Jan 6, 2013
2012 was filled with lots of learning curves; the final arc of some and the beginnings of others, plus lots that are ongoing.
I’m blessed with creative family and friends, and together we got a lot accomplished and have all sorts of plans for things to do in 2013, including school, art, writing and publishing. Last year a group of us took a local class and learned bead crochet. Some good friends in Houston gifted me with a kumihimo disc and bobbins when I was there and assured me it was fast and easy, and they were right!
I’d say that kumihimo with beads is at least four times faster than bead crochet, but both have different good points that mean I’ll be doing some of each in the future. I look forward to trying crochet lace using wire and beads.I like the look of my hand-dyed silk ribbons and beads in braids also. They look great with my little faces and hands, especially when combined with a bit of seed bead embroidery, a little beaded fringe…
I’m having a lot of fun trying different variations of fibers, ribbons, chain and cord and using some of the wonderful beads I’ve collected over the years with the idea of making some beautiful necklaces to display my work. You have to have samples if you want to sell components!
Crochet and kumihimo braids both make great beaded ropes for using with large focal beads and pendants—like the ones I make using polymer, ceramics, metal and my friend Mad Margie’s fused glass. The two blue and black cords shown here will go with one of her dichroic glass pendants. The black and cream spiral will probably go with a face pendant…or perhaps an etched metal hand. I have etched metal ends and clasps made from bronze and silver to use with them too. I love how things all come together, eventually.
I’ll be putting finished jewelry with dyed textiles made into wraps, and I’ll take more pics when it is done. I’ve even got plans for professional art photographer Ricardo Acevedo to do a shoot this year–but first, I have a lot of finishing up to do. I get to bring together so many different creative techniques and processes, with lots of color, pattern, and texture. What a great recipe for a happy new year!
Aug 5, 2012
Quilters, beaders, and textile artists are some of the most colorful people I know!
There will be a lot of us–and a lot of color going on–at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival coming up this August 17-18-19 in Loveland, Colorado.
Please come see me and Laura Humenik at our booth #LL and see all the hand dyed scarves, ribbons, textiles, and Spirit Doll Kits. Shown here are some three inch tall colorful babes that are hand dyed cotton with polymer clay faces attached, all ready to decorate. Now I have to finish packing them up with sequins, and dyed feathers, ribbons, fabric and other trims! The colors are all a result of our Annual Dyeing Days color marathons.
We’ll have beads, cabochons, buttons, and all sorts of beautiful, colorful wearable art, and art-parts!
Title: Rocky Mountain Quilt Festival
Location: The Ranch | 5280 Arena Circle Loveland, CO 80538 Booth #LL
Link out: Click here
Description:
Fri. August 17, 2012 10 am – 5 pm
Sat. August 18, 2012 10 am – 5 pm
Sun. August 19, 2012 10 am – 4 pm
Start Date: 2012-08-17
End Date: 2012-08-19
Jun 13, 2011
Actually, it involves LOTS of splashes and lots of colors–I think we had 43 colors this year at our Annual Dyeing Days event.
As always, it was a marathon event, spanning 10 days of mixing, dying, rinsing, washing and of course cleanup!
This year we added a pole vaulting event. That is to say, we raided the vault which is our garage full of precious stuff–like old pvc pipes–and did some shibori arashi.
This form of resist dyeing (shibori) is done around poles to create an effect that can look like rain in a storm (arashi).
Or it can look like feathers, or leaves. You can see the shibori arashi designs we did this year on garments and fabric yardage in the tiedye slideshow.
Our friends come to dye along with us at these events. Here’s Susan shown unwrapping a shibori arashi dyed shirt.
Here’s the pattern it created on the shirt.
This year as always I dyed lots of fabric–cotton jersey and kona cotton this time as well as some lovely cotton gauze. I also did lots of doll bodies, silk handkerchiefs and lace for making up more Spirit Doll kits, and this time I even did feathers. They took the dye beautifully!
Oct 11, 2009
Judith and I are the two and the show is the 37th annual International Quilt Festival in Houston Texas at the George R. Brown Convention Center, October 14-18. We’ve done this show for several years now and love it. The fabrics, tools, embellishments and beautiful work are astounding in amount and variety!
We’ll be there in booths #1848 and #1850, with Fun Polymer Clay Jewelry By Judith Skinner and Sarajane’s Polyclay Gallery. We’re bringing jewelry, beads, faces, spirit doll kits, face bags, dyed textiles, millefiore slices and cabochons, paper dolls, and of course BOOKS! We’ll even autograph ’em.
We made a vow at this show last year that we’d have all our files converted and be globally distributed through Ingram Book Company, and we got it done. Now they are available through sources like Amazon.com and PolkaDotCreations.com and of from us directly.
Learning how to best use the right software like Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator as well as Microsoft Word has taken up most of my creative time this year but now we are ready to go forward with new books, like Judith’s “The Art Of The Blend” and my two books on polymer clay masks.
I did manage to get in a few weeks of dyeing and fabric painting while on break between semesters, and it all does seem to add up, particularly when I try to pack it all into the luggage and haul it around! There are thousands of booths with an incredible variety of vintage and new items, and the explosion of color and creativity there is incredibly energizing and exciting. I’ll be sure to talk about it here in upcoming posts.
Please do come and see us at the show if you are there and say hello!
Jun 6, 2008
We’ve had rain all the first part of this week, and we needed the moisture. It is beautiful in a sunny way today, and we’re starting into the annual dyeing days! Today is prep day–I’ll be mixing dyes, and getting them into the bottles. I just ran off the sheets of labels for the plastic bottles. This year we have:
#03 Golden Yellow
#05 Soft Orange
#8A Pagoda Red
#09 Scarlet
#13 Fuchsia Red
#14A Hot Pink
#15 Amethyst
#18A UltraViolet
#19 Plum
#19A Lilac
#21 Teal Blue
#23 Cerulean Blue
#25 Turquoise
#27 Midnight Blue
#28A AquaMarine
#37 Bronze
#44 BetterBlack
#45 Jungle Red
#47 Chartreuse
#50 JadeGreen
#60 Lavender
#62 PeacockBlue
#64 Orchid
#96 Lapis
#97 Citrus Yellow
#105 Pewter
#111 Black Cherry
#112 Periwinkle
#113 GoldenBrown
#115 Eggplant
#118 Yucca
#312 Strongest Red
#510 Basic Brown
We use Procion MX series coldwater fiber reactive dyes. We’ve found that labeling the bottles after mixing them up makes it easier to tell what’s what, when you have lots of colors. We also have bagged swatches (that’s the picture at top) so that we know how the color is going to come out, mostly.
Another good tip I’ll share with you is to mix your dyes with water and then pour through a coffee filter into the bottle, that way those pesky little red or turquoise spots are not a problem.
This year I’m dyeing lots more pieces of turned wood, because I LOVE how last years batch turned out. No ribbons this year–I did a lot of them last year.
They went into the current crop of Spirit Doll Kits along with the cotton and silk fabrics, and polymer clay faces. I’m selling them on Etsy.comwhich is an on-line site presenting handmade and vintage items. I’ll be adding lots more items in the upcoming weeks as I clean out the studio and help fund upcoming shows and projects.
I’ll also be dyeing some t shirt dresses and shorts for my own summertime wardrobe, and backdrop and curtain fabric that will be used in the Aunt Acid Show. They WERE beige muslin–how drab!! They were great when I did out door shows and needed backdrops that did not compete with the displays. But for this particular show, we can take LOTS of color. I’ve been gluing mosaic set pices, and things are coming along splendidly in a visual sense. Now for another big dose of color, and we’ll be onward into the Summer of More Love…and we happen to love art and music and humor, so I’d say these good times to “Be Happening”.
Speaking of summer time fun, I’ll be teaching a week long seminar on using dyed fabrics and polymer clays to make spirit dolls, icons, and masks this summer at Tougaloo College Summer Art Colony. July in Mississippi is time for some HOT ART!!
