This past September a delivery person stuck a box in my door that contained a nifty collection of fabric and fibers. It was from C&T Publishing, with a note that said (paraphrasing) for me to make something with this stuff and send it back to them. Okay, cool! Yes, I had submitted my name for this and was really thrilled to be selected. But honestly, I had forgotten about the whole thing until the box arrived so it was a happy surprise.

What was in that box of fiber surprise? Silk, lots of forms of very white silk. I don’t have anything against silk, I had never really worked with the stuff before. Cotton is cheap, I go with cheap, I mean cotton. So I take the box over to Lynn because she offers me paint that will work on silk. She hands me several bottles of Dyna-flow silk paint. Lots of lovely colors (similar tastes) to work with and banish the whiteness of the silk forever. I prefer dark, bold, earthy colors and white is not on that color palette.

So I painted all the silk, several times over.

The fourth pic above is a cotton fusible fabric. Yup, painted it too.

Then I tackled this fabric labeled ‘Spunbond’. Fibers not of nature. I cut off a little strip to run some tests  on. Yes, it melts really well with heat. Interesting when it melts but that wasn’t what I was going for. I liked the texture and its translucency. So I broke out the watercolor crayons and scribbled away the white.

Then I took a wet brush to it and blended the colors, adding more color as I went. The water caused the color to sink down into the surface. Once it dried, I painted the surface with fabric paint. Some places just a little bit of paint and other places lots of paint. Light painting stayed on the top of the fabric surface, leaving the watercolor crayon color below in the crevices. Hence, you get a few levels of different colors. Groovy stuff. If I didn’t care for the watercolor in a certain area I just added a lot of paint and filled in the crevices.

And because I must, I whipped out a Thermofax Screen after the paint dried and screen printed the dry Spunbond surface. Used the scuff method as named & demoed by Lynn in one of her Quilting Arts articles.

I’ll admit that when I was in the last days of the project I realized that I had forgotten the silk roving. Outta sight – outta mind. It had fallen behind some of my kid’s toys. But I found it and attacked it with colors.

I also threw in the silk rods and cocoons. The roving had a bit of a stiffness in areas when it dried. So I thinned it out and screen printed some designs on it, then cut it into squares. There are a few more details I could include but towards the end things kind of went into high speed and I didn’t take a lot of pics. Feel free to ask any questions and I’ll be happy to fill you in.

The rods were ironed flat and cut. The cocoons were painted a few more times then cut into little bitty squares.

Every thing was assembled onto a partially gesso’ed canvas.

And here is the final piece. It looks better in person. But I won’t be seeing this piece for many months. C&T is keeping it to help decorate their trade booth when they do shows.

You can also find the photos piece over on C&T Publishing’s Flickr page. You can get your very own bag of Artful Fibers in June of 2012.

This Christmas season I am making functional art to sell at Art-is-in Market at 12 Oaks Mall. This is my first time at crafting anything functional. I’ve usually run screaming from the idea of making an object that had to do something other than look cool. For whatever reason, I have found it intimidating. So I chucked my fears to the wind and took a chance. I’ve also been really learning how to use my sewing machine. It hasn’t been pretty. There’s been a few fiber fatalities, but I am learning and the machine is still working.

First up is the fabric flip journals. There are many more than what is shown here. They aren’t hard to make just rather step intensive with lots of pieces. Most of it is hand-dyed fabric with Thermofax screen printing. The others (not shown) are made from commercial fabrics, in an effort to clean out the stash.

Second up are the coasters. Lots of coasters in many different fabrics. These ones are made from repurposed khaki pants. Add in a little creative stitching, screen printing and there you have them. I’m also working on some from the hand-dyed fabric and commercial fabric (again, using the stash).

I still need to purchase some display items before I can get them to the mall. But they should be arriving there within a week.

Because sometimes I just need to draw something.