A new book

I preordered this from the Book Depository and it arrived this morning. I haven't even flipped through it yet, I am waiting till I have a bit of uninterrupted time (diarrhea today, yuck!).

I was fortunate to do a 5 day workshop with Jane at FibresWest at Bunbury in 2008 and learned so much about surface design. I have had her first book, Complex Cloth, since 1997 and it has been probably the most used textile book I own - and I own lots.

So I am looking forward to this one.

Tool Making

FibresWest Bunbury: LOVED this part of the workshop I did with Jane Dunnewold. Since I returned I have been making lots of stencils and stamps.

What I need to do is USE THEM.

I am looking at this scarf. I think the centre bit can be left for a while, but the end pockets need at least a couple of processes added.






Please crawl out of the woodwork and add your comments.

An unexpected gift

Isn't this lovely? It was a great idea to include some of the bits used to make it.

Linda sent it to me as thanks for driving her back from Bunbury after Fibres West. I really didn't expect anything because I was glad for the company - I would have had to drive alone otherwise.

It was wrapped in lovely handprinted paper and accompanied by a silk scarf blank. I now need to put some of the techniques I learned in Jane's class to work. Sneaky bit of motivation there. Thanks, Linda.

I again spent the afternoon gallery sitting. It is interesting to watch people's reactions. They vary from the quick scan of the entire galley in order to identify a couple of pieces for a brief examination to the absorbed study of almost every item on display.

Almost all the comments have been positive which is very pleasing. And the red dots are still coming.

Exhibition

I have been very quiet on the blogging front, but have actually produced something. I have been working on my pieces for the Designing Women exhibition which starts on November 12 at the Atwell Gallery on Canning Highway, Alfred Cove.

Each member has to have at least one item in the exhibition (it's in our constitution) and the maximum is five. So far I have my nuno felted scarf for the group display and two pieces that I made during the year for other exhibitions. In the past few days I have completed a 3D piece and have almost constructed a bag. Five pieces done!

I finally played Jane's Improvisational Screen Printing DVD which I bought from her at Bunbury and am newly inspired. Once I finish everything for the exhibition, I plan to get into it. There is a bag of soy wax waiting and Kevin bought a new electric frypan last weekend. The old one can now migrate to the wet studio (aka storeroom). I dug out a bunch of hand dyed fat quarters that beg to be overdyed and/or stencilled, discharged and printed. Time - I need more time.

Avoidance Tactics

I still have not printed my silkscreen (mentioned in the last post), nor have I done anything with my dyed and overdyed fabric pieces from the workshop. These are mostly silk, but there are a couple of bits of rayon. I like them so much I am hesitant to do anything to change them - I think they may be what Jane called "New Boyfriends"!

I have been carving more erasers and making more stencils. I have really enjoyed the "toolmaking" aspect of the course. I am embarrassed at how many other (purchased and unused) tools I was able to find when I went searching.

I need to bite the bullet and start production.

Here are a couple of the swatches I made that were in the display on the final afternoon.


This is black fabric that was stencilled (badly) with yellow opaque fabric paint. The back looked better than the front, so I used sequin waste and stencilled with bleach. After stabilising the bleach (NO vinegar! Lots of water and rinsing) I used the same leaf stencil with a greeny bronze (a colour I mixed) metallic paint. I am pretty happy with the result.


Here are some other pieces. All have been dyed and overdyed, then printed and stencilled. Not sure what has happened with the colour - they all have a distinct greenish cast on my monitor.

Kevin and I are baby sitting my brother in law (who has Parkinson's) for the next couple of days while my sister has surgery on her knee. I am not sure whether I will be able to post.

Following up on Complex Cloth

One of the techniques that Jane demonstrated was using a flour paste, both on fabric and on silk screens. Linda has printed her screen - I am still to do so. But I have a photo of the sample where we squeegeed the flour paste onto fabric, drew into it, let it dry and then painted it with a thin black paint. This is one of my samples - I love it!


I have carved some more erasers and today I printed all of them on a dyed piece of fabric that I loathed. I also did a positive/negative print of an earring that I bought at the $2 shop.

Maybe I'll be brave enough to screen print tomorrow.

I'm Back!

I had a great time, made lots of new friends, didn't have to cook, discovered some fabulous textile tricks and techniques, took lots of photos which I will need to sift through . . . .

The Bunbury Forum was very well organised. I had never been to a residential one before - I certainly plan to go to the next one. There was so much happening that I missed a lot that I shouldn't have, but I found it difficult to stop working on the pieces Jane Dunnewold was helping us to develop to go to a talk. I certainly didn't miss the newspaper or TV. There was computer access - I never found the time to use it.

I have unpacked, done three loads of washing, flipped through the last week's papers (YUK! those headlines!) downloaded my photos and read some of my emails. Kevin cooked dinner - he deserves a medal.

More tomorrow.