Experiments
Throwback Thursday: Fan-fold pleater details
I just got a nice email from a Carol Soderlund student who asked about my homemade pleater. Since this post has been languishing since 2013, now is a good time to dust it off! Here are links to my two videos showing the pleater in use: Loading the Pleater and Removing Fabric from the Pleater. …
Testing 116″ Wide Sateen
It’s always a good idea to test fabric before buying and dyeing it. I was thrilled to find a 116″ wide sateen in white at Backside Fabrics, and they kindly sent me a good-sized single swatch. You can see the results above, from left: Pimatex PFD Prewashed wide sateen Unwashed wide sateen I did a …
Happy Fall
Various pictures of the season. There’s color inspiration everywhere. The transparency samples are not an autumn colorway, but they are what I’m working with right now. I love seeing how the different backgrounds make the colors change.
True Colors Class by Carol Soderlund
Here’s my first picture from the class I took earlier this month at Pro Chemical & Dye. It shows a series of skinny quarters, each with an increasing number of layers and colors of dye. The last two have the same number of layers, but the top one was folded twice as much. Loved this …
Testing, testing
Took a photo of my upgraded methods to test for bleeding.1- fold a piece over and iron between white fabricAnd2- throw a white swatch into the hot wash to look for bleeding in the washer
What I did on my . . . sabbatical(?)
Is it a sabbatical if you don’t work in academia? Well, I spent three weeks away from home focusing on surface design, and I got to sell some fabric too. That seems to parallel the idea of a break from the normal routine to take time to study. I’ve taken single week classes before, but …
Back from the Barn!
Last week I was privileged to attend Carol Soderlund’s Neutral Territory class at Nancy Crow’s Art Barn retreats. With the work of our fabulous group of 15 artists choreographed by Carol, we came home with hundreds of samples of ways to mix three (or four) colors together. The results include a great palette of blacks, browns, greens, …
Working and loving it!
Yesterday I spent a lot of time in the studio. I’m dyeing the fabric for a whole-cloth quilt that will go into the teacher’s row at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival next month. It’s inspired by the work of Alma Thomas, and you can see a study for it in the Painterly Class sample picture below.I …
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 …