A Win and Some Experiments

Look what I won! Jill over at The Quilt Rat had a giveaway recently celebrating her one year anniversary in combo with her 100th post. I was lucky enough to win one of her gorgeous postcards! I love it! I'm continually impressed with her talent. If you haven't visited her blog, please go visit her. She does awesome work!

In my last post, I mentioned that my sister and I played during her visit with us. We played with fabric and dye. We set up tables etc. in the garage (due to cold and wet outside) and got messy! She had never tried anything like this, so she had a lot of fun.

I had found Rayna Gillman's book "Create Your Own Hand-Painted Cloth" at the library and wanted to try doing some monoprints. (You can see Rayna's work at her blog studio 78 notes)

Here are my monoprints. I'm not very happy with them. I'm not entirely sure why, but they just don't appeal to me. The one in the upper right in the photo I over-stamped with the spiral, and I like that better. I haven't decided if I'm going to try more of these again later or not. In the piece 2nd from the left, you may be able to see a leaf print. More on that below!

After the monoprints, I tried printing some texture plates. I think the one on the right is OK, but not the one on the left. My sister did some and her's came out great. Of course, I didn't get a photo of hers - duh!

Remember the monoprint that's the 2nd from the left in the 1st photo? I off-stamped some of the paint with the fern stamp onto the fabric that's on the left in the photo up above, because I didn't want to waste the paint. I liked that one, so I tried doing some more stamping. I tried the dragonflies first (middle fabric), then I did some more dragonflies and added the leaves in the piece on the right. I don't think the dragonflies on the 2nd one (with the leaves) came out all that well, but I like the leaves!

The next thing I tried was the bubble wrap (above on the left). That was fun, although I found that if I wasn't careful, it wiggled and I didn't get a good print. I also had to print my new stamp with the flowers. I'm pretty comfortable with stamping, as I've done it for years with cards. So, I tried the leaves, mixing the paints right on the stamp. I think this is the best piece to come out of these experiments, mostly because I think the whole piece works together. Although it's kind of predictable, maybe.

Here are my wipe-up fabrics. I always use another piece of fabric to wipe up the paints, because why waste all that lovely paint? I love the watercolor look of these. Often my wipers are the best fabrics I make. Maybe I should just do those!

Here is a stamped piece that my sister did. She didn't like it and I did, so she gave it to me. Also, here is another wipe-up piece.

So, I learned that I don't have to do fabric painting/dyeing in the summer outside, except for the fact that in the damp cold, it takes forever to dry. I also learned that monoprinting is harder than it looks. Some of these pieces may get over-dyed, because I think they're too stark with the white background. I think that may help them. So, not too successful an experiment, but I learned a lot. I guess that's not too bad.