Quilt Camp Day 8

We are winding down and not starting anything that can't be finished in a day as Sue is preparing to leave on Friday.  :(

Today we did more washing out of fabric batching in dye, a bit more cyanotype, and worked on some PGFiber2Art "business" stuff.  Also, we have some pictures to share that didn't make it into yesterday's post.  Sue did a re-dip of some of her "ugly" fabrics in the indigo pot.  Both of the pieces below were originally a gold/brown fabric that Sue posted a few days ago.  The first indigo treatment helped, but they still needed more, so this is what they look like after the second dip in the indigo pot.

The piece below is one that originally looked like a cow - brown with white spots!  If you go back to Day 6, you can see the original fabric and what it looked like after the first dip in indigo.  In the piece below, the circles along the edges came out clearly the first time, but the rest was still blah.  So Sue cut off the circles and refolded the center for another dip.  Below you can see what it looks like now.  Much improved!  And how it would look with the circle strips placed beside it.

 

Another technique tried today was cyanotype printing on notecards.  The chemical solution was applied to notecards with a bristle brush, allowed to dry, and then printed with plant material.  Even though it was a cloudy day, the process worked well.

Elizabeth printed two small cyanotypes on fabric, a dill blossom and another with goldenrod and broccoli seed pods.

A new screen soon to be in the Etsy shop is birch bark.  Here it is, printed with Color Magnet and then dyed in avocado green and black (which was old dye and turned purplish).  It will be a nice addition for those who need a screen to add texture to your fabrics and designs.  It could also be printed with paint, it doesn't have to be Color Magnet. If you have a photo you think would make a good textural screen, contact us at pgfiber2art.gmail.com or through the Etsy shop. 

The day ended with rain and an amazing sunset, even while it was raining!

Quilt Camp Day 5

Sunday was cloudy and cool; the high temp was about 64.  Consequently we got off to a slow start.  

Sue did her morning walk, but by the time we were ready to get to work, Bob was ready to do his online volunteer greeter duty for the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy center, so we decided to go to the grocery store instead so as not to disturb him.  So after a late lunch we finally got going.  Mostly it was more washing out of dyed pieces and Sue dipped a few more in the indigo pot.

The lighting isn't great in the above picture.  Left to right, the fabrics are red, dragon fruit, turquoise, and black.  The doilies were batched in the leftover parakeet and turquoise dyes.  Not very exciting, mostly solids but they will be useful for an upcoming class and also working on using up some old dyes.

Elizabeth rinsed out her cyanotype print from yesterday before starting a 2 hour Zentangle online workshop, so her time in the "studio" was limited today.  The cyanotype was made from a carrot top and parsley from Bob's garden plot.

Last week our Zentangle teacher, Marisela Rumberg had us make a Bijou tile to use as a library of 24 different tangles we have studied.  This week we used it to play several rounds of BINGO/BIJOU to help us remember the names of each tangle.  Afterwards, Marisela picked from her Bijou library 4 more tangle designs for us to use in today's practice tile.  

If you live near Occoquan VA, Marisela's LOVE Zentangle art installation will be revealed this Friday, Sept. 3 at River Hill Park, 11 AM.  Be sure to stop by and see it as it joins the many other iconic "Virginia is for Lovers" LOVE art around the Commonwealth.  Hopefully it will remain there for a long time.

Checking In on Elizabeth

Alas, while Elizabeth is busy in New Hampshire, she hasn't been busy writing blog posts.  However, she has been posting over on Instagram.  If you use Instagram, please consider following us at #pgfiber2art.  Instagram is a great platform for visual items.  You can easily scroll through thousands of beautiful pictures from artists around the globe.

Her continuation of quilt camp alone is not as synergistic as camp when both of us are together, but with retirement came the extra weeks to stay at Lake Winnipesaukee and who can pass that up?  Looking forward to fall colors around the lake and still enjoying the sunset views.

She has been dyeing some baby garments for her new grandson and using Color Magnet from Jacquard to give the garments some monochromatic depth.  Color Magnet draws the dye to wherever it was placed and it is thick enough to be able to use with thermofax screens.  Using a felt covered piece of cardboard to protect the back of the shirt, she screens a design on the shirt and then puts it in an immersion dye bath.  Here are a few results, including a blue shirt with our new spiral circles screen and a series of small colorful pieces with our new Queen Anne's lace screen.

She also has been using up some very old Solar Fast which is a product brushed on the fabric and then used to make a solar print with botanicals to block out the sun.  It produces a negative like effect.  The color was supposed to be avocado but it is more mustard like, probably because it was old.  Moral of the story is to use up your supplies and don't let them sit around.  These are some maple leaves which were feasted upon by an insect.

Lastly, she also has tried some of the wet cyanotype printing using the Jacquard Cyanotype Pretreated Fabric Sheets.  Soon the sun will be too low in the sky and not enough humidity to play with these last two techniques.  The top photo is coleus leaves and the bottom is oak.

But until the sun starts to fade, she will squeeze as much out of the "extended" summer as she can.

After Quilt Camp - Keeping the Momentum Going

Once Sue leaves quilt camp, it really does get quiet and lonely.  Sometimes it is hard to keep momentum going and keep creating.  But this year, Elizabeth has 6 more weeks to work in the garage studio. So, she decided to try some of the wet cyanotype printing like Sue did last week.  This was the new technique we tried this year after seeing lots of Facebook posts by Sue Reno and Lesley Riley.  Cyanotype, or "blueprint" printing, is similar to sun printing in that the fabric is treated with certain chemicals, resist items are placed on top, and then placed in the sun for the print to develop.  In normal dry cyanotype printing, the fabric turns a deep blue color.  Both Sue and Lesley have been experimenting with wet cyanotype, which (we think) produces more interesting results and varied colors.  So we wanted to give it a try.

We are lucky that a few years ago we found a very large picture frame at the swap shop located at the dump.  We wanted the frame to hang it from the tree branch down by the lake and use for a photo shoot area when Elizabeth's son was married.  Thus she had removed the large piece of glass and the picture.  The glass is now being used to firmly hold down our plant material on top of the fabric pretreated for the exposure to the sun during the cyanotype process.

Her first try was using oak leaves.  She specifically looked for a few leaves that had holes in them so that the sun would shine on the holes and develop them like the background color. She sprayed the edges of the fabric with a solution of soda ash and water (just the same as we use when dyeing our fabrics and t-shirts).  Then placed the glass down on the leaves and left them in the sun.  Most of the change took place within half an hour but she left the "leaf sandwich" outside for two days; one night it even rained on it.  It was rinsed in cold water and then let to sit in a bath of hydrogen peroxide and water for about 20 minutes before rinsing again in cold water, then left on the clothesline to dry.

Above, after rinsing.  Below, when dry.

Her second try was leaves from wild strawberry plants that grow along the foundation of the house near the water faucet.  She picked these leaves because of the serrated edges, thinking they would be different from the deciduous tree leaves and ferns which are also available around the yard.  In the spirit of experimentation, she used more water on the glass which touched the leaves and immediately ran down some ripples in the black garbage bag which covers the foam core board on which the fabric lays.

You can clearly see the ripples in the final print.  Elizabeth had read an article by Lesley Riley suggesting a rinse in vinegar solution after a warm water rinse and as she had a very very old bottle of red wine vinegar (so old it had sludge on the bottom of the bottle), she used that in a 4:1 vinegar to water soak.  She misread the article which said 1:4.  Oh well, it was an experiment.  Immediately the water and the design turned a lovely teal blue.

After letting it soak for about 10 minutes she rinsed it out and this was how it looked.

After hanging on the line to dry it had lightened up in the areas of the leaves and now looks like this:

We are intrigued by this technique and will continue to experiment, and try to keep the momentum of quilt camp going!

Day 12 - Wrapping Up Quilt Camp

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and it's time to wrap up quilt camp for another year.  Sue will be leaving Monday so it will be up to Elizabeth to carry on as she remains in NH through mid-October.  Here are some photos that kind of sum up what we have accomplished in the last 2 weeks.

On the left is Elizabeth's set of yardage she dyed.  On the right are pieces that were first printed with color magnet and then dyed.  The lighter pieces are some that were in dye a few days old that was pretty well spent.

Sue's dyed and discharged pieces are on the left, her mostly solids on the right.

Above are some color magnet pieces, and below, some that were printed with thickened dye.

Sue dyed a T-shirt with black cherry dye; it's taken a few days to get through the wash out process.

The two pieces below are failed sun prints that were salvaged by adding other types of printing - wooden block prints and thermofax screens.  You can see a bit of the sun prints in the background.

The new technique we tried this year was wet cyan.  Cyanotype is a form of sun printing, where the fabric is pre-treated with chemicals and then with exposure to sun, a blueprint of the resist item appears.  Traditional cyanotype is done with dry fabric.  In wet cyan, the fabric is spritzed with a soda ash solution and water before being exposed to the sun and produces more interesting backgrounds and color variation.  After some initial test pieces, the second round produced better results.

Since it was our last day, we took a trip into Wolfeboro for a little shopping and of course some ice cream.

And finally, it is time to clean up the dye pots and load the car.  Hope you enjoyed following along on our quilt camp adventures!