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Studio Spring Cleaning

I'm blogging about this experience because I know I'm not alone! When my April/May 2015 Quilting Arts magazine arrived, there was an article by Jane Dunnewold on this very topic,  "Thoughts on Making, Unbound"


Don't get me wrong; I am grateful to have a large studio with a walk-in closet, until I have to clear out the clutter.  After several days of cutting, arranging and dyeing fabric pieces to fit into my enlarged design pattern,  I realized I needed to clean out my studio.

Fabric Frenzy!

I had piles of previously auditioned fabric, threads, pins, freezer paper patterns everywhere!  I had abandoned my fabric folding method and any decluttering efforts. Indeed I hadn't thoroughly cleaned out my studio in  gasp   YEARS!

My Sewing Table, UGHH!!

So I stopped making art for a couple of weeks and separated out those garment patterns and fabrics from the 70s 80s and 90s that I know I will never use.  I'm not done yet, but I donated 3 cartons of stuff to Goodwill, and 3 large shopping bags of unwanted fabric to a local fabric store for used by quilting classes at the women's prison.

I really am burned out on cleaning, sorting and organizing and I need and want to start creating again!

Jane Dunnewold nominated me to contribute to the Facebook 5-day Art Challenge. So starting from early work forward, here's day 1

Here's my Day 2 of 5-day Artist Challenge:

Renewal from a week in beautiful Florida

Just got back from Florida, every once in a while I must sit on a beach, experiencing the ocean! It's so peaceful and beautiful; I immediately return to a creative place!

Brand New at Painting with Dye Paste!

I've been dyeing my own fabrics for abut a year now, but when I heard about painting with dye paste I had to try it!  Using Ann Johnston's book, "Color By Design" as a guide, I purchased ProPrint Paste Mix and pretty much dove in!

Dye Paste, fiber reactive dye powder, and some painted fabric

 This stuff is the consistency of grape jelly and not very easy to paint with!  I was going for the light red /purple shade in my design; so I mixed (2) colors: lavender and light blue.

Detail of fabric painted with dye paste

 Well, it's not quite what I was looking for!  I was worried about the color getting too dark, 

so I washed the dye out after about 2 hours of letting the dye paste sit on top of the fabric. 

Oh, did I mention that the instructions said to let the dye sit for 4 to 6 hours?   Oh, well... this has been a learning experience.

Wet fabric- after washing out the dye past

I liked the way this looks, but I still had to dry the fabric.

Dry fabric, Wow, look at the loss of color!

Enough for now, thank you for visiting!

Welcome to my Blog, Tangled Threads!

Moonlit Ribbons, Watercolor Pencil drawing 8" x 10"

This drawing is my starting point for a series of 3 new works in textiles, one will be created by using my own hand-dyed fabrics pieced and appliquéd then layered and quilted, the 2nd will be a digital image, and the 3rd will be a painted image, i.e. painted on fabric.

I started cutting fabric yesterday for the background and found out that I need to dye more fabric!  That's today's task.  I'll keep you posted!!