Playin' 'Round

By the time I got around to blogging yesterday, we had no internet service, so I just had to go back to the sewing machine for another hour. Good old Charter! So, now I'll have to catch you up on two days worth of work...aren't you the lucky ones!!

As you may recall, I had a fabulous weekend workshop with Betsy Sterling Benjamin back in June. I have tried a few of the techniques that she taught us, but late last week I decided to draw and cut my own stencil. I had been doing some sketching while C and I were watching a movie, so I took one of the flower sketches that I really liked, and adapted it to a stencil. I had applied one layer of dye to my silk charmeuse scarf, then steamed it, and yesterday I waxed the stencil and then painted the second layer. I am quite pleased with the results. Tell me what you think:

I deliberately pictured my scarf so that you could view it open in the middle with the flower motifs joining up. Clever, eh? Actually, it's just a "happy accident"! I didn't plan it at all....but that will be our secret, ok?

Here's another view, just because I'm so smitten with this scarf:

I've also been playing around with a bit more discharging. I read Beverly's blog the other day, and she was using dishwasher gel, a la Liz Berg, so I thought I'd give that a whirl. This isn't my first piece but I'll explain a bit more below:

The fabric I was using here was another hand-dye that just wasn't going anywhere fast. I began yesterday by brayering an oak leaf across it with dishwasher gel. It was fine, but then I remembered what Gerrie was doing with the added turq dye, so I went in that direction...particularly because I love browns and blues together. Above is how it looked this evening, right after I had brayered on the turq and dishwasher gel. We'll see what happens overnight.

Below is another cell cell that I've made for a friend of mine. I just love making these and have refined the pattern a bit over the past few months.

Here's an inside view with my cell making herself at home inside her cell cell:




Last weekend when we were in Atlanta I picked up a few more Shiva paintsticks, and began fiddling around with some blues and greens on white-on-white fabric:









There are two different fabrics above: the first has a cross hatch of diamonds and the second is little doggies....can you see them? I don't have much luck making my photos enlarge, but maybe they will this time. There is also a bit of gold involved up above.


And below is the latest installment of my stars. I've been playing around too much with other things to devote much time to these stars, but they are fun and a good exercise in offset angle-piecing when I am bored...........as if!!






I'm madly in love with all of those fabrics! Isn't that purple and turq to die for?!!!

Well, please bear with me, but these guys have just come out of the dryer and then out from under the hot iron. I've got to share them with you, because I just love them! These are all done on P&B black cotton, using dishwasher gel, a brayer, and leaves from just outside of my studio door:

I also had to play around with one of my Celtic stamps:

That one looks like it's on fire, doesn't it?!!

And here, I was clearly just playin'!:

Tell me how you played today.........keep in touch with that inner child and have some fun!!!!

PEACE