Cloud Photos Challenge

Hello, quilting friends, textile tootsies and dye junkies! On the QuiltArt email list lately there has been some discussion of cloud photos, copyright free and otherwise. I thought to myself ‘Why not just send her your pictures? Nothing to be afraid of, right?’ Then I decided to go one step further and make a challenge out of it. Below are six photos I took a bit over a year ago, June 2009. My challenge to you is to create a piece of textile art, whether a quilt, complex cloth, clothing, object, vessel, weaving, whatever, inspired by these photos. Anything goes – you can print them on cloth, manipulate them any way you like, create a meditation; use stitching, beading, recycled materials – ANYTHING! And as an incentive, I will award DippyDyes gift cards to the three I judge to be the best. Nothing massive, sorry, probably $32 for first place, $24 for second, and $16 for third. And since this is all about me, the deadline is my birthday, September 7, just before I head out to a lot more shows.

More details will be forthcoming once I figure them out. These pictures are available for your personal, non-mass-market use. If you do sell, show, or otherwise profit from them, please just give me credit in the caption. If you are going to make 10,000 coffee mugs out of them, that’s another story! If you need larger, higher-resolution images, let me know.

About the clouds: I believe these are mammatus, or mammatocumulus clouds. It was fun to photograph them; the first two pictures were taken from the studio window, then I followed the group of clouds on foot; by the last picture the structure had pretty well broken up.

Polyester - not an original thinker!

Hi all - just to give credit where it is due, Lisa Grey very kindly spent time with me on the phone and by email to answer some total newbie questions. We even had scheduled a class for at least two students at her studio, when I had to back out because of the wedding of a dear friend. Still need to reschedule the class at her convenience. It was she who mentioned that the dyes could be directly applied to fabric, then heat set. It makes sense, I think anyway (remember, newbie here) if the paper controls the dye sublimation, the teflon sheets on each side of the fabric would do the same. So here's a link to her site - her work is awe-inspiring! Lisa Grey. Plus click on her class schedule links - Mendocino, CA in July.

Polyester Sunprint

Couldn’t wait to process this piece of Nu-suede. It’s my first effort at a sunprint. Looking at it critically, there are several flaws – boring, all-over placement of the leaves, a thread visible in the upper right of the detail, below, and general blurriness. Also, monochromatic doesn’t do much for it. But it’s still extremely cool and I can’t wait to do more, and do it better!

Auditioning Paintstiks

Well, I have been giving some thought to the ‘keeper’ fabric and came up with a decent way to audition Shiva Paintstiks. This illustration shows about the third iteration, and the first I like. The paint for now is temporary – I applied it to Glad Press ‘n Seal™ cling wrap - you can see it best around the top fan. Once the paint has dried thoroughly, I can remove and reposition it all I need. I like how the curvilinear shape of the fans echoes the bound spider webs. Hope you do too. I did test out some intense green, but that might be best in very small bead-sized doses. Thanks for looking!

Pleasures of Polyester

Well, my new shipment of PFD and dark fabrics arrived today from Robert Kaufman. The big ticket item is 100 yards of their 100% polyester Nu-suede fabric. It feels like a moleskin and does fray a bit. But is so very soft and luscious – it looks like a great fabric for warm blouses or else jacket/skirt/slack combos. Yes, garment sewing. Good thing my best friend taught sewing for 30 years! Here are a couple pictures of work in process and finished goods from the first 30 yard roll:

Started the first piece with an all-over pink color, then rag-rolled an 'orange creamsicle’ color over it.

The second piece shows a yard of fabric in process. It got turquoise dye (Pro-Chem’s Transperse turqouise) all over, then it was spread out on plastic (my favorite heavy vinyl from Jo-Ann’s.)  Then I sprinkled it with salt and waited for it to dry. That piece sold right away, so I did it again with a three-yard piece, which is shown in the third photograph. That shows it mid-way through the heat-press process, which is when the color changes. Transperse is Pro-Chem’s name for their disperse dyes designed for transfer printing.  The main problem with the whole process is the investment into the heat press. But everyone who handles the fabric falls in love with it – I did!

I still have more to learn, so I’d better get to it! Thanks for looking!

Can’t let this one go

Well, spent a lot of time yesterday doing discharge. That’s in the washer right now, but I wanted to post a picture of this fabric. It turned out really neat, and I’d like to do more with it. I could make a whole-cloth wall hanging out of it and it would be just cloth and stitching. Or I could add more layers of complexity in surface design, or add appliqué  - circles, probably. But I did hang it and placed some circles that are already made on it, and didn't like it. So I’m posting this here, and sending a message to the Quilting Art and ComplexCloth folks. FYI – this started out as a dark purple mixed from Turquoise & Fuchsia, and was discharged in bleach (I'm pretty sure.)

More discharge – on bamboo rayon

These fabrics came out a lot nicer than the Kona. Part of that is because the fabric is thinner, and part is because I like the more organic nature of the patterning on at least two of them. The third, while more geometric, is a whole-cloth piece that hangs together well, IMHO. All three were discharged in Thiox, which leaves a nice pale color behind; the first piece, which measures 28” x 60”, was pole-wrapped and overdyed.

The second was done with what I call 'onion bag on steroids’ followed by purple overdye and the third was folded, discharged and dyed a coral color on two edges; green on the other two. Sorry to sound vain, but I’m pleased with all of these! Thanks for looking.