Just a quick note

I am doing rather than talking lately, and today I had a breakthrough with my thread embroidery technique.

Thread embroidery is probably the ‘art’ I do the most. I don’t know if its because deep inside I am a secret painter, but I love to draw with my sewing machine. I have already bored you all with my love of Alison Holt’s remarkable thread play, and I have spend many a happy day making trees and flowers and leaves.

 

Today I tried a different technique—a variation on this theme—and found out that I like this way of ‘painting’.

 

This is a picture of fireweed that I believe was taken near Braeburn after a major fire the year before.. I used to drive this road once a week and for several weeks the fireweed is beautiful. I used a variety of cotton, rayon and silk thread on this piece.

 

My next one is going to be a rusty old truck that someone gave me permission to use.

Reviews!

I have been neglecting you, dear blog, so because I have a few new books, DVD’s, and have taken some online classes, I thought I would do a quick review of some of them.

First off is Mickey Lawler’s new DVD:

 

I LOVE this DVD!  It consists of THREE HOURS of tutorials. I have her book, Skydyes, and I use it all the time. It is my favourite technique. I thought the DVD would have the same info, just with demos and for the most part this is true. But it is so much more. Mickey is an excellent teacher, thats for sure..

She has some extras on the DVD and she shares a lot of personal things at the end of the tutorials. She even cries--I almost started crying.. And she takes you on a walk through her local gardening centre. So much fun.

I give this DVD an A+++

Here is Mickey’s book":

 

If you have seen any of my blog, you might have noticed that I love to paint fabric. I read about it first in this book which I have had for several years. I have put a ton of handwriting in it, pages have gotten paint on them and some are warped and I heart this book a lot. If you don't have this one, go get it! 

I give this book an A+++ as well..

Next is Beth Wheeler’s “Next Step in Altered Photo Artistry”.

I never really had a burning desire to use my computer to alter my fabric artwork, but I was reading Beth’s blog one day  and she was showing some of flower pictures her classes do. I was intrigued and read up on her books. Not interested enough to actually order one, but it was interesting. Then our local quilt store had a copy and I had a credit, so there you go.

Ummm—I like it. I am very lucky to have Photo Shop and Elements, which is required for the projects. She includes a CD with a number of filters and brushes which are nice.

While I really like this book, I think because I don’t have a project to do yet, I will just keep it on the back burner.

I would give this book a B.

 

Quickly moving on. I also previewed a DVD by Carol Taylor called “Strategies For Success” put out by Quilting Arts Magazine.

I have been in awe of Carol’s work for several years and HAD to order this disk. Am I ever glad I did. She is so interesting and a great teacher. The technique she shows on the dvd is ‘arch-itecture’ . The video is about 2 1/2 hours long. She mentions that she has made 496 quilts since 1993! I love this workshop and plan on making some of these beauties—that’s for sure! Carol does not have a blog—probably because she is ‘making, not saying’. 

 

I give this video an A++

 

Hey, this was fun. I have a few more reviews I could do, so I’ll be back later..

Contemporary Landscape

One of the classes I am teaching (actually tomorrow), is a landscape. It uses mixed media techniques such as hand painted fabric, paper towel mountains, wrapping paper lakes and thread trees.

Here is the process I use to make the fabric:

  

     

Below:

Once the paint is spread on the table, I carefully place a piece of fabric over it and gently press it into the paint.

       

 

Here is the completed picture with paper towel mountains.

     

 

This lesson is done just in time for tomorrow!

 

 

Christmas Haul!

So I am home and DH is home from the long road trip. It took me hours to unpack. I was watching "Hoarders" on TV and when I looked at my room and the one on the TV, there were marked similarities. I had a chuckle over that!

I know my trailer park is showing, but most of my purchases are from the dollar stores. I LOVE those places! I LOVE to find junk super cheap. My DH says that I can find more sh*t in an hour than most people can find in a year—he must mean men cause the woman I know could do some major damage as well... Since I only get 'outside' twice a year, I buy tons and tons of stuff. This is just the fabric! And I only had 45 minutes to shop!

One of my purchases this time was some white cotton from Fabric Land. It was on 1/2 price, so only 4 bucks a yard. I didn't think it felt all that great, but hey, it was a good price. I bought the rest of one bolt (13 yards) and decided to leave the rest just because I didn’t think it was all that and decided if it was crap, I could use it for student projects. But wouldn't you know it--it is the BEST fabric I have ever used for painting.

This looks WAY better in person. I really need a better camera cause this piece is beautiful! Hello? Anyone listening? 

Now I have buyers envy—if ONLY I had bought 4 bolts of this stuff, I would be in fabric heaven for the year… Oh well, I ordered 4 bolts from Dharma and the cost is just about the same with shipping and money exchange. I love fabric. :-)

Liard Hot Springs

Today I was reading about polar swims that people do for charity.  That is people dumb enough to go in super cold water and swim around pretending they enjoy it. I have done this twice. I was nuts the first time but then I did it again! This is when I was younger and had a figure. But this Christmas hubby and I drove out to Alberta (which is above Montana for those who don't know Canada very well). About 10 hours away is a wonderful hot springs at Liard that we like to go to. I've attached a pic so you can see, this is not a fancy, done up resort but a rustic pond in the bush. You have to walk in about 10 minutes to get there and it was COLD!

The vehicle said minus 22, but it had to be at least minus 30. The soak was wonderful but changing into clothes in that weather OUTSIDE was brutal. My feet stuck to the wood planks and my hair was a frozen mass. But the weirdest thing was that all the rest of the day my heart hurt. I told my hubby that I had gotten a “cold heart” and he was getting really concerned. So was I. I'm only 45 but I thought I was having a stroke or something. But a good nights sleep and rest was all I needed.

 

This is not my picture, I just really like it. It must not have been very cold since there is very little steam going on.

 

The reason I mention the hot springs is that I have always thought the frost on the trees in winter were beautiful. I would LOVE to do this in a mixed media format someday.

Batik Fabric

Today I finished the last of the soy batik prints I am making for an upcoming quilt class I am teaching. I don’t want to spoil the surprise so Janet—close your eyes.

Here are soy wax flakes. I order them from Dharma Trading Company.





Here are the pieces I made today:



I find batiks a lot of fun to do and soy wax is way less fussy and messy than using paraffin wax. I didn’t use MX dyes today, so I made the decision to paint on Setacolour transparent paints since that was what I had on hand. I love these paints and I use them exclusively for fabric painting.



I mix the soy wax in a double boiler on the stove. I put the flakes in a measuring cup and then melt the wax that way. I recently heard of a great tip that I tried this time—I heated up a crock pot with boiling water, set it on high, then placed my melted wax in the measuring cup over the rim of the crock pot. It kept the wax nice and liquidy. I do not have a dedicated pan for this--yet!

I tried a variety of utensils to make the marks. The picture below does not show the difference in colours very well. I have a terrible, old camera and I cannot get good pictures from it. I even tweaked this one in Photoshop and this was the best I could do…  :-(

In the orange/brown forefront fabric on the bottom left, I dipped a rectangle of sponge in the wax, and also used one side of a paper cup. There is also a piece of tubing used here I think.

In the grey piece beside it, I used 3 toilet paper tubes held together with an elastic. I overlapped the rings.This was the easiest of all the pieces to make.


In the middle blue piece, I used the rings again and a spool of thread.

The purple piece near the top was made with 2 coil type stamps. Very messy—I won’t do that again.And the paint was WAY too watery. I usually do 1/1 part Setacolour to water. This must have been 1/4 parts water.


And the orange piece at the top, the one you can barely see, was with a Tobleron chocolate bar that I found on my desk. When done using it as a stamp, I ate it.

The green fabric below is made by dunking the end of a chopstick in the wax and also by splattering wax on the fabric. I want this for fish fabric.I noticed that adding black to any Setacolour makes it richer and darker for this technique.




When the wax has hardened, minimum an hour, I crumple the fabric to break up the wax and get some cracks happening. Then I use a paintbrush and stroke on the Setacolour. I usually use two colours to get some variety, but that depends on my mood. When that dries, I lay the piece between sheets of newspaper and iron very well—about 3-4 minutes in each area. For these pieces, I changed the newspaper at least twice to get the wax off, but I think I could have gotten away with less ironing.

It was easy and less messy that other wax, that’s for sure! With paraffin wax, I have used at least 1 whole newspaper for each piece. And its toxic, not environmentally safe and harder all around.


You can even use a tjap! This beauty is from Dharma Trading Co.



Look at this AWSOME piece by Cathy using a tjap. BTW—her site is awesome.



I left the pieces to cure overnight, then I rinsed them in hot water with Dawn soap. This combo helps the wax just fall off. Then I either let this dry again, then iron it OR sometimes I iron the piece when its wet. Some of the colour comes out in the rinse water and I am sure if I had used thickened MX dyes the colours would have been deeper. But I needed to try this technique for the class since I don’t want to use MX dyes that day.

Overall, I think Setacolours work OK for this project. I have asked my hubby to see if he can find an old electric fry pan from a pawn shop or such place since he is still in the ‘big city’. I think that would allow for larger stamps—like a trivet I have and a wire circle thingie.

Two classes down, 3 to go…

Year 2010

Golden Rain-- Victor Nizovtsev

I have been pondering the new year and what I hope to do with it.

Looking back, I am pleased about a number of things I wanted to do and accomplished:

• reduced my fabric stash


• fewer impulsive buys


• changed my work outlook which led to a job change


• taught myself more creative things


• reconnected with friends

Things I did not do so well was lose weight, watch my eating habits and didn't take my dog for enough walks.

So for this year, I want to get healthy, take the dog for more walks when the weather permits and I will continue to reduce my fabric stash.