Photos of Colour Unboxed show

I went to the opening of the show on January 14th and there was quite a turnout of people.  The curator said the museum had not had that many visitors in a while.  So here are some photos of the show.  This is the mill in Almonte where the museum is.

This is a photo of the gallery towards the end of the day when most people had left.  My fish piece is in the middle of the photo on the back wall.

Here's a photo of my fish piece from close up on the gallery wall.

This is a photo of the purple and turquoise sections of the colour challenge.  Each piece is 12 X 12 inches and done by different artists.  The turquoise palm tree pieces are mine.

My friend Juanita Sauve did the piece below.  Each square is individually hand embroidered!  Many hours of work went into it.

This is the fuchsia section of the colour challenge.

Go and have a look for yourself.  The show is open Tuesday to Friday from 10am to 4 pm and Saturday from 12 to 4 until February 25th.  I'll be there as a docent on February 7th.  Which means I'll be there with a friend guiding visitors around the exhibit.  Thanks for having a look!

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!