I had a few extra bits that I dyed at Think Silk, but that needed wash-out and ironing at home, so here they are:

OK…so Tyger isn’t really part of the class, but this was too cute not to share. Of course, I could say that his coat is a perfect inspiration for some shibori!  He was watching me as I was petting the samples…..

Two pieces of blue shibori, one that began wet, one that began dry. Don’t actually see much difference in these, tho there can be. These were wrapped too tightly for me…too much white. So I shall re-do, perhaps wrapping in the other direction, and overdye with a different blue. The piece on the right is that black. Too bad it was black. May be too dark to overdye, and I dislike discharge. Erk.

Silk noil is a fairly heavy cloth, about like Kona cotton, maybe a bit heavier. This was a stitched / gathered resist. Again, more white than I like. Overdye is my new middle name!

This is why it is good to practice on small pieces of cloth. Love the colors; love the chevron pleating/patterning. Hate the blotchiness. Can you say overdye? Or cut up into small bits!

Cotton (?) cord…LOVE these colors! It was the cord I used to tie the previous sample. Use EVERYthing!  I think this is synthetic cord, actually, but it took the color because we used an acid bath method…. nifty!

My favorite piece of the whole thing: silk organza, stitched in a leaf shape to create a tight resist, then dyed. I can see small pieces like this with either stitched or soy wax resist working their way into my quilts! This one is small, maybe 4 x 7 inches total.

 

Back in April, which now seems like years ago, I FINALLY got to take a class I’ve wanted to take for several years now:  Carol Soderlund‘s dyeing silk class.  Any time she has been teaching within driving distance of Maine, I’ve been booked to teach elsewhere.  So even though this class required me to get home from teaching in Arkansas on Friday then get back in the car and head South on Monday, I jumped at the chance!

Round 1, dyeing silk yellow

As always with Carol’s classes, it was fun, packed with learning, tiring, and did I say fun?

First round of overdyeing

Mooshing. That’s a technical term! In this case, mooshing in the blue dye….the third round!  And even WET the colors are heavenly

My dye partner stacking our colors

A classmate was experimenting with stamps and thickened dye

At Quilt Festival two years ago, Melanie Testa demonstrated using an old-fashioned ruling pen (like for drafting plans in art school) with thickened dye. I tried it, and you can see a sideways of my Queen Anne’s lace. I “inked” the outlines with dye, then will overdye and color later….maybe later this summer?

We also got to try some shibori, alas with black. I’m not wild about the color, but maybe I’ll overdye with some blue and get a nice water fabric out of this… I do like the texture, just not the color. Bleah.

We also got to try some deconstructed screen printing. A neighbor did this one… she definitely had the best colors and results… I’m not much for “surface design” stuff, but this was a great cloth!

Another really good desconstructed screen print. I lust after that huge screen!

Lunch at the back of the classroom. ProChem brings in lunch–it is included in the class fee. We all sit together and pop up and down as need be to tend our fabric!

And one more time I went by 266 Third Street, Fall River, Mass., where my dad and his family lived in 1918! So glad it is still there. I may try to find where they lived in 1910 via the census and go find that house, too… my Aunt Mary lived in that house (on the first floor apartment) until she died in the 1970s!

As always, I had a great time, ate too much, and wish I had more time at home to dye fabric!  Maybe this winter?

Every year, Studio Art Quilt Associations (SAQA) has a fundraising auction of small works–all 12 by 12 inches– by some of the finest art quilters working today.  I’m thrilled to be able to donate this piece:

Conversations III

Inspired by a visit to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, I made a series of three quilts, a larger center panel flanked by two 12 x 12 inch quilts.  Conversations III was donated to the 2012 Studio Art Quilt Associates online auction fundraiser.

Detail from Conversations III

When I began this series, I thought first of the conversation my beloved Sister-in-law, her friend and I had at lunch, but then realized that there was a conversation between the architecture and the landscape, the sky and the stone in the buildings, the artists and the viewers, and in the case of these quilts:  between me and the cloth/dye/thread.  Yes, all of the fabric in these pieces began as white, and I dyed them.

Conversations I has been juried into A World of Beauty 2012, the judged show at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, and Conversations IIis now for sale. I am thrilled with how they turned out.  Quilted into the sky, and written in ink onto the table and chairs (for the shadowing on the wood) are words about the art and the conversation:  contrast, line, shape, form, sky, water, stone, shadow, sea breeze…..

Conversations I, II and III

Some of you  may recall seeing these three pieces when I blogged about them last summer (here and here) for The Frayed Edges show at the Camden Public Library.  The small quilt on the right is the one I have donated to the SAQA auction!  Learn more about the auction here, and see the quilts here.  I’ve just discovered that my quilt, Conversations 3, will be among those auctioned live (gulp, eek!) at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.  Thrillingly, Conversations 1 (the large central quilt) has just been juried in to the IQA World of Beauty contest.

The online auction is in three parts, starting September 10th.  Each week for three weeks, a group of quilts is auctioned.  On the first day, prices for the 12 by 12 inch quilts are $750.  The next day the price drops to $550, and so on down to $75 by the end of the week (tho not much is left by then!).  The risk is:  do you wait to get a lower price, or lose the quilt you really want?  Inevitably (sigh) the ones I want are gone in the first two days….  The auction in Houston will work similarly:  on Preview Night (Weds., Oct. 31) prices will be $750.  Thursday morning the price will drop, and again at 2 p.m.  And so on, through the end of Festival.  To buy one of the quilts at Houston, though, either you have to be there OR you need to have someone there to buy for you! I shall be nervous walking by the SAQA booth to see if mine has sold!  I wish SAQA all the best in fundraising!

To begin at the beginning: as I entered Vermont, what else would I see but COWS, the kind on the Ben and Jerry’s label! Of course I had to pull over and snap a picture!

It always amazes me how rapidly time evaporates.  I got home on Monday, it is now Saturday, and I feel like the week simply disappeared in errands, exercising, painting (of the baseboards and trim variety), preparing to paint (the basement floor variety), and a thousand other things.  I’ve JUST this past hour tossed the laundry from the trip into the washer!   So while it is stewing and getting clean, I thought I’d start at the beginning and attempt to catch up!

From the last post, you know I was able to meet Dana B. from an online class with Jane LaFazio (at Joggles.com) and friend Susan Brubaker Knapp and have dinner the first night.  Susan and I were snapping pictures from the get-go…. she spotted this light fixture (and got a much more artistic shot through the entryway):

Lighting at Leunig’s Bistro on the Church Street pedestrian mall in downtown Burlington, VT. Dinner was so good I returned several nights later with other teachers after the show ended!

I was rushing a bit so didn’t get the photo quite centered, but with cropping in Photoshop, like this view of the same fixture:

Holding the camera directly under the fixture….

As I told my quilting design students on Saturday/Sunday in class, design ideas are EVERYwhere!

My first class (Thursday) was Tame Fussy, Fiddly Threads.  We were lucky to be in the room with Janome provided machines, all 7700s, and I know at least two of my students went HOME with ones they got at an amazing show special from Bittersweet Fabrics (that owner, Dave Lavallee, and his company gave some AWESOME prizes including machines to at least six lucky youth quilters!).  I always encourage students to cut loose and make their own designs and color combinations with the paints for stencilling their black cloth….

Lovely and delicate coloring on this piece, which she had just begun quilting.

The class teaches how to use the threads so many fear:  metallics, holographic, heavy poly, multicolored.  The trick is getting the correct needle and tension.  I begin class by having students prepare their freezer paper stencil and painting. (PS–the paints used are Jacquard Lumiere textile paints, available at various art quilty places and at online retailers such as art supplier dickblick.com.)  While the paint sets up, we review the things you need to know, then by late morning (ish) sewing begins!   This time one student decided to make a tree, and her friend and tablemate followed suit:

Trees…with freezer paper stencil still affixed while the paint dries

And in the back, Cricket (LOVE that name, and how totally cool that her parents named her that–it’s not a nickname!) did some spectacular color-work…just love the look and color of these leaves:

Crickets colorful leaves

One interesting thing–she was having some issues with the machine/quilting despite having experience with free-motion quilting.  We changed her seating to something with the seat higher up–closer to correct position (you know how in classes the machines are ALWAYS too high up on the table for the usual classroom chairs?) and presto, problem solved!  So if you are having difficulties controlling your Free-motion quilting, try adjusting the height of your chair (pillows, whatever!).

This student wanted a more airy look to her stencils, not filled in heavily the way I made mine. Love the soft look, and the fun she is having quilting!

I had encouraged students to bring a scrap–that way you can test drive threads and tension and don’t have to pick it out if things are off.  This student used her cut-out leaves as a mask and painted the background…this turned out fabulous.  Here it is in progress:

The sweep of metallic colors on black was FABULOUS!

The 30-wt So Fine (formerly Brytes) from Superior Threads makes an awesome color statement…here she is using the blue.

And remember those trees…here is one later in the day:

Love the way this turned out!

At Show and Tell Saturday night. The gentleman at left is Richard Cleveland, the founder of VQF. Part of show and tell is each teacher gets to go up, and if there are any students there they come up and share their projects. I’m holding my version, and you can see my students to the right, including that wonderful “sweep” of color over the leaves, the “test” piece held by the lady at the far right. GREAT students, fun class!

There was a VERY special moment for me at the Sharing, but I’m going to be evil and make you wait to hear about it!  I had two more classes:  Fine Finishes and Quilting Design.  I was so busy with a full 20 students in a BUSY class that I didn’t take a single (SOB) photo for the Fine Finishes bindings and edge finishes class, but got some great pics of the design class (small but superlative), and some photos of some of my favorite quilts from the show.  More soon!

After 3 1/2 days of teaching, Judy Woodworth, Bonnie K. Hunter and I went into downtown Burlington for dinner to relax and celebrate. We had dessert at—where else of course (we’re in their home state)–Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream!

Just a quick note to check in and say hi and share pics of a few of the highlights of the days here in Colchester/Essex Junction, Vermont, where I’ve just taught 3 1/2 days of classes at the Vermont Quilt Festival.  WOW–what an amazingly run (by volunteers!) quilt show, with some stunningly beautiful and top-notch quilts from traditional to modern.   I’ll do several more posts, but Burlington is a charming small city–I am enchanted with the bike lanes and all the folks from college age to seniors riding bikes to and fro, parking for bikes in the downtown core (just a couple blocks up from the shores of Lake Champlain).  I had an absolute blast and would SO love to return to teach again, and know for sure I’ll now come as a “tourist” quilter, too!  It is about 6-7 hours from my home in Maine, so a day visit requires two nights away from home, but it is worth it!

Ben and Jerry’s is on Church Street at the corner of Cherry street…. Look at the sign! I TOTALLY love a town that has a sense of humor!

An internet friend, whom I met in one of my online drawing classes with Jane LaFazio, Dana B. came up to Burlington to meet me for dinner on Wednesday, the day I arrived.  Susan Brubaker Knapp, whom I initially met over the internet as well was also teaching, so the three of us had a most fanatabulous dinner at Leunig’s.  I’ll share more pics of the restaurant in a future post.

Wednesday with Dana B. and Susan Brubaker Knapp at Leunig’s restaurant on Church Street.

And the classes…OH MY did I have fun, and my students were so wonderful!  I won’t share any pictures now because there are just so many that I need to do a post or two just on those!

And one of the highlights for me was being able to share at Saturday night’s Show and Tell–I’ll post the whole wonderful story, but here’s a picture of me with my Oceans Alive quilt, made from Mary K. Ryan’s Mariner’s Compass pattern, WITH Mary K. Ryan!   It was just such a thrilling, wonderful thing, and I think you can tell by how happy we both look!

Me and Mary K. Ryan, with my quilt made (pieced in 1990-91, hand quilted and finished in about 2000) from Mary’s Mariner’s Compass pattern.

Tomorrow, I’ll drive home with a couple hour detour to the south to visit my dear friend Jacquie Scuitto, the Quiltmuse (I did a post on her book of light verse, here and blogged about her visit to Camden here and her verse in A Black and White Tale here), and hope to have more pictures and blogging for you later in the week.  Cheers, from a very happy and not-nearly-as-tired-as-I-expected me (tho I may collapse once I get home!)