The Hunt Continues . . .

I've looked at a lot of computers in the past couple of weeks - laptops, desktops, all in ones, both PC and Mac. It appears that I'm falling in love with a 20.5 all in one iMac (hope that is right). There are a couple of software issues holding me back . . . some of the programs won't work on a Mac, ad the other is the price of Creative Suite. I may get an emulator, so if you have any experience with an emulator, I would love to hear from you. It's difficult sharing a computer, having to use a card reader and an external hard drive all the time, but I'm getting by. My husband told the Mac salesperson that I was switching to the Dark Side, you can imagine how that went over!

My friend, Andi, spent a couple of days lecturing and teaching in Camarillo and Santa Barbara. She spent a couple of nights with us and we had a great time. Mike made a delicious beef sate for us, we drank some wine, and printed fabric the following day. Then 10 or so Fibervision members met for dinner at the Beachside Restaurant. It was a lot of fun and I should have sleep overs more often. Here is some of the fabric I printed and painted, some during her visit, some after she went home.

This was printed using a thermofax screen. After it dried, I painted it with Setacolor.
This base of this piece used deconstructed screenprinting methods with thickened dye. I really didn't like the white background and decided to jazz it up by painting the background with Setacolor. A huge improvement and now I love it.

This is screenprinted using a thermofax made of bubble wrap. I painted it with setacolor and let the sun do its magic.

This was an experiment. I machine basted lines of stitching, gathered them up and tied them off. I sprayed the fabric with water, drizzled Dye-na-flow all over and let it dry. And this is what it looks like once the stitches were removed and ironed. You can see the lines of stitches. It's interesting the way paint gathers in the hills and valleys.

UFO or WIP?

I love it when people leave a comment. It's nice to know somebody is actually reading my blog. There were several comments about (UFO's) UnFinished Objects! It seems like everyone has them . . . the difference is their attitude about them. Some refer to them as Works in Progress (WIP). To me a WIP is different than a UFO. If it's on my design board, it's a WIP. If I lose interest and it comes off my board, it's a UFO. Out of sight - out of mind. Once that happens, I'm ready to move on to something else and I have a difficult time going backwards. And that applies to everything. I can't even do a back dive or roller skate backwards! Sad but true!
Here's a photo of one of my design boards. It's the typical wall insulation covered in felt. WIP's, inspiring pieces of fabric, comics, photos & quotes are among some of the things found there. The piece in top right corner is a hand-painted piece of fabric that has lots of inspiring shapes. The bottom left is a WIP that uses a photo made into a thermofax and then printed, an abstracted photo that was printed on fabric, hand-painted fabric, deconstructed screen printed fabric and commercial fabric. Quite a mix. The bottom right is screen printed fabric that's waiting to be made into a bag. The top left is a quilt made by a friend. It's amazing how good it looks with my own work.Here's the same design board a few days later. The WIP in the bottom left has changed quite a bit, but it's still not finished.

Here are two more UFO's. Both are completely finished tops, well constructed, interesting to look at, approximately 40-45" square. Why are they unfinished? I don't know. I love circles . . . that in itself should be enough to get me to finish them. The top one is completely pieced, the bottom one is machine appliqued.

Patty Ashworth has a system that might help get these projects finished. One year she made a resolution to finish one project a month before she could start anything else. It worked for her . . . It might work for you. Anybody game?