OK, Day 2 was Tuesday and it’s now Friday, but keeping up with all the great things I’m doing in my QSDS workshop, getting enough sleep (in spite of the best efforts of the Thunder Gods and the tornado sirens - no tornadoes, just the sirens) and Blogging too were more than I could be coherent for. But I can start doing catch-up now.

This is my design board at the end of Day 2 (click on the images for a closer look).
The same fabrics as yesterday; plus a few more, and some papers. All have been layered with more batik, more paint, and more dye. The results are much better! The pink is now mostly purples and teals (no surprises there) but I’m trying to make myself tone it down a bit from my usual bright and gregarious colors. I look at classes and workshops as a good place to work outside of my comfort zone and do a little exploring. Muted colors are a bit of a stretch for me. I’ve decided I like batik, even with the work of wax removal, for the great effects.
The metal bar is not part of my artwork, my board is tucked behind the railing on the steps. Just in case you wondered

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We also learned more ways to mono-print and some wonderful ways to “print” on fabric and paper with simple tools to get complex effects.

My favorite mark making tool? A spiral potato masher.

Truly.

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The third photo is of my two favorite pieces for the day; the top left is watercolor paper that I dyed and painted. The bottom left is silk organza, also dyed and painted.

A successful day and more fun on Wednesday!

Deb H

I’m spending this week in Columbus, Ohio at the Quilt/Surface Design Symposium (QSDS). I’m taking a five day workshop with two fabulous instructors; Els van Baarle and Cherilyn Martin, both from the Netherlands. Their specialties are surface design on fabric and paper.

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Our classroom is lucky enough to be in the atrium of the hotel, giving us lots of room and natural light.

Each of us gets a design board to hand our stuff on, the better to contemplate on it. In the second room photo, the boards to the far right belong to our instructors.

Here is my board at the end of Day 1. The first thing we did was to abstract an image and make two stamps. Then we did some stamping on white fabric and batik on more white fabric. The batik was a new experience for me. I really like the effects I could get. I’m not so excited about getting the wax out again

After that, we did a first layer of dye. I was trying to keep it pale as every layer you add darkens the piece up. I think I erred on the side of caution. Mine is so pale it’s a bit sickly. It’s also pink (gag), we all know my views on pink. You would think I’d know that this is what pale red looks like, duh! The yellow would have been fine with red but just looks blah here.

I used a lot of commercial stamps as well, my own designs were a bit simple and I was having trouble picturing them as a part of a whole instead of as a whole in themselves. It was a busy day with lots of good techniques, but my results could have been better. It’s a good thing that we have Day 2 still to come!

Another detail of my day’s work shows the techniques a bit better. I do really like the effects of the hot wax (disregarding color)!

Off to bed! Day 2 gets better, honest! I’ll show you that tomorrow.

Deb H

Is that not just the most dramatic title ever? Yea, the playwright daughter is not the only drama queen in the household

I’m simply referring to the fact that as I empty stuff out of my art room to paint another wall, the studio and office have become so choked I cannot navigate in them. I’ve had to be diligent about a path to the computer! But, it has to get worse before it gets better, right? I have (in my defense) filled up two large garbage bags with old disks and paperwork that is about 15 years out of date and ideas and fiber articles that had me saying - out loud - “what was I thinking!?!” Some things are just not worth keeping, I keep telling myself that as I still have several more boxes to sort through. But progress is being made, if very slowly and the light of dawn will glow again. What is my point? An over abundance of clutter can stifle creativity. Trust me on this.

I just finished teaching a sock class (Toe-Up, Two at a Time on One Needle) and I always knit a pair of socks along with the class for demo purposes and to make myself feel less guilty about not making myself do the same homework I make my students do. Since I already have a pair of Cat Bordhi socks on the needle and have started my Hanne Falkenberg “Mermaid” sweater, I was not over-eager to start another pair so they are in super chunky yarn. But then I blew the whole “quick and dirty” thing by doing them in a lace pattern. A bit odd, but dear daughter loves them! I start another class next week, dear hubby will get some slippers too as I have a bit more of this unknown chunky yarn that was given to me. I think I’ll skip the lace on his.

As to my Mermaid Sweater, the color way I ordered was Apple Green and Turquoise. A lovely color combination and I adore it. I just don’t adore the yarn, sorry Hanne! It’s a bit scratchy and breaks too easily. I have replaced it with Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in navy, purple and bronze, I’m hoping it will look as good in real life as it does in my head. When I have it a bit further on, I’ll post a pix.

Since I can’t even get in my sewing studio, I have started to wind a warp with the merino I dyed in the Palindrome method.

It seems to be working and the color sections are (more or less) lining up. Cool!

And because this silly herb garden tickles me so much, here is a picture of my garden, three weeks after planting. And yes Mom, I harvested some last night as I grilled orange roughy with some fresh basil, chives and cilantro, among other things - very tasty!

Back to winding my warp.

Deb H

I feel like I’ve been away it’s been such a busy two weeks! It’s been a good two weeks though To start, here are some of my results from last post’s dyeing ->

(Above) A wool and cotton blend sock yarn; kind of a disappointment. I love green, but not Christmas green. It’s just sooooo… I don;t know, lacking in yellow or blue? Back in the dye pot with this one!

(Above) This is a merino superwash sport weight that I over dyed. I was a Christmas green, pretty much like the yarn above it - you’d think I’d learn that trying to make a yarn with chartreuse and teal stripes will always turn out Christmas green! I over dyed it with indigo and I’m much happier. Yes, all those little balls mean that I had knit something out of it and then ripped it out. I’ll try again; hand warmers.

(Above) The Tofutsie sock yarn was the star of the day! I love the soft colors I got. It will be a joy making myself some spring socks with this! My weaving yarn (the merino singles I dyed with the Palindrome method that was weighted down with the fire extinguisher) is lovely too but still looks much like the last post’s photo. I’ll show you how it looks as I get it wound into a warp; maybe next week?

But wait! Monday was spinning day and I was almost out of the brightly colored roving I’ve been working on. I knew I needed some teal roving to spin up to ply it with and I had white…

Now it’s teal and it’s spinning up beautifully!

Dinner time, and my orange roughy is done marinading in a freshly made herbed (dill and lemon basil) marinade from my winter indoor herb garden - yum!

The snow has lost it’s charm — that actually happened about late November — and the cold has never had much appeal. What do you do when you are sick of looking at dirty white everywhere for ever and ever?!?

Dye!

My art group that meets once a month decided to fight back against the Michigan winter by heating up the dye pots (OK, microwaves) and attacking protein fibers with color. Of course I forget to bring out my camera until after the fun part is over and I’m down to the drudge work - rinsing. But this sink full has some potential.

The bucket on the right is the only fabric I did, it is a fat half of silk noil and was actually more of a mop-up cloth than a planned project but the colors are nice The top bucket is some Tofutsie sock yarn I played with - I’m very please with this so far. The bottom bucket is a merino superwash sock yarn that is a bit darker than I had imagined. The photo below is a huge skein of merino single ply sock weight. I tried a technique I just read about in the new WeaveZine that Syne Mitchell is now publishing, a great read, check it out! Anyway, I tried the palindrome skein technique she wrote about. In a nutshell, its a way to dye skeins so they can be wound into a warp (for weavers) and look like a painted warp, sort of ikat style. I’ll keep you posted on how well my efforts worked.

I think I see a pattern developing here - could it be I have a favorite color palette? And yes, that’s a fire extinguisher weighting the skein. Hey! It was handy.

I think they might just do. I feel spring closer already

Deb H