Silk scarves at Fibre Fest

I've decided that I'll sell some of my naturally dyed scarves at Fibre Fest which will be held in Almonte in September 2014.  I  also plan to bring my hand painted business card holders and some more fabric bowls.  Below is a better photo of my scarves on a rack.  You can see the assortment of natural colours all derived from food, tea and spices.

I had a rather quiet month in April art-wise but I'm starting to gear up again.  I'm doing a bit of work from a book by Gilda Baron called The Art of Embroidered Flowers.  She does beautiful work and the backgrounds are painted in silk paint which is right up my alley.  I've also been asked to lead a playdate for Out-of-the-Box in November on stamping on fabric.  This will be right after I come back from a trip to China in October-November.  I'm going on a three week tour with a girlfriend.  The trip will include a visit to a silk factory and I plan to see and learn as much as I can about Chinese textiles.  The tour is not a textile tour per se but I plan to make the most of it.

Fibre Fling 3 was a success

So Fibre Fling 3 went well.  There were lots of people there and interest in our work.  I sold several silk scarves, five fabric bowls and some business card holders.  I'm pleased with the result.  Next year will hopefully be even better.  This was our third year holding this event at Kitchissippi United Church.  Now I'm winding down and thinking about what I'd like to work on.  I have lots of ideas about how to improve my natural silk scarf dyeing.  I'm not sure if the show in Manotick will be happening in June.  In the meantime I'll see if I can organize to be at some other venues.  Here's are photos of two other pieces I had at the show:
 

This one called Leaf Window  (12" X 12") was made from a piece of fabric I had printed with a linden leaf I found in the woods near my house.  All of the fabrics are hand painted and the quilting is by machine.

This one is called Dancing Daisies and also measure 12" X 12".  All the fabrics are hand painted and quilting is by machine.  It was inspired by echinacea flowers growing in my backyard.

Fabric bowls

This weekend I spent some time making fabric bowls for Fibre Fling.  It takes a surprisingly long time to make one but the results are worth it.  Here's a photo:

Ths smaller one at the front is large enough to serve as a jewellery bowl.  They are made of strips of fabric.

Submissions to Fibre Fling

I've sent in all my submissions to Fibre Fling  http://www.out-of-the-box.org/news.html   It's next weekend April 4th and 5th.   I'm putting in 25 of my scarves, some bookmarks, business card holders and five wall hangings. 

Two of the wall hangings are for the colour challenge Out-of-the-Box is doing.  They will go on tour in Canada with other wall hangings made by the group, organized into sections by colour.  Mine are for the turquoise section.   They have to measure 12" X 12" and have at least 20% of the chosen colour in them.   For this first one called Under a Lazy Palm I appliqued it and did a lot of machine embroidery for the leaves.

Here is the second one just called Lazy Palm:

I guess you can see the theme here.  I really love the colours of sky and water so I thought I would use turquoise for those.  These were inspired by photos taken on holiday in Cuba.  This one is also appliqued, machine embroidered and quilted.

preparing for Fibre Fling 3

I'm working on making some smaller sized silk scarves in various colours for Fibre Fling 3.  I have lots of the larger sized ones.  They will be hanging on a clothing rack on hangers at the show.  Large ones will cost $55 and small sized ones will cost $35.  Here's a photo with an assortment of colours of scarves hanging on the rack.

So far I haven't had any satisfying reds.  I get deep purple colours but not red.  I'm trying to stick to materials that I can readily find.  There are natural materials available to buy but so far I've resisted.

silk scarves

At the moment I'm dyeing silk scarves to sell at Fibre Fling  http://www.out-of-the-box.org/news.html and also at another craft show which will be held in June in Manotick.  Here is a photo of some of my scarves.   These particular ones measure 8 X 54 inches.    I'm also making some that are 14 X 72 inches.  I use all natural materials such as turmeric, blueberries, red cabbage, hibiscus.  I fix the scarves with natural non-toxic materials too.