Just A quick Post

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I was a guest blogger over on the LillStreet blog again. Run over and take a quick look at: http://lillstreettextiles.blogspot.com/ .

And, just because I hate blogging without pictures here are a few spring pictures from around Chicago. Enjoy!

Painting On Silk With Thickened Dye

Just tossing up a picture of one of the many things I have been working on. I had a lot of fun creating this in class. In this picture it is still unwashed and stiff with alginate. I have since washed it out and the color is still almost as vibrant (I need to take another picture of it washed out). I have more pictures to share later (once I get the pictures uploaded from my camera). I am off to enjoy the day. It is sunny and in the 70's here today. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful!

The Sun is Back!

The sun came back out to play today. It is back to being very cool but as long as the sun is out I don't mind so much (it is spring after all). I have been making scarves this week. So far I have just been printing and dyeing scarves. I even did a couple pole wrapped shibori scarves. I haven't taken any pictures yet because they still need to be overdyed. I plan to get to that this weekend. I also really need to make some more nuno-felted scarves as my supply is really low at the moment. So I should have pictures up soon. In the meantime here is a picture of one of my kitties enjoying the sun.

"It has been a long and busy week" or "Work, 2 Classes, and a Funeral"

This has been a very long week both physically and emotionally. I was signed up for a four day workshop in Natural Dyeing running Monday through Thursday mornings this week (which was fantastic by the way, even though I missed the second day). I also had my regular class on Wednesday nights. Plus I was scheduled to work four days out of the week (various client/jobs). In amongst all this I drove up to Michigan late Monday night and attended my friends funeral on Tuesday (which was a beautiful funeral, if you don't think it odd to say such a thing. The weather was sunny and mild and the spot for her grave was near the river. I missed her memorial service on Monday night but I heard there were some beautiful readings and stories told). Then I drove myself and my sister back to Chicago Tuesday afternoon. Above is a picture of a spring flower beginning to peak it's head up from Pat's yard, a hyacinth I believe. We will miss you Pat.

Below are some pictures from the classes this week.
This picture is of a shadow print made with lace and a blank silkscreen using thickened dye:

Here is a detail photo of the same print:

This photo is of a monoprint made from a silkscreen that was painted with dye mixed with soda ash and let to dry and then pulled with alginate thickener:

I managed to get a second image printed from that same screen, it is much lighter but still quite visible:

Below are a few pictures from the Natural Dye class. I will post more at another time since I am beginning to get sleepy.

New Thickened Dye Prints

I started a 10 week class last week at LillStreet Art Center dealing with all kinds of printing with thickened dyes. The teacher is Rebecca Rinquist who I have had as a teacher before (she is fantastic!). I will Also be taking a four day Natural Dye workshop at LillStreet with Pamela Feldman. I hear she is extremely knowledgeable in her field and that she is an exceptional teacher. I am really looking forward to taking her class. Every time I have tried to take her class in the past there was always a scheduling problem (this time is no different, but I will only miss one day of her workshop, which is workable I think).

Anyway, in the first thickened dye class we worked with stamping. We stamped fabric with all kinds of things, from rubber stamps to fruit and vegetables. Of the fruits and vegetables we used there were potatoes, lemons, onions, radishes, endive, and mushrooms (I think that's it). We also carved up sponges into shapes and stamped with those. And, of course, there were rubber stamps. Rebecca also pulled out the syringes and we drew with syringes. I wish I had gotten a picture of the lab after the class was through. I don't think there was a space left on the clothes lines (and there are multiple clothes lines covering all the walls). At some point in the future we will be discharging over what we did and adding more.

So here are some pictures of the three pieces of fabric I printed. Some of them I am going to overdye before I get to the discharging phase.



And, here is a detail shot of the last photo above:


I will post regarding the Natural Dye workshop at some point in the next week. I also have to make some nuno-felted scarves in the next few days for the shop I sell at since they are actually running low, so I will post pictures of those too when I actually get to doing them. It is going to be a busy week.

Life, Death, Beginnings, Endings, & Beginning Again

An old and very good friend of my family died this morning. Pat Shafer was a friend of my mother's. Her son played with me and my sister when we were kids and he went on to become a life long friend of my sisters. Pat had a great influence on me, particularly in the last 5 to 8 years. She was a very talented artist and very supportive of me when I was trying to find my way back towards a more creative life. She was one of the people who made me think that yes, I could be an artist. That it wasn't an outlandish idea and that maybe there was room in the art world for me. She lived in a lovely old house in a small town in Michigan. Although I visited her only a few times there in the last several years they are fond memories. We kept up mostly through email and internet communities such as Facebook and Artella. She encouraged my experimentation and I am very grateful to her for that. She taught a number of classes and workshops and if I go by my experience she made a greater impact than she probably knew. She will be sorely missed. I wish her well on her new journey.

This & That

I have been sick on and off for the last couple weeks. This past weekend I was feeling fairly miserable. Today I am feeling somewhat better (knock on wood). For the most part the only thing I have really gotten accomplished is some reorganizing of my studio space (a constant job that...lol). I did wash out a scrap piece of vintage fabric that I dyed a while ago an painted recently with thickened dye. This is what it looks like now.

I am now going to embroider on it (maybe do some beading...not sure yet).

On another note this is an example of the weird weather fluctuations we have had over the last week. We went from this:

To this:

And then back to this:

The Garlic Chives do not seem the least bit upset by the snow we had on Saturday (which disappeared by Sunday evening). I suppose I should not be surprised. They are tenacious little buggers and have taken over a third of the yard over the last few years (much like the lemon balm). A good percentage of the Garlic Chives go to seed each year but I don't mind because the flowers are pretty and tasty in a salad.

Vernal Equinox

Happy Spring!
All week the weather here in Chicago has been fantastic (of which, unfortunately, the weather report says is going to change at some point in the early morning hours today). In celebration of the Vernal Equinox I am posting some pictures that I took over the past week showing sections of my back yard and of the Lake Michigan & Montrose Harbor area. I hope you enjoy this taste of early spring!

Just a Quick Post

Hi!
I am a guest blogger over at the LillStreet Textile blog again. Today I talked about my felting process briefly (with pictures). So hop over there and take a look http://lillstreettextiles.blogspot.com/ . All of the staff/monitors from the LillStreet Textile Lab will be blogging each day this week about what they are doing and/or showing their studios. It should be really interesting. And, since I hate doing a post without pictures here is a peak at my studio which is in the basement.


And, for a bit of uplifting in the spirit department (at least for those of us in the Midwestern part of the United States)...it looks like...it might be that...Spring is here (or almost)lol!

What I have been doing the last couple weeks.

So, what have I been doing? Well, just before Valentines weekend I dyed some lace and vintage textiles found at one (or a couple) of the many local thrift stores. I was in a green mood so inspired by one of my fellow LillStreet monitors I mixed up an immersion bath of a sort of chartreuse color. I like how the color came out.



Then for Valentines weekend my husband and I got away for a romantic weekend in Saugatuck, Michigan. There is a lovely antique mall just outside of Saugatuck in Douglas, and of course I just had to stop by. I went a little bit nuts. It was a vintage-textile-and-textile-supply-palooza! They have these nice people who wander through the mall who's only goal is to help you or run your stuff up to the front to be put in a numbered cubby (this place is huge - it takes at least an hour to walk through it if you are hurrying). Needless to say you don't realize how much you have actually collected till you get up to the front...lol. Anyway this was my haul (not sure what I am going to do with it all yet, but I will think of something).



I bought tatted and crocheted lace, a tatting shuttle, lots of thread on wooden spools, two bags of edging and piping, a vintage heart pin cushion, thread on a wooden spindle, a vintage wood grainer, and a vintage mirror and brush set (I wanted the mirror to use at craft shows so people can look at themselves wearing my scarves or my mother's hats - the mirror we have is way too big).

I also have picked up my silkscreened-embroidered piece again and have been working on that (you can see some of the progress I have made on it below)



The last thing I think I will show you is a rough sketch that I am thinking of adapting for an embroidered piece.



I am thinking of embroidering it against a green cloth. It is really kind of an organic image and green make me think organic. Maybe I will use one of the ones above that I have already dyed. I will have to think more on that. Right now I am thinking that I am pretty tired. I woke up fairly early this morning for no reason. I didn't have to work until the afternoon I could have slept in, but nooooo, my brain wanted to wake up and be active. My body said "hey more sleep would be good", but my brain would have none of it and just had to have things its own way. The result being a nightowl who is tired early. So, I say unto you "Goodnight".

Texture Tuesday

It is snowing here in Chicago. It has been snowing since last night and it is still snowing. It has not been a heavy snow but is has been fairly steady. We will supposedly have between 8 and 12 inches when all is said and done tomorrow (and I believe it). This was what it looked like looking out my back door earlier this afternoon:



I decided to venture out in the snow and see what the rest of the backyard looked like. I was fascinated by some of the textures I found in the snow.
Like footprints...


and curves created by opening the gate...


and water droplets dropping into the snow from the eves...


and lastly you can almost see individual snowflakes on these red berries (such a wonderful contrast)...


All this wonderful texture to think on. I wonder what tomorrow morning will bring?

Inspiration Monday

I am looking for inspiration to get my buttocks moving. I have spent most of today surfing the net and only doing a little of the organizing I planned (and so far not even a lick of art making...maybe some art gestating...maybe). So I started organizing some photos and found this one. This is the poster child of industriousness. This will be my inspiration for the rest of the evening.



Oh and just for a little contrast in photos I guess we will be getting more of this tomorrow...snow...lots of snow (though not as much as the East Coast got). Maybe the weather is what has my motivation sluggish.