Mini "Quilt Camp"

If you've followed our blog for any length of time, you know that Elizabeth and Sue usually get together in New Hampshire in the summer for "quilt camp".  This is not an actual "camp", just us having play time at Elizabeth's summer house on Lake Winnipesaukee. Unfortunately circumstances haven't allowed for us to have quilt camp this summer, but since Elizabeth is back in VA for a few weeks for a medical procedure, we managed to get together for a play day.  Both of us have been experimenting with cyanotype printing (also known as blueprints) - this is a form of sun printing in which specially treated fabric turns blue when exposed to the sun.  Natural objects are most often used as resists to block the UV rays and create the print. If you follow us on Facebook or Instagram, you'll see lots of pictures like this one.

Another product that is supposed to work similarly to cyanotype is called Solar Fast by Jacquard.  There are various colors that are painted onto the fabric, and as with cyanotype, something that blocks the UV rays creates the print.  Sue had some leftover product and decided to see if it would still work.  In addition to natural objects, you can use transparencies of images to create prints, so she decided to try transparencies of some of our screen printing images.

Above are the Jacquard Solar Fast film product and the printed images Sue used.

This is the "before" photo - the 2 pieces that look yellow are painted with teal colored solar fast, and the pinkish one is painted with violet.  The black images are the transparencies.

This is what they looked like after exposure to the sun.  They were outside for about 45 minutes; the recommended time was 10-20 minutes. However the results were less than inspiring.

Not sure if the product was too old, exposure wasn't long enough, sun not bright enough?  Lots of variables.  Perhaps buying fresh product would help answer the question.  At any rate, we did try transparencies with cyanotype fabric and that did work so the transparency was not the problem.

Sue wanted to do some low water immersion dyeing so set up these 6 jars with the primary and secondary colors.  More to come on those results.

Back to cyanotype printing.  These are the same transparencies from the solar fast on cyanotype pre-treated fabric.  The top is Jacquard fabric and the bottom is from Blueprints.  This photo was taken after exposure, before rinsing.  The image is a little hard to see, especially the bottom so you might have to enlarge. After rinsing, the results are quite different.

This is one of our crackle screen images, and was done with a dry process. (We have been experimenting with wet cyanotype too.) Much better results than the solar fast.

Surprise, this piece turned out to be green!  It was hard to tell what color it was before exposure.

This treble clef was a card stock cut out that did a good job of blocking the UV rays.

Between the fabric and ginkgo leaves was a small piece of cheesecloth.  Since the threads are so fine, it didn't make a real noticeable print except where the edges were a little thicker.  Oh well, it's a matter of figuring out what works and what doesn't.

Finally, an attempt at sun printing with paint, trying Artistic Artifacts paints to see if they would work.  The results were not as good as we hoped, but worth another try. The fabric should have been wet before applying the paint, so perhaps that would have made a difference.

The print is kind of vague, so we decided enhancing the edges would "fix" it.

A gold sharpie was used to outline the edges. 

Stay tuned for more on the dyed fabrics.

QC6 Day 22

July 21, 2014
My time at quilt camp is finally winding down.  My husband arrived today, so I will be departing in a few more days.  As I said yesterday, I'm trying to squeeze a few more things in before I go.  We had some errands to do in Wolfeboro this morning, so again a not very productive day in the studio.  However the reason for the errands was to go to the library to make prints for screens and the post office to mail some orders, so that part of the day was productive.  We have had 12 orders through our Etsy shop over the last 3 weeks - the most ever in that amount of time so PGFiber2Art has definitely been productive!  We've also added 8 new screens to the shop these last 3 weeks and also screened tote bags.  Check us out at the link above.

What I did get done in the studio was to rinse out the 2 indigo pieces from yesterday.  I'm satisfied with the results, especially the scarf, which really didn't take much dye on the first go-round.  The green piece will probably have some more surface design added.

I also put some more pieces in dye for another "experiment".  We have some instructions for dyeing with a "suede" finish, so decided to do a comparison between the "suede" ingredients and standard ingredients.  Here are the 2 dye pots of plum waiting till wash out tomorrow.

Elizabeth did some quick printing this evening making "cloud" fabric.  And I burned some more screens today that are ready for taping.

QC6 Day 13

July 12, 2014
Today was another partial "outing" day, but I did get a few things done.  I'll start with some pictures of yesterday's wash-outs that were laundered this morning. This is the set of 10 napkins dyed red.  I'm thinking of these for Christmas, and made print a holiday motif in the corner above the lace, but those screens are at home so that's it on this piece for now.

On Day 11 I made a small log cabin collage in neutral fabrics to try a process by Anna Buzzalino called Quilting and Dyeing Serendipity (Quilting Arts video).  The work is pieced and quilted using a variety of fabrics before dyeing, so you're not quite sure what you will get.  Different fabrics react differently to the dye.  Here is how mine turned out.  Although at least 24 hours old, the blue dye was not as spent as I expected so I did a lot of rinsing in hot water to lighten it before the final wash with synthropol which helps set the dye.  The 2nd picture is the back where you can see the quilting a little better; there was polyester thread in the bobbin which doesn't take the dye.

Our outing today was to Center Sandwich where the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen have a shop and were sponsoring a Fiber Arts Fair.  It was a beautiful day, sunny and in the 70s.  It was not a large fair but was fun and interesting.  There were animals - an alpaca and sheep, and demos on spinning, weaving, hand stitching and jewelry making.

Then we walked across the street to The Corner House Inn for lunch - we try at least once a summer to have "a sandwich in Sandwich" as Elizabeth's dad used to say.

The brick building is on the road just outside of town.  Also on the way home we stopped to take a picture of this new fence, and hadn't noticed before the owl sitting on the left end.

There was a bright red sun this evening at sunset, but it was impossible to capture with the camera.   The best I could do was the reflection on the water.

QC6 Day 10

July 9, 2014
Ten days already?  It's hard to believe we've been here that long!  Today was mostly a studio/sewing day.  Here is the day in pictures.

I tried out some new screens.  The photo above is before and after.  I added a little pine sprig to the fabric in the bottom photo.  In the pictures below, I was trying out a ledger page from 1899 and a postcard from 1908.

I decided to over dye the shibori piece in yesterday's post.  I wrapped it with the lighter part on the outside and put it in deep purple dye.

 

I also decided to try another type of shibori, using shape resists.  These circles are clamped above, below, and between the folded layers of fabric.  It was a light blue when I started.  It is in cobalt blue dye.

I crackled the flour resist piece and applied dy-na-flow paint.  After it dried, I washed it out.  It wasn't as successful as I hoped - too much paint; the Dy-na-flow is thin and pools underneath, which I forgot about.  But there are some decent parts.  (That is the bottom picture below.)  The top is a set of 10 linen napkins in a turkey red dye bath.  (Thinking ahead to Christmas.)

I also worked on sewing together my row from Keepsake Quilting.  It's all together, but I haven't taken pictures yet so that will be in tomorrow's post.

Finally, to end the day, a trip to Bailey's Bubble for ice cream (Maine Blackbear) and the evening sun after a thunderstorm.