A Good Week

Last week was a good week. Finished the layout on the ten-year-old quilt and started assembling the top (more below.)

The progress on the Kickstarter campaign, or experiment, has been gratifying - I'm halfway there and have 11 days to go. So, if you can, please use this as an opportunity to add to your stash of dyed or PFD fabrics, or schedule a one-on-one class. And if you can't, can you share the link? I'm going to use the funds for coaching to make my business better. I love what I do - the making, selling and teaching - and really want to keep doing it as long as possible. I need to do it better. Do I deserve the support I've already gotten? It has been humbling to have so many folks give me such a vote of confidence. Deserve - no, not just as a matter of begging. But the other way to look at it is as a 'sales drive' with the proceeds earmarked for this specific project. So I hope you can "shop-pledge" through Kickstarter before Friday, August 8.

My sister came to visit for a couple days (so I actually cleaned) and we went to the Quilt Odyssey show in Hershey. I took a few photos with my phone:

This quilt is made with Radiance, and the sheen is wonderful. And of course the design and execution are awesome. Margaret Soloman Gunn made this.
Also saw this quilt by Lee Ann Paylor - nice to see an online friend's work in person.

And - almost forgot! My Pythagorean Prism quilt (made of hand-dyed and commercial Radiance, and it's a reward on Kickstarter) will be part of the BAQS exhibit at Chatanooga! Here's a detail:

Thanks for looking - and sharing and clicking and re-posting!

New this week

Got the other halves of these two samples in the mail yesterday. They're for a wedding dress, or gown may be a better term. The upper set is screened, painted and stamped paint, the lower set is dye with the same techniques. In this case wash-fast acid dye; both samples are on silk organza. I love the creative ideas Kathryn and her brides come up with!

The second picture shows some of the blocks for a quilt I'm working on. Started working on these 10 years+ ago, and they finally are all done - 257 of them. I did a test drive of the layout a few months or more ago, so when I did the layout this week, it only took a couple hours to fiddle with it. You can see some paper ID tags sticking off the corners. So now I'm assembling the top - four blocks in all 16 rows are joined. And I'm chaining the whole thing, unless it gets massively unwieldy, but I know that all the blocks, rows and columns are in the correct position that way. And I'm going to quilt it on the household machine, so I'd better get used to unwieldy!

The third picture shows the detail of another piece dyed with vat dyes - first in a purple bath, then printed with thickened grey dye. You need to enlarge it to see the coppery halo around the grey printing. I like it!

Now I had another idea to try . . . once I finish housework, anyway.

All's well, and a link

Hi folks - a friend posted a nice quote on Facebook about stress. Gave me a reason to 'pull up the big girl panties.' You can see it at: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.reber.35 The skirts have been re-dyed - took about an hour, and I'll be able to iron them while I watch the ball game tonight. (See the picture below.) So all the angst in my last post is pretty well gone. Although there may be wine, not whine, with dinner tonight!
OK! Now the big news!!! Another idea we tossed around on the trip home from the West Virginia Quilt Festival (see this post: http://tinyurl.com/ojwruew) was Kickstarter. I was toying with the idea of using it to fund another class with Carol Soderlund. Then I thought more about it and decided that my money might be better spent building the business. I've been thinking about the idea of coaching for a while. So here's a link to my campaign:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1188763065/dippydyes-grows-to-be-awesome or http://kck.st/1qL1DPQ
There's a lot more information there, plus a dorky video of moi. What I hope many of you find exciting is that among the rewards is a day or days in the studio with me. So please take a look, pledge if you can, and share this and post it and tweet it and help me get the word out.
A million thanks! - Lisa

Can I whine? If you don't want to hear it - close this window!

Ever have one of those days?
I have two out of three dye custom jobs coming back because they aren't right. So they will get redone. DH might not understand.
My computer decided to have a hissy fit and took an hour to boot.
Windows (are you surprised?) backup didn't work - another wasted half hour.
Took the trash to the curb and found that the #%&^%@ groundhog has returned.
Sorting years of non-filed paperwork has pushed my stress level to the red zone.
I was going to post a picture of a steam explosion and that's beyond me today.
Got a call from the Realtor who hasn't been able to sell the mill in the past 3 years.
-------
OK, I will calm down. I know none of this is really important or even that bad, But "golly" some days . . .
http://i.imgur.com/fkrCCfd.png to see how I really feel!
Thanks for looking - whine over!

Illumination! Colored Discharge Printing with vat dyes and Formosul

The nice weather has allowed some outside discharge work. I pulled some existing fabrics out of the van to work with; I think they have been improved. All three pieces utilized screens made with house paint.
First is a piece of muslin that was dyed with turquoise, fuchsia and I think, navy, then stenciled with fabric paints. I used a screen painted on the lightest weight (25 gm) Lutradur. The design is inspired by “Big Iris, by Philip Taaffe, 1985”. If you look at the picture enlarged, you’ll see the random non-woven fibrous structure of the Lutradur.
Second is a piece of snow- dyed fabric that I printed with a screen created with bubble wrap.  Easier and more predictable than printing with the wrap itself, as well as tidier.
Third is a piece of Radiance cotton-silk sateen, dyed blue with acid dyes. The first picture shows a major learning experience. Just above and to the left of center is a dark slit that shows how silk isn’t happy with prolonged periods of high pH and high temperature, especially when followed by a normal cycle machine wash. When I do this again with silk, I will only process the fabric one time!! This one had two cycles through the pressure cooker. The last picture shows a larger view of the fabric. The blue-violet areas were screened while the black circles were directly applied. Because of the density of the circles, you can see the halo really well.
The directions from Pro Chemical that I followed are found here. They advise that it is an intermediate to advanced technique. For a simpler approximation, try deColourant. I cleaned a screen with water squeegeed through onto a floor mop-up towel. It discharged by just hanging in the sun, the way deColourant does.
As always, thanks for looking. These fabrics will be on the website soon!