Parfait dyeing

I have just tried parfait dyeing for the first time.  I bought a gallon jar at the thrift store and it is just the right size for a three layer dye pot. I used Procion dyes and followed the instructions from Carol Ludington's article in quilting Arts June/July 2012.  Here are the results.

For the top layer the dyes used were Bright Yellow and Brick.  Nothing else.  I can only believe that the darker areas came from the splitting of the Brick dye.

The middle layer had some Burgundy and Blue  dye, but some of the yellow came through as well.

Here is the bottom layer

This third layer has Fuschia and Medium Blue, with far less of the Yellow coming through.  This is my favourite piece and the first one I plan to use.  I had included a close-up of some of the more interesting areas.

The same day I also did a piece of low water immersion (LWI)dyeing, that I am quite pleased with.  I used Purple and Bright Scarlet dye, and this is what I got. Go figure!  The background doesn't show well but is a pale peach (lovely!)This is absolutely gorgeous fabric and I'm already planning a very special project with it.

These parfait colours are really "in your face", and I find this limits the design possibilities. The results are so "busy" that I'll have to use them in small amounts, or mute  some way.  Having said that, my mind is moving toward three dimensional work.  Maybe an animal like a turtle--with beading, of course.
But, overall, I think that LWI will remain my primary dyeing process.However, I think I would much rather use Parfait dyeing than snow dyeing--far less work!

New work??

I will be having a gallery show for 3 weeks this coming December.  I know this is not the best time to be in a gallery, but, they had a cancellation, and  I take what I can get.  So now I have to start planning what will be shown.  I've pretty well decided to show mainly work that has never before been publicly exhibited.  I may have done a lot, but I certainly aren't well-known enough to have a retrospective show.  It has been suggested that I choose 4-5 larger, focal pieces and then fill in around them with smaller, less price-y art.

For the last two days, DH and I have been sorting through the many boxes, trunks and chest just sorting out in our minds what is actually there.  We also took the opportunity to cull a few things.  I had to sit down with myself and really admit that there are many techniques I can no longer do successfully, and this means that there are supplies that are no longer useful.  The process was heart-wrenching, but we got through a fair bit, and this meant a trip to the local thrift store.  I also have packages to take into local charities where they might be more useful than around here.

As well, I found a few unfinished pieces that might work very well in the show with a bit of finishing and mounting/framing.  I have a couple of ideas for new pieces, and with finishing the UFO's, I should be able to keep myself well busy for the next few months.  Now I just have to find the discipline to get down to it!  LOL

Need a little help from my friends

I have a piece that is causing me some concern.  This was on my design wall for a few weeks, and I gave a fair bit of thought to what I wanted in the finished image, although I never had a clear picture in my mind.  So I 'bit the bullet" and started working. ( I know many people just start and modify and change their ideas as the work progresses, but I've usually had some fairly definite idea before starting, even if I do actually change it a fair bit as I go)  In this case I didn't even use a pattern, but rather just cut "by the seat of my pants."

Whoop!  Bang!  Less than two days, and it was pretty well done.  I may add some tiny silver beads at the tip of the grasses, and it has yet to be bound, but here it is. The background is vertically pieced strips of white, silk, cotton and polyester satin.  It was completely quilted before  it was very lightly painted with grey. Then grasses and the mist were fused in layers, before raw edge machine stitched.

My concern is that it was too easy.  It just came and now sits there. My work is usually far more complex and far more colourful.  This is grey,white and a tiny bit of grey/green in the grasses.  I almost feel that it is a bit of a "sellout", as I feel it is very marketable,but is it really  done from my soul.

Please, please--comments and suggestions.  The most basic question--is this good enough for exhibition?

                                                          Marsh in the Mist

Life's transitions

I have mentioned that my hands will no longer support any degree of hand stitching.  I've been doing less of that for a few years now, and I can see a real deterioration in my skill with a needle.  Needle work has been a major part of my life for almost 60 years, but within the last couple of weeks, I've had to face the end of using a needle in my hand.  This has been coming for over twenty years, but I never thought it would actually arrive.  There have been a couple of times in the past, when I've faced a major transition in  my life.  One that springs to mind is the day I had to surrender my professional license and retire for good, another was the day I found out I was pregnant with my first child.  Not necessarily sad times, but definitely times of change and adaptation.

As I did then, I did today.  A formal ceremony of doing away with the old life and taking a look at the new.  With my retirement, it was a matter of shredding all of my notes and papers ( even the old Roladex) pertaining to my professional life, and taking all of my test books and professional books to a thrift store. ( I did keep a couple of professional journals in which I was cited or published)  Today, I sorted through all of my fibre art related magazines, and literally threw out most of those that related to hand stitching. Embroidery Canada is gone.  Needle Pulling Thread is gone.  My recycle bin is full.  I have empty shelf space to fill with new interests.

As in the past, I find that I'm not sad, but rather relieved, as though a weight has been lifted.  It actually feels good.

what I've really been up to

The past few months I've been talking a bit about the whitework that I've been doing by machine.  I have spent a lot of time looking at the work of Cindy Needham, Diane Gaudynski and Leah Day, and I've been doing a lot of practicing.  For the most part, "whitework" is a bit of a misnomer,as most of my work has been on hand-dyed or coloured fabric.  I've even taught a couple of classes in using the filling stitches,and should soon have another class on focal images such as feathers and paisleys. The following are all my original designs. Please respect that, and don't copy.

The first piece was done on pale green, low water immersion dyed cotton, with #50  cotton thread.  Unfortunately there wasn't as much value contrast as I would have liked, so some areas have been augmented with Lumiere paint.  The interior of the paisleys has been beaded.  It was a friend's comment that the paisleys looked like Carp that lead me to make the School Days piece that has been previously posted.

The next piece is a little harder to see, as it is white on white.  It is about 36 inches square, and I learned many,many things making it. Never use a square-drawn grid design as filler at the edge of the piece. You will never get everything absolutely square-never! And when it is off square, it shows.  Don't make your focal areas, and in this case they are hearts, too complicated or fussy. they will just get lost in the background. Otherwise, I was very pleased with my ability to pull this off,considering that it is the first larger piece I have made in years.  Learned something about quilting larger pieces too. This is done with #60 white cotton thread on cotton muslin.

The next piece is my favourite, and not yet finished.  It is also about 36"by 36", and is done on hand-dyed, and painted cotton Damask with #100 silk thread ( Superior Kimono Silk)  I have posted before about the difficulties quilting on cotton Damask, and this almost drove me crazy. The actual quilting is very hard to see, except where I have traveled on a previously quilted line. In some places I have done it purposely, to show an area better.  I am trying to bead areas of this, and in one picture there is a clear image of how the actual quilting stands out better where some of the beading has been done, and the lower area not yet beaded.  It is my intention to bead the entire area of 3/4" grided quilting, but I find I can only work on it for about 20 minutes before the hands give up. I have mounted the piece in an 18" frame, and then I place this over an open area between the support of two tables.  In this way I can work with two hands, and not worry about trying to hold the weight of both the quilt and the frame.

The final piece is more experimental.  I was trying to create a more formal piece, firstly with the possibility of a show entry,(not going to happen!) and also to experiment with machine trapunto.  The machine trapunto worked very well. I really like the effect, and plan to use it frequently in future.  But when I hung it beside the three previous pieces, it looked too formal.  It had no life--no movement!  Lesson learned--I must remember to invest some emotion into my designs.  This is about 25" square, and worked on cotton with rayon machine embroidery thread for the Feather Tree, and Superior BottomLine for the background.

Transitions

I haven't been able to settle to any serious work in the studio.  The problem is within me, and I'm not sure why.  There are pieces lined up, waiting attention, and I have to get down to some serious planning for the  sale in July. But my hands are less and less capable of the hand finishing, and I'm being forced to realize that I am facing the end of my ability to complete any more hand finishing.  Once before, about 20 years ago, I was forced to give up hand quilting.  At that point machine quilting was just becoming acceptable, and with a lot of practice, I was able to make a transition, but the hand finishing has always been essential for exhibition or judged work.  But now even the beading is no longer possible, certainly not to the extent that it's been used in the past.  Even the smallest amount requires adapted methods and equipment.

 I think that I had realized this to a level, in my sub-conscious, and only in the last day or so, have I been able to acknowledge it to myself, and actually speak of it.  I've been a little "teary" lately, and wonder if this is what was behind it.

So now I must give myself time to re-evaluate what I'm doing, and engage in some task analysis.  This means developing different criteria for what needs to be done.  Then I must develop different methods of doing the essentials, such a stitching on bindings.  I will also need to re-evaluate my value system, and either figure out which of my personal standards are really valid in today's fibre world, and which are important only to me, and therefore subject to change.  But I worry that all the task analysis and work simplification I 'm capable of won't tell me how to sew on 1000 seed beads by hand.

Good news!

Both of the pieces I spoke about in the last post have been accepted into the 2013 Fibrescapes show, opening in Penticton in late May.  Yay!!

The revised class went very well in Neepawa, and there was strong support for the second day  to incorporate feathers.  So my time is being spent working on an outline and samples for that.  I am enjoying my time practicing these skills and drafting patterns to practice on.  Overall, I don't know if I'm going to worry about being asked to teach this, and maybe that is the best way to approach it.  Do what I want, and find pleasure in doing it.

One thing that is being re-considered is the use of cotton Damask for this.  To do so, I have to remove hems etc, and over dye the fabric.  When there is nothing holding the construction and weave of the fabric, it becomes very difficult to work with. As well, the thread used to do the machine quilting tends to melt into the fibres and becomes almost invisible. the beautiful quilting designs just disappear. The fabric works well as long as the hems aren't removed, so future efforts will probably be with recycled napkins rather than tablecloths,