed camera.

LET'S CALL IT FINISHED

Okay, I came to a point where I'm going to call it finished.  I'll set it aside for at least a week, not looking at it and then look at it with fresh eyes.

I went back to the Buzzsaw quilt and started adding a border.

NEXT STAGE FOR "SITTER"

It's coming along...

Still needs a lot of work.

WORKING ON THE SITTER

I was able to put in several hours on my new painting "The Sitter" today, which is always so relaxing.  I seemed to want to use a little brush and work on details.  The painting wasn't really ready to go into the details, but I did it anyway!  You gotta go with what's working for ya, I guess!

I haven't even started on the overhead 'things' - I don't know what to call them and they are the reason I keep painting this building.  Hmmm.  I need to find out what they should be called. 

Now that I see this little thumbnail image, I'm rather pleased with it.

Still a long ways from finished.  Stay tuned.

"FLEETING BEAUTY" SHOW AT SAAM

Darrell and I have wanted to go the exhibit of Japanese Woodblock Prints at the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) since it opened in April.  Seems like there was always something keeping us away.  So, when the weather turned so miserable this Memorial Day Weekend, we decided it would be a perfect time for an indoor activity and this show was right at the top of the list.

We both really enjoy Japanese Woodblock prints, Darrell from his passion of everything Japanese (which relates back to Greene & Greene and his furniture designing) and me from my love of printmaking.  I've taken a class or two about the traditional methods of Moku Hanga (woodblock printing) and am a regular lurker at one of the best web forums on the subject www.barenforum.org .

We were at the museum in Volunteer Park soon after the doors opened.  Its always a pleasure going to SAAM, the Art Deco building is a treasure all in itself and the park is one of Seattle's jewels.  (Afterward, we took Lucy for a short walk through the squirrel infested grounds, so she was happy with the outing also).

Both Darrell and I agree the show was phenomenal.  It was curated very nicely, with an exquisite selection showing the changing styles and eras.  We were thrilled to see the excellent specimens with their rich colors intact, and the educational information about the prints, the process and their makers. 

The collection, a promised gift to the museum, includes Hokusai's Great Wave, shown here with Darrell admiring it and seeing things he's never seen before.  Wow.

Hurry-  the exhibit closes on July 4, it's a must-see.

BUZZSAW WITH SASHING

I spent most of this rainy Friday before Memorial Weekend putting the sashing on my Buzzsaw blocks.  This is how it stands now.  I'm not sure if I should proceed or put it back in the box for another ten years.

I don't have any idea in which direction to proceed, so that points to 'the box'.

But, since the week is almost over, I'm just going to leave it on the wall and look at it and let it stew in the cranium until my next week off.

While making the sashing, I rediscovered that I thoroughly enjoy the almost-mindless task of chain piecing.  I had a nice afternoon piecing and listening to my Zune play an eclectic mix of just good music.

BUZZSAW QUILT FROM LONG AGO

I opened a project box.  These are hand-pieced twenty point star blocks that I'm calling Buzzsaw.  I can't remember their real name.  Anyway, I pieced these years ago, probably ten years ago or more and put them away for some reason.  I can't remember if I had a plan on how to finish them or not.  The box contains fabrics, templates, but no plan.

Maybe one of the reasons I put it away was because I ran out of one of the fabrics and I had no plan.

I put the blocks up on the wall.   I was surprised at the placement.  If I was making them today, I would have made five full blocks.  That would have made it rectangular.  But here it is - square.

I stared at it for a while and decided it needs sashing - or something...

I started auditioning some different sashings:

I went for a walk and when I got back I started cutting fabric and piecing sashings.

And here is what I have so far:

Now I'm thinking about what to put in the cornerstones.  I was thinking about some kind of whirling star block that goes the other direction.  Whirrr,  whirrr....

Maybe I'll add something to the ends to make it rectangular, too.

NEW PAINTING STARTED

A painting on my easel!  It's been a long time since I started a painting.  I've committed to hanging my paintings in August and I thought I might see if I could get a few more big ones done before that.

Here is the first roughing out of another scene of 17th & Roxbury.

This is acrylic on canvas 20" by 30".   Wish me luck.

HOME FOR QUILTS

The last two quilts I've finished, April Flowers and Catch Me,  found a home. 


I offered them to someone I know from work and he gladly accepted them for his two children, a boy and a girl.


Perfect!  


Back to the pile of UFOs to finish and find homes for them.

CATCH ME QUILT

Here's the mate to the April Flowers Quilt I just finished.  This one is 66" by 55".

I've named it Catch Me because of the fabric on the back.  It's an ugly fabric that matched the colors of the front very well.  It has bears and fishing lingo on it and somewhere it says something about catching fish.  It was in my bag of 'please-go-away' fabrics that I was going to donate somewhere, when I realized the colors matched!  It got rescued.  I still think it's ugly!

I used a blue denim for the little inside border and corners in the outer border.  And I erroneously used the denim as binding.  It is definitely too heavy.  I knew it was wrong as I did it, but I did it anyway.

I'm am so pleased with my Bernina, it just chugged on through all the layers. 


I love my Bernina.  I gave it a good cleaning afterwards.  Its all ready for the next project.

PRINTED SURFACE WORKSHOP

I just finished a three-day workshop with Cameron Mason at Pratt School in Seattle.

It was a very informative and fun class.  I met some really great people, whom I learned a lot from and Cameron was an excellent and generous teacher who really knows her stuff!  

Basically, we learned about 'printing' with fabric dye to make your own unique fabrics.  It was really fun each morning when we would 'show and tell' our fabrics we made the day before.  There were some extremely talented students in the class.  It's always great to learn from seeing other people's work.

Cameron showed us the basics of silkscreen printing and had some great ideas and techniques for fabric printing.  We even got to do some 'breakdown printing' which can yield very interesting and surprising results.  I definitely want to try more of that.

If you get a chance to take one of Cameron's classes or workshops I highly recommend it.  You will have a great time and be very pleased with what you learn.

APRIL FLOWERS QUILT

 I just finished this quilt I'm calling April Flowers this last weekend.  It's about 54" by 77".   I started it several years ago.  It is made from fabric samples that I got somewhere (so long ago, I don't even remember).  They were small pinked-edged squares in sample books.  I took the books apart and cut the squares down to six inch squares.  I used some of them as sashing.  I got the top done before we moved into this house, which was, what...2007?     Two weeks ago I pulled out the box with the fabrics, found this top and another top and went to the fabric store to buy an appropriate back.  I found a really cute light green with little flowers for this one - hence it's name.  And I found a fishing fabric for the blue quilt top I'm quilting at the moment.  I thought I could get the quilting for it done today or tomorrow, but I just put the sewing machine needle through my finger.  It went in the nail of my right hand pointer finger and came out the other side.  Yuck, it didn't really hurt until I pulled the needle out.  Anyway, not to gross you out, but it's starting to throb, so I better take it easy the rest of the day.  (It hurts to right click!).  I'll post a picture of the blue one when it's finished.

All these years of sewing and this is the first time I've ever done that.  Let's hope that's the end of that!

THREAD DANCING WITH ROCKY

I took the worst of the prints on cotton that I did with the Litho method, and over-sewed it with black thread outlining and creating shadows.  I was really concerned I wouldn't be able to do it and make it look 'right', that's why I started with the worst print.  I don't like the wrinkles in it. I think they are confusing and detract from the portrait - that's that vertical line in the middle of the forehead.  It shouldn't be there, but it's in the print.

I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out not too bad.  It was like drawing with a pencil, but a lot slower!  I had the machine going full-throttle, poor thing.  But it's a trooper and so far it's still going great.  I love my Bernina.  I might get out my other one though and abuse it and let this old one be used just for making quilts.

Next I moved on to the failed attempt to do chine-collé with fabric.  I had taken that horrible wreck of a project and overlaid it with pink gauze that I had printed with the portrait.  I lined the print up with the fabric 'face' underneath and then proceeded to draw on it with thread.  I didn't do as much sewing on this, I just wanted to outline, but ended up doing a little more than that.    Here it is:

You can see the colored fabrics underneath the gauze overlay.   I don't know where to go with it from here.  It's on canvas, I could put it on stretcher bars.

Hmmm...

SEWING ROOM UPSTAIRS

One more hard day of lugging a laundry basket up the stairs loaded down with fabric, I don't know how many times.  My knees are telling me it was a few too many times though.

When I finally got all the fabric up and sorted, then I started bring up the drawers from my sewing table and the leaves for the cutting table.  At least I got the men to bring up the tables, though.

It looks a little bare right now, but I'm sure I'll have it all junked up very soon.

In fact, I think I'll be out there sewing up a storm first thing in the morning.  I really wanted to sew tonight, but I'm just too tired.

One of the fun and interesting things about reorganizing my stash was getting re-acquainted with and counting all the pieces of fabric I have.

I will admit it, I am a fabricoholic.

I have some really ugly pieces of Elvis fabric - (I can't believe they let them license them).

I have 116 pieces of fabric with a horse motif, 2 that are zebras, 3 with cowboy boots, and 1 seahorses.  (Most of these are 1/2 yard pieces).

I was astonished to find I have 414 pieces of paisley fabrics.

I have a big stack of hand-dyed fabrics by Judy Robertson from her yard of the month program.

I am short on yellows, but I have golds.  And Diane B is right, I have way too many browns.

I have a lot of plaids.  I have some Kaffe Fassett fabrics I would love to use.

I need to start using this fabric.  Now.  

I'd like to make quilts, but I don't know what to do with them.  I'd really like to just make the tops and have someone else quilt them.  You wanna?  We could donate them.

FABRIC STASH - END OF DAY TWO ORGANIZING

I spent the first day cleaning up from the construction.  I got out the vacuum and went at it.  I decided everything either had to have a home or it was going away.  I started taking things downstairs and piling them up in Darrell's shop.  It's only a matter of time until he puts a stop to that!  But I will eventually do away with it all.  We need a big garage sale this summer.

Anyway, I started taking fabric up that afternoon, but I didn't take any pictures.

This is where I stopped at the end of day two.  

It all has to be re-folded and organized.  It' kind of fun going through it all and remembering what I have.  It's seems it's been a long time since I've been through it.  I'm finding things I had forgotten I have.  But, I need to start doing something with it all.  I have little stacks of fabrics that I had some sort of plan for....but most of it I don't remember what exactly. 

STUDIO FABRIC STORAGE

The above picture is the finished project.  Below are the process pictures.   I did some research about systems for storing my fabric stash.  I had criteria - I wanted to be able to see the fabric and get to it easily; I wanted the bins deep as possible because of the layout of the room's sloping ceiling.  That end isn't really usable space without stooping down.  I found this wire basket system through Organizeit.com.  It was expensive, but simple to install - a choice of time or money.  Being short of time, or should I say, Darrell being short of time, I decided to go for it.  

Darrell built the simple four section box, and installed the 'ladders' that the baskets slide on.  We found the other cabinets for free on Craigslist and he built toe-kicks for them, installed them and put new countertops of MDF edged with mahogany.  

I spent several days painting the inside of the old cabinets white and painting the outsides, and putting shellac on the top of the counters.  

At the last minute, I decided it might be fun to add some color - that short wall behind the new cabinets never really got painted properly.  I stopped at Rodda on the way home one day and picked up some dark yellow (gold) paint - it's called 'Hacienda Clay'.  I was surprised at how 'warm' it ended up being up against the already warm amber shellac.  Oh, well.

Now I just have to lug all my fabric up there, re-fold it, and organize it.

No problem.