Hand-dyeing fabric

During this unprecedented time of self-isolation due to the Covid19 virus, dare I say that I am enjoying the creative time without external demands on my days?

This week I have been dyeing some fabric and threads for an upcoming project and I thought I'd share this photo with you.

I was going for soft blues and greens that speak to me of the world around us. This fabric is destined to be used to create prayer flags that will tie in with that theme and I am now anxious to move onto the next step . . . more creative fun!

Of course, once I had the dyes out I couldn't resist trying out a few other colours and adding a few more bits to the dye packets ... cheesecloth, silk ribbon, and a bit of lace. These will all find their way into something 😃

Hiking in the Hoodoos

My hairdresser's hike in the hoodoos, just west of Kamloops last weekend inspired this art quilt that is just in its infancy.  All hand dyed or hand painted fabrics with the sky fabric also being formed from a patchwork of fabrics on which I wrote the word HOODOOS in block and script styles.

Thanks to Rebecca for permission to use her awesome photograph as a starting point for this piece.

I will post more about it as it continues . . .

A look at autumn "where the hills uplift"

This is the second in the series and features some beautiful copper-orange hand dyed fabric and coordinating perle cotton thread.  The patchwork background was, once again, written on with India ink and markers with the words "where the hills uplift".

Blessings Prayer Flag

Blessings . . . this prayer flag has many blessings flapping from the lower edge of the flag. It has been created from some of my hand dyed and monoprinted fabrics and was destined to be an example for my upcoming prayer flag workshop but . . .

I  have a friend battling a brain tumour and I felt that this was the week he needed to have this prayer flag so it has already headed off to Vancouver.

This is a very free-spirited flag ... you can see that it is not "square" and there is an asymmetrical and casual balance to the flag, which is how I see life taking us sometimes. The soft purple fabric is a more densely woven cotton than the fabric with the blue and purple monoprint on it, which provides a soft contrast in texture. This is a single thickness of fabric so if it is left outside (or handled a lot) the edges of the fabric will fray and soften with time.

The narrow strips of purple cotton have been printed with many of the blessings I wish for my friend at this time. There is a knot at the end of each blessing and they are attached by a purple bead to the main part of the flag.

One of the techniques we will experiment with in my workshop at Sorrento Centre starting this weekend, is monoprinting ... I'm sure that the participants will feel like they are back in pre-school as we play with paints on gelatin plates and transfer the designs to fabric ... fun! There is still space if you want to join us so just call Sorrento Centre and come along!

Butterflies - Work in progress

Work In Progress

This is an art quilt that has been in progress for quite a while, especially if you count the time between when I dyed the fabric and then finally decided what to use it for ... this is actually the first piece of fabric I ever dyed and it was done in a workshop over ten years ago.  I absolutely loved it ... too much to ever use it!

Two or three years ago I decided that it would be a wholecloth background for a butterfly quilt and I jumped in to designing it and creating very stylized butterflies for it. When it came time to actually attach the butterflies to the background (which I had already quilted by then) I just couldn't do it ... the butterflies just didn't feel right. I rolled the quilt up and went on with other projects but every now and again I would go back to it to see if I could figure out what was wrong with it.

A few months ago I decided that I needed to really focus on this quilt, because it meant a lot to me ... so, I hung it on my design wall where I looked at it each time I entered my studio, and eventually I decided to experiment with a different design of butterflies.  I still wanted them to be fanciful butterflies, but they needed to be a bit more realistic than the first ones I had designed.

These butterflies were all created as separate entities but before I quilted them to the background, I added a gently drifting layer of gold organza that was then hand stitched with variegated gold thread in a seed stitch ... and then I added a sprinkling of gold seed beads to catch a bit of light. (Sorry the colours are not very true on these detail shots ... it is closer to the gold and mossy green of the full size photo)

After the butterflies were machine stitched (using lots of free motion stitching in a variety of threads) I then switched to hand embroidery, using funky stitches and different threads, sometimes layered two or three deep for added texture.

Remember, you are looking at a work in progress . . . it still is not finished!  I will give these butterflies some bodies and some antennae ... I have made quite a few samples of bodies to try out, but haven't settled on what I will use ... and I haven't created quite the right set of antennae yet, either. 


Here are some of the samples I am pondering for bodies . . . felted, wrapped yarn, silk cocoons, fluffy yarn (trimmed), and I'm going to try some painted tyvek, too . . .


So those are the choices still to come on this creation . . .