Art Textilian

InkAid Ink Jet Printing Obsession

2012-01-15T15:17:00.000-05:00

InkAid is a liquid product that you can paint on a wide range of papers to get a clearer & more colorful ink jet print out. It can also be used on flat surfaces that you would not normally be able to print on like thin metal shim. It comes in transparent, opaque and shimmer transparent. I have played with InkAid before, but never with so many different papers and metal. I painted it on papyrus, hand-made papers, rice paper, and thin copper metal shim.

Trying to get the papers and metals to go nicely through the printer without jamming, crumpling up, or smearing ink was the trickiest part. The metal shim went through the printer easier than the papyrus which according to Mom went “ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk” as it went through. I’m going to have to get a separate printer for experiments, because hearing a piece of rice paper get jammed in the good printer is rather nerve wracking. I was probably lucky because I didn’t manage to destroy the printer.

Below is a sheet of papyrus painted with Opaque InkAid. It got quite wrinkly when it was painted. Ironing the papers once the InkAid dried with a Teflon press cloth over them worked great to flatten them out. The papyrus was definitely the thickest and most textured paper that I tried to get through the printer.

Papyrus painted with Opaque InkAid

Photo printed on papyrus painted with Transparent InkAid

I still have to experiment to find the best way to get the paper or whatnot through the printer without jamming. Thin papers like rice paper need to be reinforced with regular printer paper to make it easier to send them through the printer. It is possible to send rice paper through without reinforcing it as long as it isn’t really thin and delicate. If the rice paper or other delicate paper is cut to the size of printer paper (8.5x11”) then you can tape it to a piece of printer paper at one of the 8.5” edges. Be sure to send the papers through the printer with the taped edge first. Taping on the backside ensures that you won’t get ink on the tape which can smear. If the tape is on the front side of the paper then try to size the image you are printing so that it won’t print on the tape.

Photo printed on rice paper painted with Transparent InkAid

Using double stick tape to tape thin papers or paper scraps to printer paper was the easiest way to prepare InkAid coated papers for printing. You don’t want to be too skimpy with the tape or you could end up with crumpled paper and a paper jam in your printer.

These are three pieces of paper painted with InkAid that were taped down to printer paper with double-stick tape. You can see that the left piece of paper crumpled up at the bottom in the printer because I didn't have enough tape securing it to the printer paper.

Glacier Bay, AK photo printed on: Rice papers on right and left painted with Transparent InkAid & Hand-made blue paper with silver flecks painted with Opaque InkAid in the center

The double stick tape also worked pretty well for the copper metal shim pieces. My metal shim was pretty thin so I didn’t manage to get all the tape back off of the shim after it was printed on. My shim was also so thin that is was easy to tear it while removing the printer paper backing I’d put on it. I had to be patient separating the shim from the paper, but the results were worth it.

Here's the very thin copper metal shim painted with one coat of Opaque InkAid on the right and Iridescent Gold InkAid on the left:

Below are the prints on copper. The left one is on the Opaque InkAid and the right one is the Iridescent InkAid. I didn't clean the copper first with alcohol so I got some spotting where the InkAid didn't stick to the copper so the ink printed in those areas didn't stick either. It would probably also have been good to use copper that hadn't get crumpled.

The primary difficulty for me was that the InkAid instructions recommend that you wait 24 hours after you’ve painted the InkAid on your paper or other substance before you print on it. Urgh. The waiting is tough. In some cases you might want to put on two coats of InkAid which means you have to wait for it to dry once, paint it again, and then wait 24 hours to print. I suppose I could try printing on it as soon as it’s dry and see if I notice a difference, but is it really worth the risk…? I would think the InkAid manufacturers put that instruction there for a reason. Oh well, must be patient.

The Opaque InkAid really covers up the original color of the paper if you paint it on colored papers even with only one coat. When you paint on the opaque it looks like it is going to be transparent and then as it dries it becomes opaque.

One thing that I found fascinating was the way the colors from the original image were changed when you used the Transparent InkAid with tinted paper or metal. I suppose if I gave it some thought I could figure it out to some extent… yellow printed on a copper is going to be more orange than when it is printed on white. Even with the Transparent InkAid on a colored surface like copper though, more of the original ink color is retained than you might expect. The blue ink printed on copper still looks blue as opposed to brown.

One issue to keep in mind with using InkAid is the smell. If you are sensitive, you may want to wear a respirator while applying the InkAid. The instructions don’t say you have to wear one but they do suggest that you have good ventilation. You are also supposed to wear gloves while you apply the InkAid. I missed that part until it was too late this time, but the InkAid rinsed off my fingers fine with soap and water.

If I had some more time to experiment, I think I would be thoroughly addicted to using InkAid. (Until I discover another art obsession anyway.) I want to paint any remotely flat paper-like substance with it and send it through the printer. There are so many possibilities. Maggie Grey shows how you can create collages of things like papers and lace, paint InkAid over the collages, and send those through the printer in her book “From Image to Stitch.”

I’ve created numerous cool pieces of paper so now I have to find a way to incorporate them in completed works of art.

Image of tree roots printed on hand-made paper

FYI – If you can’t easily get InkAid, Golden acrylics also makes a digital ground which is the same type of product. In the few experiments that I did, the prints made with the Golden product were not as bright as the prints using the InkAid product.

Creative Holiday Cards

2011-12-10T11:01:00.000-05:00

To make my holiday cards, I decided to play with a new way to make a design for a Thermofax silk-screen. You could also cut your own stamp or stencil design to create your cards.

Thermofax Info for the Uninitiated:

If you aren’t familiar with what Thermofaxes are, Wikipedia’s info on Thermofax silk-screens is interesting, but be sure to skim because some of it is also baffling and beyond essential info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermofax The basic info at the beginning, modern uses, and disadvantages sections are most useful.
We use our Thermofax machine to create silk-screens for our own art and you can order Thermofaxes with your own designs or some designs we’ve provided on our website
There’s also a whole blog dedicated to Thermofaxes: http://thermofaxconfidential.blogspot.com/ (I’m also totally tickled because I just discovered this blog and our website is listed in the links! Wuh hoo! Thank you Jane Dunnewold –who is a fabulous surface design teacher if you get the chance to take a class—if not check out her books and website: http://www.artclothstudios.com/index.php)
They cost a lot (about $1,000), but if you want to think about getting a Thermofax machine check out DIY Print Supply which is also known as Welsh Products http://www.diyprintsupply.com/
For info on printing or stenciling with a Thermofax screen, see our Ideas and Techniques section of our website
To make a screen with a Thermofax machine you need Thermofax-specific screen material and a photo copy or printer copy printed with black ink with some carbon in it. (Be sure to test your ink-some ink can burn right through your screen to create holes and some ink won’t work at all.) Put the screen material over the print out with the smooth side of the screen material down on the print. Put paper-screen sandwich in a clear carrier (that comes with the screen material) that holds the sandwich together in the machine and then run the sandwich through the machine which takes only a few seconds. Thermofax machines etch whatever was printed in black on the paper into the screening material. You can then attach the screen to a frame or tape the edges with Duck tape or packing tape.

For my Thermofax screen design I was able to recycle some paper print outs that printed wrong that had images with lots of black areas. I cut out only the black spots, stacked four pieces together, and cut them into rectangles. Keeping the paper pieces stacked, I then cut out the irregular half star shapes. I then laid out the four bits of paper in ways that created whole stars, placed Thermofax silk-screen film over it, and ran it through the Thermofax machine to create my silk-screen.

Alternatively you could cut other shapes like snowflakes or trees, if you have larger pieces of paper with black areas than I had. You can also use black or colored paper to cut out your shapes, paste the shapes you like down to paper, and then trace the pattern onto stencil film to cut a stencil.

I ironed some dark blue fabrics and made multiple prints of my Thermofax design on them with white sparkly textile paint.

I ironed Steam-a-Seam 2 fusible web to the fabric, cut out the designs with a rotary cutter, and then ironed the designs onto cards make out of folded card stock (but premade blank cards would be even easier). I’ve decided my cards are done just with the printed fabrics, but you could add more detail with fabric paint or glued on embellishments like sequins.

I hope you have creative, fun, and relaxing holidays!

Machine Stitching on Needle Felt

2011-11-13T15:53:00.000-05:00

Mom and I have done a couple of workshops lately focusing on textured and needle-felted free-form mini-quilts. We begin the quilts by needle felting fibers into quilt batting covered with a piece of fabric. Above is a sample that I did during the Wayside Quilters Guild workshop. Someone (sorry can't remember who) asked if I'd ever sewn with the sewing machine onto the needle-felted quilts. I had always hand-sewn the pieces ~ partly just because I have more opportunities to hand sew than to use my sewing machine. I figured that it would be fun to use the sewing machine on the needle felt samples that I'd made recently and one that had been sitting around for a while.

(For some info about needle-felting with funky materials you can check out one of my previous blog posts: http://friendsfabricart.blogspot.com/2007/12/needle-felted-fun.html

and for interesting history of needle-felting and basic getting started info see: http://www.wizpick.com/about_needlefelting.htm )

This is what happened to the piece above when I machine stitched on it. With a piece that started out this textural, the machine stitching created even more volume. There are prominent ridges in this made by the machine stitching. I may still do some more hand stitching on it along the purpley edge areas to flatten those areas more.

This is a tiny little sample that uses some pieces of a silk rod and fluorescent Angelina fiber. It didn't look like much before I got carried away stitching on it.

I decided to play with fancy machine stitches on it and I ended up cutting it into this leaf-almond shape. It's gotten more interesting, but I think it needs beads or something. This little sample was a piece of felt that I needle felted into. You don't get as much dimension when you machine stitch over needle felted felt as when you stitch over needle felted quilt batting.

This is a little needle felted sample that had been sitting around for a while so I decided to machine stitch into it as well. It has some silk throwsters waste fibers in it and some chunky yarns.

This one is still sort of boring even after trimming it into a circle and machine stitching spirals on it so I may do some hand stitching on it, add beads, or add other embellishments. These are pretty tiny samples (about 3 inches across) so I'll probably turn them into wearable art pins. You can see some of my finished needle felted art pins on Facebook in my Art Greeting Cards and Wearable Art Pin Greeting Cards gallery.

Mini Needle Felt Kits:

I have three mini-sample needle-felt kits to give away. If you'd like one, please post in the comments section or send me an e-mail. It has everything you need to make a little felted art pin except for a small piece of insulation material (light pink or blue stuff found in large sheets at hardware stores), felting foam, or felting mat to put behind your needle felt project. The kit also only comes with one felting needle so if you break it right away then you'll have to use the fibers in the kit using another technique like fusible collage or hand spinning the fibers into chunky yarns that you can stitch down.

Sadi Thread Experiments

2011-10-02T12:18:00.000-04:00

After playing with Shisha mirrors, I moved on to Sadi thread. It seems funny to me to call it a thread because it's really more like thin metal wire coiled into tubes. Sadi comes primarily in silver and gold, but it is also available in some color mixes like red and green. For these experiments I used three different types of gold Sadi.

The following little sample uses the gold check. I referred to the Rajmahal Sadi thread pamphlet that has sewing suggestions. For this sample I loosely followed their instructions for a bullion rose. I thought the gold was too bright on the purple background so I ended up stitching over the Sadi some and putting french knots in the center of the bullions.

For the next sample I used the broad smooth Sadi and a needle felted sample. I couched the Sadi down around the pink fibers and then cut up some small pieces of Sadi to sew down like beads.

I had the most fun with my last Sadi sample because I played with stretching the Sadi and putting a blue ribbon-like thread through the center of the Sadi. I then couched this down. I enjoyed seeing what the Sadi looked like when it was stretched and breaking up the shininess of the Sadi with the blue thread in the center of it.

For this sample I used another needle felted sample for the background and couched the Sadi on it in a spiral. I did do part of this on the commuter train which I would not recommend. You have to stretch the Sadi very carefully because it can't be reshaped once it is stretched. I didn't stretch the Sadi uniformly. You would have to be very careful if you wanted to stretch it evenly.

I have at least four Sadi thread sampler kits left from a previous workshop. If you are interested in getting one, please e-mail me: Sonja@FriendsFabricArt.com I also still have some Shisha kits so I could send you both. I'll post in the comments if I run out of kits.

Kit contents: Three types of gold Sadi thread, embroidery floss selection, felt for a small sample piece, Sadi sewing instructions

Shisha Mirror Experiments

2011-08-06T14:51:00.000-04:00

I have a bunch of kits leftover from when we used to do "What If Wednesday" workshops at Friends Fabric Art. I thought it would be fun to do something with them. It is always fun to play with a technique and see what you can come up with that's sort of new and different. I'm going to do a series of blogs using the materials in the kits and the remaining kits will be given away to blog readers. For this post I'm going to focus on Shisha mirrors and kit give away info is at the end of the post. Kit is pictured here.

Since I've tried the traditional ways to sew on Shisha mirrors before, I decided to try some different approaches. If you aren't familiar with the traditional sewing methods, check out the Rajmahal website's how to info: http://www.rajmahal.com.au/HowTo7.aspx

For my first experiment, I decided to use some wire mesh ribbon that I got from Rings & Things. It's great fun because it expands and it's a tube so you can stuff the tube with things. In this case I cut a short piece of it and stuffed in a Shisha mirror. This is what the wire ribbon looks like when you first get it.

Here you can see the back side of the Shisha mirror with how I wrapped the excess wire to the backside of the Shisha mirror. I then flipped this over and stitched carefully along the edge of the mirror through the wire so my stitches didn't show much at all.

Here's the front side. The top one is the Shisha mirror and the other is a vintage cabochon that was sewn on in a semi-traditional Shisha mirror stitching way. I also did some chain stitching on the Shisha mirror through the wire mesh of the ribbon which you can just barely see here.

For my next experiment, I used some Glitterati Fibers that I had ironed into a lacy sheet. (using a Teflon press cloth to protect the iron like for Angelina Fibers) I wrapped the fibers around the Shisha and then stitched the Shisha down onto a needle-felting sample that I had started a while ago.

I also did something similar with putting silk rod fibers in front of the Shisha mirror and then stitching it down onto another needle-felting sample. I've added beads to this one as well. I'm thinking that these need to be pins.

For the last one I used Lutradur and Glitterati Film. I cut the Lutradur in a cross shape, centered it over the mirror, and then placed a small square of Glitterati Film on top of that in the middle. I then stitched the mirror down to yet another needle-felt sample which had been covered with another piece of Lutradur. I think I need to add a bit of glue under the square of Glitterati Film because it wants to slide around under the stitching. I may decide to add more stitching over the mirror, too. I haven't decided how to stitch the background area yet or whether to add beads.

I was just going to do a couple, but I kept getting ideas for new things to try. I wasn't even that inspired by Shisha mirrors before. Using my assortment of funky art materials with them made them much more tempting to experiment with.

Shisha Mirror Kit Give-Away

I have two Shisha mirror kits left that are up for grabs. There are enough materials in it to try the basic Shisha mirror sewing method to sew a small Artist Trading Card piece or make a pin with. In my experiments I've used some other materials that aren't included in the kit.

If you are interested in a kit, post a brief message in the blog comments. If more than two people are interested, I'll randomly pick two "winners." (in case you were curious- the geek part of me will assign everyone a number and use the Excel RandBetween function to pit the winning numbers) I'll need to be able to get your address so I can mail out the kit. (I won't save the address after or sell it or anything like that.) I'll plan to check the comments in about a week, but maybe two depending on the interest level and I'll post the winners in the comments section.

"Moment of Pure Seeing" Art Exhibit

2011-07-09T15:41:00.000-04:00

My art exhibit with Linda Branch Dunn is coming up soon at the Loading Dock Gallery! There's lots still to do to finish off artwork and get it ready to hang. I figured out a cool way to display my Sheila Hick's inspired sculptural "leaves" - made by weaving threads, ribbons, and other materials over a structure of thin branches held in shape with wire. This is the one that I have photographed for the exhibit postcard. I've been thinking of them as leaves, but then a co-worker said it reminded him of a kayak. This leaf or kayak is displayed in front of a scrunched silk woven fabric placed over a handmade paper. The piece is then put in a shadow box.

I also started to play with Coco Husk that comes in 4 to 5 inch little squares. I've cut them into leaf/almond shapes and started to stitch on them with hand-dyed embroidery threads. If I do a bunch of them that go well together, I have a tiny little shadow box that I'll put some of them in for the art exhibit.

I only have these two so far.

If you can't make it to the art exhibit reception/party on Friday, August 5 from 6 to 9pm, I'll be gallery sitting the next day (Saturday, August 6 11am-4pm) and would be happy to have visitors! It is also an open studios day at Western Avenue Studios so you can visit Mom upstairs in the Friends Fabric Art studio as well.

Musings on Motivation (or lack of it...)

2011-05-07T16:41:00.002-04:00

It's been ages since I've posted, but I just haven't had the motivation to do anything art-related in quite some time. I think I've figured out that my art creating motivation has a season-related cycle. Winter is just a low energy, low creativity time. This spring it seems like the spring-like weather has been slow in coming so my creativity level has remained sluggish. I decided to do some spring studio cleaning in hopes that clearing out my masses of art supplies would help to clear my head as well as my studio and make me want to do art again. It appeared to be working, but then I managed to get a sinus infection which wiped me out for about three weeks energy-wise. When I was starting to feel better again, my fingers started to itch to play with art materials. This is the funky leaf I made with branches, wire, Angelina fibers, yarn, and some tubular knitted wire.

I've made several of these now. They were inspired by and exhibit of Sheila Hicks' artwork that was at the Addison Gallery in Andover, MA. The tubular knitted wire was stuffed with yarn wrapped with sparkly Angelina fibers. I haven't decided if it's done yet.

The project I was working on before I totally ran out of steam for a while is an art quilt that uses photographs of the Boston Public Garden. I printed the photos on ink jet printable fabric, stitched the pieces into the composition you see here, painted on it some, and now I'm hand-stitching it.

Most of the hand-stitching I'm doing on the commuter rail on the way to work and back. For a while I didn't even felt like stitching. It didn't help that I kept getting caught up in the novel I was reading. I was going to take Julia Cameron's advice that she gave in "The Artist's Way" and take a break from reading. She asserts that if you take a break from reading, you can get a lot of creative things done. It's pretty hard to make myself stop reading. It didn't help that when I got the idea to try to not read so much, I was reading "Wives and Daughters" which is a rather long book. I may have to try it again yet.

I have a huge motivator for me coming up... a deadline. Deadlines always seem to be great motivators for me creatively and otherwise. Maybe that's why Project Runway has been so successful since it gives the designers such crazy deadlines. My deadline is late July. I am having a joint art exhibit, "Moment of Pure Seeing," with Linda Branch Dunn at the Loading Dock Gallery July 27 to August 28. Please put the show opening reception for Friday, August 5 from 6 to 9 pm on your calendar, if you can come!

Printing on Fabric

2011-02-27T11:45:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been playing with printing on fabric to use for art quilts mostly. I tried out the EQ Printables brand since we haven't found a source to re-order ColorPlus Textiles. (anyone know if the product still exists?) EQ Printables doesn't have as many choices for fabric types. So far I've been happy with the results for the pieces of fabric that I've printed on and used. I tried out the basic weight cotton, the cotton sheeting, and the cotton satin.

The satin doesn't have a sheen like some satin, but it has a nice smooth surface for capturing image detail. This photo of a mountain in Glacier Bay, Alaska was printed on the satin. The left one is the original photo and the right is the photo printed on sateen. The right photo isn't really a good photo. The image on the fabric isn't quite as crisp in detail and the image is slightly less bright in color. (The pinkish tint in the right photo is just inadequate photo taking and editing. The print on fabric doesn't have any pink in the sky.)

The cotton sheeting is thin, but has a smooth weave. The resulting image on fabric comes out a bit lighter and has less detail than the original as you can sort of see below. The fabric one is on the right again.

This is photo was also taken in Glacier Bay.

The fabric comes all ready to print in 8.5x11" sheets that are backed with a film to keep them nice and flat. Be sure to check for stray threads or lint on the fabric before printing on it or you could end up with funny little white lines or spots from where the thread or lint was like the white squiggle on this fabric.

The instructions say to soak the fabric for 5 minutes and to keep swishing the fabric around if the ink appears to be bleeding. I wasn't anxious to swish the fabric for 5 minutes. I was happy to see that the ink did not bleed at all for any of the fabrics that I printed and then soaked. I just set the timer for 5 minutes and let the fabrics soak. Even when I poured out the soaking water, I didn't see any ink in the water. There weren't any funny splotches on the printed fabrics either.

I have had trouble with ink bleeding before with other brands of ink jet printable fabrics. You can see the purple halo on this photo. That area isn't supposed to be purple. It's blue sky.

So far I am
very happy with the EQ Printables brand.

Sketchbooks

2011-01-08T14:55:00.000-05:00

So when does a sketchbook become no longer a "sketch" book?

Mom and I participated in "The Sketchbook Project" which has artists from all over the world making sketchbooks that will then be exhibited on-line and in a few "live" venues. We were sent a Moleskine sketchbook to work in, but we didn't exactly sketch in it.

We actually took the book apart and collaged and what not with our own papers. Our theme was "Inside/Outside" so we sort of did that by creating windows. My pages had actual openings to the pages behind the openings. This one has a window of hand-made paper and behind it is a photo of driftwood printed on rice paper.

This one is another photo printed on rice paper behind the gothic style window cut outs.

Does this still make it a sketchbook? It seems like so many polished looking art filled books are still called sketchbooks. To me this gets away from the original purpose of a sketchbook. It almost makes the idea of a sketchbook intimidating. The idea that you have to have all finished, polished pieces of artwork in a sketchbook doesn't leave a lot of room for experimentation. I feel like I've forgotten how to use a sketchbook to "sketch" like I used to do in high school and college. Even if I go to sketch in the sketchbook, I've gotten blocked by the feeling that somehow the sketch has to be a perfect drawing. I can't just practice my drawing in it and let the horrible out of proportion drawings happen.

Well, no more. I'm going to try to get back to using my sketchbook to practice drawing in and to keep notes in. I've started to do copy-cat drawings again. Something artists have done pretty much forever...copy another artist's work for practice. I'm also going to try to make myself draw anything and everything instead of trying to find the perfect subject.

So where did this irritation with polished sketchbooks come from? Partially it was that when Mom and I started the Sketchbook Project we were excited to try something new, but then it became almost a chore. If people were going to see this book, we'd want to make it cool so it became an "art book" to my mind and not a "sketchbook." I think we actually felt pressured to make something good not just mess about to see what happened and have some fun creating art together. For me a sketchbook should be a safe place to mess about in. It's not something you necessarily want to share with the world because it would be like showing someone the first draft of a paper you wrote that has all your editing marks all over it.

The other thing that triggered this ramble was seeing some of the artwork for the new Sketchbook Challenge which is a blog that will present a sketchbook challenge topic each month. While I always enjoy being challenged, a lot of the art presented for the first challenge did not strike me as work I would have in a sketchbook. My impression was that many of the sketchbook projects featured are completely finished works of art, not trial and error drawings, messy collages, and notes. Maybe it's just my lack of practice that I can't make everything look fabulous and well planned out the first time I draw it. At any rate, I've decided that if I do any of these new sketchbook challenges, I'm going to focus on experimenting and practicing my drawing instead of creating a finished piece of artwork.

Leslie Riley's Transfer Artist Paper (TAP) Continued

2010-12-12T17:04:00.000-05:00

Mom and I have ventured into the world of Facebook for Friends Fabric Art so please check us out there for on-going snippets on what we are up to, artwork photos, and what not. My latest project was to make wearable art pins on greeting cards and free-lace art greeting cards. You can see all of them in the Facebook gallery. I did do some more Transfer Artist Paper (TAP) testing, but I just never got around to writing about it until now.

I had printed this photo of a sculpture that was in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden onto TAP and transferred it onto white cotton fabric.

Initially the transfer looked just like the photo, but then Mom and I decided to wash it in the washing machine to see how well that worked. It was just washed in a normal cycle with no special treatment. This distressed the transfer quite a bit as you can see.

After washing this, I checked out Leslie Riley's website instructions and discovered that she suggests waiting 2 to 3 days after transferring an image before washing it. This transfer was washed the day after transferring it so maybe it would have washed better if we'd waited another day or two before washing it. It also says to put it in a mesh bag and wash on a cold, delicate cycle. I still need to try that. I did try washing a few other fabric transfers by hand and that worked just fine. There was no change in how the images looked and the fabric did soften up some.

I also tried using the TAP to transfer photos to brass metal shim. This is the photo is another view of the same sculpture. (I really should have written down who did the sculpture and what it was called. I don't even think I took a picture of the whole sculpture - just these details.)

As you can see here, I wasn't completely successful transferring the image to the brass shim. I did do my best to follow the directions such as taping the transfer in place with masking tape and peeling the backing paper off while the transfer was still hot.

This is just one of about three samples that I tried so I haven't tried everything. None of the transfers were flawless transfers. I'll have to try it again sometime to try to figure out what went wrong. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Maybe the iron was too hot for metal transfers? I did try ironing just a little since the instructions say that transfers on metal happen more quickly. It seemed like the ink/polymer was beading up. If I manage to figure something out, I'll report back again.

Happy Art Experimenting and Happy Holidays!

Leslie Riley's Transfer Artist Paper (TAP)

2010-10-27T19:22:00.002-04:00

With all the rave reviews of Leslie Riley's Transfer Artist Paper (TAP), I have to say I expected more. I thought it must be almost flawless, but it’s not. I probably had unrealistic expectations anyway. It is quite likely the best of the lot of transfer papers out there, but it’s still got regular transfer paper issues. It’s fussy. You have to pay close attention to the directions and even then the directions that come with the product seem incomplete. The washing instructions are not as comprehensive as what is on Leslie Riley’s website so the first go round of running the images printed on fabric through the wash did not go so well. If you want to try it for clothes or fabric you want to wash, be sure to check out additional product instructions and tips on Leslie Riley’s website: http://www.lesleyriley.com/

Unlike other transfer products I’ve tried TAP seems to require more ironing. Transfer products I’ve used in the past can be over-ironed, but with TAP the risk seems to be under-ironing. You may want to use a timer to make sure you’ve been ironing the TAP the suggested amount. It does transfer a beautiful, clear image to fabric, but if the TAP is not ironed enough, the image isn’t that durable. If you are sensitive to smells, TAP does have a slight smell when you iron it. You may want to open a window if it doesn’t happen to be freezing outside.

I did have fun drawing on my photo of an English gothic vault with markers before transferring the image to fabric. I don’t remember where I took the photo. It may have been the Tower of London.

You definitely don’t want to try any metallic paints for painting on the TAP. That didn’t seem to work so great. The metallic doesn’t show through anyway once you transfer it. Of course, I have to try to push the limits of materials like that and not just follow what is suggested on the packaging.

I also tried to transfer photos to glass without success, but then I didn’t find an ordinary flat piece of glass to try it on. I had a flat backed glass pebble and the glass top of a tiny container. I’m guessing I should have used a piece of glass that I could easily rub the iron across. The glass lid had a metal lip so I had to use the tip of the iron to press on the glass so I only got a streaky transfer. I suppose if I had had more patience, I could have gotten more of the image to transfer.

The pebble back was flat but it wasn’t easy to run the iron over without it wobbling around. I got a smooshed image and none of it transferred to the glass.

You’ll be sure to have some fun with TAP transfers on fabric and other surfaces. Just be sure to test your TAP techniques first before using it for an important project.

I’m thinking I’d like to use it for the Sketchbook Project sketchbook that Mom and I are working on (assuming I get around to working on it again before the deadline).

PS. The ceiling photo is the Tudor Rose at Hampton Court.
Thanks to a dear England trip co-traveler for remembering!

Antje Duvekot in Lowell!

2010-10-04T21:15:00.006-04:00

I'm definitely bragging today. Antje Duvekot came to Lowell on Friday for the "Lowell Celebrates Kerouac" festival and performed right in front of the kimono Mom and I created! Dave Robinson, Urban Village Arts event organizer introduced Antje and spoke about our kimono. People clapped for us. It was incredible. Antje liked it, too! It was cool to hear more about the song that we used as inspiration for the kimono design: Antje had taken a road trip cross-country Kerouac-style in a car that had a Kerouac quote painted on it.

Having the kimono for the Kerouac festival performance was totally serendipitous. I happened to be on Antje's website and see that she'd be in Lowell for "Lowell Celebrates Kerouac." The song that we used as inspiration mentions Kerouac: "yes it's a long way on the worn out heels of Kerouac." It just seemed too perfect. I contacted the Kerouac festival organizers to see if they'd be interested to have the kimono as a backdrop for Antje's and other poets' performance.

I'd been to a Kiva house concert with Antje and given her photos of the kimono. She was interested enough to want to see it in person... and the rest is history, sort of anyway. Here's the proof:

I'm not a silly little Antje Duvekot groupy, am I?!

My other exciting news is that I sold a newer piece at Saturday open studios at Western Avenue Studios and there is interest in buying my college senior art project, "Forever & Ever." This is the biggest piece I've ever done. It has six panels that are an abstracted version of Halibut Point, Massachusetts. This photo doesn't show the borders, but you get a sense of the continuous landscape image I was going for.The initial concept was for these pieces to be hung in the round to show a continuous landscape as in what it would look like if you stood in one place and spun all the way around.

This one is a detail of one of the panels that shows the abstraction of the quarry-like hill, the ocean and the rocky water's edge.

Below is the piece that sold this weekend. I was having fun naming it and called it "Turgid Blue." I think I found the word turgid in the thesaurus. The base (blue part) of it is made out of a book that has been deconstructed a la Maggie Grey catalogue killing style. I had trouble "destroying" a book to begin with, but this was an extremely dull children's book to begin with so I didn't feel too bad. It did turn out rather cool. I am definitely going to play more with Maggie Grey's distressing technique when I get around to it.Photograph by Daniel Coury

Lowell Celebrates Kerouac with Antje Duvekot

2010-09-30T22:52:00.002-04:00

Mom (Ann) and I are having our art kimono as the backdrop for Antje Duvekot and other performers at the Old Court (in Lowell, MA) tomorrow as part of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac and the Urban Village Arts Series!

Our kimono was inspired by Antje’s song “Long Way” which has lyrics about a road trip and says in the song “on he heels of Kerouac” so it seemed like a perfect fit to tie in with her performance for Lowell Celebrates Kerouac. The performance is free so be sure to stop by if you can about 8ish at Old Court: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Urban-Village-Art-Series-UVAS/321488123573

All Kerouac events are at: http://www.lowellcelebrateskerouac.org/lck-2010

We are so completely tickled. Antje has seen the kimono in photos, but not in person yet. Tomorrow it is.

The kimono was initially created for Glenn Szegedy’s and Cindy Hughes’ kimono exhibit at the Brush and was also recently displayed in the Loading Dock Gallery and even in the Globe North.

I have blog posts about the kimono making process if you haven't seen them, too: http://friendsfabricart.blogspot.com/2010/01/kimono-beginnings.html

Vacation Art Experiments

2010-08-26T20:14:00.006-04:00

We were on vacation in Maine last week so I brought along lots of artsy projects to do. I brought along this piece that is almost the twin of another piece that I hand-stitched. I wasn't too happy with this one at first because it is made up of two photos printed on canvas and the canvas was making sort of poofy areas when I machine stitched on it. I did some more machine stitching on it and it seems to help. I did do even more machine stitching, but the photo was taken at a point when I took a break because I kept breaking my thread. I probably should have had a heftier needle in the machine to stitch through canvas.This is another piece that I started for fun. It has some photos printed on photo paper that I soaked in water and distressed a bit when they were wet. I had planned to machine stitch this at first, but I've ended up hand-stitching on it so far. The web-like part are Mom's bandages that she dyed green when she had some extra bandages from an injury a while back. The background is actually a piece of dyed Tissutex paper that I got from the Papershed ages ago. It's got a piece of fabric behind it to add a bit more stability.My other experiment involved some little fiber Mokuba water-soluble stabilizer samples that I'd gotten ready to stitch a few months ago. We had someone have trouble washing the Mokuba stabilizer out of a project with wool fibers in it so I had decided to do some experiments to see if I could figure out any tricks to help wash the stabilizer out of projects using loose fibers. I had made little arrangements of wool, silk, and Angelina fibers on the tacky sheet of the Mokuba stabilizer.

Here is one arrangement of fibers continuing my oh-so-reoccurring swirl pattern theme. This has the clear stabilizer being laid down on it part way.

Here's the stitching I did to hold all the fibers togetherand then I turned the piece over and stitched some more on the back in a swirl.I dissolved away the stabilizer in water. I did four of these samples to try rinsing away the stabilizer in different ways. Hot water was somewhat better than cold. Soap made no difference in the ease of washing out stabilizer. It was necessary to use a lot of agitation to get the stabilizer out and even then the wool fibers didn't want to let all the stabilizer rinse away.
The fibers (especially the wool) wanted to hold onto the stabilizer. I had to rub the pieces vigorously along the bottom of the tub I was rinsing them in and change the water frequently. (Dumping it down the toilet to safely dispose of the stabilizer residue filled water.) After several vigorous rinsings, the piece with the most wool fiber still had little white bits of stabilizer stuck in the wool fibers. I decided for the time being that I'd done enough rinsing since these were only samples anyway.

My mom's and my theory is that the scales on wool fibers that make it felt so nicely hold onto the stabilizer bits and make it almost impossible to rinse out all the stabilizer. My samples were about six inches in diameter at the most and had only some wool. Any larger project with even more wool content would likely make rinsing out all the stabilizer even more difficult. The areas with the silk fibers didn't have anywhere near the same problem.

For other projects Mom and I have done with Mokuba stabilizer the stabilizer has rinsed away beautifully compared to other types of water-soluble stabilizers. I suppose any cool product can have its limitations. We'll be avoiding using wool fibers and wool yarns with Mokuba for the time being at least.

So I didn't manage to bring my entire studio with me on vacation, but I sure tried.

Ode to Ole

2010-07-23T12:45:00.017-04:00

Ole, the Friends Fabric Art store dog aka my Lhasa Apso, is no longer with us. He made lots of wonderful friends at our 177 Merrimack St. shop location and later at our Western Avenue Studios location. He was getting sicker and we could find no way to make him feel better. I got him at our local shelter and here he is shortly after I took him home, a little scraggly, but darn cute.

Over the years Ole was captured in art a number of times. This is a piece I started about Ole in a workshop with Susan Shie (Lucky) at our old location. I think we were tempted at one point to actually have him make real paw prints with paint. We managed to resist temptation. It is rather amazing in some ways that he never really got much paint on him for all the time he spent at the studio. I don't know how many times he decided to sit down under a dripping recently dyed t-shirt or piece of fabric hanging on the clothesline to dry and Mom and I managed to get him to move before the dye dripped on him.

This is a study in batik that I did. I wasn't really happy with the black bleeding in it at the time so it's been sitting in a bin of fabric. I may have to do something with it now.Here is Ole captured beautifully in pastel by Roland Cosby. Roland did portraits of Ole and of my parents' dog, Jacques. You can see Jacques portrait also on Roland's website Animal Portrait page. Jacques is the first white dog as you scroll down. Be sure to check out Roland's Birds gallery, too. (artwork reproduced by permission of the artist)Nick and I took Ole along with us to a Painless Portrait session at Western Avenue Studios given by fabulous photographer Meghan Moore to get our engagement photo. Meghan did our wedding photos too. There are some garden photos taken during our wedding on her website: http://megpix.smugmug.com/Weddings/Sonja-Nick
Meghan also did this wonderful photo of Ole in the same photo shoot. It is an incredible photo because she captured him so quickly. He was really only on that stool for a few seconds before he decided to get down. (photographs reproduced by permission of the artist)

And now for just some random Ole photos. Here he is helping me cart stuff to the studio in a shopping cart. It's haircut time for him in this pic.
Here are Ole and Nick keeping me company while I gallery sit for the Loading Dock Gallery. Ole was really very immersed in the arts.
This one is right when we moved into our new studio. Ole was always looking for a cozy cave-like spot to hide in. He looks more like he's in jail though than being cozy.
Another classic Ole at the studio pic, he's letting me be silly with him by making him dance. He never minded.
Goodbye Ole.

More Stitching

2010-07-19T20:52:00.003-04:00

I haven't gotten much accomplished lately. I think I'm close to finishing this piece but it's been sitting around for a while now. It's the piece that uses ink jet printable canvas. Here's a detail.
We are still clueless about our doggie, Ole. He had an ultrasound and the specialist thought it could be Cushings Disease so he was tested for Cushings. We thought all the symptoms for it made sense, but lo and behold his test results came back that he didn't have it. The test is 95% accurate so he could still be in the 5% that have it, but don't have it show up on their test. We could have him re-tested in the future if necessary. For now, we are giving him a break from vet visits.

Drawing, Embroidery, and Books

2010-06-26T14:53:00.004-04:00

I am amazed to discover that I have a reality tv show to thank for getting me back into figure drawing. I started watching "Work of Art" out of curiosity. (It's like Project Runway for artists.) The artists were chosen for the show based on their self-portraits. It got me thinking that I haven't done a self-portrait since college and I haven't done much other figure drawing either. It is a skill that needs practice and a great way to strengthen drawing skills in general. It is also rather exciting to be able to capture a likeness of the person that you are drawing.

In college figure drawing class we copied illustrations of the skeleton and muscle structure so I thought I'd starting doing that again for practice. My figure drawing book for artists ("Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist" by Stephen Rogers Peck) happened to be at the studio, so I found a couple of anatomy books for artists on-line at Google Books. "Anatomy for Artists" by John Marshal & J.S. Cuthbert has some good illustrations, but also a lot of text that I don't think I would ever attempt to read. "Anatomy for the Use of Artists" is much shorter so it doesn't have a lot of illustrations, but it has some good basic ones. I'm not likely to share my drawings here because I'm quite rusty so they are rather embarrassingly not that good (and then again who really needs to see a badly done skeleton drawing).

I have been rather addicted to downloading old books from the Google Books and Gutenburg.org since getting a Nook e-reader. I've found some great old embroidery books on the Gutenburg site. The first one I found just by browsing book titles and it is the one I like best so far. It is the Encyclopedia of Needlework by Thérèse de Dillmont. It covers many types of embroidery as well as knitting and crochet.

For those with e-readers - I was actually able to get the illustrations with readable text size onto the Nook with the ePUB with images file format version. The anatomy for artists books I downloaded in PDF format. I can see the images that way but the text is tiny and I can't seem to do anything about it.

Ole update 2: we haven't learned a whole lot other than he seems to be getting back to normal. He may have some pre-cancerous cells in his lip, but it wasn't definite and if they are pre-cancerous then they aren't a life-threatening type of cancer. We are scheduling an ultrasound for him to do some more checks. I was quite surprised to learn that dogs can get ultrasounds and all sorts of other specialist medicine treatments. Go figure...

Arty photos next time.

Stitching

2010-06-04T20:29:00.005-04:00

I've been working on a new stitching project that uses inkjet printable canvas that I got from Inkaid. I printed some images on the canvas of the Alaskan mountains that I took on a cruise. I cut the images in strips and for this art quilt one of the images is turned upside down. I prepared three small art quilts to stitch with the images. The first one I tried machine stitching on because I didn't expect the canvas to hand-stitch easily. I didn't like the way the machine stitched canvas made sort of puffy areas though so I tried hand-stitching the canvas with the second art quilt. Hand-stitching the canvas works fine as long as you don't try to go through two layers of canvas. I'm stitching through two layers of canvas where the two pieces of canvas overlap and it's like drilling. Here's a detail image.
Here's the piece I was stitching on previously. I'm trying to decide if it needs more stitching to be done. It's from the same piece of fabric that I used to create "Flood."

Here's a detail:Ole update: We still don't know what's up with my dog, Ole. He goes in to the vet again on Tuesday to be sedated for an x-ray of his belly and to check out his funny lip bump because he was too wiggly to have the x-ray this week without sedation. He's still acting mostly normal though as you can see him being silly here with Nick. He's rather fur-less because we let him get too matted and he had to be shaved.

Ultra-Light Lutradur

2010-05-11T22:17:00.008-04:00

Things have been a bit crazy lately to be very arty. My doggie, Ole (who you may have met if you've visited Friends Fabric Art) is sick and we don't know what's up with him yet. He's on antibiotics so hopefully that will work and he'll start feeling better soon.

I did get to participate in another C&T publishing Creative Troupe Call-Out for artwork somewhat recently. The photos are now on the C&T publishing Flickr site. I made four greeting cards using Ultra-Light Lutradur.

Here's the info about how I made the cards:

* Paint Lutradur with InkAid on scrap paper or surface protected with something like a plastic bag and allow InkAid to dry

* Cut Lutradur to about 5x7”

* Tape one narrow edge of a rectangle of Lutradur onto the center of a piece of computer paper making sure the InkAid painted side is facing up

* Choose an 8.5x11” page-size high-contrast computer image and print image on the computer paper with the Lutradur taped to it. (I tried an 8.5x11" image of a mountain first which ended up looking just like a green blob when it was printed on the Lutradur so pick your image carefully or at least be prepared that an image may not print well.)

* Feed paper into printer so that taped side of Lutradur goes in first or you could end up with a printer jam.

* Peel Lutradur off computer paper and throw out tape

Here's the photo of the printed paper with the Lutradur pulled off of part of it leaving behind a lacy image.and a close up of the what was printed under the Lutradur:
* Cut Steam a Seam 2 (SAS2) into a rectangle smaller than the front of the card such as 3x5” if the card is 4x6”

* Peel both backing papers off the SAS2 and place it in the center of the front of the card

* Cut up the printed on Lutradur and the printed on computer paper into small rectangles and use them to create a composition on the SAS2 which is sticky so pieces will stay in place temporarily. If you wish, you can also use pieces of Spider Web Abaca Wrap or other fancy papers to make your collage. The Lutradur pieces can be overlapped.

* When SAS2 has been covered with the printed on Lutradur and papers, place pressing sheet on top and iron with steam. If the card curls up, iron again from the backside.

This card has the foil and the Spider Web Abaca. The lightest lacy sunflower image sections are the pieces of Lutradur.

Optional:
1. Add sparkle with foil:
* Place foil, colorful side up, on top of the collage, cover with pressing cloth and iron with iron on low setting without steam
* Peel off foil
* Rub out any areas that got more sparkly than you like
* Repeat process if not enough sparkle
2. Add sparkle with Glitz Spritz (which I got at The Thread Studio)
* On top of scrap paper or an otherwise protected surface, place scrap papers over card to only expose certain areas of the card such as creating a vertical stripe area over part of the collage
* Shake up Glitz Spritz and then spritz exposed area of the collage with Glitz Spritz
* Remove scrap papers and allow spray to dry

You can see some of my other Call-Out creations in the Creative Troupe Flickr albums. The blank book that I painted is the thumbnail photo for Call-Out #3 on the main Creative Troupe Flickr albums page. I had lots of fun playing with various acrylic mediums painting the blank book.

Off and Away

2010-05-06T14:05:00.001-04:00

I haven't exactly been home much lately and when I have been home there has been no computer handy most of the time. Our home computer went ka-put just before Nick and I left on vacation to see my brother in Virginia. We're a bit slow since we still have to mail it back to HP for someone to fix it. We were going to have the local computer shop do it, but there was more than one problem with it.

So we went to Viriginia for a week and had a fabulous time. Then last weekend we went to Germantown, Wisconsin for my grandma's 90th birthday! It was a whirlwind weekend. I made her a birthday card (which I didn't think to photograph) with watercolor crayons based on a photo I took at the Milwaukee Art Museum the last time we went to visit. If you can ever go see that museum, the architecture itself is worth the trip.

Here's a favorite Rumi poem and I hope to have a more artsy post next time.

The breeze at dawn

Has secrets to tell you

Don't go back to sleep

You must ask

For what you really want

Don't go back to sleep

People are going back and forth

Across the doorsill

Where the two worlds touch

The door is round and open

Do not go back to sleep

~Rumi

Show Opening

2010-04-10T19:58:00.005-04:00

The opening of "Tea, Swords, and Stitches" was this afternoon. We got to see our kimono hung as traditional kimonos are hung. It was fabulous to see our piece hung and to see all the other kimonos that artists had created.
I have definitely been in low-gear creatively since finishing the kimono. My mom on the other hand has started to make a new jacket and started a blog about her jacket making process - Just Dreaming - Art to Wear. Please check it out.

One day this week I was inspired to take a bunch of photos leaving the commuter train. We've had a lot of rain lately and some days my train has been very slow because of flooding so the blue sky and almost sunset lighting really made me want to pull out my camera. This photo captures the old Hood manufacturing building in sort of Maxfield Parrish lighting.
In summer of 2011 I will be having another Loading Dock Gallery exhibit along with fiber artist Linda Branch Dunn so I suppose I'll have to start thinking about creating a series of artwork for that one of these days. I have some rather fun ideas to try out, but no solid plans, but then I've got more than a year... The kimono exhibit is up until June 6th, so check it out if you can.
Cheers

"Tea, Swords and Stitches"

2010-03-17T10:48:00.005-04:00

We've had a kimono exhibit name change. It's now officially called "Tea, Swords and Stitches - Contemporary Interpretation of Traditional Japanese Arts" and is described as featuring "Displays of Classic Japanese Kimonos, Swords, Embroidery, Netsuke, and Soari Weaving." The events for the exhibit have been updated on the Brush Gallery website: http://www.thebrush.org/exhibitions.htm

Our kimono is nearing completion. Mom has been stitching away on it. I haven't touched my sewing machine in what seems like ages so I'm nervous that I'd be rusty and mess it up. Luckily Mom is happy to do the sewing. It is coming out quite beautiful. It's like we envisioned, but also different and you can definitely tell it's a kimono now. Too exciting!

Back Side:
Front Side:

Now we have to decide for sure on what title to give it and I'm going to work on writing up an artist's statement.

Stitching

2010-03-06T13:30:00.005-05:00

Last Saturday Mom and I went to see "Changing Landscapes: Contemporary Chinese Fiber Art" at the American Textile History Museum. The exhibit closes soon, but if you can get there, run, don't walk. The last day is March 14. We got to hear a lecture by one of the curators, Deborah Corsini about how the exhibit came about. The exhibit was created for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and it was inspired by the Lausanne to Beijing International Fiber Art Biennale exhibitions (which I had never heard about before). The exhibit catalogue is still available, but it's nothing compared to seeing the exhibit in person.

My favorite pieces are completely machine stitched and they are huge for pieces that are completely machine stitched. My favorite is called "Aria of Spring" by Tian Wei-Ping. It features lotus pods. My other favorite by Wen Li-Hua is of butterflies in colors symbolizing the four seasons. It's called "Dance of Spring." All of the work is stunning though.

Mom has been busy with stitching on our kimono. Below is a detail showing a photo that I took on a road trip somewhere between Great Falls, Montana and Seattle, Washington. I should have taken notes about the places I took photos. I suppose I could figure out where it is if I looked at a map.
This one shows some more of the lines created by stitching on the Stef Francis 5400 Rayon threads. On the bottom right is a glacier photo that I took on a cruise to Alaska when we were in Glacier Bay.

Stitching Begins

2010-02-27T12:17:00.009-05:00

I got waylaid by a rather nasty cold for a while so I didn't feel much like posting. The photo above is from where we were at the end of the previous weekend (I think). We've filled in with shimmery organza and other sheer silks pieces. Here's a detail:
Mom has begun the stitching process. She is basting down the ExtravOrganza pieces with the song words printed on them. All of the pieces are being out-lined with Stef Francis Space Dyed 5400 Rayon which is stitched down with a zig-zag stitch. This is one of the colors we are using.
Getting orders in from Stef Francis is always a treat. The colors are so sumptuous as you can see here.Mom just uploaded the Stef Francis 5400 Rayon, Silk with Flames, and Silk Impressions threads to our web shop. It was quite an undertaking. These are our favorite types of Stef Francis threads. The 5400 rayon is easiest to couch down or machine stitch over. I used it on my wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses. The Silk with Flames and the Silk Impressions are wonderful for hand-stitching. The variations in colors available are gorgeous and the Silk with Flames has a lovely line because it goes from really thin to a bit thicker and back to thin again. You can sort of see the thick/thin texture in this photo.
Stitching photos next time.

Silk Paper Trouble-Shooting

2010-02-15T11:27:00.017-05:00

Since Mom's Harvest Moon free-lace piece worked so well, we decided to create some pieces of silk paper to incorporate into the kimono design. The silk paper would allow us to work with some of the song imagery that we couldn't easily get photographs of: "Northern Lights", "glowing embers", and "wood smoke."

The technique that I use to make silk paper is rather different than the one Judith Pinnell uses in her books "Take Silk" and "Silk 'Paper' Creations for the Fibre Artist." I don't really remember if I improvised this variation, I read about it, or someone else introduced me to it.

In order to get ready to make the silk fiber, I got carried away pulling out and sorting fibers to use. This is fairly typical of my creative process. The studio gets messy.

To start the silk paper, I put water in a Tupperware basin, placed a sheer piece of polyester (like curtain material) in the basin, and floated some silk fibers in the water. I had some trouble with the fibers sticking to my fingers because of the static from the dry winter weather (and therefore dry skin).

I added some bamboo fibers, wool fibers, and sparkly Angelina fibers along with a few strips of silk fabric. I actually got too carried away using non-silk fibers which led to problems later. After swirling the fibers around in the water to get a nice composition, I pulled the polyester sheer fabric with the fibers on it out of the water.
I put the fibers on the polyester onto a plastic tray.
I placed another sheer piece of polyester on top of the fibers and sponged PVA glue diluted with water onto the fibers. (You can use Elmer's glue instead, too.) I let the fibers dry after taking off the top layer of polyester fabric.
The trouble I had with using lots of non-silk fibers, was the fibers didn't want to form a nice flat paper and they wanted to stick to the bottom layer of polyester instead of peeling off the polyester nicely when the silk paper was dry. I have also let the fibers dry on a drying rack before instead of leaving them on the tray which also probably didn't help.

This one for the Northern Lights piece had the most actual 'silk' fibers so it came out the most paper-like of the three pieces that I did.
Here is a photo of what we did with the silk paper piece that was photographed above in process. Since it wanted to stay more fibrous and less paper-like, it was sandwiched between some bronze color sheer polyester fabric, machine stitched, and then zapped a bit with a heat gun to melt away some of polyester to show the fibers under it.
Here's the piece in its place on the kimono:
And here is one of the "Northern Lights" pieces on the kimono, too. This piece of silk paper was stitched to a piece of darker blue fabric.

Snow Day-sort of...

2010-02-10T09:23:00.005-05:00

It's not actually snowing yet, but it's on it's way and so my work decided to let us go at noon and since I have a rather long commute, I decided to take personal time for the beginning of the work day.

I'd like to say "thank you" to Michelle of the MainStreetMagpie blog for "following" my blog! It's so nice to know I'm not totally just sending this out into the oblivion, but then it's fun to write whether anyone reads it or not. For a smile, check out Michelle's Grumpy Potato photo: http://mainstreetmagpie.blogspot.com/2009/03/grumpy-potato.html

The kimono project is moving right along. It's nice to have a non-day-job work project to focus on lately. I work for the state as a policy analyst. It's not exactly art-related. It's also been a sad place for me lately because we had lay offs two weeks ago now. I am grateful to still have a job, but it's not easy to see the empty desks. Maybe that's why there appear to be plans to move around where we sit and whatnot. So at any rate, the kimono making is a great diversion.

This photo shows the backside fabric piece next to the plan for the backside. The fabric color is off slightly.

Here's a detail showing some of the pieces to be "collaged" onto the back fabric. The two transparent pieces are ExtravOrganza. The one piece has feathers that were scanned and then printed onto the ExtraOrganza since the song mentions feathers. The other piece has words from the song we are using as inspiration for the kimono. Yes, we were good and got permission from the artist to use the song words. Actually I think it was Antje Duvekot's agent or something who sent the e-mail giving the ok.
Here's Mom's "Harvest Moon" that was stitched using the free lace technique with water-soluble Mokuba stabilizer.
And all the kimono fabric pieces laid out together:I should go get working on the kimono, but I have some exhibit details to share first. Please check out Cindy Hughes blog where she is also talking about the kimono that she is making: http://warpedandtangled.wordpress.com Cindy is the co-curator with Glenn Szegedy of the ART OF THE KIMONO: Timeless Form/Contemporary Vision

For the exhibit there will be a tea ceremony performed by Kaji Aso Studios on May 15th at 2:00
http://www.kajiasostudio.com/

There is also a demonstration in the works for Iaido, traditional Japanese swordsmanship. More details to come.

Kimono Studio Night

2010-02-01T21:30:00.005-05:00

Mom and I had a studio night tonight. I was able to finish our design pattern. Here is the front view of the kimono design pattern (or what you can make out of it):

Mom had the idea to use some Mokuba water-soluble stabilizer to create some lace-like pieces for overlays. It would be similar to what I did for the artwork I discussed in my Marvelous Mokuba blog post. It's an exciting idea so it will be interesting to see how the idea develops when it is put into practice.

We have both been stitching away on the images printed on fabric. This is an ocean photo that Mom stitched. You can't see the cutting lines on this image to see what shape the image will be. If you go back to the backside design plan in the last post, this image is the one along the bottom sort of left-hand-side.Here's a detail of the stitching. Mom used some silvery threads. The silvery threads look white here though.And here is one of the images that I stitched. This is Sebago Lake in Maine.
With the magic of Photoshop, you can see approximately what the fabric image will look like once it's cut. This image is for the backside of the right sleeve. I didn't get a good detail image of this one as I was taking photos rather quickly and then it was rather dark in the studio, too. I don't have a fancy photo set up and so I normally tend to rely a good deal on natural light (or when money allows - a professional photographer).

Moving right along.

Kimono Part 2

2010-01-25T22:06:00.005-05:00

I had good intentions of posting these images sooner. These are actually from last Monday, Martin Luther King Day in the studio. This is the updated large-scale planning drawing. Of the photos shown here, most of them have been printed on Color Plus Ink-Jet Printable Poplin.

Mom and I are stitching on each photo printed on fabric individually. I was using an embroidery frame for the ones that I am stitching on, but I decided I liked stitching without it better even though the fabrics don't have any sort of stabilizer on them. At the moment I'm stitching on a photo of Lake Sebago in Maine. Photos to come.

Here is the layout for some more of Judy Roberston's fabrics cut out for the front of the kimono:
And me playing Vanna with the pattern planning:
I suppose that's all for now. I just thought I'd share the photos.

Kimono Beginnings

2010-01-18T18:39:00.009-05:00

Mom and I have started in earnest to make our kimono for the Brush exhibit, ART OF THE KIMONO: Timeless Form/Contemporary Vision curated and organized by Cynthia Hughes and Glenn Szegedy. We actually started planning some time ago, but the work progress was cut short by my web shop fiasco which had to be fixed properly before I could focus properly on anything else. Here's a planning collage/drawing that we used as a starting place.
Mom is working on the construction of the base of kimono that we will collage images printed onto cotton poplin and other fabrics onto. The base kimono is being made out of Judy Robertson's gorgeous fabrics. Here's one of them.Below is Mom working with the stunning fabric. We are so happy to have found a project that we get to use a lot of Judy's fabrics for. We've managed to accumulate a hoard of them over several Quilt/Surface Design Symposium vending trips.While Mom has been working on piecing the kimono, I've been working on a cartoon of the design-work. This is the cartoon at the beginning of the weekend before we switched over to a nicer pattern material that Mom has.
The photos that are taped up are photos that I have taken in my travels around the country since the design was inspired by a song called "Long Way" by Antje Duvekot that talks about travels through the United States and the awe at nature. You can hear the song on Antje Duvekot's My Space page: http://www.myspace.com/antjeduvekot or you can listen and read the lyrics on her web page 's new album page. (Click on the "Long Way" text for lyrics)

I have more photos, but it's dinner time. Ravioli - yum!

PS. I forgot to mention ---we have about two months to make this kimono! No more procrastinating.

Marvelous Mokuba

2010-01-02T14:47:00.016-05:00

It's snowing again outside so I'm sitting here with my tea at the computer to write about Mokuba Free Lace Water-Soluble Sheets that I enjoy using in my artwork. If you like to work with transparency and lace-like textures, then you'd most likely enjoy using Mokuba Free Lace Sheets. If you have done any work with water-soluble stabilizers and had trouble with them, but are still intrigued by the technique then you must try Mokuba. I did three pieces of artwork using the machine lace or "free lace" technique for the Fluid Blue exhibit that my mom and I had at the Loading Dock Gallery. I also have some plans to experiment more with the technique.

Mokuba Free Lace Sheets come with two types of water-soluble sheets. One sheet is a non-woven fabric with an adhesive side that is protected by a backing sheet and the other sheet is clear film. To create 'Swirling' (pictured below) which is the first large piece that I did using water-soluble stabilizer, I began by gathering a selection of pretty ribbons and novelty yarns that coordinated well. I then removed the backing paper from the adhesive side of the water-soluble stabilizer sheet.

Photo by Daniel Coury

For 'Swirling' I arranged the novelty yarns and ribbons in a swirly pattern on the adhesive side of the water-soluble sheet. Once I had covered the entire water-soluble sheet with yarns and ribbons, I took the clear film sheet and put it on top. The exposed areas of adhesive held the clear film sheet in place into a nice water-soluble sandwich.

(Actually for 'Swirling' I used another light-weight stabilizer on top of a different brand of water-soluble non-woven fabric with an adhesive side. The light-weight water-soluble stabilizer kept breaking up when I stitched the piece which was quite annoying. The clear film water-soluble stabilizer is much easier to use.)

Here is the piece ready to be stitched.

The next part involves a lot of random machine stitching. The entire Mokuba sandwich needs to be thoroughly machine stitched. The stitching holds the yarns and threads together when the water-soluble sheets are rinsed away. The easiest way to stitch a "free lace" piece is to stitch a tight grid over the yarn/ribbon composition, but I prefer less geometric approaches. I sewed my pieces with wavy lines that criss-cross a lot. You have to be sure that your stitching is dense enough to hold all the yarns and ribbons together in the design that you created. I found it helpful to hold the piece up to the light so that I could more easily see where I had stitched and what areas needed more stitching. I also found metallic and other shimmery threads to be quite troublesome to stitch with so I stuck to plain cotton and polyester threads. Here you can see a detail of 'Swirling' with the stitching.

Photo by Daniel Coury

After the stitching was complete, I rinsed the piece several times in a basin of water. Sometimes I'd let a piece dry and then I could still feel the stabilizer in the dry piece so I'd have to rinse it again. In my 'Eddies' piece (below), I actually did not rinse out all the stabilizer on purpose to give the piece some stiffness in place of putting starch on the piece later.

Photo by Daniel Coury

For 'Eddies' I also used some less predictable materials with the Mokuba Free Lace Sheets. I used pieces of Abaca paper, silk fibers, silk paper, and Glitterati film in addition to fabrics cut in swirly shapes in place of the ribbons and novelty yarns. The shiny parts in the detail photo below are the Glitterati film which was also cut in swirly shapes. The "free lace" part of 'Eddies' is hung in front of a painted piece of rice paper.

Photo by Daniel Coury

Here's the 'Eddies' piece in progress showing the bits and bobs being laid out on the Free Lace sheet:
It's still snowing. I think I'll make another cup of tea and find my book.

Happy New Year!

Mom's Fashion Show

2009-12-10T21:14:00.009-05:00

Mom's fashion show was fabulous! There was an actual runway this time - just like Project Runway! I've updated our web galleries with links to the latest fashion show photos.

Unfortunately I decided to play with my camera settings during the show so some of the photos that I took during the show are pretty lousy. At least you can still get the idea. Here's the link to the photos I took during the show: http://www.wasaa.org/photo/albums/just-dreaming-fashion-show

For really awesome photos go to the ones that Anne Ruthmann took of the models before the show: http://www.flickr.com/photos/annemarlow/sets/72157622954897952/show/
This photo shows some of the Western Avenue Studios artist models in Ann Lee designed jackets - of course: Nancy, Laurie, Ann, Arlette, Heather, Laura, & Andrea (left to right)
Here's Pat modeling "A Bit of Bling" that she worked with Mom on. Pat did all the elegant beading on the jacket and she made matching jewelry!
I'm rather tickled because not only is our lovely new web shop up and running, but I've also updated Mom's gallery and my gallery on our website. We've got some stunning new photographs of our artwork done by Western Avenue Studios photographer - Daniel Coury.

I've got a story about my latest piece of stitching. I hope it isn't too long a story. I picked up this piece of silk that I had deconstructed screen-printed on several years ago as a new piece to stitch on. (I was bored again with what I had already for stitching projects.) Here's the piece:and the story:

One time when I was in college at Saint Olaf College in Minnesota, the Red River flooded so I went with a bus load of other students on a day trip to Fargo, North Dakota to help sandbag by the flooded river.

I couldn't help feeling afterward that it was all rather pointless because the sandbagging wasn't helping to save people, it was helping to save ordinary middle class houses that were already flooded on the first floor.

Reading Ellis Paul's (a singer/songwriter's) blog about a song on his new album changed my mind. The song, "Hurricane Angel", is about a guy who is misplaced from his home by Hurricane Katrina. I realized that sandbagging may have helped to save a house in the literal sense, but that is only the face-value. It was more about saving a way of life, a home, and a community. The guy in the song is representative of so many real people displaced by Katrina. The guy not only loses a home, but his whole way of life and any control he had over his life. He struggles for hope. A life without hope is about as bleak as it gets.

After reading Ellis Paul's blog post and pondering it for a while, I looked down at the piece of artwork that I had been stitching on just a little while before reading the blog and I realized that the artwork looked just like I'd imagine flooded farm fields would look like from above. I figured I'd name the piece "Flood."

By the by, you can download the title track song, "The Day Everything Changed," free if you go to the main page for Ellis Paul and follow the instructions there: http://www.ellispaul.com I think the whole album is fabulous, but then I'm already an Ellis Paul fan. Nick and I have been to the New Year's Eve Ellis Paul show at Club Passim twice. The last time we went there was a snowstorm and we still made it to the concert. (We did take the train though as opposed to attempting to drive.)

Just Dreaming ~ Art to Wear

2009-11-18T17:10:00.015-05:00

Mom (Ann Lee) is hosting yet another Art to Wear Jackets Fashion Show on Friday, December 4th at 6pm in the loading dock on the 2nd floor of the A-Mill at Western Avenue Studios. This show features Japanese kimono-like jackets. The basic form for many of the jackets is similar to a short Haori jacket which is a versatile, comfortable style. Mom pieces colorful and patterned fabrics in creative ways to give the jackets a unique, modern flair.

The artists' reception for the Winter Lights II exhibit follows the fashion show at the Loading Dock Gallery which is right near the fashion runway so be sure to stick around to see gorgeous jewelry from Heather Wang, Betsy Keeney, Barbara Frost, & Barbara Guilmet, glittering glasswork from Peter Zimmerman and Judith Copeland, and cozy scarves from Kristin Kelley.

Other exciting news is that our new, improved web shop is almost ready to go live. Yah! Soon I can return to expending energy on artistic endevours!

By the by for those who enjoyed my Artful Mindfulness article, check out Karen Wallace's blog: Art Therapy Reflections. For her post Reflecting on Burnout , I scored myself as "You are a candidate" on The Burnout Scale. Must remember to breathe and put my shoulders down.

We also have Holiday Open Studios upcoming at Western Ave Studios:
December 5th & 6th and December 12th & 13th from noon to 5pm

Lutradur

2009-10-16T13:58:00.006-04:00

I’ve joined C & T Publishing’s Creative Troupe to help create samples for them with their products. I’ve been having fun with new Lutradur products: lightweight black and ultra-lightweight white Lutradur. I haven’t played with regular weight Lutradur much before, but I’ve read about other artists who use it.

I have played with Tyvek so I thought the Lutradur would be comparable. I was a bit surprised to find out that the Lutradur didn’t shrink and distress as much as Tyvek with a heat gun. I can get Tyvek to be quite dimensional with a heat gun, but the Lutradur only curled up towards the heat of the heat gun a little bit by comparison. The flower of this necklace is Tyvek with a freshwater pearl center.
I’ve gotten wary about melting things so I wore my respirator while zapping the Lutradur with a heat gun. I’m still afraid that I might not have the right type of respirator so I don’t think I’ll be doing much Lutradur or Tyvek melting. Some say there isn’t any harm in heating Tyvek and Lutradur, but I haven’t exactly seen any test results and MDS sheets are hard to figure out. The hard part is that Tyvek does such cool things when you heat it that makes it tempting to play with the heat gun and an iron with it. So use your own discretion about whether you want to try melting Lutradur or Tyvek.

Below is one piece of the ultra-lightweight Lutradur that I started. It was stitched with metallic blue thread and then zapped with a heat gun. It will probably end up in my stash of random test pieces that could be used some day in a piece of artwork. I may have to clean out my random test bits collection soon though since it’s getting out of control or maybe I just need to organize them into nice little IKEA organizer containers…Who knows when that would happen!
I’ve found a new solution to avoiding future web shop fiascos. It's a new webcart software that is fully supported so I’ll have help if I ever run into problems upgrading again! Open source software is wonderful, but sometimes you just want the instant help and not have to do all the troubleshooting yourself. Keep watch for our new improved web shop!

“Artists give you something you didn’t know you were missing.”
~ Daniel Pink A Whole New Mind

Uff da!

2009-09-11T11:26:00.009-04:00

Uff da about explains how I've been feeling about our web shop lately. You may have noticed our message in red on our website main page about our web shop not working properly or the web shop site being "Down for Maintenance." This was the result of my attempt to update the web shop software and goofing it up big time so "Uff da!"

I hope to get the web shop up and running properly soon, but please bare with my PHP and MySQL ignorance for the time-being. I bought myself a lovely over 500 page book for future learning so this won't happen again if I can help it. (Web Shop is up and running again as of Sept. 13, but please let me or Mom (Ann) know if you run into anything not working right.)

Before I messed up the web shop, I added a nifty article that I just finished up to our website that I hope will be helpful to anyone experiencing artist block: Artful Mindfulness It's a diversion from some of the straight technique articles I've written. Western Avenue Studio's artist Glenn Szegedy was incredibly helpful with helping me figure out how to go about writing it. You should see his artwork: http://www.glennszegedy.com/ I especially love his Butterflies and Koi silk paintings: http://www.glennszegedy.com/silkpainting.html This is an image from the doing the exercise in "Artful Mindfulness:"

I also updated our Thermofax Silk-Screen Printing article recently. It has photos and more info than before.

Stitching Travel Tips

2009-08-04T15:10:00.010-04:00

My how time flies. I'll be off and flying to Philadelphia again myself this weekend. Nick and I have another wedding to go to. His brother got married in San Diego in July. People seem to keep telling me that I'm at that age when you have a lot of weddings to go to.

Perhaps this time I'll actually do some stitching on the plane. I've discovered that if I keep my threads cut to a nice length I don't even need to worry about not being able to have scissors on the plane although nail clippers work pretty well. With most embroidery threads you can open the skein up and then snip one end for a perfect length. I read that tip somewhere. I thought it was a Rajmahal threads flier, but who knows since it was some time ago.

I have a travel stitching mesh bag that I bring with me almost daily in case I feel like stitching on the train to and from work. I have a set of DMC ziplock baggies connected by metal rings for my thread assortment. It makes it easy to flip through my threads, but then it isn't really possible to bring all the threads I have with me so I have to try to remember to pick out the threads that I want for a project ahead of time.

It would help if I could keep only one project at a time in my travel bag, but at the moment I have three - no wait that's four. I got bored with the first two so I had to start another one and then of course I had an idea for a new project which was more interesting. I can't quite commit to not-finishing the first three projects and I can't figure out what to do with them so they've been sitting in my bag for months now. I've thought about breaking out the beads to use on them, but I never remember when I'm at home and could take a look at my bead stash.

Here's project #1 - started several years ago as a color study during a Laura Cater-Woods workshop on a quilting cruise to Alaska:
and #2 - an experiment with gesso ala Maggie Grey's "Textile Translations" book:
and #3 - leaf gelatin prints on felt printed who knows when, at least a few years ago:

#4 is based on photos taken from the train of the Concord River in winter. I think I'll leave #s 1 through 3 home now and focus on the Concord River piece since that one seems to interest me most at the moment.

Recombobulation

2009-05-18T19:29:00.024-04:00

Turns out it is a joke: http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/29452504.html This is the sign we saw at the Milwaukee Airport when we went out to visit relatives this May. It gave me a good case of the giggles which is something that probably doesn't happen a lot in airports. Don't try to find the word at Merriam-Webster's website though because it's not there. It's my kinda word!

Anywho... I've been using my sketches lately to create Thermofax Silk Screens so I thought I'd share my process here. Maybe then I'll get around to doing some sort of demo for printing with Thermofaxes to share on-line.

Here's a page from a sketchbook that I created a Thermofax from. Not sure when the image was drawn, but it was at least a few years ago.

I converted this to grayscale using Adobe Photoshop Elements which is what I use most for image editing, but most image editing programs will allow you to convert an image to grayscale and then play with the contrast.

For this I used the auto contrast feature, but sometimes I like to bump up the contrast manually to get more black than lighter grays. After increasing the contrast to bring out the details, I used the "stamp" filter to convert most of the grays into blacks. The Thermofax machine will only capture areas that are black or almost black so the stamp filter is a good one for creating images for Thermofax silk screens. It does have a bit of a stylistic "stamp-ish" look to it for some images and it won't always capture the detail that you want for an image even when you play with the options for "Light/Dark Balance" and "Smoothness," but it worked well for this sketch.

This image which I dubbed "Fleur 2" is now available as a Large Thermofax Silk Screen in the Friends Fabric Art webshop along with a bunch of other images that I've created. Some of them are from old sketches and some are new ones developed from Dover-type clip art images that either wouldn't work well as is for silk screens or needed some jazzing up anyway. (It also makes more sense in order prevent any sort of copyright issue.) So far most of the new ones are from old sketches, but other new ones will be arriving soon, because I'm addicted to drawing them. One of these days I'll have to do some actual screen-printing with the images myself.On a totally different note, fellow Loading Dock Gallery and Western Avenue Studio artists, Bill Tyers and Jack Holmes are having an art exhibit called "Wandering Feet" at the Loading Dock Gallery and I wrote a pretty nifty press release for them! Please check it out here: http://www.lowell.com/news/2009/wandering-feet-3948.php I rather like how it came out.

If you are local to the Lowell, MA area and can go, the exhibit is photography by Jack and pastels by Bill and runs May 27 to June 21. The press release and the Loading Dock Gallery website have all the details.

Tea time! Have a lovely weekend!

P.S. "Dirty, Smelly, Noisy" is back! Now we have Dirty Smelly Noisy Two - An Exhibition in Celebration of the Inspiration to Be Found in Industrial Spaces at Western Avenue Studios running for the month of June with opening potluck reception on Saturday June 6th from 5:30 to 9pm. You may be able to guess what I'll be doing this weekend when art for the exhibit is due on Monday! I'm excited about the piece that I'm working on. It's focus is on Dunkin Donuts Styrofoam cups that I see lying around on the ground breaking apart into bits that will never really go away as far as we know anyway. I'm thinking of calling it "Legacy" although I've been having fun thinking up names for it.

Lowell Waterways

2009-04-02T22:12:00.010-04:00

Thanks so much for the comments! I plan to put the new pattern up on the web for the iPod Pouch one of these days. Who knows where it ended up in the studio moving process?!

It's official - my Lowell Waterways art quilt is getting a new home. It's going to a conference room of the new Jeanne D'Arc Credit Union headquarters building in Lowell! I'm quite tickled. It is so fitting that it has found a permanent home in Lowell since it is made up of photographs of Lowell canals and rivers.

I've been experimenting with Ink Jet Shrink Film and colored wire. My experiment evolved from yet another cool on-line class project from Maggie Grey. I made this funky, little box:

The white of the shrink film is a bit glaring, but since I didn't know how the experiment would work out, I didn't bother to color the back-side of the shrink film. I'll have to see if I can figure out how to color shrink film after it has shrunk. Here's another view:
The image that I printed on the Ink Jet Shrink Film is a photo of a sculpture that was in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. If I make a similar do-dad I'll try to remember to take step-by-step photos to share.

I kind of want to get a cheap toaster oven for shrinking shrink film, but all the reviews on-line for the cheap ones warned about problems with them catching fire. Maybe I just need to be extra careful with it... I'll stick with my craft heat gun for now.

New Space

2009-03-17T13:36:00.006-04:00

I've been moving my art stuff from my condo into a new studio space at Western Avenue Studios the last few weekends. I have a lot of stuff! I don't know where it has all come from. I have been trying to organize it all for a while now, but never really made much of a dent. Having a new space to organize it in should help as well as the new shelves and containers from IKEA.
The new space is three doors down from the Friends Fabric Art space so I can easily run back and forth between the two spaces.

I haven't gotten much artsy stuff done lately, but I did do this watercolor based on a William Morris pattern on the Victoria & Albert website. I did it to fit in a travel coffee mug designed to hold photos.

I also finished a fancy, new pattern of iPod Pouch to use. I may still have to add a tassel or beads dangling at the bottom.

Whatnot

2009-01-27T11:46:00.007-05:00

My doesn't time fly once again. I had such good intentions of putting up a nice felted pin project for the holidays and it's still not ready... Ah me. Must let go. I'm still playing with Maggie Grey's projects and techniques for her Textile Translations book. I was having fun decorating my Moleskine calendar and sketchbooks one day. My calendar one has my usual swirl in the usual blue color. Here's a sketchbook that I had all ready started the inside with a water theme so it needed an appropriate cover.

We have also been doing an altered book project for Maggie Grey's workshop. Below is one page. I may add more to it. I almost totally freaked the first time I saw someone rip pages out of a book. It was an old art history textbook that the person was using the pages of to decorate the walls of a dorm lounge area. It wasn't even what I would call a boring book! This book was of no use to anyone anymore and donated to the cause of art by my friend Catherine. Altering books is fun once you get over the initial shock of cutting book pages (assuming this would bother you in the first place).

Before I sign off, I wanted to remember to say...if you have checked out my iPod Pouches project available at the Fibre & Stitch Free Projects section of their website and you have an iPod that is not the same Shuffle that I have, let me know what your iPod measurements are (including the size for the controls with their distance from the edges and the same for the screen if your has one) and I'd be happy to make a pattern for you.

I started to get patterns ready for other size iPods, but I wasn't able to get all the measurements that I need just from what is available on the web. You'll have to give me a week or two to do the pattern just in case life gets in the way of doing it right away. Please e-mail the measurements and type of iPod.
ttfn

Sculpted Tid Bits

2008-12-07T22:17:00.010-05:00

I said a few blogs ago that I was doing an on-line workshop with Maggie Grey that is free with her new book "Textile Translations" and I showed the beginning stages of one of the projects. Well now, I'm thrilled to say that Maggie chose my "wigwam book" to show on her blog: http://magstitch.blogspot.com/2008/12/secret-revealed.html It's too exciting! Below are two other views. Unfortunately the second one is fuzzy because I was taking photos late at night with a bad cold and I haven't had a chance to re-photograph that view. The wigwam name for these creations came out of the Yahoo group chatting, but I don't remember who "christened" them. Mine is a bit less like a wigwam than a jester hat or something. If you are in Lowell this coming weekend, December 13 & 14, stop by our studio (#304) at Western Avenue Studios to see it in person. We are having a second weekend of Holiday Open Studios. More details at: http://www.westernavenuestudios.com/
Here is another vessel that was created with some of the techniques in the "Textile Translations" book. I don't think it is done yet, but I haven't figured out what it needs next. I also decorated my composition notebook cover. It started out using one of Maggie's techniques, but then it needed more color (blue of course!) so I painted it with some blue acrylics and Golden interference oxide green paint (lovely stuff). It is much more fun to carry around in my backpack now.

I suppose that's all for now!
Happy Holidays!

Pod Pouches & VNA Quilt

2008-11-18T20:34:00.012-05:00

My iPod Pouches are on the Fibre & Stitch Free Projects page! This one is the first one I made for my iPod Shuffle. It is getting pretty worn out now. I can't even remember when I made it. I put my iPod in it and wear it like a necklace on the train and subway to work. I think it's pretty snazzy.I had trouble with my iPod getting unclipped from my jacket or shirt with getting squished into a subway car with lots of other people. Somehow this led to the development of the pod pouch (as I call it when I'm being less specific than iPod pouch). The material on this one is thin enough that I could operate the controls for the on/off switch without having to pop the iPod out of the pouch.

Since this one has been used so much and is made out of doupioni silk, I had to go in and do a bit of repair work by reinforcing the fabric by fusing on a second layer of fabric on the inside. It's now a bit stiff, but it still works great.

Another project that Mom and I have finished lately is a panel of the "Healing Pieces" quilt for the Lowell Visiting Nurses Association's 100th birthday. We worked together on one out of five panels of the quilt based on a Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass window. The other panels were made by teams of two members each of the Lowell Fiber Studio. The quilt progresses from nighttime to daytime. Mom and I worked on the sunset/sunrise panel.
Last Thursday we went to a reception for the quilt's hanging. A fantastic flower arrangement was made to completement the quilt. I love the way the flowers chosen mimic the night to day colors in the quilt.

This is the panel that Mom and I worked on. The photos of houses are actual Lowell houses that Sharon and Gwen, members of the Lowell Fiber Studio, photographed and then the photos were printed on fabric.

Coming soon...instructions & photos to easily create your own needle felted and embroidered pins.

"Textile Translations"

2008-11-05T21:34:00.008-05:00

I got Maggie Grey's new book "Textile Translations" for myself and then decided to get it from D4Daisy Books Limited along with Maggie Grey's "Embellish and Stitch" and Julia Caprara's "Exploring Color" for Friends Fabric Art. They are all wonderfully inspirational books! I read straight through "Textile Translations" and "Exploring Color" as well as studied the fabulous full page photos of artwork thoroughly. I have yet to read through "Embellish and Stitch" aside from a brief skim and some artwork photos perusing.

The extra special thing about "Textile Translations" is that Maggie Grey is doing a free on-line workshop for people who get the book. I've signed up for the the Yahoo workshop group and started Lesson One which became available on November 1. Below is what I have so far. It is going to be a vessel of sorts.

It didn't come out exactly like it was supposed to, but I didn't have all the right supplies yet. I'm definitely having fun though! So if you are a fan of Maggie Grey, this book is a must have! Join the on-line workshop, too. It's not too late. The second lesson won't go up until December so there is plenty of time to get the book and play with new techniques with us!

Here's a detail shot below. I scanned it and couldn't seem to capture the colors right, but you can get the idea. I did some spraying of color on it and it was only by some miracle that I didn't spray the bright, white scarf Mom was needle-felting into nearby. She moved further away from me after that. I'm a bit too reckless with messy stuff. There were always people in my art classes who could do drawings with charcoal or paintings with acrylic or something and never get themselves messy. I never could understand how they did it. I'd be walking across campus later with charcoal smudges on my face. Anyway, the next time I tried the spraying technique, I set up a cardboard barrier around my project.

I've been hoping to put a little needle-felting project here for a while now, but I just can't seem to get around to taking the photos necessary to complete the idea. Oh well. It will happen eventually.

O brave new world

2008-11-05T10:19:00.004-05:00

"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world
That hath such people in't!"

~Shakespeare's The Tempest

"Ann Lee's Walking Wearables"

2008-09-29T21:16:00.007-04:00

You have to check out the video of Mom's jacket fashion show at WASAA.org! It's so much fun! Anna said that we'll get a copy of it. She had to compress to file so don't expect video quality isn't like Netflicks or something. I love Anna's title for the video, "Ann Lee's Walking Wearables."

I sent out my article for the next Fibre & Stitch issue last night. This one's about experimenting with needle-felting. I was looking through my pictures folder last night and realized that I'd totally forgotten about one of my first forays into incorporating needle-felting into my artwork. I used needle-felting for attaching the holographic Angelina fibers to a piece of black velvet that I had put lighter spots on with a bleach pen. Here is a detail that sort of shows the holographic Angelina fibers. They aren't easy to photograph.

The whole piece is sort of like a view of space at night. Again the combination of black velvet and holographic Angelina is not the easiest surface to photograph. Maybe someday I'll fork over the money for professional photography...
The article for Fibre & Stitch talks about needle-felting Angelina so you'll have to check that out for more details.

Yippee!!!

2008-08-26T15:15:00.012-04:00

There are so many things to be excited about lately! The other night I got my log in info to access the new issue of "Fibre & Stitch." Guess who's art that is on the cover? Yup, that's one o' mine! It's too cool. Then of course you can turn to page 11 for "Needle-Felting, An Embellisher Alternative" by Sonja Lee-Austin and Ann Lee! http://www.fibreandstitch.com/

Other nifty news is that the Lowell Zoning Board approved the Live/Work space at Western Avenue Studios! This struggle to get approval was what the "Dirty, Smelly, Noisy" exhibit a while ago was about. Here's an article that was in the Lowell Sun about it: Cheers as Lowell ZBA approves artists' live-work units and here's the info about the artist's live/work space: http://www.liveatwas.com/

Mom and I are also still floating from having our exhibit, Fluid Blue - Fabric Art in the Loading Dock Gallery.

Photo by Sam Slike

Here are some images from the exhibit and the fashion show of Mom's jackets. You should also check out Liz's awesome photos and details about the fashion show at her blog: http://madeinlowell.blogspot.com/

Photo by Sam Slike

Pret-a-Porter = ready to wear

2008-07-31T12:30:00.005-04:00

I had to look up "pret-a-porter" in the on-line dictionary this morning when I got to work. Nancye Tuttle (who writes for the Lowell Sun newspaper) stopped by Western Avenue Studios the other day and checked out our just hung exhibit "Fluid Blue - Fabric Art." I guess she liked it because here we are in the Lowell Sun:

Friends Fabric returns with prêt-à-porter - The Lowell Sun
By Nancye Tuttle ntuttle@lowellsun.com LOWELL -- Newbury Street North isn't the usual description you'd hear for the Loading Dock Gallery at Western Avenue Studios. That may change when Fluid Blue -- Fabric Art opens this week. View Full Story

She included a nice big picture of one of Ann's linen damask jackets:

Oh, the other good news lately is that my husband, Nick, got a great full-time teaching job at a charter school in Lawrence! It's way cool! We had to indulge in mojitos at Cobblestones that night with my mom and dad to celebrate. Oddly enough his first day at work is our first anniversary. Go figure...

Here's another taste of the tailoring and an illustration of the range of design for Mom's jackets that will be in the exhibit and modeled at the fashion show at our opening reception. (This isn't one of my best photographs.)

Here's one of my pieces that is in the exhibit. The photo also isn't that great. It is also taken before the piece was finished. It has a lot of hand stitching that you can't really see except in person. I hope to post photos of the artwork from the exhibit on-line which should include better quality photos.
For more exhibit details visit: http://www.friendsfabricart.com/FluidBlue.html

Art with the Governor

2008-06-06T12:40:00.007-04:00

Check out this blog of photographer Carlton SooHoo for a picture of me with other Lowell artists including Carlton who is next to me, the Governor Deval Patrick, and Senator Steven Panagiotakos! Be sure to check out Carlton's photo of the Boston skyline that was in the exhibit, too.
http://panospin.blogspot.com/2008/06/governor-senator-with-artists.html

We were at the art reception at Senator Panagiotakos' Boston office in the Ways & Means office at the State House and the Governor dropped by. It was so exciting! The exhibit was held to feature Lowell's creative economy.

Here is the piece I had for the exhibit. There is actually more space between the 6 panels, but this picture shows how the panels are intended to be one continuous landscape. It is abstracted from photos of Halibut Point in Rockport. It was initially meant to be hung in the round. I created it for my senior art show in college. You can see detail images here: http://www.friendsfabricart.com/Galleries/SonjasGallery_2.htm
If you are in the area, don't forget to visit "Dirty, Smelly, Noisy." The opening party is tomorrow, Saturday, June 7th, 6-10 pm and you can visit Open Studios at Western Avenue Studios earlier tomorrow from noon to 5pm.

Nifty Paint Shop Pro Filters

2008-05-30T11:55:00.012-04:00

I have been messing with computer graphics lately thanks to the inspiration from Maggie Grey's blog: http://magstitch.blogspot.com/ She has been discussing using the Displacement Maps feature in Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop. Her results are amazing and I kept looking for something similar in an older version of Paint Shop Pro that I have access to. I may not be able to do displacement maps at the moment, but I've been having fun with a feature called Arithmetic as you can see below.

This first image is a combination of a photo of my silk-screened water fabric (in the March post) and a photo of a mountain in Juneau, Alaska. I did a Reflection Effect called Rotating Mirror to the fabric photo first. I think I played with the coloring a bit, too.

In case you are curious, here is the Juneau image:This one is putting the Juneau mountain picture together with an image of mountains in Glacier Bay. The Glacier Bay image is the same image that I posted a while ago in the April post.This one started with another photo of screen-printed water fabric and another photo, but I can't remember which one at the moment. I think it was the same Glacier Bay one. I also did something to the color, but I don't remember that either. I guess I should pay more attention, but I get carried away trying different effects. I think I'm going to have to print some of these on fabric to stitch into!

Dirty, Smelly, Noisy show opens this weekend so I should have pics soon! I can't wait to see where they put my "Trash Vases."

Dirty, Smelly, Noisy, Silly…

2008-05-10T10:33:00.004-04:00

Mom and I have both been working on art for an upcoming exhibit called “Dirty, Smelly, Noisy.” There is even a website! http://www.dirtysmellynoisy.com/ Opening date is June 6th so we have to get busy getting the art finished. Mom (Ann) is focusing on the “Noisy” and I’m focusing on the “Dirty.” She is re-envisioning her violin made out of papers and mixed media for the Scrolls exhibit that we participated in last summer.

I am playing with trash—mostly plastic bottles, plastic baggies, and other things I can’t easily recycle at my condo. Yes, I cleaned them so they aren’t really dirty. My first idea for artwork for the exhibit was a relatively tame idea, but now I’ve gone a bit silly. Just imagine what on earth I could be doing with silvery lamé leggings and fishnet tights along with my plastic trash!

Aside from that I have started to write an article for the on-line mixed-media zine - Fibre & Stitch. Mom and I are co-writing it. The article will be in issue 5, I believe. Not the next issue, but the one after that. It’s all about needle-felting your art. I’m tempted to make it a two-part article with the first one having the basics and the second one going into the more unusual materials and techniques for needle-felting. I’m having fun making the samples for the photographs, but I won’t be sharing them here – at least not until the zine issue is out – so you’ll just have to wait.

Fluid Blue

2008-04-03T12:54:00.005-04:00

Mom and I have gotten ourselves into doing a new Mother/Daughter art exhibit this August during the Lowell Quilt Festival. It will be in the wonderful, new Loading Dock Gallery at Western Avenue Studios! Our theme this time around is Fluid Blue since I tend to be obsessed with all things blue and "fluid" goes along with my current exploration of water. Mom, of course, also adores "blue" and wants to create more of her stunning jackets and her latest jacket is "fluid" in the drape of the fabric. At any rate, we are creating fabrics to work with for our exhibit and below are photos of my first round of fabric creation for the art-to-be. The first two were created from my water Thermofax silk screen. I'm pretty darn happy with how they came out.
This one was created with a simple tape resist on a silk-screen. I'm wishing I had been more careful about the edges of the silk screen so I wouldn't have gotten the vertical lines from the edge of the screen. Live and learn...
It's still pretty cool though. I suppose that's all for now!

Creative Link Crazy

2008-03-06T12:15:00.004-05:00

I have been remiss in keeping this blog current although I never made any promises to anyone about it. It is just one of those ideas floating around somewhere that I should try to post here regularly such as once a month at least.

So if you have seen me on a computer, you probably know that I am a compulsive web surfer. I follow any link that looks remotely interesting. This story starts with a link from the Surface Design Association newsletter's page with suggested links. I read the newsletter more thoroughly than the full-color journal. I am more likely to study the photos in the journal since the articles are in a more formal, academic style.

It all started with this link: http://creativityjourney.blogspot.com/ which is a great resource, but dangerous because it contains lots of other links to cool websites. This site led me to the Crochet Coral Reef exhibit which is an amazing, fun project on a very serious subject and the site contains info about the serious stuff such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, only a disgustingly large floating patch of garbage in the Pacific Ocean - Yikes!

Crochet Coral Reef, with info on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: http://theiff.org/reef/index.html

There was also a cool link about sweaters for penguins. I wish there were more pictures. There is one black and white picture part way down the page that will give you the general idea. Apparently people were knitting penguin sweaters to protect them from oil spillage. The project is done now so I guess there is no hope of getting more photos of penguins in sweaters which sounds so cute and silly, but has such a darker history. http://www.tct.org.au/jumper.htm
At any rate somehow this led me to http://www.treehugger.com/ I'm not quite sure how I got there, but it came from the need to "Do Something!" and of course learn more about how on earth to try to at least stop contributing to things like the increasing size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Treehugger.com is a great resource. Being in the U.S. and having the site focus on suppliers and locations in the U.K. of eco-friendly stuff and recycling projects made it necessary for me to keep looking for more info.

The Green Guide was my next find. http://www.thegreenguide.com/ It is run by the old favorite National Geographic which I used to study the pictures in when my parents used to get it. So it ought to be trustworthy info if it is related to the National Geographic. At least that's my thinking. It has great articles filled with useful info and what you can do such as help reduce the over abundance of plastic garbage a.k.a. made-from-oil, non-biodegradable, floating gunk.
So have I given you some idea of how crazy I get with web surfing?! The Green Guide site had a great article about photography artist Chris Jordan: http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/122/jordan
If you go to his site to look at his artwork, I recommend that you sit down before you look at his stunning Katrina photos. They made my stomach drop. http://www.chrisjordan.com/

All these websites led me to try to get some concept of how much plastic I use and dispose of all the time without thinking about it. As a curiosity project, I am trying to collect plastics that I normally throw out to see how much it really is and to possibly try to use them in artwork or recycle. I've learned that it is extremely tempting to just throw something out especially when it is plastic covering from a frozen dinner that is covered with tomato sauce or otherwise messy and don't even get me started on the plastic baggies. I use plastic baggies for everything for my lunches, but they get messy and how on earth am I going to manage to keep cleaning and saving them? It's just too easy to toss. There must be a better solution. I suppose it is mostly rethinking how I package things to go and finding nifty new product alternatives such as a reusable sandwich wrap I found somewhere...

To get back to the more thoroughly textile art theme here is a link to Maggie Grey's blog which is fantastic to read. http://magstitch.blogspot.com/ She has written or co-written a number of exciting textile/fiber/mixed media art books including Stitch, Dissolve, Distort.

For my own art I have been playing with part of a photo from my Alaska cruise honeymoon. It's a bit of water that I edited to black and white and simplified in order to make a thermofax silk-screen of it. We were going to have a Thermofax silk-screen class last Saturday, but with snow and what-not we have postponed it and slightly altered the topic to Screen-Printing Play for this Saturday.
Here's the original photo:
and then a slightly edited and cropped version:And for a last link, here is Liz Smith's blog who has posted pictures of our new gallery at Western Avenue Studios for her March 4th entry. You can also see her cool instructions for making felted beads and snowy Lowell: http://madeinlowell.blogspot.com/

Next time maybe I'll try not to go quite so link crazy.

P.S. I thought I was done with this post and the links, but Mom saved an article for me from the New York Times and it was about the Crochet Coral Reef! I'm not sure if the link will work, but here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/arts/design/04crochet.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=crochet&st=nyt&oref=slogin
Now I have to go read it!

World Beach

2008-01-15T19:02:00.001-05:00

Check it out! My rock art creation is on the Victoria & Albert's website for Sue Lawty's World Beach project: http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/lawty/world_beach/map_gallery/index.php?section=2&postIndex=0

This is an amazing project. I got interested in playing with rocks at the beach by looking through all the wonderful photographs of rock art around the world. Here is a photo of my creation from the opposite angle of the photo on the V+A website.

Here is my hubby, Nick, and Ole in front of the Pavillion at Rocky Neck State Park in Connecticut. They walked around most of the time I was playing with rocks, but Nick did contribute a small collection of rocks to the project and Ole made sure that a few sections were just right by knocking them over so I had to fix them. Ole also made it on to the V+A website as my helper in the "in progress" photo.
I had an awesome time! I encourage you to play with rocks on your own or with friends at a beach near you! (you might want to wait until the weather warms up a bit more...)

For more details about World Beach & how to participate:

http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/lawty/world_beach/map_gallery/index.php?section=1&postSearch=&category=&start=0&show=12

Needle Felted Fun

2007-12-26T16:42:00.001-05:00

Needle-felting is one of the nifty relatively-new fiber art forms that is getting attention lately. In my Mixing Media workshop, needle-felting is just one of the techniques that we experiment with. It involves persistent poking of fibers through your chosen surface with a felting needle. It can be great for expending nervous energy or frustration! The felting needle has little barbs along it that capture the fibers and pull them through your background fabric or felt. The needles don't have the most comfortable handle since they were originally designed for use in a machine and not for handwork.

For the type of needle-felting that I usually do, you need:

Felting needles (preferably more than one because they can break),
A background such as a piece of fabric and some quilt batting or a piece of felt
Some fibers such as wool or silk
A piece of foam, house insulation, or special needle-felt mat to put behind your work and protect your table
A chopstick or wooden skewer can also be very useful to hold your fibers in place especially if you like to do detailed work. It is best to keep your fingers out of the way of the needle as much as possible. The needles are VERY sharp and they hurt! Believe me. I know!

The following picture is a small piece that I created with some of the materials from a Stef Francis Experimental Pack . I used the EP2 pack called Unusual Cottons & More on our Friends Fabric Art shop website. The pack has some hand-dyed scrim also known as cheesecloth which distresses beautifully when it is needle-felted.

an Experimental Pack (EP2) - Unusual Cottons & More These packs come with silk throwsters waste fibers which needle-felt beautifully. If you look back at my little needle-felted piece, the lovely swirly fibers are the silk throwsters waste fibers. Bamboo fibers pictured below are also great fun to needle-felt because they are so soft.
Yet another type of fun fibers to play with are Angelina fibers. They are a great addition to a piece that needs a bit of glitter! The best part is that you can use the metal and jewel-toned Angelina fibers that won't work for Angelina heat-fusing projects.

In addition to hand needle-felting the Embellisher is a fancy new machine like a sewing machine which you may have read about. It will do your needle-felting for you with the press of a pedal instead of using more of your own "man-power." Embellish & Enrich is a new Jan Beaney & Jeanne Littlejohn book that introduces you to the basics and potential of using an Embellisher in your artwork.
It is even possible to needle-felt into silk. Here is a piece I created with some needle-felting into a silk painting. Most of the darker lines in this piece are needle-felting. I did fuse the fibers on the backside with some "Wonder-Under" to give the fibers some stability to keep them from being easily pulled out. You wouldn't want to use a silk or other synthetic material that is slippery without a backing material such as felt or quilt batting. If you needle-felt into something that is too smooth and slippery your fibers won't want to stick to it. Aside from that, play away and have a Fiber-Filled Happy New Year!

Stitching Train Commute

2007-11-03T18:54:00.000-04:00

I've been busy cleaning and organizing our condo while adjusting to married life. There hasn't been a lot of time for artsy stuff, but Mom and I try to hang out at the studio one night a week to be creative and chat. Mom's been busy making gorgeous pieced jackets.

I haven't been very focused on any particular project except for my never-ending embroidery piece. It started out by playing with a William Morris pattern on the computer and printing it onto Damask linen fabric from an old tablecloth soaked in Bubble Jet Set (a special soak that makes printer inks permanent on fabric). I put batting and a backing piece of fabric behind the linen and started doing embroidery with Stef Francis hand-dyed threads, some silk ribbon that I dyed, and some reflective thread. I keep thinking that maybe I'll do a little bit more stitching and then I'll be done, but I keep stitching. It will have to been done relatively soon as I will run out of areas that haven't all ready been stitched unless of course I start layering the stitches.... It has been a very soothing project to work on while riding the train home from Boston. Occasionally I feel a bit weird doing artsy stitching on the train, but no one seems to pay much attention to each other so I don't seem to be drawing any confused stares anyway. I've figured out little nifty tricks to make stitching on a train easier like loosely tying the extra threads that I am using around my wrist so I don't have to keep putting them away and taking them out again.

I started working a new job this summer in addition to sharing my artistic passions with my mom at Friends Fabric Art. I am working in Boston (hence the train rides) for the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance & Policy as a Policy Analyst. I'm sure you can tell from the title that it isn't directly art-related, but it is interesting and my co-workers are very nice. I had fun decorating my cubicle with all my artsy stuff. I keep having visions of hanging more artwork all over the halls and cubicles to brighten things up more.

Fabric Friendly Wedding and Alaska Honeymoon

2007-09-08T13:41:00.000-04:00

I'm finally writing here again. So much has happened, but I can't possibly write it all down because then I'd have to turn writer and write a biography. Here are some pictures from the wedding and honeymoon anyway. You can see my dress here that Mom made for me and Mom to the right of me made her dress, too. Nick's parents Bob and Karen are on the left of Nick and I. My parents, Ann and Jim are on the right.

Here is a pic to show how gorgeous the bridesmaids' dresses came out! Yup, Mom made all of them, too. I only did the decorative thread-work stitching on the waistbands.

Who's who, left to right: My brother-Peter, Nick's friend-Matt, Nick's brothers' Ryan and Kris, Nick, me, my high school friend-Jenn, my college friends-Sarah, Kellie, Molly.

Here's a pic of Kellie being silly with bouquets. You can see the waistband stitching here, too. On to the honeymoon. I had to take this picture for the great shop name, the Wandering Wardrobe, a fun artsy clothing store we ran across in our long walk through Skagway, Alaska. We walked to the edge of town to get to the Gold Rush Cemetery and then to Reid Waterfall. The waterfall was goreous, but of course, I forgot to check my camera batteries before we left so I couldn't take pictures because the batteries were burnt out.
Each day on the cruise our room steward made us a new towel origami animal. The elephant was too cute so here he is:
And just for a taste of the tons of photos that I took of all the splendid scenery in Alaska, below is a mountains and glacier photo.
Ah, and you must have a look at the happy couple on honeymoon. We are in Glacier Bay on the cruise ship by glacier that we stopped in front of for a few hours. I neglected to pay attention to the name of the glacier.
That's all for now. I wanted to write something at least since it has been so long, so very long... Perhaps I can get back to something more "textilian" next time.

Cheers!

Three-Dimensional Fabric

2007-05-23T19:52:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about writing about Paverpol for a bit now. It is a new thing that we got because of a request for Friends Fabric Art. The book: "Creative Recycling in Embroidery" by Val Holmes discusses using Paverpol to create fabric vessels.

So what is this Paverpol? It thickens or stiffens fabric and makes it water-resistant. Unless you are going to apply it to fabric thinly with a brush or water it down, it will give the fabric a slick look as if it has been varnished. So far I have only created two flowers with my bits of left over duppioni. I am working on putting together a more complete set of instructions for how to make these fabric flowers. On the Paverpol USA website they give directions for making a figurine. (http://www.paverpolusa.com/projects/index.shtml)

The first flower I made was about as simple as you can get with only four petal shapes cut out of duppioni, dipped in Paverpol and draped over a plastic covered bowl with a pipe cleaner as a stem. I meant to finish it up by covering the pipe cleaner with green fabric for a stem and adding a beaded center to the flower, but so far it doesn't look much different than the picture here that shows how I formed it over the bowl.
My next flower attempt was a bit more sophisticated as I graduated to five petals. I also used Paverpol thinned a bit with water for the petals so that they weren't quite so static and plastic-like.I also got so far as to cover the stem and add a leaf to this one. I still haven't gotten around to making the flower center more interesting with beads or fibers. That would be why the picture doesn't bother to show the center of the flower.

Paverpol has a newer product, Paverplast, that allows you to make watertight vessels and figurines for garden ornaments, but so far my experiments with it have come out lousy and definitely not photograph-worthy. I was trying to convert grams into American measurements and got myself totally confused. You have to mix in the proportion of 100gms of Paverplast to one Liter of Paverpol to make a mixture that will create a watertight vessel or object when it is applied. If you add more Paverplast, then the mixture is more of a sculpting putty. I should have simply used the scale to measure out a smaller number of grams. Ah well. Next time I'll be more careful. (Click here to see Paverpol products available from Friends Fabric Art.)

I haven't had much of a chance to try anything new since Mom is away on a cruise with Dad in Alaska. That leaves me to check in all these cool new books that we got from Thames and Hudson which will be showing up on the web shop shortly. All of them have stunning photos. The one that I got for myself at Barnes and Noble with a gift certificate is "The Art of Embroidery."
Last night I was at Rising Star Quilters' Guild to vend for Friends Fabric Art which was awesome because Amy Ropple was giving a talk. It was great to see slides of her art quilts and hear about textiles and beads from Turkey. Aside from vending and checking in books, I've been working on installing a Fedex shipping module on our web shop so customers can get more accurate shipping estimates. The downside is that I am going to have to start weighing everything that is available in the web shop because Fedex needs that information to give a shipping estimate. So much for an easy answer!

My, I have chattered away. Enjoy the sunshine!

Duppioni Bridesmaids' Dresses

2007-04-26T17:41:00.000-04:00

Mom has speedily put together the first of my bridesmaids' dresses. It only needs to be hemmed. I only stitched the middle part at the waist. This one is for my maid of honor, Jenn. It's made out of duppioni silk like my wedding dress. Some of the fabrics are "shot silk" which I learned is the word for silk that shimmers with two different colors from the warp and weft being different colors. The top on this dress is yellow &/or rose depending on the lighting.
Here's the stitching on the waist picture. I machine zig-zag stitched over Stef Francis hand-dyed thick rayon threads. On my practice piece of fabric I played with using some of the fancy machine stitches instead of zig-zag, but I liked how the zig-zag stitch best for the dress. Some of the stitches made the threads separate out in a cool way that would be a fun technique to play with on another project.
On another note, I captured the digger of the big hole near the Western Ave Studios building on camera today. Looks like a woodchuck. I had Ole with me and he didn't even bark at it. The woodchuck kept looking back at me while I took its picture. I'm glad it didn't turn out to be a more vicious animal residing in the hole.

Why!???....

2007-04-16T20:44:00.000-04:00

Today ever since I got a call from Nick this afternoon to listen to the radio, I've been in shock. I'm sure you were, too, when you heard about the Virginia Tech. tragedy. Until this year, my brother, Peter was going to Virginia Tech. and he still has friends there. I am thankful that his friends are all safe, but some people's friends and family are not. In this feeling of helplessness I turned to one of my favorite contemporary folk musician's songs about life: Catie Curtis's "People Look Around" from her newest album, "Long Night Moon." (Song co-written with Mark Erelli, another awesome musician>) Although this song is about Katrina's effect on New Orleans, the feelings Catie Curtis gives voice to in the song are the same as I feel now.
Here's the link to her music video for the song: http://catiecurtis.com/index.php?page=video

To leave you on a more artful note. I am posting a photo I took this summer of Shelburne Falls.
I am going to go stitch some more and listen to more of my favorite music! Next time I'll be sure to post something light and fluffy!

Quilt Play

2007-03-15T12:01:00.000-04:00

Much is happening. I've been meaning to post for a while now, but I kept having trouble with logging in to the blog on this computer. I finally tried Mozilla instead of Explorer and low and behold, I was able to log in just fine without messing with my browsers options menu.

My mom and dad have moved out of the house that I lived in for a long time. Today they sign the final papers! It was so weird seeing the house empty. Mom and Dad are happy to be done packing and cleaning for a while. They are staying at a Residence Inn for a month or so while their condo is being finished up.

Here are two small quilts that I have been working on. The right hand one is finished and I stitched it to a piece of matte board to be able to frame it. The left hand one has been hand-stitched instead of machine stitched. I am thinking of adding beads to it, too.
To make the fabric for these quilts, I followed a shibori (Japanese for tie-dye ) technique in a less traditional way. I folded up a fat quarter of Kona cotton and stitched through the layers with big running stitches. I pulled the threads as tight as I could which wrinkled up the fabric. This was a bit tricky because I had sewn through a bunch of fabric layers.

I then painted the fabric with Dharma Instant Set (pigment dyes). These dyes are more of a paint than a real dye so they capture a lot of texture of the folded and bound fabric. (I had a picture of what this looked like, but I can't find it. It must be on my home computer.) After the dye had set and dried out, I started to play with Stewart Gill sparkly paints.

The fabric came out looking a bit like a topography of hills and rivers. I used the paints to accent the "hills." I played with a nifty trick that I learned from Rebecca Gill's book about Stewart Gill products, "The Painted Surface." It you apply the paint thickly and aim a heat gun at it while the paint is still wet, it will bubble up to create an encrusted look. This worked really slick with the gorgeous shimmery, interference paints (Alchemy) and the glittery Galactica paints. You can see a bit of what it looks like in this detail, but it is nothing like seeing the paints in person.

Oh, and I HAVE to share the cool shoes that I found in a shop in Mystic, Connecticut for the wedding. Mystic is really close to Nick's parents' house. Wow, the shop has a website: Peppergrass & Tulip. I spend too much time on the web. Can you tell?!

Shiva Sticks and Lowell Quilts

2007-02-10T17:03:00.000-05:00

Today I have been playing with Shiva Paintsticks on one of our new rubbing plates. My new favorite is a plate based on Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Starry Night" from the Masterpiece Art Rubbing Trays I decided that one of our scarves wasn't as interesting and beautiful as it could be.

The rubbing "trays" are bigger than other rubbing "plates" that are available so you can cover a larger surface area faster. I used masking tape to give myself some shapes to fill in with the rubbing plates patterning.In two corners, I rubbed the Shiva Painsticks over the rubbing plate twice. Once with the iridescent blue and once with the iridescent green. The rubbing plate was shifted slightly in between the two color applications to vary the patterning a bit.

The center area of the scarf was masked off into a wonky square and filled in by rubbing the iridescent green over the rubbing plate once more. The finished scarf once heat set (with an iron after waiting 24 hours) will be quite stunning with the subtle shimmer from the iridescent paintsticks.
One thing I forgot about as I often do when I start making art projects is: Shiva Paintsticks are messy! Gloves are necessary if you don't want to turn into a "Smurf" or other colorful critter.
Luckily most of the pigment will come off with regular soap and water, but if I wanted completely clean hands, I'd have to find some paint thinner or other less smelly solvent that will thin oil based paints. The stuff also tends to get under your fingernails which isn't exactly easy to clean up. So... Remember those gloves!

The New England Quilt Museum has issued a challenge for quilters to create Lowell inspired quilts. Mom (Ann) and I have each been working on one. Mom's is inspired by the immigrant population of Lowell. The quilt contains fabrics from countries that Lowell citizens are from. It is also inspired by the brick patterns used in buildings around Lowell. All of the pieces have been cut to the size of actual bricks.

Here's a good pic with Jacque helping Mom work on her quilt.
My quilt is inspired by the canalways and rivers throughout Lowell. It uses lots of photos printed on fabric that I then painted on with a bit of shimmery paint because water shimmers! It has been pieced now in a slightly different composition than the picture, but I haven't taken any new photos of it yet. Mom and I are both hoping to finish in time for the March deadline which is coming up fast.
Hope you are having lots of creative fun!

Art Quilts & Dresses

2007-01-19T20:39:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've written. The holidays sort of suck up a lot of time. Much has happened. I finished my little art quilt that I started with screen-printed fabric. It's changed a little bit with the stitching, but Mom's quilt has changed more dramatically.
Here's Mom's little art quilt. Some of the patterning has been painted out with purple to put more emphasis on the leaf patterning. She added chicken-stitching in the purple areas and beading and stitches on the leaves.
Mom and I made some big decisions today. We confirmed our decision to make my bridesmaids' dresses by getting fabric. We went shopping in Marian Bressel's garadge aka Fabritique We had a ball picking out fabrics. The dresses will all be unique with different jewel tones of Dupioni silk. The picture below gives a general idea of what they'll look like. The dresses are simple shift dresses cut on the bias.

Actually Making Art

2006-12-06T21:33:00.000-05:00

The last few Saturdays Mom and I have been doing a Creative Quilt workshop series. We first started out with screen-printing with newsprint and the second week we did Thermofax silk screening which is an easy way of making a silk screen of black and white drawings or photos. I decided to use one of the pictures that I had taken of Carter Smith's fabric to make a silk screen. Here is the photo:

This picture shows how I edited the photo with Adobe PhotoShop to make the image black and white and bring out the pattern with more contrast. This is the image that I used to make the Thermofax silk screen.
And now for one of the images that I printed with the Thermofax silk screen:
Now this fabric was printed first using cut-outs and ripped bits of newsprint to mask off patterns on a silk screen . The following Saturday, it was printed a second time with the light purple with my Thermofax silk screen of Carter's fabric. It came out pretty well. If you click on the picture you can see more detail.This is what I did last Saturday with a bit of fabric I was printing random test prints on. One part of the fabric had a nice composition with the Japanese lady in the center so I cut out that part and here it is. I'm making it into a journal quilt. Since this Saturday I will be going to Connecticut to Nick's parents' house, I will have to finish the quiltlet on my own instead of "in class."

Here is the fabric that Mom (Ann) printed in a similar manner as mine. (Notice the similar color choices) The blue and purple pattern was printed with the bits of newsprint masking areas of a silk screen and the leaf/paisley shapes are the Thermofax screen that Mom created. This is the journal quilt that Mom started last weekend with another piece of fabric that she printed with Thermofax silk screens. She chose a much more challenging composition to turn into a quilt as it is quite busy looking at the moment. Wait until you see what she has done with it . Today she was painting on it. I'm sure it will turn out amazingly in spite of the challenge of making all the shapes stop flying around like crazy.About Thermofaxes
If you haven't heard of Thermofax screens, they are rather amazing. The Thermofax refers to the name of the machine that is used to make the screens. The machine's long name is a Thermal Imager. The machines used to be used by offices to make overhead transparencies. It is not possible to make a Thermofax screen without a Thermofax machine. Welsh Products is the primary seller of new and used Thermofaxes. We have a reconditioned one at Friends Fabric Art.

The Thermofax screen that the Thermofax machine makes is just like a photo-silkscreen (except the process is much easier), if you are familiar with that screen printing technique. If not, the screens are like stencils except unlike the stencils you can get at the usual craft store, having a Thermofax machine allows you to make stencils or screens of any image you like such as family photos, doodles, text, or drawings. Any photo or drawing with high contrast will create the best Thermofax screen. The machine likes pure black not tones of grey like a stamp.

The machine works with images from a copier that has carbon in the toner or drawings created with a carbon pencil. In addition to the machine, you also need the special screening material which is a fine mesh fabric covered with a thin film of plastic. To make the Thermofax screen, the plastic film covered side of the screen material is put face down on the copier print. The Thermofax has a heat lamp so when the screen and paper sandwich is sent through the machine, the heat lamp etches the plastic away everywhere there is a dark enough coating of ink on the paper. As strange as the process is to describe, it only takes a few seconds to etch your image onto the screen material. Once this has been done, the screen material is often stretched flat in a plastic frame or given a tape border of Duct Tape or packing tape to ready the screen for easy printing.

If I have confused you or you have questions, drop me an e-mail: Sonja@FriendsFabricArt.com
If you are curious about how to use a Thermofax screen you can visit: http://www.friendsfabricart.com/Free-Articles.html

Mom and I can make Thermofaxes for you at Friends Fabric Art or check out Welsh Products or eBay to get your own if you think you'll get addicted. Another place to check out fabrics printed with Thermofax printing is Jane Dunnewold's website: http://www.complexcloth.com/Artcloth_Store/ClothGallery/clothgallery.html

Limbo

2006-11-30T11:10:00.000-05:00

Here are a few more Carter Smith shibori photos for fun. The two cropped images are from the coat photo. It's pretty cool how Carter can get the blue to sit next to the yellow orange without getting brown in between. I don't think he thickens his dyes to get this effect. I didn't ask him how he did it. It's my last day working for him. The drive to Nahant is too tiring and too long.

It will be nice to spend more time at Friends Fabric Art and with my mom again for a while.

On another note, Mom and I got a pattern and fabric to make my wedding dress. It is a simple pattern, but we will play with it to add detail to the bodice. The fabric we got is a slightly creamy dupioni.

The dress will me most like the middle picture from the Kwik Sew pattern with the scoop neck and not the long train.

Times they are a'changing...

2006-11-17T20:05:00.000-05:00

In the last few weeks my parents decided to buy a condo in the Boott Mills in Lowell, sell their house in Lowell, and sell the house in Maine on Sebago Lake. And I thought things were going to start to settle down. Oops-oh well. Below is the view from Mom and Dad's new condo's windows. The condo won't be finished until late spring. The other picture is the gorgeous staircase at the Boott Mills that they are tearing out! Part of where the staircase is will be someone's bedroom. I suppose it must not have been cost effective or fit into the architect's plans to save the staircase.

Mom has worked hard to get Friends Fabric Art moved in to our new location at Western Avenue Studios. I managed to set up most of the shop area before the November First Saturdays Open Studio. The rest of the space was quite a mess. Now we actually have a shop area AND usable studio and workshop space. Here are Nick (my fiance) and Ole lounging in the shop area.

Mom and I went to the Revolving Museum this morning. The exhibit, "Race, Class, Gender does not equal Character," they have up now is incredible. I especially enjoyed "900 Skinny Girls" by Linda St. John. It's all these little dolls made out of pipe cleaners and bits of fabric. I love her attention to detail. There is a doll in overalls. Dolls with little dogs, raincoats, a poodle skirt... You can see a picture at the links below.

The exhibit also has some embroideries from the Amazwi Abesifazane Project that completely took your breath away between the imagery and the story behind them. The artworks are "memory cloths" of women who lived during the South African apartheid. You can learn more about them and see some of them at the website below, but if you get a chance to, go see them in person. There is a list of their exhibits in addition to the Revolving Museum exhibit on their webpage.

Amazwi Abesifazane Project:
http://www.cas.org.za/projects/voices.htm

900 Skinny Girls:
http://www.artknowledgenews.com/Revolving_Museum.html
http://www.revolvingmuseum.org/exhibitions/AVAM/stjohn_girls.jpg

Revolving Museum:
http://www.revolvingmuseum.org/index.html

Moving

2006-10-30T22:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the big moving day for Friends Fabric Art. We got a lot of stuff over to the new space in the Western Avenue Studios building. Mom and Peter continued moving today. Tomorrow hopefully we can finish up emptying out the Merrimack Street location.

Mom, Nick, & Peter

Peter and an almost bare space

On another note, Mom made a really awesome scarf by stitching over strips of Carter Smith's silk scrap and Stef Francis hand-dyed Rayon threads on Aquabond watersoluble stabilizer.

Peter, Paul, & Mary!!!

2006-10-24T17:38:00.000-04:00

I think I'm having too much fun with this blog thing. I keep thinking of pictures I could post or what I could write about. My latest picture involves the building of Carter's new house. His last house burnt down. Actually I wouldn't be working for him if it didn't, as it resulted in his previous studio assistant leaving the job.

There are these weird metal structures in the house foundation area that I can see out the studio's office area window. They look like they would be fun to turn into wild sculptures by paper-macheing over or draping with fabric. Carter finally noticed that they were used to transfer the support boards for the concrete pouring of the foundation walls. Anyway here's the pic:

The more exciting news is that my parents, Nick, and I went to a Peter, Paul, & Mary concert and got to meet Mary Travers after the concert. Carter is friends with Mary. They met at a birthday party or something. She's really cool. She even stood next to me and put her hand on my shoulder a couple times. Nick asked me if I was ever going to wash my shirt again since Mary Travers touched it. I mostly stood there and smiled, but I actually said something to contribute to the general conversation that didn't sound totally silly. I'm glad I didn't stop breathing and fall over. My dad was in heaven.

The Lynn Auditorium backstage area wasn't that exciting to see. It looked a bit like a school or prison. Some of the performers rooms looked like cells. Mary's backstage room was a bit bigger and slightly brighter. She wore a gorgeous blue coat created by Carter during the first half of the concert. During the second half, she wore another one of Carter's coats.

I feel like I should have a sign off phrase...it's tempting to say: "And that's the news from Lake Wobegon," but I suppose that wouldn't fit and how many people are familiar with Garrison Keiller anyway.

Toodles.

Carter Smith Shibori Coat Photos

2006-10-18T17:53:00.000-04:00

Here are a few pictures from two jackets that were finished by Carter's seamstresses yesterday. I take basic photos of each garment for keeping track of inventory. The photos don't do the garments justice. You can get a sense of how cool they are from my editted photos better than from the plain inventory photos.

I thought these photos would be fun to print larger on ink jet fabrics. I might also play with them using Adobe PhotoShop Elements.

I plan to take my computer home from the store tonight so I will be able to play with photos and the internet more easily at night. The big store move is set for the end of the month. I don't really use the computer when it is at the store anymore which is good as there won't be space for it in the new location.

P.S.
In case anyone is curious about the inventory photos that these pictures came from, here they are below.

Beginnings

2006-10-16T15:38:00.000-04:00

Molly, Me, & Sarah, Saint Olaf College alumni in front of a Saint Olaf House we happened to walk by on our recent trip to London

Here is something new for me...a blog. So many things have changed in my life lately that I thought it would be fun to start a blog as a way to let people know what all I have been up to and to remind myself of where I am.

To list the major changes in no particular order:

I'm engaged to Nick Austin, a pretty awesome guy who did my laundry for me the other day and even folded it! Wedding is set for August 18 and there's even a website for the occasion: http://www.SonjaAndNick.Weddings.com
I have a new job working for Carter Smith, a shibori artist who specializes in artwear. It's mostly administrative, but there's fun stuff involved. His website is http://www.shibori.com
Friends Fabric Art, ( http://www.FriendsFabricArt.com ) the cool fabric art store that my mom (Ann) and I started 4 years ago is moving from its storefront location in Lowell to the Western Avenue Studios building also in Lowell ( http://www.westernavenuestudios.com/ ). It is less than a mile away, but it's still a big deal. Thank goodness for the new dolly, because I really would not be excited about moving our book selection in particular. I love books, but they sure are heavy when you have to move a lot of them around.

In addition to all that I got to go to London with some college friends a few weeks ago. We had a wonderful time. My friends Sarah and Molly did most of the planning which worked out great for me. I'm still working on editing all the digital photos I took. The photo above is from Molly's collection.