Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Last Mandala Dyeing of the Season...

I just randomly selected one of the pieces from the pile for the opening!!  I had a few folded pieces of fabric lying around as well as 10 lbs of ice left in the freezer so I literally threw things together -- actually stacked some of the mandalas as I didn't have enough room and it was the thinner batiste fabric that I had.  I was pretty amazed by the results and am showing literally everything in this blog except for the two tshirts I did for my BIL -- I am not real pleased with those and may have to go at them again.  The color was good, just not enough of it!  
 This next bunch including the one above were all the thinner pieces of fabric and I literally squeezed about 10 of them on a 10 inch x 18 inch screen and each one of these is 22 inch square.  These were all the ones that were stacked up on top of each other so a few will look a little similar but since I didn't pay any attention to neatly stacking them, they don't look alike!













Hope I haven't put any duplicates up here!

These next four were my favorites and were done on a sateen that I bought but not as a pfd fabric and hoped for the best.  I was rewarded for my dollars well spent as the color was fantastic as you can see.  Hardly anything washed out when I rinsed them which was surprising as you use so much dye powder in this technique.

These pieces were all done together on one screen and I used yellow, grape, intense blue, a little orange and leaf green.  I think the leaf green and the intense blue got together and created some love turquoise as I didn't use any turquoise!

 I think these last two are my very favorites!  I believe I use some dark green in them as well.
This is the drop cloth (or most of it anyway) that I used under the above four.  I really like places on this and you can see how much color there is.  This is actually a collage of two pictures I took and I think the collage cut off a bit as the piece was square.  So you can see how much color there is even after doing the mandalas.

Just for a change of pace, I have been working on the stitching for those pictures that I had printed on the cloth.  This is the Green Heron which was the smallest as I wanted to just play a bit first.  I used many different colors of thread and just tried to follow the lines of the feathers etc.  You really can't see the stitching unless you stand close up.  Don't know what to do about that!!

This is a closeup where hopefully you can see more of the stitching.  I am working on the Tri-color Heron now who is a little bigger and doesn't have as much detail in the background,  Hopefully I will get all these done in the next week before I leave for my big trip!!

Lots to do as we have had a terrible time with our house in North Carolina.  We were hit by lightening for a second time in four years.  We had a whole house surge protector plus smaller surge protectors and still sustained a ton of damage -- even worse than the last time!  The only good news is that the place didn't burn down.  It knocked out every expensive thing in the place including  refrigerator, garage door opener, at least one of the big air conditioners, the elevator and the new big tv!  Dear husband is heading down this weekend to assess what has to be done.  We had guests there who have been handling repairmen so things are getting fixed as they find them.  I think I am on a first name basis with the air conditioner people now.  We don't have luck with lightning as our first house in NY got hit straight on many years ago knocking out about everything including a deep well pump that provided our water.  The beach house hasn't been hit directly but the pole right next to the house gets hit and the surge flows to us!  I thought only boats were large holes into which you poured money.....





Thursday, September 3, 2015

September RAFA Meeting -- My Last until Spring

I had to feature this quilt first as it uses one of my mandalas in the center.  This quilt was by Val Schultz and was a "purple challenge".  I was particularly interested in the way she quilted it as she is a fabulous machine quilter (it is her business).  This was one of the 8-fold pieces.

You can see some of the quilting in this blowup of the piece.  

The theme for today seemed to be photographs on fabric.  This is one by Elaine which features the center of a hibiscus (a really pretty one).

This is Elaine showing another piece she had done -- this one a part of the Klimt challenge that her small group had.  I really like this one!

Liz also shared a piece done from a photo she took.  Jullie has been busy!!

A few months ago, Donna offered everyone the opportunity to take a plain white table cloth she had gotten from someone's estate (a very large group of them) and transform it into a garment.  Caris Burton was the first to get hers done and this is it.  She dyed her piece two different colors of brown and used a commercial pattern to construct it.

I haven't done anything with mine yet but have lots of time.  I did dye Janet's fabric for her.  She requested turquoise so I did half of her tablecloth (and it was HUGE) in plain turquoise and then half adding a bit of intense blue to the turquoise.  Both turned out really evenly dyed.  I used really warm water and let them sit for several hours instead of my usual hour (turquoise likes more time and a lot hotter bath).

Our very own Mari Wieser modelled it for us!

Donna showed this jacket which was made with mud cloth strips.  Beautiful job!!  She used every scrap and had a tote to match it as well!

Sarah T has been hosting a design challenge each month and last month I was not able to attend because of visitors.  They worked on stitching.  She does gorgeous needlepoint and this was her example.  It is about 8 inches square.

Janet R shared this piece that she begun in a class with Rosalie Dace who is a group favorite!  

Sue D also shared a couple of pieces that she had Julie print!!  She has been taking a year long photography course which sounded fantastic!!

Sue and Beth K had recently returned from visiting former RAFA members in Ft. Collins Colorado.  They all made these large totes to commemorate the visit.  I made several of these in a smaller size several years ago,

I  only will be doing a couple more days of dyeing as my trip to Hawaii is fast approaching (two weeks away) and I will be leaving for NC a couple of days after I get back.  So suitcases need to be packed and "stuff" organized for my NC trip.  At least the house is in fairly good order (including my sewing room which is a change).  I am working on the thread painting of my birds and hopefully will have at least a couple of those done before leaving as well.  I would like to hang the up down at the beach as they are local Kure Beach birds!