Three Done and Dusted - One To Go

I have completed the third piece for the Voyage Group theme entitled "Abstracted Earth"

This is a piece for my series in this theme entitled "Forces of  Nature".  It is an iceberg with the largest portion below the water. The title of this piece is "Danger Below". As usual, all these are my own hand-dyed and surface designed fabrics. The one exception is the top layer of the iceberg which is above the water. That is a loosely and randomly woven piece of fabric from a friend. I think it makes the perfect iceberg top!

DANGER  BELOW

The fourth and final piece for this year for Voyage has been started. The plan is to have it ready before I leave for Duluth for the Minnesota Quilters Association Annual Quilt Show 2015.  More about that later!

Linking this up to Nina Marie's Off The Wall Fridays!! Lots of beautiful creations to see. Drop by for a visit!

The Final Act?

Yep...it snowed a bit. Just a dusting really. Only about an inch. BUT...I grabbed the shovel and managed to scrape up enough to do a couple of 1-yard pieces!! It took all the snow on the front patio but I did it!

And I think it was so very worth it. This time I did both pieces dry and not soaked in soda ash. I sprinkled on the soda ash with the dye powder in between the two layers of snow.

Piece one - I grabbed the 1 yard piece and tied a knot in the middle, then in the middle of the remaining ends and finally I tied the loose ends together

Piece two - I folded the lengthwise piece in half then both sides in half again...accordion style. Put a long rubber band around it just to hold it in place.

Knotted

Folded

Is this snow dyeing adventure over here in the frozen tundra? One never knows!!! 

I'm linking this to Nina Marie's Off The Wall Friday. Be sure to stop by there and see amazing work by very talented artists!

Snow Snow Gone Away

Won't come back another day.....any time soon perhaps. BUT...this is March in the Frozen Tundra so one just never knows for sure. Could still have a foot one morning. It IS cooling off a bit near the end of the week.........

But just in case this was the last for this season, I scraped up all I could and did my last (perhaps) snow dyeing for a while (unless I purchase a snow cone machine! HA - inside joke!)

I have fallen in love with snow dyeing using dye powder instead of dye solution. I manipulated these fabrics different ways just to see what happened. All fabric was pre-soaked in soda ash, manipulated, placed in a container, covered in snow, sprinkled with dye powders, more snow and left to batch in the studio overnight.

Piece 1 I just put the damp fabric on the floor, grabbed the middle and twisted it still on the floor

Piece 2 I just crumpled like usual

Dyes for this pair - Intense Blue, Caymen Island Green and Pewter

PIECE  1

PIECE  2

Piece 3 I did an "informal" accordion gathering, pulling it together at one end just walking my fingers down the edge, then grabbing the fabric and pulling my hand down to "pleat" it. Folded it in half and put it in the container

Piece 4 I did the same "informal" accordion gathering but afterwards twisted the "pleated" fabric, made a figure 8 and placed it in the container.

Dyes for this pair - Victorian Blue, Better Blue Green and Pewter

PIECE  3

PIECE  4

OK so now I just might be the only person in the Frozen Tundra praying for MORE SNOW!!!!

I'm linking this post to Nina Marie's Off The Wall Friday. Click the link to visit a lot of talented artists' posts!

Fire In The Desert and Over the Edge

Completed my second piece for Voyage 2015 last night!! And I love it! Sorry...but I really do like how it turned out! Both of these pieces are made with my own hand dyed and surface designed fabrics and created with raw edge applique.

My series for the 2015 Voyage Theme of Abstracted Nature is "Forces of Nature". My first piece was "Over the Edge" - the lava flow.

And the second piece I just finished last night is "Fire in the Desert" - lightening 

My two remaining pieces to complete are "Danger Below" - iceberg and "Winds of Change" - hurricane. I can hardly wait to start the next one!!!

Frosty The Recycled Snowman

OK...so I never actually BUILT a snowman but if I had....this is where he would have ended up!

I so loved the results of snow dyeing with soy was resist I just HAD to do it again! This time I did an experiment with the soda ash. One piece was pre-soaked in soda ash and the second piece was just PFD right off the bolt. On that piece I sprinkled the soda ash on along with the dye powder.

The procion dyes I used were Victorian Blue, Turkey Red, Smoky Grey and some Pewter

And here are the fun results. I used my new favorite resist applicator....my empty tea tin!!!

Piece One - Pre-soaked fabric, snow, dye powder, more snow

Piece Two - Non-soaked fabric, snow, dye powder, soda ash, more snow

One think I noticed is that the colors mixed more with the pre-soaked fabric and kept their distance a bit more with the sprinkled piece. I love them both....just depends on what look you are going for!

I'm linking this to Nina Marie's Off The Wall Friday. Stop by and see what many amazing artists are up to!

The Ice Dye Cometh

Oh what wonderful things can be done with ice!! This experiment today with ice dyeing is done with Soy Wax resist. And....since I ran out of ice...other pieces are done with snow (which I'm not running out of) and Soy Wax resist.

First was to choose the items to use for applying the soy wax. I love to use things meant to be for other things.  This session I chose:

A potato masher

A computer part (something about a fan cover or something) Also just dabbed some spots on the edges with an old paint brush.

A small wire brush along with the computer circle part in the center

A metal can that used to be filled with loose tea

And finally, the tea can along with the computer circle part

I prepared the containers by putting grates or small cups or whatever would raise the fabric up so that it would not sit in a pool of melted ice. Then I scrunched the fabrics a bit and placed them on top of the raisers.

The piece using the circular computer part and the dabs of wax with a paint brush I crunched and put ice cubes to cover it. The rest were covered with snow at this point. All were then sprinkled with dye powder and then a layer of snow was added to keep the dye powder wet.

Then it was just a matter of waiting until the ice/snow melted. I always plan at least overnight for this process. My studio is warm enough to handle that or sometimes I place it in my batching closet where it is usually about 70 degrees F. 

The final parts are to rinse, wash and iron.  Then to see the wonderful results.....

Computer circles and paint brush dabs with Brushed Steel dye

The small wire brush with the computer circle and also the potato masher

with Turkey Red dye

The tea can and the tea can with computer circles with Victorian Blue dye

I so totally LOVE these results. You can be assured there will be more soy wax resist snow/ice dyeing in the coming days!!

It Came From Outer Space!!

No...not really. It just looks kinda like it might have!

Believe it or not...this is a THREE yard piece of fabric before all the rubber bands! In the end it was more like 1 1/2 to 2 feet! OK...don't ask me how many hours it took or how many rubber bands. I have no idea. The answer would be more like "A lot of both!" I actually lost count.

Anyway, this piece had originally been white PFD which I had dyed Cayman Island Green using yogurt cups. But either not enough dye powder or it was too light a color but it came out quite boring and not texture at all.  So...time for another treatment.

I can tell you that it took several nights watching TV to get all these rubber bands in. When it was finally done, it looks like some demented catepillar!

Then I put it on a screen grid in a large plastic container and covered it with snow. Then sprinkled dye powder (Golden Brown) It slept in the batching closet overnight and the next day....after much wringing out and rinsing and washing...this is the result. There are two photos. Even on my design wall I could only do half of it at a time.so these are the two parts.

Not sure yet what it will be but it has potential. The bottom photo kinda makes me think of a cobblestone patio or something. Fun in the snow again!!

Ice Painting

What better art can one do in the winter in the Frozen Tundra than Ice Painting????

It is a variation on Pounded Fabric in my opinion. Interesting results though.

The first set I painted liberally first and then scrunched into the containers. This time I used DynaFlow paints and started with undyed, white cotton (PFD)

Painted fabric

Ice cubes placed on top of the painted fabric. This turned out to be too much ice.

Then let the ice begin to melt in the studio...not in the batching closet. You can already see the paint starting to disperse

A few days later the ice was all gone. The fabric was put into the batching closet to dry completely.

When it was dry it was ironed. And this is the result. Very pale color and both will get additional work on them. Perhaps too much ice and not sure about the DynaFlow. More experimenting!!!

                     

Next I found some hand dyed pieces that definitely needed work. I scrunched these in a tray and put paint on them (dabbing and swiping). I used watered down acrylics for this set. Just colors that I had lying around...and that would blend in well with the boring flat dyed pieces. I also used some metallic paints on them as well. A girl has to have her bling!!! 

 Top to Bottom - Piece 1 then Piece 2

Top to Bottom - Piece 3, Piece 4 and Piece 5

Then I placed some ice cubes on top of them. No photos though...end of the day...very tired....enough said. The tray was placed in the batching closet and two days later the ice had melted and the fabric was completely dry. Then ironed them. And the final results.......

 Piece 1

Piece 2

Piece 3

Piece 4

Piece 5

I like them all, but piece 3 will get a little more loving attention shortly

So in the spirit of Frozen Tundra exploration....Ice Painting is a winner!! And since it is Friday....I'm linking this post to Nina Marie's Off The Wall Friday!! 

2014 Voyage is one for the books!

yes....I said 2014. Ran a bit behind on this year for the international yahoo group Voyage, but it is all finally done. The theme for 2014 was EARTH. We were allowed to develop our interpretation of that theme as we wished. I decided to choose 6 beautiful places on earth that are natural creations. The title of my series is "Earth's Amazing Wonders"

BEAUTIFUL BOUNDARY

Great Barrier Reef

Australia

(The reef is made with a new technique on sunprinted dupioni silk. The sea, sky and cloud are all my own hand dyed cottons, the surf is painted cheesecloth)

GIANTS  IN  THE  MIST

Giant Sequoias

Sequoia National Forest

California, USA

(The very distant trees are a b/w image transfer on silk organza, the middle range trees are from a commercial fabric wrapped in silk organza, the foreground trees are made with bark cloth. The undergrowth is my own hand dyed cottons scrunched and painted)

IRIDESCENT  CASCADE

Ruby Falls

Chattanooga, Tennessee

(The large pink back wall and the side purple walls are sunprinted dupioni silk, the top of the back wall is two of my own hand dyed cottons. The waterfall is painted with Jaquard Lumiere and white acrylic and overstitched with an iridescent white Sulky thread. While the cavern walls are not actually purple, in several photos I saw of them they were up-lighted with different colors)

REFUGE

Blue Caves

Zaknythos, Greece

All of the fabrics are my own hand dyed cottons except the purple-ish water under the rocks and a turquoise piece in the front rock wall which are sunprinted dupioni silk. Each rock face was also painted with some rust on the far rock wall.)

SURROUNDED

Antelope Canyon 

Arizona, USA

(The walls of Antelope Canyon are actually these vibrant colors in the summer when beams of sunlight penetrate the canyon the most. Winter colors are a bit more subdued. This canyon is called "the place where water runs through rock" by the Navajo.)

UNDER  AFRICAN  SKIES

Avenue of the Baobobs

Madagascar

(The sky is a commercial fabric but I chose it because it looked exactly like I wanted it to. I researched many baobob tree photos and the one that intrigued me was one where the trunk of the trees had a silver look. These tree trunks are a commercial satin fabric.The horizon green was quite a serendipity moment. It was cut from an impression on the very last piece of a certain breakdown screen print I have. I was sorry to see it go but it went out in style.I also used the cut out pieces of this for the bushes under the trees. The ground is one of my hand dyed cottons. The road is bark cloth and the leaves of the trees are thread lace. 

I and the 12 other Voyage artists for all over the globe will have all our EARTH pieces in a Special Exhibition for the Minnesota Quilters Association Quilt Show 2015 in Duluth in June! If you are there, please drop by and visit me at that exhibition!

So, that's it for now. The theme with Voyage for 2015 is Abstract Nature. I already have my inspiration images and the series of four pieces is titled "Forces of Nature" I have chosen an iceberg, lava flow, a hurricane and lightening