The Rust Bug

My husband has caught The Rust Bug! Ever since I made the first rust fabric, he has been collecting rusty items for me (or for himself if the truth be told).

A few days ago, we gathered up our growing collection of rusty tid bits, armed ourselves with our secret mixtures of Rust Energizer and got to Work.

We layered.

We spritzed.

We pondered over placement.

As he was studying over where to place each particular piece of treasure, I was itching to just throw all of it on the fabric.

His engineering brain was very methodical...

My Crazy Callie brain was running here, there and yonder.

He added one fat quarter of fabric...

I added a piece of vintage lace, a wadded up kimwipe, a bit of cotton string, a torn piece of loosely woven fabric.

He added a beautiful old gear from a meat grinder...

I added 10 rusty nails, a bolt, a washer and 5 pieces of an old bent & broken tin can.

So (and I say this with laughter in my eyes)you can see how well we work together.

Each of us appreciate and even envy the others creative spirit.

I stand back and watch him work in his exacting way,

my mind screaming,"Hey, try this! Try that!".

He moves out of my way

even as his mind is screaming "Stop!Stop!"

and, in the end both of our ways work,

very nicely I might add...

Very nicely indeed.

That must have been one of the pieces that I could no longer stand it on...I tossed a handful of rusty nails in for good measure!

If you look on the bottom left hand side of this fabric, you'll see the image of a beautiful old key. It wasn't rusty but it acted as a resist for what was under it. In the next picture, you'll see the other side of this fabric...

The key image is now in the upper left of the picture. It is shaped kinda like the key, but you would not recognize it as the same image, now would you? There must be some chemical action or reaction that causes each side of the fabric to look different. One side had the outline of the pieces that you use...while the opposite side of fabric will have the entire image appear as solid rust. Hmmm. it makes for some really interesting pieces!

Look at all the awesome shapes and colors in this piece. This is PFD fabric from Big Horn Quilts.

Vintage lace from my Grandmother's stash, kimwipe, cotton lace and a torn piece of loosely woven fabric.

Fiber Art Alliance

Last month I joined a wonderful & talented group of fiber artists in NC. Collectively they call themselves the Fiber Art Alliance Group (http://www.ashevillequiltguild.org/FAA.html) but separately the names that they are known by may be quite well known to you. I must say I am in awe of the talent, vision and focus all of these women have. The small sampling of work that I have seen in the meetings is nothing less than breath taking.

The speaker this month was Judy Simmons (http://www.focusfabricart.com/). Her topic was Ink jet Printing on Fabric.

What an awesome teacher she is! If you ever have the opportunity to go to a lecture or a workshop with this talented lady, please do so.

She was so organized and the material was so concise and understandable. And the samples that she brought! Wow! They were all organized in notebooks with the type of fabric, backing info, all the necessary info to reproduce the results right there at your fingertips.

I have asked Judy if she would mind if I posted pics on this blog and she has kindly allowed me to do so. Have a look at the quilt with the roses on it. It is named "Memory Collage I- Japanese Beetles". There is a cute story that goes along with it that I believe is on the back of the quilt. We all need to take a clue from Judy here and be sure to document all those precious memories and the details about our art. Imagine how you would feel if you had a piece of art work or a quilt from your ancestors that had all those details on them. That would be priceless.

Look closely at the beautiful background fabric.

It is all hand dyed by Judy. She told me that the background was dyed in the microwave. It was then dyed again in a different color. Also areas are over dyed and then fused to the background. She has several overlays of photos, old recipes (handwritten) on muslin and organza. She used various painting techniques, sponging included along with metallic Jacquard paint as well. All combined it tuned in to a fabulous piece of background fabric.

When I first saw it and heard the story, what came to mind was that the quilt actually looked like what a fading memory would appear in your mind. Does that make sense? Anyway, it's beautiful and has so much dimension. If you look closely at the above photo you will see the Beetles eating away at the leaves of her Grandmother's roses...those petals are sure to be next...

The next quilts is one where Judy was encouraging us to use non copyrighted images for our fiber art...like her fingerprints to be exact! This was for a challenge , involving glass I believe but she used her fingerprints for some of the images here. Isn't that the most creative thing you've heard of?

Speaking of creative, look back up at Judy's shirt. She not only made the shirt, she colored the fabric! I can't remember all the techniques but discharging and dyeing were two of them. It is so beautiful and looked to be so cool and comfortable as well.

She is teaching a workshop in August that I hope to attend. You can check out the details at the Asheville Quilt Guild web site. (http://www.http//www.ashevillequiltguild.org/). Go to the Workshop page and scroll down to August. Here is the description from the newsletter sent to me by a dear friend.

Fabric To Dye For
Students will learn the basics of low water immersion
dyeing and microwave dyeing. Using Procion MX
fiber reactive dyes and low water immersion techniques,
students will create beautiful yardage to use in
quilts and wearables. Students will also experiment
with microwave dyeing, which creates a pale mottled
fabric wonderful for backgrounds. Both techniques
are fun and easy and students will go home with beautiful
fabrics (10-15 yards) to add to their stash. Many
visuals for inspiration and many handouts given. Supply
fee ($20) includes dyes, activator, urea and synthrapol
– payable to instructor. WEAR OLD
CLOTHES. Cost: $35.

Now, for non members, it's an additional $15. But what a deal! To borrow a catch phrase from the younger generation...I am so on that list!

Now, I've included some "candid" shots of the crowd...some names are included.

This is my buddy Patsy Thompson, with the blue shirt on. Perhaps you've heard of her or seen her awesome machine quilting? You should go to her web site and check it out. (http://www.patsythompsondesigns.com/)

There's Mary Stori and Gen Grundy oohing and aahing over the notebooks of Judy's samples.

If I have time later, I'll add more. I'm so behind in things now that I probably won't though...

Have an awesome day!

Rayna Gillman

I "found" Rayna's website and blog yesterday while reading another one (Jane Davila). Wow! Have you seen her fabrics? I love them!

Look at the gallery on her website...the quilts are absolutely breath taking, especially the "Poland" series. The story there will really touch your heart.

And she has a book coming out very soon. I am going to purchase one asap.

Her web site has a place where you can receive an email when the book hits the shelf, so I sent my name in. Imagine my surprise when Rayna emailed me back! She seems like such an awesome person , I can't wait to meet her in person.

Perhaps she will do a book signing at Fiber On A Whim? She taught there 2 years ago and I'm hoping she will teach there in 2009 or 2010.

Have a look at the website http://www.studio78.net/ and her blog http://www.studio78notes.blogspot.com/.

Beautiful Dyed Fabrics

I was reading a few different blogs and found a some awesome dyed fabric pictures. Don't know if the give away is over but have a look! http://www.finnishwahine.blogspot.com/

Woodlands 1 & 2

I found pictures of the Victorian Applique wall hangings, albeit not that good. But the actual wall hangings are at My Quilt Shoppe so I can't try to obtain better shots of them.

Let me give some background on the series. They are a series of three wall hangings, all titles "The Woodlands" with each one depicting a different woodlands scene. Marie Seroskie, the designer, does a wonderful job with all of them. You can go to http://www.katielane.com/ and view all of her designs.

I loved going through all the hand dyed batiks and choosing fabrics. That was probably the most difficult thing about making them! I couldn't find any sky fabric that I liked, other than at http://www.skydyes.com/ but Micky Lawler was sold out at the time. Sooo, I did the next best thing. I purchased her book "Skydyes" and dyed my own! So all the sky fabric was hand dyed by yours truly. I had a ball doing it too! I plan on dying more fabric, possibly for sale or for use during classes.

Here is "The Woodlands 1- The Brook"

This is "The Woodlands 2 - The Fawn"

I do apoligize for the pictures, I'll try and get better ones when I get the wallhangings home.

Rust Fabric

I made some rust fabric , using Fiber Art Workshop as a guide. It was so much fun to do...my husband thought I was kinda crazy though..looking for rusty things in his shop. I have posted a few pictures of how it turned out. The 2 pictures are of the same piece , just front and back. So that's cool that you would get such different looks from the same piece. I might try to do some more , it was very simple to do. Oh, and I do recommend the above book. It's an invaluable tool to have around.