I add a new tool to my fabric obsession...a Gelli mat.

 

 

What is a Gelli mat?  It's a printing plate made of a soft acrylic like substance.  It feels really cool to touch, almost like really hard Jello.  I decided to get it for many reasons, mainly because I have seen some really great ideas to create your own fabrics.  It is endless and what you can do with a little paint, stamps and stencils.

 

 

Each time I play with my Gelli mat and call it the Gelli adventures.  So today's adventure was just winging it.  So I can say it was a success but I really think I'm going to have a lot of fun with it.

 

I started with a yucky batik that was buried in the bottom of my stash and some black fabric paint.  I'm sure I had a plan with this fabric, but overall it was blah.  So perfect to play with.

 

My first thought was to make a black silhouette, was thinking a big tree.  But I tried these twigs.  This was a design that I cut from my Cricut with card stock.

Not quite what I was looking for but I got the concept.

 

 

Then my daughter covered the whole plate with the black paint and made random marks with a Q-tip.  I like where she was going and could see this working into a collage.

 

Next I decided to lay turquoise and lime paint on the surface, smooched the fabric and got a blue/green background...it was ok.  Then I loaded up the plate with black and added a stencil over the black.  I laid the blue/green over it and got this printed fabric. 

 

Now I can see it going somewhere! 

Light bulb went off...

Next week I will continue with this Gelli Adventure.

 

 

Stay tuned to my new Etsy shop look, new items and more to come.

 

Judy



An Art start..

 

 

 

Today I started the morning with Art.  I have been wanting to do so many things, and Boy! do I have tons of ideas to try.  Many places for inspiration....

 

I started with my Paper, Cloth, Scissors magazine that has been on my night stand.  I had to pick up this copy because I LOVE those hearts and the night that I picked this copy up at Barnes and Noble I met a really nice lady who does art journals.  I didn't get her name, which is a shame.  I invited her to join the art quilt group I facilitate and I'm hoping she is checking out my blog.  Anyways, she got me excited about art journals.  (on-going struggle)  So the hearts and the bucket list caught my attention.

 

So, many a nights I go to bed looking and drooling on my stack of magazines.  My two favorite are

Paper, Cloth, Scissors and Quilting Arts.  Sometimes you will find others, but those are my staples.

 

This morning I pulled out my watercolor paints and some muslin and went to town making fabric painted hearts.

 

I'm not sure what I'll do with them or where they will end up, but maybe this is my baby step towards making an art journal or at the very least making art that makes me happy!

 

This one is my favorite.

 

So I guess the next step is to add some take these to the sewing machine or handstich.

 

I hope you had a ARTful week-end.

 

Judy

 

 



Finally used my ice dyes!

 

 

A topic came up today about ice dye.  Another art quilter, Kathy Schmidt, did some ice dye and felt the same way as I did.  We were both not overly excited about the results, or the fabrics looked really hard to use or envision it into a quilt.

 

 

Here is the quilt that I created with one of my pieces of ice dye.

 

I combined red and yellow hoping for a orange.

Here is what the fabric looked like after dyeing.  Tie dye, right?

You can read the blog post and tutorial here.

 

 

 

I loved the vibrant colors that you get from ice dyeing, but this looked intimidating.

 

Here is a close up of my quilt.

 

 

I was inspired to make this quilt from and lately I have been reading Kathy's posts about beading and now all my art quilts need beads!

 

The flower looking thing are torn apart silk cocoons that were dyes by Heather Thomas, another art quilted to check out.

 

So be daring and try dyeing.  You never know what you will get!

 

Judy

 



Week-end share - Ice Dyeing

Now doesn't that look like fun?

Well after two days of playing with dye, my hand looked similar.  I know I should have wore my gloves more often!

Anyways I wanted to try ice dyeing after reading an article in Quilting Arts Magazine.  They have had several about ice dyeing and ice parfaits.  What interested me was the intense colors that you get from the Jacquard Procion MX Dye.

Here is what I did.  Your first step is to soak you fabric in soda ash bath for about 30mins.  Which you should use that time to set up your dyeing station.  I forgot to cover my plastic table...oh well I little dye won't kill you. 

After the soda ash bath, you need to fold your fabric and position you fabric over tubs (forgot to photo that.)  I used plastic shoe boxes with the cabinet mesh over them, so the dye could drain freely.

Next I added ice and sprinkled powder dye on the ice.  This is where you need to wear glasses and face mask as the powder is very fine and air borne.

As you can see I need a little work on sprinkling my dye, probably wasted more than I should have.  It's a learning curve!

Now comes the hard part...leave it covered with a towel or plastic for 24 hours.  No peeking!

Yeah! I'm like a kid I had to peek before going to bed.

This is what I woke up to...

 So there are three mixes...multi, red & yellow to get oranges, and teal/blue.

I was really hoping to get a nice blue that looked like the ocean.

I think the experiment went well.

Let me know what you think.

They do look a little like tie dye, but I think I would do it again maybe with smaller pieces of fabric.

Happy Tuesday!

Judy