Friday Morning I had a good start on my layouts. Still an overwhelming amount of fabrics to choose from;
some I like, some not-so-much. I start the tweaking process and doing some adding and subtracting of elements and fabrics or papers.

Today is a short day in that we have to have the room ready for the “all classes walk-through” by 4:30 pm and we are used to working into the wee hours. We also have to get all packed up and be ready for the Small Quilt Auction at 5:30 and the end of session Banquet at 7 pm. Gee, we will have to finish up the week with fun and food - poor us

But, to my everlasting surprise,
I finish all three pieces in time.

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Graduation!

Here are some detail shots (click to super-size). Nothing was safe in this room, here is the morning paper after it had been “transformed” with batik, dye and paint (left), then a detail of panel 1 showing an Angelina bead (right).

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Better shots of the three finished panels.

I feel like I learned a lot this week. I opened my eyes, then opened my eyes again (as Granny Weatherwax would say (from the Wee Free Men books by Terry Pratchett, my hero)). There is more to making fabric than just technique and that is doubly so for making art.

I came home to my vegetable and herb gardens having been overrun with weeds due to our very warm and wet week. Weeding is good right now, I can think and assimilate while I yank the little buggers up!

Deb H

Thursday’s class was a bit more intense, not in the way it had been; making fabrics and using new or improved techniques, but putting it all together in a composition. Looking at all of the fabrics and papers I have been making (with no real thought as to the final goal), I see I have a lot of very busy materials to work with. This will be a challenge!

To start, I cleared a space on my board and started pinning fabrics together to see if they even looked good (click on photos to bigmafy).

There was a lot of this.

And a lot more.

It’s truly amazing how much time you can spend just putting fabrics together.

Then ideas started to come. I decided on a three panel piece to explore the three ideas I had (sort of) forming. Three similar ideas - my first series!

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I got a rough idea of what I wanted for my first panel,
this one is all fabrics.

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Panel B’s first audition, this one is fabrics and paper.

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And the final panel is all paper (except for one tiny square) .

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By this time the day was over and my brain hurt.
But it will be a good start for tomorrow, the final day of class. The pressure is on!

One also needs to reflect on how it would be so great to do this every day, all year. Then I realize how tired I am after four days of this kind of intensity and drag my self upstairs to bed!

Deb H

Back in the classroom and ready for more. Wednesday is always a short day so the participants can go on a tour of the many Art Quilt exhibits that are always in the Columbus area during June. I confess that last year I went and was so overwhelmed by all the wonderful art and quilts that it made it very hard for me to go home and do my own work. Too much input and inspiration can be paralyzing at times. So, this year I elected to stay in the classroom and focus on what I came for. We had demos in the morning of some great embellishment techniques. The most wonderful new skill for me is free-motion machine embroidery (I still need lots of practice!). I decided this was much easier than free motion quilting because stitch uniformity is not part of the equation - cool!

I also worked on some more fabric and mark making techniques. Adding to existing ones and two new pieces on black silk noil; discharged, painted, silk screened, and (believe it or not) expandable paint. I was very happy with these. Much stronger contrast brings me back into my comfort zone even though I rarely use black in anything. I love the drama in these two fabrics (click to biggy size).

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And while the rest of the class went on the tours in the afternoon a few of us dye-hards (pun and spelling intended), stayed to play a bit more.

Finally, my board at the end of Day 3.

All this creativity is exhausting and I could hear the Siren Song of a glass of wine and my bed, so I found a Bell Hop and a luggage cart and had myself rolled up to my room for the night. Thursday we started to put it all together, just give me time to process all my photos.

Deb H

BTW, have you any idea what all of this does to your finger nails?

Ack!

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