Day 12 and 13

This is what I felt like at the end of the day, yesterday, so that is why there was no blog for yesterday, day 12. Both Virginia and I spent two days painting fabric and I was also discharging fabric. I am enjoying this new series and wanted to do more but didn't have enough fabric. So first thing on Saturday I headed to another Wal Mart to buy out their black cotton and then came back and discharged. After that I started painting.

So this is just a little of the oranges to yellow browns that I did. The top piece is a monoprint as are a couple of others. I have more but I have completely run out of white Misty Fuse so can not fuse them yet. More is on the way! Another bolt of white and another of black! Hurray for Misty Fuse!

So here is a washed out picture of a pile of my discharged fabrics which already have had black Misty Fuse fused on to them. This is so much fun! Not the ironing or the fusing, etc as that is all grunt work. But, once that is done, we are "Good to go!"

Someone asked what I discharge with...well, is you don't tell anyone, I'll let you in on my secret!
Sunlight Dishwasher gel! I have almost finished a big bottle. What color comes up depends upon the colors used to make black. I have seen one black that actually discharged to white, sometimes greenish, and all shades of redish-orange.

So, this picture was taken later in the day in the AIR where Virginia has her studio. Of course, she has spent most of the past two days up at the big studio painting. Between the two of us, we practically fill the room with yardage waiting to dry. Once it is dry, up it comes, gets ironed and the added to the pile...that it unless you like to put it up on the wall to admire it all day! And then it starts again with more painting etc. finishing up with screen printing or writing or whatever is deemed necessary to complete the cloth.

On the wall you can see some of Virginia's written fabric. It really isn't meant to be read, and the same goes for my writing on fabric, but is part of the story of the piece that means something to us...it isn't necessary to be able to read it to enjoy the finished work.

And then we have the layout of fabrics...these cover a huge low table...one of the shots shows all the fabrics on this table (certainly not all of the fabric that Virginia has done!




Here you can see the table with fabrics!


And more painted fabrics waiting to be picked up

and more

and more on the table


So, finally this afternoon at 3, I started putting away the discharging stuff, cleared off the cutting table which has been my discharging and screen printing table, and sorted out my fabrics. Took all the stuff that didn't go with this series over to the other side of the room and piled it up out of the way.

I have begun piece #5 and you can see how I work on the design wall. I am cutting and layering and placed different pieces of fabric on top of a piece of Quilter's Dream cotton Select which I can fuse directly to, on the wall, once I am satisfied. It is sooooo nice to have an 8 x 8' design wall that I can get up to and stand away from...clear across the room!

This shows a close up of the piece in process.

And then, here it is fused and ready to be finished. I now have four to finish and will spend tomorrow working on some more. Once the Misty Fuse comes in, I can finish fusing the rest of the orange fabrics. Who knows how many of these I will make1 They are running about 45" square or so...will do a couple more this size and then do some larger pieces. Such a pleasure to have the space to work in this size!

Today was just beautiful! Gone was the rain. We got up to lots of misty fog in the oak trees. But you could see a bright light above it all! What could it be? The sun! The sky quickly cleared and the sun shone all day! It was even warm...probably up to 67 degrees again. Virginia was in her shorts all day! (Her husband was home getting 3" of snow and 2 degrees below zero weather.) I went off to church and stopped by the old town cemetery to take pictures of angels, one of which opens this blog. There was even a little cherub for a six month old baby. Many of the graves are from the mid 1800's and it is very interesting to read the headstones.

The little soiree coming up next weekend is getting bigger and bigger! Karey will have seating for 50 in the Creativity Center for lunch. What a grand day that will be! And then, the slumber parties in the dorms, the AIR and the Creativity Studio. Fortunately, Virginia and I still get our rooms to ourselves...that is unless Karey has decided to add cots to our rooms to put up more people. On Sunday, the local guild will be coming over. What a blast!

You can not imagine what a wonderful opportunity this has been and we are only through the first two weeks. However, we do lost a couple of days with the party (in grand southern style...you know, putting everyone up for the night, etc!) but once everyone is out of our studios again, we are back as work for the one last week.