September Meeting

Welcome Back!  The guild season has started again and we had our first regular meeting of the year.

Brigitte introduced us to the idea of making art on used tea bags.  Two each month, one for yourself and one for the group project.  The group project will be a large collaborative piece for show.
There have been a variety of theme's chosen for the project including dandelions, leaves, circles and the word Joy.

Quilting Arts Magazine has two articles on tea bag art:

Issue 87  (June/July 2017)
Issue 94(August/September 2018

Libby Williamson is the author of the articles and she has an interesting blog as well.

https://libbywilliamsondesigns.blogspot.com

Example of Libby Williamson's tea bag art

To get us started on the project  Cathy Gaetz-Brothen  gave a presentation on Steampunk! and Tea Bag Folding.

Steampunk is described as:

A genre of science fiction that has a historical setting and typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology.  

Cathy had done her first two tea bags in a Steampunk fashion with metal gears as the embellishments.  One thing you will never see in Steampunk?  Plastic!

For next month, two tea bags inspired by Septembers presentation. 

Joyce showed her wonderful tea bag art! Inspiring!

Cathy showing us how to fold tea bag covers.

A beautiful rosette.

ArtWalk!

September is here and that means ArtWalk in Lake Country.  QuArtz was excited to be included again this year.  Our Water quilts were displayed and it was the first show for the QuArtz banner.  Making the banner was a group effort led by Linda and Christine.  Thanks to all who helped.

Cathy's water fabrics

The Banner

Cathy Gaetz-Brothen collected fabric during a trip around the world last year.  The four selections shown here are from New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong and India.  The challenge was to use them in a quilt with 'Water' as the theme.  The results were wonderful!

Toni and Sandi G

Elisabeth, Cathy G-B, Joyce

Linda, Betty, Val, 

Jeanette, Shirley, Christine, Cath

Brigitte, Catherine, Judith

August Meeting

We were back at Brigitte's again for one more try on the Indigo Dyeing.  The day was warmer but smokey so the vat was prepared indoors.  Great care was taken to make sure no dye was splashed or dripped.

Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color. Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from the leaves of certain plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare.

The vat 

Look at that dark blue!

While we waited for the vat to be ready we learned some shibori folding techniques.

Shibori (しぼり / 絞り) is a Japanese manual resist dyeing technique, which produces patterns on fabric.

Brigitte sewing her pattern.  

Folded, clamped and ready to dye.

Into the vat!

It doesn't take long in the vat, carefully put in and squeezed to spread the dye throughout the damp fabric and then outside to batch.  The dyed fabric comes out a lovely greenish colour and changes to the indigo blue as the oxygen in the air reacts with the dye.  For darker blues you simply repeat the process.  We let them sit in the bundles for awhile and then the unrolling started.

Beautiful results!

Now what will we do with this beautiful fabric?  For more information check out these websites:

https://honestlywtf.com/diy/shibori-

https://closetcasepatterns.com/indigo-shibori-dyeing-techniques-tutorial/

www.grahamkeegan.com/indigo-vat-basics/  More than you really need to know!

July Meeting

We met at Brigitte's multipurpose room this month.  The plan was to do some indigo dyeing but it was a cool day and the indigo vat needs warmth to work properly.

Brigitte had a fun back up plan though!

Dye Transfer with Silk Ties

Here is a list of what you will need:

• silk ties
• silk scarf or fabric (dharmatrading.com)
• cotton fabric cut a little wider and longer than the silk  you are dyeing
• scissors
• string, rubber bands, or sinew
• dowel, stick or skewer
• pot for water
• water
• white distilled vinegar
• weight for holding down fabric in pot
• towel

As with any kind of dyeing any thing you use in the process cannot be used again for food.

Cut your cotton fabric a bit longer and wider than your silk piece. It will serve as the carrier for this project. This “carrier” can be used over and over again so hold on to it after you are finished dyeing. Place silk scarf or silk fabric right side up on top of the cotton carrier.

Cut your ties and place on the silk scarf. Continue placing your ties until you get to the halfway point.

Cover the ties with the other half of the scarf.  Then cover that with the other half of the carrier cloth.

Take your dowel and slowly roll up the fabric. Go slowly so the ties don’t shift too much.

Tie it off and remove the dowel.  Tie the bundle a few more times.

Fill a pot with water and add 2 -3 tablespoons of white vinegar and bring to a boil.  Use a pot that will not be used for food.

Add your bundle and push down into the water.  You might need to weigh it down to keep it there.  Boil for 20 minutes.

Remove from pot and place on an old towel.  Cut strings, careful it will be very hot!

Unroll and let dry.  Iron.  You can hand wash in warm water with mild soap and let dry again.    

Getting the ties ready.  

Interesting results.

More great scarves.    

Here is a link to Lynda Heines Blog where she shows you all the steps with pictures.

https://lyndaheines.blog/2016/09/10/dyeing-scarves-with-silk-ties-revisited/

http://notesfromnorma.blogspot.com/2012/02/tie-silk-dye-transfer.html

June Meeting

June 2018

We got together at Jeanette's to watch Loving Vincent.  Enjoyed by all that attended.

Hands On Encrusting

This month to follow on with our study of Texture, the group focussed on Encrusting.  To get started, Christine T. provided a stimulating JOLTZ exercise consisting of a circle divided into pie shapes.  Each participant was asked to fill in one pie segment within an allotted time (2 minutes) and then pass their "pie circle" onto their neighbour.  With each successive addition, we were asked to make sure that our additions connected to the one previous.  Sounds complicated?  Well here is what was generated.

Our apologies for the quality of the pictures, but pencil markings were difficult to capture.  You can however see that an interesting array of mandalas were created.

Cathy G-B followed this up with a detailed discussion about Encrusted.  Definition?  Cathy provided several:

1. Cover (something) with a hard surface layer
2. Form a crust
3. Covered with something hard or decorative
4. To decorate by inlaying or overlaying with a contrasting material

This last definition suited our purposes well.  Cathy had asked our members to consider a theme and  bring various items that would reflect our chosen theme along with two pieces of fabric within which to envelope our articles.  For example, a theme of seashore could include sea shells, pebbles, etc.; a theme of hardware could include bolts, screws, washers, etc.

Here is Cathy giving a demonstration of the various stitches that were used to encrust our various objects.

After some preliminary stitching, the group got to work trying out the various stitches that will be used in creating their encrusted pieces.

Some of the stitches used were:

1. French Knot
2. Colonial Knot
3. Scroll Stitch
4. Seed Stitch
5. Bullion Knot
6. Raised Cup Stitch

There are many others that can be used to decorate, but these were the basics.  If you are interested in exploring more stitches, there are several good websites that provide excellent tutorials.  Pintangle is one such website that has an excellent Stitch Dictionary.  Mary Corbet's Needle 'n Thread site has some excellent video tutorials.

Have fun exploring and we look forward to seeing what your encrusted pieces look like.

You Can Grow It?

At our last meeting, Jeanette produced an item that looked like leather from a distance, felt like those fruit roll-ups that kids use for a snack, but it turned out to be fabric.  Fabric that she had grown.  Yup!  You heard right.  You can grow fabric!  Hold on to your hats textile artists!!

Apparently using a brew of Kombucha culture known as Scoby, some plastic containers, heat and a dark place, you can grow a microbial fabric that has a texture varying from leather to papyrus.  Although it's tensile strength is strong, it has however one drawback; it's not waterproof or water resistant.

If you want to start your own "fabric laboratory"  here are some sites you may wish to visit to find out more.

https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-your-own-kombucha-scoby-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-202596

http://www.instructables.com/id/Kombucha-Fabric/

https://jennyy.com/what-next/