QBL Part 2

There are so many things I want to say about my week at Quilting by the Lake that I have been trying to condense into one reasonably sized post, but today I just gave up and started writing. Jane Dunnewold walked into class Monday morning and we were soon moving from the familiar territory of the basics of dyeing and fabric manipulation to dyeing silk and rayon and making stencils.  By the evening of the first day the common room of our dorm suite--all three of us in the suite were taking the same class--was covered with color, all small samples drying for the next step the next morning:

My fabric is on the coffee table in the upper left of this picture. Most of these fabrics went through an another overdye bath and some even a second overdyeing, and soon some of them were becoming backgrounds for the stamps, stencils, and paint.

"Now is the time to experiment with a color you don't like," Jane said at one point, and so I tried orange with my sun stencil, a color I shy away from using.

This is a piece of silk, although the photo does not pick up the luster. I fell in love with silk during this class, the way it takes dye, the way it moves, the way it shimmers, the way it feels.

Another piece of silk became a beautiful mottled purple after three dyeings, and then took two layers of stenciling, the second layer with a metallic paint. 

One of the assignments was to choose a background with a gridlike pattern and add shape/color to it:

This is a rayon fabric, and I began with adding the colored rectangles and later in the week when we learned how to apply gold leaf, I added that. I think I am ready to add some stitching and see how the gold leaf responds.

We also made stamps and then played with creating a repetitive background pattern.

While we were learning all these techniques, we were also getting a hands-on course in color theory since we had to mix paints to create analogous or complementary colors, according to the assignment.  And I finally understood how a color wheel really comes in handy.  

Another new technique I got to try out was screen printing, and probably due to beginner's luck, I really like the piece. We covered our screens with flour paste, let it dry, and then scratched something into the dried paste. For some reason, I was thinking of all the beautiful tall grass in the fields I walk through with Terra each morning and so drew four grass stems. Jane suggested I print several of the same image on the same sample fabric, just moving the screen a bit each time, and adding another color after a couple of prints. This is the original background that I manipulated and overdyed one more time to get the soft grid behind the grass:

And here is the printed piece:

It was calling for something more--a round moon that I originally thought would be gold leaf, but I waited until I got home to decide and ultimately added two layers of tulle so that you can still see the grass through it.

I am not sure what I will do with this sample yet, but it's good enough to take to another stage.

So here's a picture of Jane "wrapping up" the class, after a very stimulating, busy, exhausting, hot week. (Thank goodness for air conditioning as we broke 100 degrees one day!)

I'll save the analysis for the next post. And if you're still reading, thanks for the company!

Lancaster Notes

After waking up at the very early hour of 4:15 AM I spent all day Friday going to, coming from, and soaking up all the sights to be seen at the quilt show in Lancaster, now under the auspices of the American Quilt Society. Of course, I couldn't help make comparisons with the old Lancaster show since this was under new administration and at a new venue (actually two venues).  The big hole in my experience of the day was the absence of the Quilt National traveling exhibit--a room where I always found some quilts I wanted to contemplate for a while.  This one did have a small traveling exhibit from Studio Art Quilters Association as well as a special exhibit of quilts from the Association of Pacific West Quilters whose members are playing with some innovative techniques and where I took a lot of pictures.  The new convention center was not as well lighted or as large as the Host Resort of previous years, and the shuttle to the second venue ate up our limited time, but this is the first year AQS has hosted the show so I will wait for next year to see how they settle in, and there were indeed some beautiful, inspiring quilts there.

There were certainly plenty of vendors as well, although I am now fairly well supplied with gadgets and since I am doing more dyeing, I tend to look for the unusual fabrics.  From Batik Timbal I got some beautiful cotton that looks and feels like silk, woven in Bali, and from Mekong River Textiles, I was so awed by the Sunshine Silk, handwoven in Thailand, that I had to have some, although I could only afford a half yard.

This fabric just glows in real life.  I also got a gorgeous hand-dyed cotton from Ghana at a West African fabric booth.

Of course the question on the bus was "What are you going to make with these?"  And, of course, I have no idea.  I was looking for fabrics that said something new to me so I couldn't go with any preconceived ideas.  But I am finding that letting a strong unique fabric suggest a project to me is often a good way for me to begin so we will see where these end up.  Right now they are just a joy to be around.

One of my final purchases was a 4-inch square of fabric from around 1830, reflecting my split personality when it comes to quilting.  I love the connection with the tradition of quilting, particularly with the pre-twentieth century work, and so I love being able to have my own mini-collection of old fabrics that I can touch and look at closely.

That show was certainly worth getting up before sunrise to see.  And now I'm ready to get back to my own work.