puttering around

in the studio today, I was back to printing fabric. This is my way of avoiding dealing with the piece on my wall that I have constructed and taken apart more times than I care to count. And in the midst of today's deconstructing, I dropped my little seam ripper on the studio floor -- never to be seen again. Remind me to bring another one tomorrow.

My studio is an archeological dig - and here is a piece of discharged fabric I found today. I don't remember the manufacturer and can't recall whether I used discharge paste or thiox, but I do know this is wax discharge. Pink and black - how fifties!

Today, I took a piece of silk Helene had sent me that she thought I could rescue. Uh - Helene, you are an optimist. I started out with a brilliant idea of what I was going to do. That was my first mistake because nothing ever turns out the way you want it to. In that case, you are better off with no preconceived ideas. Or I am, anyway.Here is one little section of it, which makes it look more luminous than it really is. I think the silk was blue when I got it; I overdyed it in purple and hated it, so I went to work with wax and discharge paste today. Then I got tired of steaming the discharge paste with an iron and decided I should take it home and steam it in a pot. But first, I threw it into a bucket and dumped chino dye over it. It is an improvement but needs lots more work because only some of the discharged X's came out. That's tomorrow's chore.

Then I had another idea of what I thought I would print on different fabric. So I practiced on a small piece to see if I wanted to do 2 yards the same way. I don't think so, although I do like this piece. If you click, it will enlarge and you can see my favorite part of the print, which is the sign that says Chien Bête et Méchant. I don't know why that tickles me.

Tonight I went to a meeting of my other (mixed media) crit group (painters, sculptors, collage, ceramic, photos, etc). It was an excellent meeting; I LOVE the cross pollination. They loved the piece I had done of my woods and thought it was very interesting to see it done in fabric rather than paint, which is what most of them are used to seeing. The picture on my website is cropped on the left but they thought I should leave it uncropped, with the negative space on the left. Hmmm...

Tomorrow = back to the studio, from which I have been much too absent, with all of my travels. Two days in a row: gee!