New hours at Colour Unboxed show

We found out recently that the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum hours for our Colour Unboxed show have changed.  The museum is open this week until Thursday Dec 22nd 10 to 4 pm and then closed for the holidays.  It will reopen January 10th and hours are from 10 to 2 pm from Tuesday to Friday, 12 to 4 pm on Saturdays until the end of the show on February 25th.

Christmas (Holiday) cards

I'm now madly designing my Christmas cards for this year.  Trying to catch up.  Below is the fabric I printed with my hand carved flower stamp yesterday.  I first printed in green and then printed over it in red.  Then I added the white dots in the middle.

So here's the prototype for my cards with a bit of stitch on it.  I think it should work out fine.

And a close up.  The background is light blue:

Thanks for stopping by and have a very Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday and all the best for the new year!

Colour Unboxed show

I've finally finished my two pieces for the Colour Unboxed show in Almonte and am bringing  them to the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte tomorrow.  The show runs from Dec 20 (2016) to February 27th, 2017.  Here's a link to the show on the museum website: http://mvtm.ca/?exhibition=colour-unboxed   Here's a photo of one of my pieces:

This piece is called "The View from Here".  It's an underwater scene in a northern Canadian lake. It measures 80 X 100 cm and is mounted on a painted  canvas.  I hand painted the fabrics in this piece and printed the fish with rubber fish replicas (gyotaku).  You can see rocks at the bottom of the lake.

This is my second piece measuring 41.5 X 51.5 cm called Eco Print 2016 which is an eco print done this past summer at the family cottage.  I've framed it under glass in a metal frame which is not visible here.  I printed two sumac branches.  If you live in the Ottawa area go and have a look at the show.  We have many colourful pieces on display there in the main display area of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum.  Thanks for stopping by and please leave me a comment!

Stittsville Library Show

The fibre arts group I belong to, Out-of-the-Box, has a small show hanging up at the Stittsville Library for the month of November 2016.  So go and have a look if you can because it will be taken down at the end of the month.  The theme this year is "Celebrate".  I have a piece there called "Celebrate Scraps."  Here's a photo of the show hanging up at the library.  The first piece on the left is mine. 

Here's a closer photo of it.  The bird is a gray catbird which I had taken a photo of while walking in the Ottawa area.  The background is a mix of leftover scrap fabrics, chocolate wrappers and painted doilies that I put together into a collage.  That's why I call it a celebration of scraps.  These are all the little scraps that I find too nice to throw out!

Here's a closer shot of one wall at the show.  There's also a show case of three dimensional objects so go and have a look.   I'm currently working on a piece which will go into the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum show in December and January.  The show is called "Colour Unboxed.".  This is a much bigger show and will be the main exhibit at the museum.   So more to come.  Subscribe to my blog by entering your email address on the right hand side of the page.  Thanks for having a look!

Eco Printing in October

I did some more eco printing early in October because the weather was still good and there was lots of plant material around.  I did some on paper, on cotton and one silk scarf.  See below a photo of my table at home set up for eco printing on fabric.  I was getting ready to roll the material onto a dowel.  I have the Sunlight container there to add weight to the end so that I could roll very tightly.

Here's a photo of the bundles in the pot on the stove steaming.  I have the lid on a towel beside it because I was turning the bundles.  I use two elements because the roasting pan is so long.

Below are some of the results on paper.  The one on the left is coreopsis and the one on the right is goldenrod.  You can see some black bleedthrough from the rusted papers underneath.

Here's another set of papers below.  Another type of coreopsis (tickseed) on the left with a sumac branch.  You can also see the blue of the wild grapes.  On the right is smokebush leaves and sumac flower pieces which look pinkish.

Here's a photo of a rusted piece of cotton printed with smokebush leaves and rosebush leaves.  My smokebush has red leaves now so they print well. I tried them when they were still green and they didn't really print.

I printed some cotton with logwood on it, maple leaves and a sumac branch.  Photo below.  You can see the logwood dominated and where the chips were it is very dark.  I can see that this would make a good dyestuff.

Here's a silk scarf below also printed with logwood,some buckthorn leaves and coreopsis.  The purple logwood was even darker on silk but the coreopsis held it's own making some nice yellow marks. Thanks for having a look.

Eco printing in September

Last month I went to a friend and fellow member of Out-of-the-Box Pat Hardie's house and we did some eco printing in her back yard.  We had fun gathering all kinds of plants on her property and arranging the plant materials on our fabrics.  I did mostly cotton and two silk scarves.  I also tried printing on rusted cotton.  Here's a photo of the fabric being covered in plant materials.

Here's a closer picture

of plants being arranged on fabric.  The pot in the forefront contains copper sulfate which Pat makes by soaking bits of copper in vinegar.  We used some of that to presoak our fabrics.

Here are some of Pat's fabrics hanging on the line afterwards.

 Below is a photo of two fabrics I printed at her house, the one on the left was prerusted and the other not.  You can see that when you add iron (in this case in the form of rust), the prints are darker.  It does also depend on which plants you use.

Here's a photo below of a silk scarf that I printed.  I used a lot of coreopsis and that made it so yellow with orange.  The pink leaves were eucalyptus which I had bought at the florist. The blue/black is buckthorn berries. Thanks for stopping by to have a look!

Sunprints this week

I did a few sunprints the other day because the weather has still been warm and sunny and here are the results.  The one on the left I decided to overprint with the same plant (Queen Anne's Lace) and the one on the right is sunprinted with smoke bush leaves from my garden.  I'm thinking about projects to make with these.

More Sunprinting in August

In August my husband and I had some time at the family cottage near Bancroft, Ontario and I did some more sunprinting and fabric painting.   It was good weather for it.  Dry and sunny.  Not too windy.  Here's a photo of my fabric being painted on the table outside.  We have two horses with a piece of wood on it that we use for making things.

Here are some fabrics in the sun drying.  I experimented with painting some smaller squares to see how they turn out.

Here are some of my painted fat quarters hanging on the line at home.  I like to photograph my fabrics hanging on the washline because you can get a few at a time.

I did some resist painting with shibori on a juice can.  Here's the fabric on the can being painted. It's basically wrapped around the can or other object with lots of string.   It doesn't have to be in the sun but I put it there anyways to speed up drying.  I think the result would be similar if just left to dry overnight.   I taped the upper edge of the can so it wouldn't be sharp to touch.

Here are the two fabrics that I shibori painted (below).

Some more sunprinted fat quarters below. This year I avoided ferns and tried other leaves.  I picked leaves and plants that grow near the cottage.

Another set of sunprinted fat quarters below.  I like to sprinkle pickling salt around the leaves to get more texture.

I experimented with using doilies as resists instead of leaves below.

Here's a close up of a doily print.

While I'm painting fabric at the cottage my husband is painting soldiers.  Here he is assembling and painting an army of soldiers in the shed.  Thanks for stopping by!

Sunprinting at the cottage

When we were at the cottage I also did some sunprinting.  I've been doing that for several years now because the conditions at the cottage are perfect for sunprinting with Pebeo Transparent paints.  I dilute the paint half with water and brush it onto white cotton fabric.  Then I lay on some leaves or foliage.  Here are some fabrics drying on a drop sheet in the sun.

Below is a typical sunprint like I've usually made in the summer.  I like adding salt.  The last few years I've started making them 18 X 22 inches so I can sell them at Fibre Fling the next spring.

This year I'm working on adding some layers of interest by sunprinting first and then putting paint on the plants and printing them directly onto the fabric.  That's what I've done on the  piece below.  Thanks for stopping by to have a look!

Ecoprinting at the cottage

We spent a week at the family cottage and I did some ecoprinting there.  I scoured a vintage cotton sheet and prepared it for printing at home.  Here are some strips which I bundled up with plant materials hanging on the wash line afterwards.  I'm pleased with the colours because cotton is harder to print than protein fibres like silk and wool. You can really see the wild grape.

I also did a series on watercolour paper.  The print in the photo below was done with sumac and madder powder sprinkled around it.

The prints below were done with linden leaves and ferns and hibiscus flowers around them.  The dark purple bits are logwood.  I want to try using them on cotton and silk too.

In the prints below I used Labrador Tea and a Black Eyed Susan on the left and a beech branch on the right.  Both prints still have logwood in them.  The colour is softer the farther away in the stack the logwood is.

I used sumac again in the print on the left below.  It must be quite potent at the moment because it totally bled through into the next print which is tansy and mullein.

Rust Dyeing

I've become interested in rust dyeing and rusted a few pieces over the weekend.  These are cotton and I wet them with vinegar and wrapped them in steel wool and wrapped them in plastic.  Then I put them on the hot back deck for a few hours and left them overnight.  Here they are on the line the next morning after being washed out with gentle natural soap.  Now that they've been rust dyed they will take tannin very well so my next step will be to put some tannin-rich plants on them and eco  print them. I put a yarn doily on the long sleeved t-shirt to act as a resist and it just left a circle.  I will stamp something in the circle.  Please leave a comment or email any comments to me at connietb@sympatico.ca

The two pieces of cotton are vintage fabric serviettes that I inherited from my parents.  They have a nice texture.

Ecoprinting on cotton

Cotton is a little more difficult to ecoprint because vegetable fibres don't take the colour as well.  But if you rust dye it first and then add some plant material to it you get better results.  You're limited to brown and black but the results are good.   This a sumac branch that I folded into previously rust dyed cotton fabric.  I also sprinkled on some black tea for extra tannin.

Ecoprinting on watercolour paper

I did some ecoprinting a few weeks ago when we had cool weather.  Since then it has heated up.  This morning it has cooled down again so maybe I'll do some more printing tomorrow morning.  Here are some prints I did on 90 lb watercolour paper.  These are 9 X 12 inches.  On the left is a branch of a plant from my garden (not sure yet what) and on the right is a buckthorn branch and some wild grapes I saved in the freezer last fall.

The prints below are maple leaves and tulip petals on the left and tulips and horsetail on the right.

More collages

I really like to make collages.  I take the little scraps of material I have and put them on a background.  Usually a background fabric that I don't like that much so I can find a use for it.  Then I put a piece of sheer material on top and sew the layers together with decorative stitching.

For this first piece I didn't put any batting behind it and I also used pieces of silver paper saved from a chocolate bar.  I free motion stitched the layers together.

For the piece below I did put batting behind it and I used the decorative stitches on my machine to stitch the layers together.  I also experimented with putting different coloured sheers on top in different areas.  This one is large enough to cover a small journal or make a small wall hanging.

What to do with an old dish towel

I've been helping my parents sort through all their stuff and I ended up with a dish towel.  I wasn't really going to use it as a dish towel so I decided to make it into a little bag.  I simply cut off two of the blue ends to make a handle and then sewed the sides together and made a box finish at the bottom.  Washable and the right size to put lunch in!

Video at Fibre Fling 5

At the show our wonderful videographer Liana Voia filmed me again talking about my artwork.  She filmed us last year and did so again this year.  Here is my video:

Please feel free to leave a comment.  I wanted to mention that my one-of-a-kind fat quarters are washable in gentle detergent in cold water.  I'm offering them for sale at $8 Canadian each.  If you're interested contact me at connietb@sympatico.ca

Fibre Fling a success!

We had a great couple of days and a very successful show!  Here are a few photos of the things I had at the show.  I sold almost all of my one-of-a-kind fat quarters.  They were hand painted sun printed, printed with plants and printed with my hand made stamps.  My cards had eco prints, sunprints and stamping on them and sold quite well too.

Here are the fabric bowls I had for sale.

Here are my hand printed greeting cards some with eco printing on them, some hand stamped and some sun printed (right bottom).  They were going for $5 each.

Fibre Fling 5 coming soon!

If you live in the Ottawa area please visit Fibre Fling 5 and see all the new artwork Out-of-the Box will have on display this year. We always have new pieces and don't reshow any of last year's.  I'll have my Bird piece that was at Stittsville Library there (see November post below) and hopefully another piece mounted on canvas if I can get it ready in time. There's also a section with gift items for sale.   I'm making some fabric bowls and hand stamped fat quarters to sell.  See the flyer below for details.  Looking forward to seeing you there!