Teaching

They were the best group ever: fearless, focused, and fabulous.  I began Wednesday afternoon with a demo of low-water emersion processes.  A couple of hours later, thrilled cries of delight were coming from the sinks as people rinsed out their first-ever hand dyed fabrics.

The next session I introduced the class to thickened dyes and some of the ways of working with them including monoprinting and stamping.  They experimented intensely.

 As the week went on, visions began to form and finished pieces emerged from chaos.  I thoroughly enjoyed my role as cheerleader, soda ash solution preparer, title suggestor, and guide.

 

I find that the most helpful question an artist can ask is “What would happen if…”.  My workshop students were all examples of the wonderful strides in self-expression that can be made when this question is asked and answered.

 

 

 Finished work at the gala art exhibit and awards ceremony Saturday night.

Just A Rambling Update

 The mornings are misty, chilly and still.

 I am still holding off on opening my silk/onion skin cold bundle.

My dye workshop starts this afternoon.  I am looking forward to meeting my students and twisting up some fabric with them!

I think I can wait one more week for the unveiling.

I wanted to show you my black dye comparison from a couple weeks ago.  I will be using these fat quarters for demonstrating discharging with bleach during tomorrow's class.

Sewing for Sanity

My studio week was pretty much chewed up by preparations for the surface design workshop I'll be giving at ArtFest beginning Wednesday.  By Saturday morning, every surface was staging area, despite my best efforts to stay organized.

My students will be working with Dharma Trading Company's 100% cotton print cloth, which is good beginning quality fabric at a very reasonable price.  In addition they have a yard of black Kona cotton for discharging experiments.  I put everybody's yardage in brown paper grocery bags and numbered them to avoid confusion over whose is whose.

It's amazing how much stuff I will be schlepping up to the High School!

With even my work table hogged out by boxes of supplies, I decided to squeeze in a sewing day.  I had this great remnant of batik from yardage I purchase in Singapore several years ago.

I wanted to use the border element at the hem, and create an un-gathered look based on my previous top from last week.

I also wanted to change the neck line to a v in front and add to the shoulder width. I used my Sharpie marker and the old Simplicity pattern to make the changes on pattern tissue.

I dropped the neckline lower by an inch in the back...

..and I HAVE to have pockets in the side seams.

Here is a detail of the back, where I added 2 little tucks to account for extra fullness in the skirt which happened because I wasn't paying attention when drafting my pattern.

 Tah Dah - the front!...

...and the back.

Off to the mother-in-law's for Easter dinner.  Happy Easter to all!