About Me

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Michigan/Arizona, United States
I am a textile artist who loves to design fabric by painting, printing, stamping, and manipulating cloth.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Another Page

     I've been really busy the last few days helping a friend with costumes for her middle-school play, but I did finish another sketched and painted page in my journal:


This is the background printed last week with my Gelli Pad.



And the final result:  I'm not as happy with this one--I think the flowers are too large and too much of the background is covered up. 


Saturday, October 22, 2011

Journal Page and some more Mipad Covers

    I hadn't journaled for over a month and decided to add a few pages between other projects.  I got out my Gelli Pad (a commercial gelatin plate which is reusable) and prepared it for printing--acrylic paints, texture items, hand-made stamps, brayer. etc.  I also prepped pieces of white fabric, deli-paper, dryer sheets, and my journal.  Because I didn't want my journal pages to be too intense, I did a first pull using the other substrates and used my journal for the second pull--it worked pretty well  (I have lots of plans for the first pull pieces!).


     Here are the first set of journal pages in which you can you can identify the different texture used.  In the evening, I sketched over this background using a Pitt pen, and yesterday I painted my sketch using watered-down acrylics and some dimentional paints.  Really fun!!!


     It seems like I covered up most of the background, but in real life you can see through the painted flowers and find the textures. (Now to magnify the page is a two-step process:  first click on the page--it comes up on a black background; then click on the small print in the lower left-hand corner.  It should appear as before--clearly enlarged.)  I may print this pattern on fabric and use it for something.  Also yesterday, I finished up my prepared Mipad Covers:


     This cover was constructed from a piece of glue-resist fabric (fun to play with),


and another piece of glue-resist--this time open,



and finally, another cover using collaged fabric.  Done!!!



Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Finished Covers

     Yesterday I took some completed Mipad Covers into the shop and actually remembered to take pictures of them first:



made from the collaged fabric



painted and stamped using a raised wallpaper pattern



and another leafy pattern.

     I have more fabric waiting to be made onto covers, but I'll probably hold off for a while and catch up on other stuff.  Actually, I am taking a trip to Africa in November (before heading  to AZ for the winter), and I really need to spend some time getting organized for both.  I'll keep you "posted."

Monday, October 17, 2011

More Fabric

     Yesterday I worked hard finishing up the printed fabric into pieces ready to be made into covers. 


     Another one with leaves:  I  had carved a new stamp last week and used it over the entire surface.  The backing isn't very impressive--simply leftover paint drops from the "mother" fabric.



     OK.  Another green with leaves.  Hmmmmm.  This one started out with me drawing on the white surface using Elmer's blue school glue (which is water-soluble).  After letting the glue dry thoroughly, I added paint and let it dry again.  Next, I ironed the whole thing to heat set it and then washed it in the machine to remove the glue.  I like the results.  The backing is simply a wash of the same colors. 


     This one is different--collaged scraps of commercial fabric.  These are really fun and easy to create.


Sunday, October 16, 2011

Busy, Busy

    For the last several weeks, I have been painting and stamping fabric in preparation for developing a new product--something I am calling Mipad Covers. 


     The leafy green fabric on the left has been "sandwiched" and quilted, while the lighter fabric on the right  has been quilted separately onto a felt backing.  After cutting each into the correct size, they will be fused together to become a well-padded piece ready to be finished.


  And the completed cover.


     This shows the attached velcro strips which holds the flap in place (the scratchy part of the velcro is on the outside and shouldn't ever come in contact with the electronic pad).  I have about five more fabric sets to finish before taking them into the shop.  I'll be back.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

More Wine Caddies

,    After rescuing another piece of sheer floral fabric from the bin, I once again spent a lot of time free-motioning--this time with black thread.  Sounds like I'm complaining (?), but I really love the whole process.


     This shows the piece after stitching, cutting, and preparing the edges to become a wine caddie. 



     I added some dots and dashes of black dimentional paint to the flower centers and leaves for more texture (if you click on the photo, you can probably see these better). An old wine bottle helps to enhance the final result--I always display the caddies this way at the shop.


     More completed caddies.  I have one more in the works and then I'll be starting a new set of projects.  No rest for the wicked, as my mother used to say. . . .

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Playing with Old Fabric

     I was digging through a box labeled "sheer scraps" when I happened across a piece that caught my eye.



     I have no idea when or where I acquired this, but I love the flower shapes and the graceful stems flowing across the black background.


     After layering the sheer onto black "suede," batting, and backing, I free-motioned with gold metallic thread across the whole piece.  Unfortunately, the white flowers grayed a bit against the black, so I opened my new package of Lumiere minis and picked a bottle of Pearl White. (Actually, I put down a layer of plain old white craft paint on each flower before adding the Lumiere--this stopped the more expensive stuff from simply sinking into the fabric.)  After everything dried, the texture of the flowers felt like satin!  Yummy.


     And  the completed fabric became a wine caddie for the shop.  I usually try to make quite a few new and different designs of these to be ready for Christmas (more in the planning stages!). 

Monday, October 3, 2011

The Journal

     I first sketch/painted a piece of left-over gelatin print (again) using a black Sharpie and various fabric pens.  This time I selected analogous colors that would blend in with the background and not make it muddy (you can best see the original print colors in the large oak leaves).



     I really enjoy this process, especially using leaves.  Notice the sample color dots up in the upper left-hand corner--this really helped me see how the colors would work on the previously-dyed fabric.  After completing the design, I made a quilt sandwich and free-motion stitched with black thread across the whole piece.  Then I constructed the journal as usual:


The front



and the back (notice I included the color dots).  The colors of the whole piece are more intense on the actual fabric.  When I took the photo, there was a shadow on the right half and I had to lighten it with Photoshop, making the final result a bit faded.  Darn.  Oh well, I still had fun creating the design.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

And Another!!

     Are you getting bored with boxes?  I'm not--at least not yet (I did make a new journal yesterday which I'll show soon), but the boxes are still way too much fun. 


     First I constructed a piece fabric (Alisa Burke's Sew Wild again!) using torn scraps from my stash--which I don't use much anymore because I paint or dye most of what I need.  The background is old plaid shirting (yikes!) placed atop a piece of craft felt with a bunch of other bits scattered (strategically, of coarse) across the top.  After pinning everything down, I took it to my wonderful Bernina and began sewing.  That was the really exciting part--I simply started free-motion stitching (both zigzag and straight) until every edge was sewn down and every center lightly "quilted."   Love it.


     This time, for my  "collapsible" version, I used 5 individual pieces of fusible interfacing for the sides and bottom.  The photo above shows the box upside down with straps (sewn onto one side and velcroed onto the other) crisscrossing the opening.  The bottom, pictured in the foreground, will simply slip inside and sit on the straps quite securely.  By the way, the inner sides and bottom of the box are covered with a fabric posted earlier.


I also constructed a simple divider using two additional squares.

     
     And here's the final box.  The whole think can be taken apart and stored (or shipped) flat.