Our New Book Is Here!!!

My friend, Wil Opio Oguta, and I have written an e-book about a textile surface design using gunpowder!

Yes, you read it correctly.....gunpowder!

It has been years in the making but it is now available for download! The title is "Playing With Fire" and it is available at this link:

"Playing With Fire"

I so hope you will check it out.  We had so much fun experimenting, finding out the hard way some thing that work and some that don't!  

And FINALLY!!!

I can hardly believe it has been so long since I posted here.  Life has taken some major course changes and quite a few curve balls have landed in my court.  One was....we moved to another state! After we arrived I began setting up my new studio. It was really scary because I could not find this piece anywhere! Only recently did I just happen upon it when searching for something else! OH HAPPY DAY!! Could I have started over...yes. But I very carefully picked the fabrics for the background on this one.  All that was already done. All I had left to do was the hurricane. It would have always been second best in my eyes because many of the original fabrics are one of a kind and no remnants are left! Whew - tragedy averted!!

So here it is. My fourth and final piece for Voyage 2015 - Abstracted Nature for which I chose the series theme of "Forces of Nature."  For this piece I chose several circular motifs from my won surfaced designed stash. Some are stamped, some are resists and some are sunprinted. I felt they provided the continuity of the circular motion of the hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. As a native Texan...this is not a stretch for a concept in this series! The "land" fabric is a pounded fabric which I felt had the beautiful look of a topographic map.

The hurricanes are unstoppable and often seem to have a mind of their own. Just when we think we know
the direction they will take and where landfall will be...it can change and head along a totally different path. Sometimes that is for the better but other times that change can cause widespread destruction. This lack of predictability is why I chose the title "Winds of Change"

WINDS OF CHANGE

So now all four of the series are completed. Since it has been a while since I posted the previous three (which I had completed in March of 2015! - a great start interrupted) I thought it would be fun to post all four of them as a photo collage.

FORCES  OF  NATURE

Over the Edge, Fire in the Desert, Danger Below, Winds of Change

Of course all this means I'm starting behind for 2016 but I think I'm up for the challenge!!

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!