Colours of the Rainbow

I spent one day dyeing all different fabrics with procion dyes  in the garden. Great place to dye fabric as I could use the hose and it didnt matter about the mess. I tried adding the soda ash later which often apparently means you get more varied colours. I packed the fabric tightly in containers a bit like tie dye without the ties. Seemed to work quite well.

Here are my two sinks filled with fabric that I was rinsing.

 I had rinsed them by colour before this. 

The finished fabrics

The fabrics in the front worked out very well as they are weave of cotton and polyester with the polyester forming windows/checks in the middle which didnt take the dye. Wish I knew where and when I bought the fabric!!!

Distillery Art Market

I had a show last weekend at the Distillery Art Market - great place to spend a weekend.
I had a cart which made set up and take down a breeze. I made a black backdrop for the cart which also cut down on the wind knocking down my vases

I have been experimenting with dyeing and oiling paper to use in textiles and have made a bowl for the Creative Festival's Designer Style Challenge. Trouble is I have spent too much time experimenting.   I now have so many ideas of what I could do. 
Here are some of my oiled paper samples - it was one good thing about the hot weather - it dried much faster

After I had written on the copy paper I then wrote on it with all different pens - then dyed it using Brusho inks then I attached dyed scrim using a matte medium.

Here is a scrimed and embroidered piece

The Hills are Alive

This is the piece I made for the Halton Youth Orchestra fundraiser. It has a black quilted background the quilt lines represent the staves of music. On top of that is an intensely free machine embroidered canvas which represents the 4 seasons in the Halton Hills. The machine embroidered layer is rolling on top of the quilted layer thereby creating a 3D effect. I had fun creating the winter scene but it was pretty hard on the eyes. Its neat though what a change in direction of the stitching can do when you are using a somewhat shiny rayon thread.

Crazy Love

This piece was created using hand dyed fabrics using snow with dye on top which as the snow melts it separates some of the dye giving a mottled appearance. If you look at the background fabric behind "The Hills are Alive" you can see what I mean as the green fabric is the flannel I dyed for my design board. Again this piece has depth as the colourful quilt layer is positioned on top of the black quilt.

Disappearing Time

I can't believe that we are in the middle of January!! So busy but not with sewing - that's not quite true did make lots of coaster sets that were special ordered and did make probably 10 pairs of leggings for my daughter and nieces - apparently very fashionable in London, England at the moment.
I'm back taking a web design course through the TDSB - which is a much better course than the one I did at OCAD.  So there is hope that I will get my website up and running by the end of the 9 weeks! I am also taking 3 different evening classes at Wise Daughters http://www.wisedaughters.com/ last night's class was the "Art of Selling" - great class and really nice people. The next couple of weeks are about using social media to sell your products- something I really need to learn about.
The concert band I play in are celebrating 5yrs and we are having a birthday bash on Feb 5th and I am in charge of coming up with a basket for the fundraiser for the saxophone section. So decided I would use my music fabric to make a bowl, coasters and serviettes. The first photo is of the stitching I did from the back - I outlined the instruments on the black white and red fabric so that they show up as red outline on the back. I will then cut out the bowl and coasters from this piece. There is a layer of polyester stiffener in between the 2 layers. I'll post photos to show the next few steps

Also going to make up some samples of possible menu covers for a restaurant - will post the photos  - at the moment the ideas are just in my head.

Here are a couple of photos of my cuffs that I finished for the show at Wychwood Art barns. There were some great artists there - especially loved the photos of one of the exhibitors- Bob Bernstein who used the reflections in the windows of skyscrapers http://www.pbase.com/bbernstein