Stittsville Library Show

This year I organized the Stittsville Library show again and it's on at the Stittsville Library until November 30th.  The theme this year is "Recycled Reborn".   The design elements of each piece were to be made with recycled materials.  Please go and have a look! Some of the recycled materials we used are old photo slide frames, scrap fabrics, plastic vegetable netting, metallic paper wrap and used coffee packaging.   My piece is the green and blue which is closest at the top.  It's made with scraps of hand painted fabrics.  I used a piece of vintage lace and some slices of dried citrus at the bottom.

Here is the artwork in the display case:

Article in Needle Pulling Thread Magazine

The Fibre Arts group I belong to Out-of-the-Box has an article in Needle Pulling Thread magazine this month!  This magazine is on newsstands in Canada and the United States.  Three ladies in the group Meredith, Garrie Bea and Rita wrote an article about our Summer Fibrations show at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum this summer.  There were several photos of our artwork. One of the pieces that I contributed is in the article with my name under it.   Here's a photo of the magazine cover this month:

Here's a photo of the article:

 And here's my piece on the bottom right hand corner of the page:

It's exciting to be in a magazine!  Thanks for having a look.

At the cottage continued

Here are some more photos of my artwork painted on cotton fabric this summer at the family cottage.

 This was the beginning of a shibori piece I wanted to make.  I started with painting it pale yellow.  The fabric is wound around the pipe with string and scrunched down. I let it dry afterwards.

 Here's the next stage where I painted on the blue colours.  I wanted to make a piece that looks like the sun shining on the lake here.

Here's the final product.  I'm happy with the result!  I don't know if I want to sell this one:)  Thanks for having a look!

At the cottage

So I spent a few weeks at the family cottage this summer and did quite a bit of artwork. In this post I'll show you my sun printing and stamping.  I decided to make smaller pieces of fabric this year instead of fat quarters I cut them in half and made fat eighths.  I will be selling some of these at Fibre Fling in April 2020.

Here I am painting fabric on the picnic table at the cottage.  I had to bend over quite a bit which I don't recommend.  It's better to work on a higher surface so you don't have to bend so much.  I had a sore back later.

 

Above you can see some of my fabrics in the sun printing.  I liked working with the smaller pieces of fabric.  That way I can have two pieces on one board.

Here are some sun printed and stamped fabrics afterwards.  I like sponging on the colours sometimes like in the top left fabric.

And here are some hanging on the washline after I removed the plants and salt.

Eco printing in July

It's been waaay too long since I posted something!  No real excuses just very busy with non art related things.   Fibre Fling went well for me in April.   I sold all of my painted and dyed fabrics and all of my eco print cards!  I was very pleased.

So I've started experimenting again with eco printing on fabric.  Yesterday I printed on silk scarves using ferrous sulphate solution to dip the leaves.  We have lots of good foliage now so I was excited to try it out.  I learned recently about a few more plants to print.  The following are scarves on the washline.

This one above is a crepe silk scarf printed with sumac leaves, wild raspberry and wild strawberry leaves.  I used an iron blanket on it which explains the negative looking prints.

These two scarves are a little harder to distinguish.  I put some flowers on the end of the left one and they didn't really print at all.  The right one is mostly sumac branches.

This photo is a little clearer.  I have buckthorn leaves, thimbleberry leaves and sumac leaves on this one.  They came out in various brown colours.

In this photo the scarf in the middle I put some coreopsis flowers and buckthorn branches.  So there's more colour in it.  The last piece of fabric on the right was the iron blanket I used on the first scarf above - a piece of cotton which actually printed quite well itself.  I'm pleased with all of these and hope to now incorporate some more colour into them.

I've enrolled myself in an online course with Kathy Hayes at the end of July.  I'm excited to learn some new techniques including stamping with natural dyes.

Thanks for having a look!

Fibre Fling 2019!

Fibre Fling is next weekend, April 5-6.  I recently have had a lot going on including starting a great new job so I've been a little preoccupied.   But now I'm busy getting my items ready for the show.  See below for show details.  It's at Kitchissippi United Church which is at 630 Island Park Drive at the Queensway.  Admission is $5.  I will be there on Saturday afternoon.  I will have my hand dyed and hand printed fabrics for sale and as well as some eco print cards.  The hand dyed fabrics have been dyed using snow and ice as a resist.  The hand printed fabrics were mostly printed at my family cottage using plant materials.   I hope to see you at the show!

Ice Dyeing

Pat Hardie and I are doing a presentation at the OOTB meeting in March on snow and ice dyeing.  Last year she taught me how to do snow dyeing.   I've been doing more ice dyeing this winter because it's something I hadn't done yet.  Here are some photos of the process.

I've put some white cotton fabric in the bottom of the colander.  Then I put ice cubes on top.  I sprinkled Procion MX dye powder on top of the ice cubes.  Here you can see it melting.

And here is the finished fabric after setting and washing out the next day.  The patterns might be a little larger than with snow dyeing but I like it! Ready for use in any project.  Goes to show you it doesn't have to be winter for you to ice dye some fabric.

Piece for Summer Fibrations

I made a piece that will be in the Summer Fibrations show at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte June 22 to July 6, 2019.   It measures 8"W X 6"L and will be in the Soft Green section.    It was difficult to work on such a small scale!  I'm used to making much larger pieces.  The fabric is hand painted and printed.  I did some hand embroidery for the grasses at the bottom.  I attached it to a painted canvas.  Thanks for having a look!