Countdown to Houston

In a few days I'll be flying to Houston to attend the quilt show. Andi and I will be there for several days, so we should have plenty of time to see the whole show and all the exhibits. I will be a volunteer in the SAQA booth on Saturday from 12:00-2:00. If you're at the show, I would love to meet you.

I'm taking a one day "Beyond Piecing" class with Ann Johnston. I rarely use solid fabric and actually had to dye fabric for this class. All the colors look nice together, we'll see what happens when all those solids are put together in one piece. I brought a couple of hand dyed fabrics with lots of pattern and colors . . . just in case I'm allowed to stretch the rules a bit!

See the red case on the right side? That is what I'm using to carry all of my tools for the class. It's really lightweight and fits everything except the extra large rotary cutter and scissors. I generally keep it stocked with embroidery thread and beads so I always have a supply ready to take with me. 

When the case is opened flat, it has four separate zippered compartments. It's made by Laura Ashley and is probably meant to be a cosmetic case. I've been using this case for approximately 8 years and it's still in great condition.

I've added some hand dyed silk scarves to my Etsy shop. Click HERE if you want to see them.

Fun Things to Do in Cambria Area

Mike and I went to Cambria last weekend for the opening of Andi Perejda's exhibit at the Cambria Center for the Arts. Andi is so talented . . . she does absolutely everything from painting and dyeing to masterful hand quilting. And she's a really nice person too. If you've never seen her work, check out her website. She does a hand quilting class for Craftsy, travels around the country teaching, and she'll be doing a demo when we go to the Houston quilt show.

We never miss an opportunity to spend the weekend in Cambria, and this was no exception. The weather at the beach was extremely foggy. It didn't stop me from taking a lot of photos, but honesty, most of them didn't come out very good.

We visited many galleries and shops. There are so many talented artists in the area and there are so many beautiful items on display. This visit we happened upon a shop called Grow on Main Street. They have rare and unusual succulents and gorgeous pottery. You can see some of it below. The colors and textures are wonderful. We ended up buying three plants, two of them are mutations that I've never seen and the third is just a bit strange. If you like plants and yard art, this is a great nursery.

If your husband can't handle all the shopping and galleries, there's a place for him at the Cambria Ale House. We didn't go there, but the sign made me laugh.

 We went to San Simeon to visit the elephant seals, but it was pretty quiet. The mature bulls won't return until November or December. When they arrive, they are so loud you can barely hear yourself speak. We had dinner at Manta Rey Restaurant in San Simeon. It's our favorite restaurant in the area and eat there every time we are in town.

If you live within driving distance, it's a great weekend get away.

Fun Train Trip to Carlsbad

I'm not sure where my week went, but it flew by, just like the speeding train we took to Carlsbad. hehe I shot the photo below while speeding though Los Angeles. I set the camera speed high and the ISO high, braced myself, held my breath, and hoped for the best. You're not impressed with this photo, are you? Who would be?

I shoot 80% of my photos as a jpg and RAW. If you shoot in RAW mode and capture all the digital information, there is a lot of things you can do to reclaim the details in the photo. Here's the new and improved version. A little different, isn't it?If you don't have a camera that can shoot RAW, this before and after photo could make you think twice about a new camera! I love cameras and software and was a graphic designer for 20 years, so this is right up my alley. It's not for everyone though.Back to our trip to The Front Porch Gallery in Carlsbad. Me, Andi Perejda and Ranell Hansen spent 10 hours on the train in one day! Sherry Kleinman and Linda Miller hopped on in LA. The trip down was fun and went by quick. The first 3 hours on the way back were fun, but the last 2 were exhausting. Mary Tabar, the new So CA representative, had lunch with us and gave us a ride back to the train station. I made some new fiber friends, so it was all worth it.

The gallery was packed during the reception. Fortunately, they have a nice patio outside and it's one block from the beach, so there was a nice ocean breeze.

Sherry

Ranell

Andi and Linda

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.

The Expanded Square (Or Half Square Triangle)

Generally, Fibervision has a workshop after our business meeting. Andi led the last workshop which was based on an article in Quilting Arts by Jane Dunnewold. If you save your old issues, look in issue 27, June/July 2007. Basically, it is a study of balance between positive and negative space. You start off with a black paper square (or half square triangle), cut shapes, remove the shape, and transfer it to the opposite side of the square or half square. Sounds easy, doesn't it? It can be simple or very complicated and confusing. The two examples below are pretty straight forward, however, I designed two squares that are more complicated.

This one was cut from a half square triangle. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to develop this one into a repeated pattern before my right arm started hurting. Every time I type or use the mouse, the forearm hurts. This is the only repeat that I was able to finish. As you can see, a simple design can develop into a wonderful pattern. I love the strong graphic quality and will be doing more as soon as my arm is better. Enjoy!

Mystery Fruit

Andi and I were getting ready to have a play day with gelatin printing. Just as we were taking the gelatin out of the pan, my husband walks in with this odd looking fruit.Boy, does he know how to get our attention! What is this? Where did it come from? And, how come we've never seen one before? The exterior looks like an artichoke, and the inside looks and tastes like a kiwi. So Strange!
It's called a Dragon Fruit and it was purchased at the farmer's market. Apparently, one of the local farmers grows them here. They are expensive, but this little fruit entertained the entire household for at least 30 minutes.I had fun arranging the cross-sections into various compositions. Andi thought they looked like ladybugs. What do you see?

Could we use the rind to print with? No, it was too soft, it wouldn't survive the process. Will it release it's wonderful Fuscia dye onto fabric? Good thought, but the results were underwhelming.
We managed to pull ourselves away from this colorful experiment and continued on with the gelatin printing. More on that later.

Fibervision: New Views

I'm working hard in my studio, trying hard to meet all of my upcoming deadlines. There are so many fiber happenings coming up in the next month; it's going to be a blast!
What's this, you ask? A detail shot from my "Smoked Out" quilt that I started after the Gap Fire. I posted a rough layout here. It's completely finished and it is very colorful! I love, love, love the way it turned out. It will make it's debut at Fibervision New Views exhibit at the Cabrillo Arts Center, 1118 E. Cabrillo Blvd. in Santa Barbara.

The exhibit will hang from October 1st through October 24th. And all of you are invited to the reception on Tuesday, October 7th from 5:30 - 7:30 pm. It's going to be a fantastic show! If you can't make it to the reception, please call the gallery for their hours, 805-897-1982.

Fibervision also has an small exhibit throughout October in the display case at the Santa Barbara Main Library.

And if that's not enough, the Coastal Quilters is having their Harvest of Colors Quilt Show on October 4th and 5th. It is being held at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara. There will be over 200 quilts on exhibit ranging from traditional to art quilts. Ellen Ann Eddy is the featured artist. There will also be workshops with my good friend Andi Perejda and Joe Cunningham. Stop on by, Santa Barbara has an incredibly talented group of artists living here. The quilts are always amazing.

More Printed Fabric

Here's some printed fabric that I've been working on this week.I carved 4 different designs from an erasers. The top green and yellow piece is printed using one of the carved stamps. The bottom piece has several layers of screen prints and paint.
This is thermofax screen print. The original was a photo that I took of the ocean and then performed some Photoshop magic on it, see here.

This is also one of my photos that I converted into a thermofax screen. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with all of this yet; but I'm having fun. Here are some of the ATC's I received from fellow artists in April. It's always love to see what designs people come up with. It's such a diverse group of artists, everything from textile, assemblage, painters, knitters (you name it).

Tomorrow, we're having our Fibervision meeting at Andi Perejda's house, then the whole gang is going to the Seven Sisters Quilt Show together. I've been told there are over 300 quilts. It's going to be a lot of fun!

Thermofax Prints

My friend and artist extraordinaire, Andi Perejda, make six thermofax screens for me. I'm not sure why, but I only used one of the images from the last post. I'm going to be sending you more Andi. Anyways, I learned a few things along the way. The most important one is that heavily textural graphics do not make good screens; they are just too confusing. I had two images that didn't work out too well, one was a cactus and the other was rocks. They were so bad, I won't even show you. Another important item is the thickness of the paint; thin = bad print! The third thing is that almost anything can be saved! I also did some painting and writing, but didn't get a chance to take photos. Next Post. Here are some of the prints I made today.

Last week I had the opportunity to be a guest at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. It was fabulous! The magicians we saw were top notch and each one has their own unique style. Everything from Red Skelton style to Las Vegas showman. I am friends with the owner of the Magic Castle. Her husband is a retired Hollywood writer and she is a retired costume designer, however, they don't seem to retire well. He wrote the musical Pizzazz and she is designing 180 costumes for the musical. Pizzazz will have its world debut at the Granada Theater in Santa Barbara in June. After that, the show will be on the road for 2-3 years. I'm helping her with the finishing touches on the dresses, beaded fringe, sewing on lace, etc. The costumes are amazing, completely over the top. It's really exciting to be involved with this.

I also went whale watching on the Condor in the Santa Barbara Channel. I saw Gray whales and Humpback whales. It was a lot of fun but the ocean can really churn up your stomach. Mike and I was fine, but my daughter didn't fare too well. I never realized how difficult it is to get a good photo of a whale while your boat is rocking. I have new respect for the photographers who manage to get amazing shots.