Painting Fun

This afternoon I was preparing for a demo I'll teach at the Asheville Quilt Guild Show on Saturday, August 8 at 1:00. The quilt show runs all weekend and our Fiber Arts Alliance group has volunteered to be in charge of demos during the show. Join us!


My demo is about changing fabrics to suit our needs, especially black and white fabrics.

I used watered-down ProFab textile paint to paint over the dry black & white fabric to the left. The white & purple piece in the center was wet first to allow the paint to spread.

These pieces were all painted very easily to change their look.




These were the diluted paint pieces, some dipped and some painted on.





This was my favorite piece of the day, and it was the only one I hadn't planned to do. This highly diluted Lumiere paint was dropped from a fine tipped bottle in an unplanned pattern of drops. As the drops spread, the luminescent pieces in the paint stayed in the center and the paint spread in a ring around it. For this color, I used a combination of small amounts of Lumiere #571 Pearl Turquoise and #556 Halo Blue-Gold and enough water to make it very thin (like a wash). The resulting color is a perfect match to a lovely Surf & Sand fabric by Michele D'Amore!

Direct Dye Practice

This week I played a little with direct dye; the application of dye with the fixative added so that the dye sets immediately to the fabric. This time I used dry fabric, foam stamps, and a foam brush to apply the dye to the stamps.

Dry fabric gives the stamp image crisp edges. This is the finished piece just before dyeing it again. And next is the piece (still wet) after over-dyeing with sage colored dye.

Would you have guessed that the yellow would remain when over-dyed? It was a surprise to me!

Here's one of my practice machine quilting pieces. The stitches are becoming more regular, finally. I love the pussy willow design at the top of the piece, and above that is a small sample of using Fabrico Markers to fill in color after quilting.

Ah, Finally!

At last I was able to do some dyeing last night and this morning...the first studio work since foot surgery. I had some dyes in the fridge that were weeks old but needed to be used, so I attacked my "undesirables" fabric box for some over-dyeing.

This box holds fabrics that I don't like, colors that I don't use, and leftovers from assorted projects that I want to over-dye. It has become quite a heap!

The greens were part of last night's batch...

...and the purples and browns were dyed this morning. Now I'm pooped, but it was worth it!

Happenings

The Grayson Quilt Guild welcomed me Monday evening for my "Green Ideas for the Studio" program. The ladies were wonderfully friendly, helpful and had a great apron show-n-tell. Sorry, I forgot to take photos. Thank you ladies!

Tomorrow is a special day...my first son's 26th Birthday. Happy Birthday, Darrell!

Heads Up

Okay, this post is not in the realm of fiber arts, but it may be important for some of you.

We have a very good friend in the car industry who knows we have been looking for a larger vehicle and plan to buy later this year. This week he told my husband that the auto industry is "bleeding" like he has never seen it before and that right now (and maybe not for more than a few weeks) all car dealers are trying to "move" inventory, with or without profit, to help their market.

Here's our first-hand proof of his suggestion:

Last year we went to Honda to look at the base model CRV's. They offered us $7,000 for our 2-year-old well-equipped Toyota and $500 off the sticker price on the car.

Yesterday we went back to Honda, with Kelley Blue book value in hand (http://www.kbb.com/, type in your car's information and print off the trade-in value) and this was the offer we got:
$9,500 for our 3-year old Toyota, which is the exact trade-in value from Kelley Blue Book, and $2,000 off the sticker price of the BASE model Honda!

If you have ever bought a new Honda before (we have owned 6) then you know that they never offer full value for a trade-in and never offer that much of a discount on a base model.

Hint: If you need a new car, now is the time to buy...but be prepared and know your prices with KBB value in hand.

OPP's

Another post with OPP's (other people's projects). I'll have one soon with my own work, but for now post-surgery pain still interferes with my normally clear head.

The Cotton Patch Quilt Guild had it's monthly meeting on Tuesday where my friend Frances Arnold displayed her beautiful sunflower quilt. I believe it's called Sunflowers in Rust.

It's even more beautiful in person. Here's a close-up...

Frances went over the quilting of the flowers and leaves several times and did some trapunto which give the piece a 3-D look. I'm happy to say that my husband Bill did the rust-dyeing on this fabric, which looked beautiful to start, but Frances truly brought it to life.

Suzanne R. made this contemporary circle quilt following a class I taught, but she has gone a step or two further in background design and layout. The fabrics come from an authentic African skirt and some pieces that Suzanne painted or dyed herself.

Sugar Bee

Our 2nd and 4th Monday quilting bee is still looking for a name, but I call it the Sugar Bee because my friend Bobbie invited me into the bee. Bobbie is famous for her lovely personality and for calling everyone Sugar (shugah in her Georgia accent).

Anyway the Sugar Bee met yesterday at Amanda's quilting barn. Here are a couple of the pieces the ladies were working on...

This is Judy C.'s quilt which was made using only ONE fabric! Isn't it beautiful? Even the yellow border came from that one fabric. She got the pattern from the book One-Derful 1 Fabric Quilts by Kay Nickols.




Dottie and Lois were hovering over this piece all morning. It is Dottie's piece and Lois was helping her to choose new items to add to it. Lovely!

Asian Tile Quilt

In April I finished the top to this Asian Tile Quilt, and in May I used it as a sample in some demos I taught at Georgia Sewing & Quilting in Buford, GA. While there, the Handi-Quilter Representative, Jeanne Bergeron, was there also doing demos and asked if she could quilt this quilt top for me. Well, of course I said yes!

Jeanne and her Handi-Quilter Prostitcher quilted this traditional Asian all-over pattern. Isn't it beautiful! I'm just finishing up the binding.

Today

Not much happening in the studio lately because of surgery recovery, but I have been spending each morning outside watching the birds and checking out the gardens. Did you know that bumblebees sleep on some of the flowers they visit?

Yesterday I counted at least 14 sleeping bumblebees on this chaste tree at 6:30am. Other bees seem to come and awaken them as the morning goes on.

The Quilt

Back by request, this is the quilt I made using the photo of my son on an Afghanistan mountain top. Sadly, we found out this week that he's headed back to that war zone again later this year.

To Freedom

Thanks to all of our troops and their families...let freedom ring, and not just for Americans, but for us all.