Ya Win Some....

Over the weekend I finished up this small quilt entitled "Practice Interruptus" in time to enter it in the upcoming show "Redefining a Material World" at the Elverhoj Museum of History and Art in Solvang, California. Unfortunately, it wasn't selected for the show, but my other piece, "Arrellaga Tree" was chosen. I actually like this piece better, so am a tad disappointed,but now I get to enjoy it at home sooner than expected.

Mark your calendar - we will hold the artist's reception on Saturday, November 14 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Elverhoj.

Finally! Some Fiberart!

Finished this piece at the last minute for entry into the Fibervision New Views 2009 show to be held at the Cabrillo Pavillion Arts Center for the month of September. Sorry for the poor photo, but I just didn't have time to set up the tripod and etc. before I had to be out the door to get the piece turned in this morning.

You might recognize the photo in the center from my earlier post about the tree that I see on my walk to work. I originally intended the piece to be hung in a vertical orientation so it more closely resembled the tree itself, but I found I liked it so much turned to the horizontal that I am keeping it that way. I'm still going to call it Arrellaga Tree!

I hope you get a chance to see the show if you are in Santa Barbara in September. And if you can, stop by the artist's reception on Wednesday, September 9th, from 5:30 - 7:30. Love to see you there.

Fabric Jewels

Here are the results of a fabric dyeing session yesterday with my friend, Linda Cassirer. We had fun and transformed a lot of yardage. I find myself a little frustrated because several of these pieces have white splotches where I used Procion Mx "Misty Gray". It just rinsed away, leaving unplanned white areas. This happened last time I used the Misty Gray, there must be some way to handle it that is different from the other colors. Anyway, these are all gorgeous in their own way. I'll post some more photos of some of the individual pieces later.

Making Changes

The art group I belong to, Fibervision, has a challenge this year. We brought tops or quilts that we were not satisfied with, traded them around and then took other people's rejects home to transform them into fabulous works of art. The piece I got was a completed top, layered with batting and a backing and partially quilted. Since I got ahold of it, it has been bleached, painted, had photos glued to it, been cut up, had fabric added to it and sewn back together. It was hard to slice into Mary Norton's nearly completed piece, but I screwed up my courage and did it.

Since we are not to reveal the results until December, I am only posting a detail here. I'm pretty satisfied so far, but there is still time to get carried away or get fabulous.

More Fabric from Dye Day

Love these fabrics! I'll put up a few each day and hope my readers love them. It is very hard to not order dyes and supplies and make new fabric everyday.

There are several things wrong with having my own dyeing supplies: First, I live in a teeny house which is already filled to the brim with my art/quilt supplies and, second, I would never make another piece of art. I would simply make fabric, fabric, and more fabric until there would only be little trails through my house amidst the towering walls of fabric. I might never find Jim again, he'd be trapped back in the computer room, so absorbed in his writing that he wouldn't even notice that the door was completely blocked. Thank goodness for friends who share and save us from this fate.

Dye Day Saturday

I don't own the supplies for hand-dyeing fabric. I'm usually content to paint fabric for the colors and textures that I want, but about two times a year I manage to wrangle an invitation to the workshop of one of my friends who do dye their own fabrics. Yesterday a group of us made a day of it at the home of Susan Italo, all 'round talented artist.

Left to right: Susan Italo, Judy Rys, Linda Cassirer, and Mary Norton. All happily playing with dyes and fabrics.Now, here's a picture of "the hard part". After we had applied dye, we had to let it batch for four hours. It just sits there. We aren't supposed to poke it or pick it up to see what's happening. We just wait. We originally had a plan to work on some self-portraits while waiting for the dye to strike, but somehow that turned into eating too much wonderful food, drinking wine, and drowsing until we roused ourselves in order to have some espresso and chocolate trifle.

I'll post a couple of pieces of the fabric I created. Somehow several of us ended up with more white areas than we wanted, but in my case, have paints, will transform white into something else.