I've been wanting to try painting dyes onto some of the test squares from my kumo shibori dying ...
... so I decided to start with Setasilk. I laid the squares on pieces of paper toweling, hoping that would soak up some of the extra dye and help it from spreading too much. Seemed to work!
With this first one, I painted the Setasilk on straight from the bottle. It gave a nice, bright color, but pretty much covered up all of the indigo design below.
I used my black Sakura pen to draw in some of the lines I could barely see and to add a few extra in - I like the way this turned out!
So for the next test, I diluted the Setasilk with water - because I was only using a little bit of the dye, by the time I added a few drops of water it ended being around a 50/50 dilution.
I like how the diluted dye let the indigo show through - it might be a little too diluted though. Next I think I'll try a little less water or maybe thickened procion dyes to give a little more color punch. I definitely see possibilities with this technique, though!
Happy Creating! Deborah
Bidding on SAQA's 2012 Art Quilt Benefit Auction goes live on September 10th at 2 pm Eastern time. Even if you aren't planning on buying any of these art quilts, the website is very inspirational!
Three of my favorites are Mary Pal's Sizing Up ...
Sally Wescott's Blackbirds In Moonlight ...
and Cynthia St. Charles' Beet It.
Grab a cup of coffee or tea and spend some time looking over these great art quilts!
Happy Creating! Deborah
Last year I had so many ideas of things I wanted to make for Halloween - and ran out of time. So this year, I'm starting now! This bat garland is adjustable because it uses Velcro to hook the bats together. If you're like me and keep changing where you hang garlands, this can come in handy!
Materials:
*black, purple, pink, and white felt
*black Velcro
*a small amount of fiberfill
*googly eyes
*felt glue
*black and silver sewing thread
*patterns found here
1. Cut out two bats, one nose, and one tummy for each bat. Using the white felt, cut out two triangles per bat for teeth. Using a small amount of fiberfill, put fiberfill underneath the tummy and pin as shown on one of the bat pieces.
2. Sew around the edges of the tummy.
3. Pin bat front to bat back, pinning through each point, as below.
4. Sew around the outside, pivoting at the points.
5. Glue googly eyes, nose, and teeth as shown below.
6. When glue is dry, use silver threat to sew lines in the wings, going over each wing twice.
7. Turn bat over so that the wrong side is up. Glue or sew two pieces of Velcro as shown below - I used white only as an example so it would show up, but black looks better.
8. Hook Velcro on one bat's wings together and put the next bat's tab through, hooking the Velcro so they are "holding hands."
9. Continue linking bats together until the garland is the length you want. I have five, but I think I need more bats!
Happy Creating! Deborah
I brought this gorgeous blue canning jar home from my late mother- and father-in-law's house just recently. I don't know if it colored because of age or if it was made that way, but it's beautiful either way! So it inspired me to do some sketching and the sketching led to some fabric stamping ... I have a more detailed past post on stamping on fabric that goes into depth on carving a stamping block that you might want to take a look at if you haven't tried it before.
Materials:
*dish towels - I made mine from 19 x 27 inch rectangles of good quality muslin. I ironed each end under 1/4 inch, turned this edge under again and sewed in place. See this past post on mitering. corners.
*carving material, such as Safety-Kut
*Sharpie
*printing ink - I use either Jacquard or Speedball
*brayer
*printing plate
*pattern found here
1. Print off pattern and go over each line with a pencil - press fairly hard to deposit lots of graphite.
2. Lay the pattern upside down on top of the carving material and rub hard with a ruler or scissors handle. Lift a little bit of the pattern up to check and see if it's transferred before you take the pattern off.
3. On the carving material, go over your transferred lines with a thick Sharpie.
4. Begin carving all the white area of your carving material away. I like to carve around each black line and then start removing the material between the lines.
5. When you have the inside of the jar carved away, take a sharp pair of scissors and cut most of the extra carving material away.
6. This is what it will look like when you're done.
7. Do a test print with a regular stamp pad onto a piece of paper. This will show you whether or not you have more to carve away - those extra black lines on your print are also black on your stamp, making them easy to see and get rid of. I think leaving a few of them gives the print a nice carved look, but it's a matter of personal opinion!
8. Gather your printing materials and a piece of scrap fabric, ...
9. ... put a small dollop of printing ink on the printing plate and roll the brayer over it until a thin layer of ink is on the brayer. Roll the inked brayer over your stamp - use toothpicks to take out any ink that gets into the space between lines.
10. Make a test print on a piece of scrap fabric - put the stamp down in one motion to prevent smearing. Press firmly a few times.
11. When you lift the stamp up, do it quickly and in one motion so you don't get extra ink on your fabric. Here's one of my towels - I did a quick dip in indigo before printing to give it a nice light blue color. Edit: I forgot to tell you to heat set the printing ink by ironing on the back for about a minute - put a scrap cloth between the towel and your ironing board if you don't want to risk a slight shadow print on your ironing board cover!
Happy Creating! Deborah
