SUPER RETREAT!

What a weekend! Dawn, Terry, Ellen and I had three FULL days of fabric dyeing and creating. It was amazing!

My three friends (connected through Quadra's Quilt Guild and Cyber Fibre's quilt journal group) boated over to Refuge on Saturday morning, hauled their gear up the hill and got right to work. Each found their spot in my makeshift studio (once woodshed) and began producing amazing pieces of dyed and designed fabrics.

Here's a list of what we did:
deconstructive screening

stamp making and stamping

flag fold dyeing
monets
moon dyes
snowflake/star folds

shibori/bottle wraps

starbursts
cheese cloth prints
fish net prints
found object prints
wheat paste prints
crossover dyeing

stitched shibori prints
overdyeing
filter wraps

discharging with decolorant and bleach product
thickened dye painting
credit card smears
Shiva paint stick rubbings

PLUS, we shared great meals, stories and ideas. What a great weekend! AND I have over 5 meters of beautiful fabric to create with! Thanks friends for such a good time together. Can't wait until next year!

MAKING STAMPS

Earlier this month we had visitors Christine, Rick, Kathe and Mike come to Refuge Cove to enjoy some time with us. What a treat!

And, we gals made some time for some creative fun. The remnants of our pond liner (thick, heavy duty rubber) became the medium for creating stamps. Add cedar blocks, scissors and waterproof glue, along with some imagination, and we were good to go.

These are wonderful little stamps. The rubber lays down well and the glue secures all edges. Get them wet with thickened dye, then wash them, and they are good as new.

Last week I made up some print paste with some OLD purple dye and proceeded to fill up some fabric. Yesterday I added some background color.

This stamp is made from a styrofoam meat tray that was just waiting for a design. I used a pen to scratch it out.

Thanks Christine and Kathe for a great time together! I'll be making some more of these stamps soon!

SHADOW AND LIGHT

Fellow Cyber Fibre member, Barb, provided us with the theme of "shadow and light" to represent in one or more of our 2012 journal quilts.
I cringed when I heard the theme, as I instantly felt pressure to be artistic.But I figured out how to get out of this one easy.

Many hand-dyes appear to have shadow and light elements going on in them, particularly when using the "parfait" method (color #1 then soda ash, color#2 then soda ash, etc.) In this case, I froze my dyes and soda ash into ice cubes and let them melt together, producing some interesting effects.
I picked out 2 of the 12+ that I produced last month (see earlier blogpost). I liked the light elements going through them, along with the darkened areas as contrast. I prepared them into  a quilted sandwich and told myself I would get back to them after my summer company left.

First stage of summer company left Sunday and I couldn't wait to sit down and sew. This was especially so because I ran into Terry on Sunday on Quadra then later that night received her journal quilt :Finding Perfection in the Imperdection"...I was super inspired and excited to sit down Monday for 2-3 hours and just play with free motion on these. I started with the brighter one first, then proceeded to the muted one. There's so much to consider...not just the pattern, but the thread color and its contrast or blending with the background. I tried not to overhink this, but rather I just had fun with it.
Shown here are befores and afters.