Archive for the ‘New Projects’ Category

After the Washout…. Dye Update

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Now that all the fabric I dyed last week has been thoroughly rinsed and then ironed, I know what I have to play with and what will need some more work.
As you can see in the photo above, that all was not lost… far from it!! I ended up with some pretty wishy-washy colors, but there were some very pleasant surprises.  After some comments made and information from others, I am not tossing my dye concentrates yet… I will give them another try, but this time give the fabrics more hours in the soda ash soak. I only left these an hour or so because I was in a hurry.   Here is what hurrying got me:

Shibori 1 fresh

The above photo is the only one taken of what any of my fabrics looked like fresh out of the dyebath after only an initial rinse. It was really striking with the rich, deep colors, but as I began to rinse, more and more of that beautiful color left….

Shibori 1 Ironed

The piece still has some great patterning, but is nothing like it first looked. The golden yellow stayed the best because it was the only freshly  mixed dye I had used.

Fat Quarter Clean-up

One of the clean-up fabric pieces… not much color left….

Shibori 2

I think this is my favorite piece…. I love the soft colors and the way the fuchsia faded to a pale rose into the green. Very sky or water-like…

Blue Purple

This one kept quite a bit of color. I love the icy patterns that I got.

Lavender Blue Narrow

This one is even icier with less rose tones and touches of greenish blue here and there. This is a 2 yard piece that I cut in half lengthwise… I thought it was only one yard, but now I have a long piece.

Dark Green

This was supposed to be a deep, dark green… it still is green, just more of a seafoam shaded piece. I wanted some pieces for mountains, but got seashore instead.

Another Green

This one held a bit more yellow…. still lots of patterning.

Minty Green Tone on Tone

This is another green… more “minty”, and this started as a white on white print… I have two sides to choose from :)

Multi Half Yard

This one really surprised me… I was amazed that the black that I watered down before putting it on, stayed much better than I expected. This was expected to have much darker fuchsia. I had tried to get these colors and patterning on purpose in the past… I got it by accident… A happy accident…

Soft Pastels

One of the more “wish-washy” pieces. This will be used for sunprinting, or may be cut up and used for skies….

Pale Blue Tone on Tone

This one is really pale… Another white on white, so I have two sides to choose from. Not sure if I will do more, or leave it to use where I need just a touch of color.

Mustardish Piece

Any better description?? This one reminds me of something that the mustard bottle blew up on… Probably my least favorite, so this is in line to be overdyed or painted. This is the piece of fabric I placed in the bottom of the bucket that Shibori 1 sat in, so I could catch all the drips…. very sad pale blue and mustard….

Small Pieces

A random few smaller pieces. Most that I did were one yard pieces, but these are fat quarters and a half yard. The fat quarters were clean-up “rags” and I am still amazed at how much the black stayed around…. that golden yellow did great… the difference fresh dye makes.  This dye session was a real learning experience, but gave me a lot of great usable pieces. I will have to play with soda ash soaking things much longer to see if I can get more color from the old dyes… I hate to toss anything out if there is any good in it….

Tall Pink Lily Flower

I gotta add a couple flowers… This Lily is taller than I am, with gobs of flowers. It smells wonderful!

Hosta Sweet Tater Pie

It looked like a spotlight was on this Hosta, with the sun beaming through the leaves of the trees in the back yard. It has bright lime green leaves which look even more yellow in the sun.
I need to get back to the studio… I have a group of postcards in the works…. Photos when I get more done…

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A Tale of 2 Dyeing Sessions…

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Yesterday I had the chance to “run away” from home to play with friends. Three of us got together and had a dyeing party… Fabric Dyeing that is….  I had a blast scrunching fabric into little plastic containers and squirting dyes onto the fabrics. After a bit of waiting, we began opening up our new creations. It is so much fun to start  rinsing out a piece of dyed fabric, unfolding it so see all of the little nuances and color variations that were created in the process. My day ended up being more of a learning process than I thought….

Yard of Bright Dyed Fabric

The above photo shows a piece of fabric that I dyed back in April and blogged about Here. This was sort of what I was expecting to see from the newest dyeing session. I did want to get some pieces in various shades  of greens from deep, dark to light, as well as some pieces in blues, purples and multicolors.  The following is what happened, and some very important lessons learned:

Dyed Fabric Soaking 1

This photo shows a few pieces soaking after their first rinses and an overnight soaking. I had used my dyes full strength like I had in the April session. I also used the leftover dye concentrates from April, too…. That ended up being my problem….

Dyed Fabric Soaking 3

Above photo- my “Dark” Greens and a sweatshirt that looked like it would be pretty deep blue with purples upon first rinse……

Lessons Learned:

  1. Mix your dye concentrates fresh for each dyeing session if you want vibrant colors. Mine were mixed in April and used in July, stored in my kitchen which reaches temperatures over 80 degrees in summer even with the AC running. Just because I got away with old concentrates in the past (during the winter), doesn’t mean I’ll get away with it again.
  2. When using old dye concentrates, if your fuchsia is a bit lumpy or “clotted” looking, take that as an indication that things are not right…. Fuchsia can have a few specks, but lots of gobs… not good.
  3. The way a piece of fabric looks upon first rinse out is not always what you will end up with after all the unused dye particles are gone. Each rinse ended up with my fabrics getting lighter and lighter. The colors pretty much rinsed all out.
  4. If your darkly splotched clean-up fabric pieces that have been soda ash treated wash out to super pale colors, realize that there may be something more going on than too short a batching time. Mine rinsed out really pale, and still I thought that I could get deeper colors by just trying again. I don’t learn too quickly at times…
  5. Never have preconceived ideas of what you want to end up with when you are playing with dye- the same goes for paint… you never know what you will end up with. I think that is the best part of playing with paints or dyes.
  6. Most of all, Enjoy the process, no matter what you end up with.

Another bucket of fabric. I did get some pretty purplish blues that kept some good color, but as you can see a lot of the pieces washed out to very pastel shades.

Shibori 1

This is one of my first attempts at pole wrapped Shibori dyeing. I had wrapped this piece around the pipe back in April, but didn’t add the dye because I had already made a big enough mess in my kitchen at the time. This piece was spectacular when it was first unwrapped and given a quick rinse. By rinse number 2, it got lighter…. then by the time the water was running clear, this is what I ended up with. The golden yellow stuck around the best because it was freshly mixed dye that my friend gave me. I just added it without thinking too much on the end, and it ended up being the only “bright spot” in this fabric. I do love the patterning I ended  up with, and the pastel colors are different than what it looked like at first. I also love the colors that did stick around… I do like pastel colors.

Dribble Catcher 1-2

This I call a “dribble catcher” because I placed it in the bottom of the bucket I used to catch the dribbles of dye as I poured it onto the above Shibori piece. I also let the pipe rest in the bucket while I let the soda ash do it’s job. This caught a bit more color in places…. This fabric is a white on white print, and this is the back side of the fabric. I love to play with these because you get something different on each side. Most of this 2 yard piece did end up rinsing out to the pale blue shades, but you can definitely see the golden yellow.

Dribble Catcher 1 Front

This is the “front” of the dribble catcher piece. I prefer the look of the back, but this side is interesting.

Shibori 2

This is my second Shibori piece. It also began looking much deeper colored. I wrapped this one a bit differently than the first, but both pieces ended up being pastel, too.

Sweatshirt

This began the day as a white sweatshirt…. It then looked as if it would be deep blues with rose and purples… now it is a pretty near turquoise blue with a few flecks of pink.

More Fat Quarters

Even though I was expecting to end up with some deep colored fabrics somewhat like the ones in this photo, the results were wayyy lighter. The great thing about fabric is that if I really don’t like what I end up with, I can just go ahead and mix up new dyes, re-scrunch the fabrics and pour on new colors, and it’s like Christmas all over again…. Opening up and rinsing out dyed fabrics is a lot like opening up Christmas gifts. You never know what you have until you open it up (and in the case of dye- rinse it out).

In the two dyeing sessions of this year, I have learned a LOT about dye and what I can and can’t get away with (OK, I am always trying to break rules :) . Even though I didn’t end up with fabric colors I was looking for, I ended up with some really pretty fabric that I can leave as it is, overdye, or even add a bit of paint (sunprinting over some of these might be really fun). The best part of the day yesterday was being able to have a “play date” with a couple other fabric lovers. That is better than getting the “right” colors.

Now more fun begins…. Time to see what I end up with playing with my newly colored fabrics.

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Color in and Out of The Studio

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

I finally have gotten back to my studio for a little bit, scattering lots of colorful fabric pieces. I began a new project of making covers for various sizes of notebooks, journals, and brag books, from mini to more standard sizes. I have been using some of the fabrics I dyed last month along with sunprints on hand.

Pretty Pile of Book Covers in Progress

The colors remind me of some of the photos I have been taking of t he Spring flowers in my gardens.

Snow Glory Group

The first flowers to pop up in my front yard garden were the Snow Glories, My favorites because of the bright shade of blue- like a summer sky.

Deep Midnight Blue Fat Quarter

This fabric has lots of shades of blue, including shades similar to the Snow Glories.

Winter Aconite Blooms

These little Winter Aconite flowers opened up even while the foliage still looked frozen. These hide in my shade garden in the back yard, near the stone wall and bloomed even before the Snow Glories.

Japanese Pine with Snow

Even this plant does not have flowers, it looked so pretty with it’s last coating of snow for the season… almost flower-like. I love the look of the branch tips against the blue sky.

Blue, Green and More Dyed Fat Quarters

These fat quarters were scrunched in the same container. The shades of blue and green  with touches of yellow and fuchsia remind  me of gardens full of blooms.

Pulmonaria "Mrs. Moon"

These little beauties sometimes sneak into bloom and are nearly done before I see them in my back yard garden. I caught them just as they were opening their first buds. I love how they change from pink to blue as the flowers age.

Yard of Bright Dyed Fabric

The above yard is one of the brightest that I ended up with, using fuchsia, cerulean blue, and yellow.

White Daffodils with Yellow Centers

These Daffs seemed to bloom much sooner than usual with the warm, summer-like weather we had early.

Double Daffodils

These were not in my flower beds, but I wish I had some… They were in bloom on Easter Sunday…. So beautiful!

More Fat Quarters

This group of fabrics show another bright fat quarter with a soft mauve one and a pair that were done with the same colors.

Almond Tree Blossoms

These are still open, but I caught them at their peak for the photo. The almond tree is covered with these pink flowers this year.

Light Blue Fat Quarter

This fat quarter isn’t exactly the shade of the skies in my photos, but it is pretty and soft.

White Grape Hyacinth with View

I caught this little clump of white Muscari, or Grape Hyacinth, while in bloom. They are in my huge Maple tree garden and I usually miss them while in peak bloom. I was able to get the distant view of the mountains in the background.

Jenna in Easter Dress

This little “flower” is the hardest one to photograph… she doesn’t stop moving- granddaughter, Jenna.

Mini Composition Cover- Lavender Geranium

Here is one of the finished covers. This one is for a mini composition book. The size is just right for tucking into a purse and makes a really pretty way to dress up a little memo book to keep lists, ideas and more. Available in my Andrus Gardens Gift Items Studio on Artfire…. Link to Geranium Cover.

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Posted in Book Covers, Flowers and Gardens, New Projects, inspirations | 2 Comments »

Quilt Retreat 2010!

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

In between the first snow of February and the big snow storm at the end of the month, I escaped with nearly 40 other quilters for the Endless Mountains Quilt Guild Retreat at Watson Homestead in Campbell, NY. The retreat center we go to is a great location for the retreat. We had large rooms to set up our machines and more to sew and hang out with each other, all our meals were prepared for us, and our dorm rooms were in the same building. Four days and 3 nights of fun, and I actually felt like the creative juices were beginning to flow again!

Mud on the Wall

Here, I just stuck photos and chunks of fabrics on the design wall to give me an idea of what I wanted to do for my new Water Road inspired piece. This was before I took it off the wall to pack for the retreat.

Retreat Main Room

This is the room we we spent most of our time in during the retreat. Lots of different projects were being worked on. The following photos show the progress of the piece I began at home.

Mud on the Wall 2

Mud on the Wall 3

Mud on the Wall Not so Muddy

The last photo shows the piece after I got home and have it almost ready for fusing to batting for stitching. Finally some progress on a piece inspired by mud and rocks.

Wisteria Vines being Stitched

What I worked on when taking a break from the Water Road piece. This is one of the stone walls I began while at my grandmother’s last fall. The vines are made of various yarns and torn strips of fabrics. They are then stitched on with a free motion zig-zag and variegated threads.

Wisteria Vine Stitching 2

A closeup showing the vines in more detail.

Wisteria Almost Done

Flowers and leaves fused on then stitched.
By the time the retreat was over, I had the binding done on this as well as another tiny one done, too. Finally some progress!!

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Playing With Mud and Rocks Again

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Actually I am playing with paint on fabric to resemble mud, rocks, moss, ferns and flowers for a new art quilt I am working on. I have had the idea for this piece in the back of my head for a long time…. You know the kind…. an idea that keeps peeking out to say it wants to be done, but every time you try to put idea to fabric, things don’t work right, and the idea gets crammed back into the recesses of the mind until it decides to pop out again…. Finally this idea has actually gotten on the design wall, and is progressing.

Art Quilt "Mountain Laurel and Ferns" by Sue Andrus, Andrus Gardens

"Mountain Laurel and Ferns"

“Mountain Laurel and Ferns” was one of the few pieces I created in 2009. The new piece in the works is inspired by the same  area along the road I live on that inspired this one. I am fascinated by how tenacious the plants and trees that grow there are. It is a pretty hostile environment, with lots of rocks, a steep slope, shade and lots of dust coating things during the hot summer. The Mountain Laurel plants seem to be just hanging on by a thread, but they are actually deeply rooted old, abused specimens.

Mountain Laurel Flowers

Mountain Laurel Flowers along Water Road

In the photo above, the stems that show are pretty skinny, making it look like these plants were not very old. Upon digging around the bases a bit, I discovered that the stems were growing out from low, wide stumps. These are much older plants than it looks from a quick glance. The road they are growing along used to be one lane through the woods, up the side of the mountain. A number of years ago, it was widened so two vehicles can now pass safely. Most of the trees and vegetation close to the road was cut down on the high side of the road, while gravel was built up on the low side. These Mountain Laurel plants were victims of the massive cutting, but they grew back from the bases. They also continue to take more abuse when the road crews come along with their brush trimmers each summer. That would explain why the plants are so low, appearing to crawl along the ground.

The new piece on the wall will feature more of the rocks and dirt than the greens of “Mountain Laurel and Ferns”.  I had to break out the paints to modify a couple pieces of fabric to add to what I had in my stash.  I am also using some photos printed onto cotton, and there may also be a craggy, mossy tree trunk.

Fern Fabric

Fern Batik Fabric

The fabric above is the one I wanted to modify. This is not a fabric I like much, too much rusty orange. I decided to turn it into something to resemble the rocks and dirt around the Mountain Laurel plants.

Painted Fern Fabric Green

Painted Fern Fabric Green

Fern Fabric after Painting Gray

Fern Fabric after Painting Gray and Green

Above are the two pieces of the fabric that I ended up with. I toned down the contrast of the ferns and the rusty orange. I will be posting the process used to get to this point on my Classroom Blog.

These new fabrics will be used here and there in my newest creation. I am not sure how much will be used, but it now has more of a muddy, mossy look than it had.

If all goes well, there will be new posts soon showing progress of my new work. I will be away over the weekend, so I hope the ideas that have been flowing don’t stop.

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First New Art Quilt of 2010

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

I finally got the creative juices flowing a bit yesterday, and finished the first FFFC (Fast Friday Fabric Challenge)  quilt I have attempted in a very long time. New challenges are posted on the 4th Friday of each month, with the idea of finishing a small art quilt by the following Saturday. I originally thought that this piece would be done before the next challenge was posted, but while double checking the rules for Challenge 40, I found that the next challenge had already been posted- yesterday was the  4th Friday of January- where has the month gone?

Cocoa Mix Box

For Challenge #40, we were to pay attention to product packaging  and how the colors used affect your perception and buying decisions of the products, and then use the colors from a selected package in a quilt. The piece was to be a still life, and be mostly plants or flowers. I drink hot chocolate every morning, and used one of the boxes for my color palette. I immediately thought of my favorite cobalt blue glass bottles, and wanted to include a couple in my composition.

Blue Bottles on Cotton

Photos of Blue Bottles Printed on Cotton Fabric

I am not great re-creating glass in fabric, so I decided to take photos of the glass and a spool of thread, and printed them onto fusible backed cotton fabric.

Cobalt Blue Glass Bottles

Group of Cobalt Blue Glass Bottles and Eye Wash Cup

Here is one of  the photos I used to arrange on the page to print onto the fabric. I placed them on, and backed them white card stock to take the photo. I love the gold design on the perfume bottle- my favorite.

Layout one.

Ist Layout Idea

This was the first version of the layout. I hadn’t remembered that plants or flowers were to be a big part of the composition. The original thought was to use the thread spools and some chunks of chocolate around the bottles… Not too hard to change direction a bit…. the short bottle could be a vase,  and I had thought of adding a white flower on the table anyway.

Quilt layout 2

Second Layout Without Thread

OK, to keep with mostly plant theme, chocolate and thread spools are out, bottles and eye wash cup still in. I found some great silk leaves in the perfect shade of coppery brown found on the cocoa box to back the white silk flowers. I added a stem into the open top bottle, ready for flowers. The chocolate colored fabric I had picked out was used for the stems and small leaves needed.

Art Quilt in Progress

More Progress

Here is what it looks like after flowers have been added, and stitching has been done. Most of the flower petals were stitched only down there centers, leaving them 3-dimensional.

Art Quilt Blue Bottles and Flowers

Blue Bottles and Flowers

Here is the “finished” piece…. The more I look at it, I think I need to figure out a way to make the white lace show up better. The bottles look a bit dull to me, and I may add a bit of gloss medium over them….. The flower centers could use some beads.  I guess I will have to hang it on the design wall for a while to see what happens.

Update- 1-27-10-  Well, after looking at it for a few days, I decided to add some beads in the flowers. Below is the most recent photo.

Art Quilt Blue Bottles and Flowers by Sue Andrus, Andrus Gardens

Newest Version of Blue Bottles with Beads Added

Art Quilt Blue Bottles and Flowers by Sue Andrus, Detail, Andrus Gardens

Detail shot of Blue Bottles and Flowers

This last photo shows more detail.  I even added a little gold butterfly resting at the base of the lower right flower.

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New Heart Shaped Pins

Monday, January 18th, 2010

More time in the studio has resulted in my newest shape of pins. With Valentine’s Day coming up soon, I thought it would be the perfect time for hearts. I have thought of doing more shapes, and hearts have been on the list, but just never got done.

Heart Pin Bases

I pulled out one of my boxes of small “chunks and hunks” (leftover quilt sandwich pieces) in pinks, blacks, a touch of red, and a bit of lime green. I used silver metallic thread for the stitching, and finished the edges with black or white yarn with silver running through it.

Group of 4 Hearts ready for beads.

This is a closer look at a few of the hearts. I just randomly satin stitched chunks to each other. Couching the yarn to finish the edges is a bit tricky, going around the curves and inner corner. I think this is why I hadn’t done hearts sooner… the first one didn’t work out so well.

Art Quilt Pin Heart in Hot Pink and Lime Green

Heart shaped Art Quilt Pin with Hummingbird

This is a closeup of the first finished heart pin. I added a silver tone hummingbird to the lower point. Cat’s Eye beads  in white, pearl beads, glass beads in pink and black along with Swarovski crystals for extra sparkle.

Heart Pin as a Pendant

This photo shows the pin used as a pendant, hanging from a black satin cord. The pin back is attached so that the heart can be pinned to a necklace for use as a pendant.

Today is a very dreary, foggy, drizzly day… the perfect weather for curling up on the couch with my Ott light, a bunch of hearts and pretty beads to dress up the rest of my hearts.

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Babies Left the Nest Today

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Finally I have spent some quality time in the studio!! A couple of nights ago, I pulled out a batch of postcards I began working on before Christmas to get them finished and on their way to their new owners.

Sunprinted Fabric After Cutting

I thought I had taken photos of the postcards in all stages, but can’t find them…. Probably forgot again…. I keep thinking I will photograph a group at all stages, well, next batch…. Above is the remaining fabric from the fat quarter sunprint I cut 6 postcards from for a Postmark’d Art Exchange.

I began by fusing chunks of the sunprints onto 4″x6″ pieces of Peltex interfacing. I then used colored pencils to draw  back in the veins in the prints, then free motion stitched the edges and veins of the Maple and Oak leaf prints.

Postcard, work in progress, sunprint, sue andrus, andrusgardens

One Postcard in Progress

The next thing I did was to add more interest by adding “ghost” Oak leaves by laying silk leaves over the stitched postcards, brushing white pearl paint over the edges. The above photo shows two ghostly images on a card. I then had to wait for the paint to dry….

Sunprint leaves postcards, works in progress, sue andrus, andrusgardens

Set of 6 Postcards with Oaks Painted

After the paint dried, I stitched around the edges of the Oak leaves and the veins with an iridescent white thread. One card has one of the silk leaves that was painted over, stitched onto it. Another card has two prints made from pressing the silk leaves paint side down onto it, transferring the paint. The photos show more shine than shows in real life. There is some shimmer, but the flash reflected off the pearl paint.

ARt Quilt Postcards, leaf sunprints, by sue andrus, andrusgardens

Group of 4 Postcards

Above is a closer look at the stitching, pearl paint prints, and applique.

Printed Fabric for Postcard Backs

Printed Fabric for Postcard Backs

Once the stitching was done on the fronts of the cards, I printed the backs on cotton fabric. By setting up a legal size, there is room for 4 backs on one page. I have blanked out the addresses in this photo. The backs were cut, then fused onto the postcards. Black yarn with silver metallic through it was then couched on the edges to finish them, using the white iridescent thread.

Finished backs of postcards

Backs of the Finished Postcards Ready to Mail

This photo above, shows 4 of the cards with the backs fused on and the edges finished with the yarn. I forgot to take another photo with the stamps on…. First class stamps were used for mailing.

Sunprint Postcards Finished

Set of 6 Postcards Ready to Mail Front View

The final photo shows all 6 postcards finished- the front view. The stamps were added and I sent them on their way to their new owners today.

Now that this batch of postcards is done, I can begin playing with another batch of postcards or possibly pull out the stone wall pieces that I started while at my grandmother’s house. Maybe I can finish one or more of them before next weekend when we will help her celebrate her 96th birthday… I can’t imagine living that long…. I am now half her age….

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