Lemons to Lemonade, Snow to Snow Dyes

This is about 1/8 of a 2 yard piece of my most recent snow resist dyes. These were literally done with old dyes that had been in solution for a week as well as some miscellaneous small bottles of dyes with no labels so I had no idea what color I would get. I don't even know if I got any color from them!! Really is time to order some of my favorite colors! This was a pretty raspberry colored piece though -- looks like flowers to me!

This was my favorite of the three tshirts I did. I have since overdyed two others but I am still not satisfied with one so will probably overdye again!! Again these are the Basic Editions from Kmart. I like the colors and patterning on this one. I wait for them to be on sale and then buy all in white in two sizes at least!

Again like the above, about 1/8 of a two yard piece. This was mostly yellows and basic brown.

This is a pretty rich piece with lots of different colors. This shows only a small bit of the whole piece.

Nancy C came today to get some help from Priscilla in adding shoulder pads to a garment she had made in one of Priscilla's classes. It is just a beautiful jacket!

This is the back view of the above jacket. Lots of Seminole and couching here.

The tick marks on the main freezer paper pattern for my lions are pretty much done. Now just to find an 8 foot by 8 foot design wall space in my house so I can complete the piece!!

Priscilla is proceeding with her leaves and they are really shaping up.

Marcia was working on her newest jacket but we won't see a picture until next time!

What Do You Do When You Have Had 100 Inches of Snow Already?

As mentioned before, my attempts at snow dyeing this winter have been less than successful as I underestimated the strength of my ten year old dyes!! I also didn't have much color choice as my favorite colors have run out and I'm bound and determined to use up what I have! This is a twice dyed turtleneck that I am very pleased with. After I dyed it the first time, there were huge slightly off white areas at the top so I just dumped some blue-violet and boysenberry and left the rest alone. It is deemed wearable now. The turtleneck is from KMart -- their Basic Editions. I have found the tshirts of this brand to dye beautifully and I think the turtlenecks do too!

These next two are twice snow dyed yardage. At the bottom of the post you will see what they looked like before they were overdyed. I like the results a lot. This is basically half of a three yard piece. I used mostly the blue-violet mix, grape, mixing blue and boysenberry. I don't keep "mixed" dyes on hand for the most part with a couple of exceptions (basic brown, blue-violet and black). The little bit of green is some ancient leaf green that I had.

This last piece is just a scrunched regular snow dyed piece. With the technique that used, I really call it snow resist dyeing as I am using snow to block the dye from hitting the fabric except for slowly. Shibori is a mechanical resist which causes resistance to dyes because of folding and the dyes having to travel to dye and thus you get the patterning. With the first two pieces, it is basically a combination of using snow as a resist and using folding as a resist. The fabric used is Joann's Egyptian cotton which is an excellent fabric for dyeing with a beautiful soft hand and more resistant to fierce wrinkling than the Pima or even Testfabrics broadcloth. I can see virtually no difference in the depth of shade between the fabrics. I don't know whether Joanns is still selling this fabric from the same vendor as it seemed rougher last time I looked. Luckily I have hoarded quite a bit of it with my 50% off coupons over the past few years!

The most effective process for getting the fabric prepared is to scour it and then (if I want to fan fold it), iron it. Then do the fanfolding lengthwise (or widthwise depending up the length) and put clips on it to hold it together while you make sure all areas are touched when soaked in the soda ash solution. Then squeeze out the excess liquid and put it on the surface used for the snow dyeing. Lately I have been using inverted boxes sitting in the double sink and a box top stretched across the top (but slanted so the excess water and dye run off into the sink). This has been much easier than the box in a box approach I used earlier.

The snow is pretty much melted now but we are expecting more tonight and tomorrow so I am all ready with scoured and ironed fabric!

This what the above pieces looked like before I applied the second layer of dyeing. As this one had so much color already, I decided that some discharging and other treatments (like marbling) might be more useful eventually.

April RAFA Meeting

This is a collage of the various pieces that were made for an sale/exhibit at the contemporary art center here in Rochester. They are all for sale for $20 each and these are being donated for the sale. Each piece is 6" x 6" even though they look different sizes.

A beyond gorgeous spring day and a lovely meeting of our RAFA group! There were lots of things to share at Show and Tell and a great afternoon presentation by members Jeanne Beck and Deborah Pope on developing a portfolio and artists' statements. Both these women are very accomplished in the tough world of fiber arts - Jeanne as a multimedia surface designer/quilt artist and Deborah as an extraordinary doll artist. They both shared their personal experiences in developing these tools for those of us who want to take some next steps up in pursuing representation through galleries, increase our teaching or merely show a more professional presence when selling our art.

One thing that Jeanne said really stuck with me and that was that developing your Artist's Statement really helped you focus on what you were trying to accomplish as an artist. I really think that is true. This type of artist's statement is an overall view of what you are doing rather than those statements that are attached to a specific piece of work which most people hate to do!


This purse just wowed me for a couple of reasons -- one I loved the fabric but two, it has the cleverest idea for the zipper!!! It is actually a half each from two separating zippers so you have a two tone zipper. I think you will have to double click on the picture to see the two colors -- how cool is that!

This is one of the many pieces that Sarah Terry shared today. She has been working feverishly the past two weeks after the passing of her mother.

The above piece by Sarah and this piece by Caren Betlinski both incorporate the Shiva paints and techniques illustrated in the Quilting Arts magazine.

This was the apron that Donna did using these Shiva sticks with stamps behind the fabric. It is just wonderful!

Okay, one last snow dye for the season!! Anne still has some snow in her yard way south of here. She said the snow is pretty wet by now and she had a pile of pieces and this was my very favorite. She has been dyeing up a storm lately. I think she is officially over on that dark side!!

Sometimes You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs...

The only prince among the frogs. This is about a quarter of a yard of the two yard piece. I retrieved about 1 1/2 yards of this piece altogether.

The snow is melting fast here in upstate NY despite the 2 feet plus we got last week. I have been snowdyeing like crazy for the past couple of weeks and yesterday just had a few dyes leftover and very little real snow with which to work. I have been dyeing 2 yard pieces scrunched. I decided to really see how this process was actually working today so folded two yard pieces first in half, then quarters, then eighths, then sixteenths and didn't scrunch at all. Just placed some snow on top and squirted a lot of dye (week old and who knows what concentration at this point) all over in kind of stripey patterns. I did two of these. On one I used mostly blues and a little yellow and on the other was mostly yellow, brown, orange and a little blue.

The browns were okay and interesting in parts and at least told me how the colors moved.

Now this blue piece isn't in the least bit interesting allover but you can certainly see where the snow pushed out either all the soda ash or the color (for those of you complaining about what blues do). It also doesn't look much different from regular low water immersion (lwi).

Very different results for the two. The only with mostly blues had only about 1/3 of that I consider even a little bit interesting. I can see from the patterning of the net that the part that is interesting is the part that was lowest in the pile! The second with the mostly warm colors had a lot more patterning throughout with only the topmost layer being very faded with poor patterning.

My conclusions are that the blues are really washed through before they get a chance to bond with the fabric while those warmer colors are more apt to work better with a folded application like shibori. The dyes went through the 16 layers and did most of their work on that last layer. It seems obvious now but wasn't obvious to me before. I am also using less and less snow as the snow is getting increasingly like ice pellets and very heavy, leaving a lot of water.

There is a real art to determining how much snow to use and how heavy it is. You want to get a little bit of the washout without a total washout as the snow melts. I haven't gotten there yet obviously!

I did throw in two t-shirts this morning with a little snow and what remained of my blues and yellows. Always nice to have a couple of more

t-shirts.

March 2010 RAFA Meeting

We had over thirty members come to the meeting yesterday and there were several new members there. A couple hail from my previous haunt which is a good 40 miles away. We have quite a few members that live up to 50 miles but still manage most meetings even with the snow and miserable weather. This is one of Sharon's pieces which utilized some of Sarah Terry's marbled fabric on top and a commercial fabric below.

The next four pieces are from Janet Root and each is made from cut out pieces from the previous top!!! On the last and smallest top, she fused the circles on so no more cutouts. She will be teaching a class based on the book Circle Play from which this pattern was derived.














This is just part of the composition that Nancy Hicks is entering into the Almighty Dollar competition. You will have to go to the exhibit to see the rest!! It is a hoot!




This is also part of Pat Berardi's piece from the above exhibit. She used some of the symbolism from the dollar bill which is what I am doing as well!

One of our new members is a big time knitter and felter and this is a hat she brought to the meeting that incorporates different types of felting.


Donna Patrick shows us another of her felted silk scarves that will end up as part of a jacket eventually.
Caris Burton always makes the most elegant clothes (and she has the figure to match). This is the front of the jacket she made in a Priscilla Kibbee class. The "focus" fabric I believe is from Elin Noble. She has lots of silks also in this one. The back is below.



This was an absolutely magnificent raffle quilt made by a small group that had never tried anything like this before!! Each person was asked to make some kind of building so now they have a whole village. Bonnie Robinson brought in this beautiful quilt -- I will definitely buy a ticket for this one!

I am insanely jealous of this piece of fabric!! Anne Fischer has taken snow dyeing to whole new levels. This is a snow dyed piece using shibori techniques. Isn't it the best ever?????

Sarah Terry never ceases to amaze me with what she does with beads and yesterday was no exception. Can you believe these beads? They were made by just randomly sewing beads onto those old wooden beads many of us have left from the 70's and 80's. I was just blown away by these. Sarah will basically attach beads to anything and magnificently. She now has a web page, a link to which I will try to get up later!

Anne Fischer was a stitch yesterday showing the variety of things she had done (including the above snowdye) during her snowy days of leisure! These are several felted dolls she made. The knitted piece one of the creatures is holding was knitted with split yarn on toothpicks! She also had a couple of painted and quilted birds!

We are doing modest programs now as part of the meeting and we spent some time in the afternoon getting tips on photographing your quilts from Liz Scott and Caren Betlinski. Liz is an inveterate photographer who has been taking pictures since age 8 -- her real obsession. I added a few comments about digital along with Caren as we tend to do more of that kind of photography than Liz who still prefers her film! I think we all went home with a few hints that we could use.

Another exciting moment was to find that we now have two members who have had multiple Fairfield (or Bernina) garments. What are the chances of that in one art quilt group in upstate NY! It is amazing to see how we have grown from the 5 or 6 people we had in 1999 when I joined. Jeanne Beck was the organizer and original spirit behind the group (in 1998) and you can see her blog on my sidebar. We now have 50 (our top stop) with a waiting list. The people change in and out and we are a bit more organized than we originally were. Side groups have formed to focus on their own interests and learning. It is wonderful to be part of this group and to meet new people and see their excitement at learning something new! I have met some of the nicest and most interesting people in my life there! It has so enriched my life and helped me to move forward artistically!

Hi Lily, Hi Lily, Hi Lo!

The Lilies are DONE! I machine quilted the heck out of them and have attached the facing. Only the sleeve and some blocking remain!! I am relatively pleased but see many opportunities for improvement. I finally took it out of hiding to show to my art quilt group.

These are a couple of snow dyes that I had done the previous days. Each piece measures two yards but you can't see it all. I wanted some reds!

Yesterday was a very busy day at Marcia's studio. I had set a goal for myself of donating two traditional tops to a worthwhile organization (Women Helping Girls) that auctions these tops at an event later this month. With the unpredictability of the last couple of weeks, it wasn't looking good! With minutes to spare, I finished stitching the sleeves on this morning during the meeting where I needed to hand them over!

The top quilt is about 30 " x 30" and called Star Flowers -- this was begun in a Carol Doak class with my own interpretation.

The second was begun in a wonderful Sharon Craig class and I call it Amish Crosses. It is about 35" x 45" and hold the honor of being the only quilt I have ever done that has all the blocks the same pattern and fabrics!!! I used some of my hand dyeds (as I did in the former piece) and Kaffe Fassett commercial fabrics in this one. I put black binding on this one and binding the color of the background on the above quilt!

Priscilla was working on her entry for the Almighty Dollar Challenge which is due next week. The exhibit will be opening at the Rundell Libary in downtown Rochester in the beginning of April -- it should be a really fun exhibit -- 15 to 20 quilts from artists around the state and curated by Pat Pauly. I also was working on my entry and tried a number of embellishments, none of which seemed to add anything so I finally succombed and will let the medium be the message -- I managed to get it basted and will start machine quilting tomorrow!

This was the beginnings of Marcia's second entry for the Almighty Dollar Challenge. I loved the colors and this is pure Marcia!

Marcia was working on two potential entries -- both awesome. Marcia has certainly found her voice this last year! She surprised us with the news that she had won an award ($ even) for Best Use of Color at the Mid Atlantic quilt show. She reminded us that it was brown and orange!

This is a jacket that is really taking shape on Marcia's design wall. It has a wonderful color pallette! She is using fabrics that were scraps gifted to her from another Marcia!

Have You Seen a Blue Footed Boob?

These two pieces are the last of the blue and yellow with a little blue/violet thrown in for good luck.

Unlike the tropical bird which has pretty blue feet, dropping a cup of navy blue dye on your feet does not give the same effect! This is not quite as bad as the time I dropped a large bowl of unbleachable dye on my feet the night before heading to NYC though. At least this time it is only the bottoms of my feet but it did ruin a decent pair of marbled socks (well, maybe not). At least these MX dyes don't actually dye the skin, only the old dry skin (which trust me my feet have plenty of). All in the furtherance of snow dyeing!!

I had to make up some more dyes and am actually starting to run very low on some which is a good thing as they are beginning to age a bit. I still get decent results with 10 year old powdered dyes though amazingly! The ones with red in them seem to last the shortest amount of time which makes sense as they are the most reactive and will take the opportunity to exhaust themselves in any water they find.

So onward to some more greens, some browns and some golds. There is just no other way to get the effect on fabric that using snow as a resist does. As an added inducement, it actually then washes the exhausted dye from your fabric to some extent which makes the washout so much easier. Amazing....

Well, today, I decided to do a totally different color, so squirted on some nice bright sun yellow and then some golden yellow, topped off with ProChem's Basic Brown which I have always liked as an overdye. I have never been quite able to recreate the exact color using the pure dyes so it is one of the few mixed dyes I use. I also decided to fan fold a small piece of leftover fabric kind of on the side to see if it was any different than what happens with plain old low water immersion. We shall see. I took the lead from Gisela (http://artaddworksforme.blogspot.com/) who posted some beautiful results on Dyerslist (a must list for anyone who is serious about dyeing).

This was the "before" with the sun yellow, golden yellow and then basic brown squirted on top. In this pile were one of the large pieces plus the smaller fan folded piece kind of tucked around the outside.

This was the second of the two using the same palette.

This is the result on the fan folded piece. It is a half yard altogether.

This is one yard of the four yards I did. I pretty much liked them all but thought I might go a little lighter on the brown as I thought it blobbed a bit.

This is another of the brown and golds. I think it will be great to cut up for my lions.